Prospect of all-out world war now very real

An increasingly desperate Vladimir Putin is more likely than ever to follow through on his threat to use nuclear weapons against the West.

Vladimir Putin has declared that the conflict in Ukraine is a war for the very survival of Russia, and this does raise the spectre of a Russian nuclear strike.

Putin is now threatening NATO with nuclear war if the US and UK supply Ukraine with long-range missiles capable of striking deep into Russia’s territory.

The Russian President told state television the move would “change the very nature of the conflict” in a “significant” way, forcing Moscow to respond. He went on to assert that “it would mean that NATO countries are at war with Russia”, and that Russia would take “appropriate decisions based on the threat that we will face”.

These are ominous words from Putin – to say the least – taking us back to some of the most extreme utterances about nuclear war with the West by the Soviet leadership.

Assertions by Russian president Vladimir Putin are ominous. Picture: Natalia Kolesnikova / POOL / AFP

But in recent crises, Putin has shown himself to be a ditherer and not prone to making quick decisions. For example, look at how he tried to defer confronting the mutiny of Prigozhin as well as – more recently – pretending that Ukraine’s invasion of the Kursk Oblast was not of much concern as he went on to do business as usual overseas. But Ukraine’s invasion across its northern border with Russia has, so far at least, been ­unexpectedly successful with no overwhelming response from the Russians.

And this brings us to just how remarkably audacious Kyiv’s invasion of the Kursk Oblast is – whether or not Ukraine remains occupying a part of Russian territory. I use the phrase “remarkably audacious” because very few Western commentators have woken up to the fact this is the first time a non-nuclear power, Ukraine, has invaded the territory of a nuclear superpower – with all that that implies.

If Volodymyr Zelensky can get away with this audacious gesture with impunity, what does it mean for other nuclear powers?

The other more serious issue on which we need to focus is how Putin’s threat of nuclear war with NATO fits in with Russia’s updated nuclear policy, which is currently at an advanced stage.

As I noted in an article for Inquirer in May, Russia’s current nuclear doctrine lists four scenarios under which nuclear weapons would be used: if Russia is attacked with nuclear missiles; if it believes nuclear missiles are being launched against it; if any attack is aimed at crippling its nuclear forces; or if the existence of the Russian state is threatened, including by the enemy’s use of superior conventional weapons.

Now quite clearly, in Putin’s mind, it is the last of these four scenarios with which he now believes he is faced. And I note here the observation by Graham Allison, the distinguished professor of government at Harvard University, that it is hard to deny an uncomfortable similarity between Putin’s threat to retaliate with nuclear weapons against an overwhelming conventional attack on Russia’s territory with America’s threat in the Cold War to retaliate with nuclear weapons to a Russian superior conventional attack on the territory of US NATO allies.

According to the political scientist Sergei Karaganov, Russia’s current nuclear doctrine “no longer works as a deterrent”. He goes on to assert that “any attack on our territory must get a nuclear response”.

Now it is by no means clear that Karaganov these days carries much weight with the Kremlin, but he asserts that concrete proposals for amending the nuclear doctrine with plans for conducting a war with limited use of nuclear weapons exist, “and they sit in certain offices”.

Moscow’s increased threats to step up the conflict prompt concern across the West.

Putin, when asked if a nuclear confrontation with the West over Ukraine was inevitable, has responded: “I have said many times that Ukraine is a matter of life and death for us.”

Avril Haines, chief of US intelligence, seems to be convinced Putin will use nuclear weapons if he feels threatened even though many in the West believe “this is unlikely”. Allison observes that Russia remains as much a superpower as the Evil Empire ever was and it has a nuclear arsenal “that can literally erase the US from the map”. National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan counteracts this by asserting “we have communicated directly, privately and at very high levels to the Kremlin that any use of nuclear weapons will be met by catastrophic consequences for Russia”.

But it is important to note that Putin has declared the conflict in Ukraine is a war for the very survival of Russia, and this does raise the spectre of a Russian nuclear strike. He believes that if the West succeeds in making Ukraine an independent democratic country, as well as a member of NATO and the EU, this will pose an existential threat to the Russian Motherland.

