Putin keeps threat of nukes on table

On Tuesday during his ‘State of the Nation’ address, Vladimir Putin announced to the world that Russia is suspending its involvement with the New START Treaty — the only remaining nuclear control agreement Russia shared with the United States.

Conceived in 2010 and extended in 2021, New START is a nuclear arms reduction treaty cosigned by the US and Russia with the aim to serve as a foundation for future denuclearization between the two nations.

Touted equally as a legitimate piece of denuclearization progress as well as a useless goodwill treaty, Russia’s suspension of the treaty is worrisome regardless.

The announcement from Putin comes as President Biden made a secret, unannounced visit to Kyiv to meet with President Zelenskyy and deliver a speech, pledging long-term solidarity to Ukraine’s war with Russia.

It would seem that Putin’s decision to suspend New START is, once again, a threat of the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

Threats like these are perplexing dilemmas in the foreign policy world. On one hand, concepts like Mutually Assured Destruction suggest that no one would be crazy enough to use nuclear weapons in this day in age. On the other hand, such a threat is beyond catasrophic if carried out, so it must be taken for what it is worth (in terms of a worst case scenario).

One thing is certain, a suspension of New START is at the very least a sobering political tactic on Putin’s part. If the line in the sand was not already drawn, it is now; the suspension of the treaty is a definitive testimony to who-is-who in terms of faction in this growing conflict. Believe it or not, that was not always certain considering there are global implications. With that in mind, consider this:

Putin’s announcement comes at a symbolic and strained time in global affairs. Symbolic in the sense that Russia’s State of the Nation address is a big show for Russian oligarchs and sycophants. Like the CCP’s Congress, it is a time to reaffirm past victories and plot the course ahead.

In conjunction with that, we need to consider the strained mood on the world stage: Japan and the Philippine’s have recommitted their allegiance to American partnership, a Chinese spy balloon and UFO’s have been shot down in US airspace, US Congressmen have visited Taiwan, China is sending material aid to Russia, North Korea is continuing its ICBM launches, China’s top foreign policy diplomat visited Russia…

The myriad of events between the two distinct global factions, or ‘sides’, is ramping up. In the US, there are signs that policy towards China and the CCP may soon drastically change (i.e. the China Select Committee).

So with all these considerations, let us look at Russia’s suspension of New START as a serious degradation in relations. When hostility is high, decisions that seem up to par come off as minor, but are really formative for future escalation.

As I have mentioned in previous articles, dealing with Russia must be a historic, diplomatic effort. Continuing to blindly funnel all our munitions to Ukraine in the hopes of capitulating Putin’s Russia not only runs us dry and ill-prepared for the coming conflict with China, but it makes Russia unapproachable — now and in the future — for pursuing a genuine diplomatic solution to the Ukraine question.

Should the war stay frozen, and a temporary diplomatic solution reached, who is to say the scenario does not repeat in 5, 10, 15 years? Russia’s ambitions for its self-perceived neighborhood are, if we look at the last two decades of US foreign politics, really no concern of ours. Ukraine was in an equally detrimental crisis in 2014, and the US did nothing.

So while the current war is a convenient opportunity to beat Russia by simply out-spending them, we cannot chose expedient policies over meaningful ones. It is the balance between two sentiments in which I am torn.

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