Berlin and Washington Play Out Nuclear Scenarios (speigel.com)
“The bleaker things look on the battlefield in Ukraine, the more often Russia talks about nuclear bombs. Western governments still think it’s a bluff, but they are nonetheless examining possible scenarios.”
By Christian Esch, Georg Fahrion, Matthias Gebauer, Christina Hebel und René Pfister
07.10.2022, 18.13 Uhr (spiegel.com)
Is this what a victorious army looks like? "Hooray," cries a lone voice, sounding as though the man is trying to muster up some courage on this depressingly gray October day. The smell of alcohol lingers over the crowd at just before 11 a.m. outside the draft office in Balashikha, a drab suburb east of Moscow.
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"Louder!" slurs a man, followed up by a rather lackadaisical reply. "My God," groans a young reservist. "Where am I?" But most of the men remain silent as they wait to be sent to war. Or they try to comfort their crying wives and mothers. Scenes like the one in Balashikha are currently playing out in hundreds of different places in Russia.
DER SPIEGEL 41/2022
The article you are reading originally appeared in German in issue 41/2022 (October 8th, 2022) of DER SPIEGEL.
Because Vladimir Putin's "special operation" in Ukraine has turned into a military disaster, the Russian president has ordered a mobilization. Men who already performed their military service years ago are being summoned to the front: fathers, cancer patients and even people who are half blind. Just a few days ago, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced that mainly well-trained forces would be drafted. But the scene in Balashikha suggests something altogether different. Some of those gathered here still have the soft skin of youth, but other men have sunken cheeks and deep circles under their eyes, as if they have years of hard labor behind them.
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It seems like a desperate array. When Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, he promised a swift victory, a campaign in which Kyiv would fall quickly and the bygone glory of the Soviet empire would return. To the surprise of many in Russia, however, the war has largely revealed how dilapidated their own army is. Indeed, they are in retreat on numerous fronts. The situation has become so precarious for Putin that he has resorted to the ultimate threat: "When the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will certainly use all the means at our disposal to protect Russia and our people," Putin said in announcing the mobilization two and a half weeks ago. "This is not a bluff."
For now, at least, the last sentence is subject to doubt. If you talk to Western politicians and top officials, most assume that Putin's nuclear threat is primarily that: a threat. So far, according to German government sources, the Russian president has not followed up his words with action, such as mounting warheads on missiles. That’s the U.S. government’s conclusion as well. Putin's main goal is to divide the West, says Heather Conley, head of the German Marshall Fund, an influential Washington-based think tank. But will things stay that way?
Biden Speaks of Possible "Armageddon"
The West is dealing with a Kremlin ruler who is no longer fighting just for prestige and spheres of influence, but for his sheer survival. Putin will have to fear for his hold on power if he loses the war in Ukraine, which is part of what makes the current situation so dangerous. When former Chancellor Angela Merkel made one of her rare public appearances last week, she issued an urgent warning to take Putin's threats seriously.
U.S. President Joe Biden went even further on Thursday and compared the current situation with the nuclear confrontation between the U.S. and the Soviet Union in Cuba 60 years ago. "We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis," he said at a fundraising event for the Democrats. Back then, the Soviet Union stationed missiles with nuclear warheads in Cuba that could reach the U.S. within minutes. American President John F. Kennedy defused the situation together with his adversary Nikita Khrushchev.
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President Vladimir Putin during his speech last week during the celebrations over the annexations in Ukraine
Foto: IMAGO/Maksim Blinov / IMAGO/SNA
That Biden is now talking publicly about "Armageddon" is the clearest signal yet from Washington about how seriously the U.S. government is taking the threat of nuclear escalation. He knows Putin pretty well, Biden said Thursday. And the Kremlin leader was not kidding when he talked about the potential use of tactical nuclear weapons, as well as chemical and biological weapons, as the Russian military struggles in Ukraine. "We are trying to figure out, what is Putin’s off-ramp?" Biden said in reference to escalation.
For the first time in years, scenarios are once again being played out in Washington, Berlin and Paris about how a nuclear catastrophe might play out. A vernacular is once again being used that seemed to have disappeared into the history books along with the Cold War: first strike, radioactive fallout, deterrence. Western military officials are also discussing how Putin might deploy his nuclear forces. In "war games" that are also being played out in strict secrecy at the German Defense Ministry in Berlin, strategists are largely ruling out an attack with strategic nuclear weapons capable of wiping out entire cities. The consensus is that an attack on that level would be a kamikaze mission for Putin. Experts also doubt whether the Russian military would carry out a kind of "Nero order" from the Kremlin without resisting.
The conceivable alternative would be for Putin to detonate a low-yield, tactical nuclear bomb in the Arctic or over the Black Sea. Or he could deploy one to take out a Ukrainian military base. Even if it didn’t turn the tide on the battlefield, such an operation could make it clear that Putin is determined to do anything – and strengthen the voices of those who are calling for negotiations with Putin at any price. In Germany, in particular, where part of the population has grown up with the fear of nuclear war, doubts could grow over whether Ukraine is important enough to take such an existential risk. Back in April, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz warned in an interview with DER SPIEGEL: "There cannot be a nuclear war."
The threatening nuclear gestures are primarily directed at Europe and specifically at the Germans, believes Christoph Heusgen, Merkel's former security policy adviser and the new head of the influential Munich Security Conference. "It's part of Russia's intimidation strategy." From Heusgen's point of view, it would be extremely dangerous if the Germans allowed themselves to be ruffled by the strategy. He says the greatest threat comes from Putin when he believes he can exploit the weakness of others and cross red lines with impunity.
Heusgen has been pushing for weeks for the Europeans, in a consortium of sorts, to supply Ukraine with modern Leopard 2 tanks, which Kyiv could use to push the Russian army back even further. So far, though, Scholz has refused, which hasn't just triggered frustration withing Germany's governing coalition, but also disgruntlement in Washington.