Walter Russell Mead, who is a prominent US academic, concludes that the threat Putin poses to vital US interests “must not be underestimated and the threat that he will use nuclear weapons in Ukraine is real”.

Richard Betts, who is professor of war and peace studies at Columbia University, states that planning for the potential outcome of Russia using nuclear weapons is imperative, and “the danger would be greatest if the war were to turn decisively in Ukraine’s favour”.

He concludes that “no low-risk options exist for coping with the end of the nuclear taboo”.

Betts is of the view that the non-nuclear conventional option “is hardly attractive because a direct war between the major powers at any level risks escalation to mass destruction”.

The prospect of Ukraine being reabsorbed into Russia is not Putin’s only priority. Relatively reliable opinion polls show that more than 60 per cent of Russians are of the view that this is now an existential war for the very survival of the Russian state, its culture, and values. Putin is now faced with the very real prospect of Kyiv receiving formal approval for Western missile strikes deep into Russian territory. According to US academic Kseniya Kirillova, Russian military analysts are increasingly alarmed at the prospect of Kyiv receiving formal approval for highly accurate Western cruise and ­ballistic missile strikes.

In early September, Military Review, a website linked to the Russian Ministry of Defence, warned that potential Ukrainian attacks on Russian military airfields posed a direct threat to the country’s defence capabilities. Kremlin spokesman Dimitri Peskov claims the debate over whether the West would allow Ukraine to use Western weapons in Russia was merely a smokescreen. He argues that Ukraine has been conducting such attacks with the silent approval of Western ­nations for some time.

There can be little doubt that US and UK military intelligence analysts are now helping Ukrainians to select key military targets in Russia. The cumulative effects are making Russia’s military distinctly uneasy. Russian commentators are now openly alarmed at the prospect of Kyiv receiving formal approval for such long-range missile strikes deep into Russian territory.

In early September, Russia’s Military Review warned that potential ballistic missile strikes on military airfields posed a direct threat to the country’s defence capabilities and noted there was precious little defence along a southern border of 2000km. Airfields in rear areas could be devastated, it said.

Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory will not only persist but become significantly more severe. Kirillova reports that on patriotic Russian websites, there is growing consensus that victory cannot be achieved without a new wave of mobilisation. And, indeed, Putin has just announced this week that Russia’s Armed Forces are going to be increased to 1.5 million – making them the second largest in the world.

All this reminds me of a 1970s recently declassified British cabinet decision about UK nuclear targeting of the USSR. It directed that the primary targets of Britain’s 200 strategic nuclear warheads were Moscow and Leningrad (today’s St Petersburg). The aim was to destroy the Soviet Union’s political and military decision-makers, as well as “much of Russia’s history and culture”. The likely deaths were in the order of millions.

I wonder how Putin is pondering on such existential matters and how he will respond if Ukraine’s new-found long-range missile strike capabilities identify one of the key targets to destroy being the Kremlin? And where would all this leave Putin’s aim to reconstruct Russia as a great power (velikaya derzharva) and have the West accept Moscow’s dominance in a sphere of influence over its former Soviet and Russian territories, in the Baltic countries and Poland?

Without dominance over Ukraine, Russia cannot be seen as a great power, and a Ukraine strongly associated with NATO would be a national security threat to Russia; or, as Sergei Karaganov puts it, “a spearhead aimed at the heart of Russia”.

The problem is by attacking Ukraine and breaking understandings of the sanctity of international borders, Russia’s reputation has now been well and truly trashed in Europe for an exceptionally long time to come.

The question now is how to bring Putin to the negotiating table and whether Ukraine and Russia will accept a deal in which both cede territories for peace. Otherwise, this war will continue to be an indefinite slog with deaths and wounded casualties already approaching one million.

In concluding, let me observe that the US and its allies – including Australia – need to understand just how dangerous the current situation is. On September 16, American academic Walter Russell Mead stated that World War III is becoming more likely in the near term and the US is too weak either to prevent it or, should war come, to be confident of victory.

He warned that a global slide towards war is a distinct possibility. We in the West need to shake ourselves out of an entrenched sense of indifference to this prospect.

Paul Dibb is emeritus professor of strategic studies at the Australian National University.