By Michael F. Duggan
“If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will without doubt use all available means to protect Russia and our people—this is not a bluff… This is not a bluff. And those who try to blackmail us with nuclear weapons should know that the weathervane can turn and point towards them.”
-Vladimir Putin, September 21, 2022
“Let me say it plainly: If Russia crosses this line, there will be catastrophic consequences for Russia. The United States will act decisively.”
-Jake Sullivan on Meet the Press, September 26, 2022
So it’s official: the United States is now playing a game of nuclear chicken over a crisis with no vital national interest at stake with a man who does not appear to blink much less bluff. Does Mr. Sullivan really believe that a war with Russia involving nuclear weapons would not have catastrophic consequences for the U.S. and the rest of the world as well?
I will say it again: backing a nuclear-armed foe into a position of either accepting defeat and humiliation over what he perceives to be an existential threat, or escalating toward the use of nuclear weapons is not diplomacy. It is not a strategy. It is insanity.
The real enemy is not a temporal regime or a national leader—they and the events they initiate and respond to come and go. The real enemy is the nuclear weapons that threaten us all, and the dangerous events that threaten their use and distract from the crises of the environment.