Playing Nuclear Brinksmanship Over Ukraine

The New York Times reports that “unidentified Western officials” suggested that the United States may provide nuclear weapons to Ukraine before President Biden leaves office. This brought a response from Russian spokesman Dmitry Peskov that labeled the suggestion “absolutely irresponsible.” Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that Russia would view such a development as a U.S. attack on Russia that would justify a Russian nuclear response. This suggestion by “Western officials” comes on the heels of the Biden administration’s decision to give a green light to Kyiv using American-supplied and controlled long-range missiles, and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement of a change in Russia’s nuclear doctrine. With two months left to Biden’s presidency, and with the incoming Trump administration’s pledge to end the Ukraine war by negotiations, this latest suggestion appears to be yet another effort to derail peace talks before they begin.

It appears that the Biden administration and anonymous members of the military-industrial complex are trying to make it as difficult as possible for Donald Trump to negotiate an end to the Ukraine war. Biden and the “unidentified Western officials” are also playing with fire—nuclear fire. Before this thing gets out of hand, Congress needs to weigh-in on this nuclear brinkmanship. We don’t need a 21^st century Cuban missile crisis, which occurred when the U.S. had overwhelming nuclear superiority, a conventional military advantage in the Caribbean, and the advantage of geographical proximity. All those factors today favor the Russians in Ukraine. And even with all of the advantages we had during the Cuban missile crisis, the Kennedy administration’s “best and brightest” had to trade nuclear missiles in Turkey to get the Soviets to remove the missiles in Cuba.

At least in Cuba in 1962, the United States had vital national security interests at stake—the security of our homeland and the continued viability of the Monroe Doctrine. In Ukraine, we have no vital national security interest at stake. The Ukraine war is the result of post-Cold War American and Western hubris that carelessly enlarged NATO even as the original purpose of NATO disappeared, fomented a so-called “color revolution” in Ukraine, and blissfully ignored Russian history and Russian national interests in an effort to spread “democracy” around the world. This was a bipartisan effort beginning with the Clinton administration in the 1990s, continuing and expanding under George W. Bush’s administration, ramped-up by the Obama administration, and renewed under President Biden’s watch. Even the Trump administration contributed to NATO enlargement. It is an example of the folly of the victors explained most recently by Jonathan Haslam in his book Hubris: The American Origins of Russia’s War Against Ukraine.

Haslam traces the origins of the Ukraine war to the “unconstrained outburst of triumphalism” on the part of the United States in the aftermath of our Cold War victory. Moreover, he shows that U.S. officials “knew exactly what they were doing” when they moved America’s sphere of influence closer and closer to Russia’s border. “The U.S. government,” he writes, “was made keenly aware at every stage of the negative impact on Russia of NATO expansion to the East. Indeed, it acted against the best specialist advice within and outside government, most notably in the teeth of strong opposition from the . . . Pentagon.” Haslam notes that Russian leaders received assurances from U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, German foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, NATO Secretary General Manfred Worner, and British Prime Minister John Major that NATO would not expand eastward. French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas recalled that “the West had promised that NATO would not extend to Russia’s doorstep.”

Haslam believes that U.S. officials determined that with the Soviet threat gone, the only way the U.S. could maintain its status in Europe was to enlarge NATO and, if necessary, give it new missions. Haslam quotes Bush 41 and 43 advisor Brent Scowcroft as explaining: “We need to create a political framework that would enable us to justify our military presence despite the absence of an enemy.” Russian officials, including Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and later Putin repeatedly expressed their opposition, but to no avail. Meanwhile, and quite understandably, Poland and other Eastern/Central European nations that once were members of the Warsaw Pact were eager to join the Western alliance. Then came NATO’s intervention in the Balkans despite the fact that no NATO country was attacked.  

The Clinton administration, Haslam writes, had no clue when it came to foreign policy. NATO expansion and intervention in the Balkans became reasons to justify the very existence of the alliance. Improving relations with Russia was not high on Clinton’s agenda. Soon, all of the Russia specialists and the Pentagon were cut out of the NATO enlargement debate. Those who knew Russia best—both inside and outside the administration—were ignored.

The George W. Bush administration was worse, according to Haslam. After the attacks of September 11, 2001, hubris took over the Bush administration as it attempted to wage wars to spread democracy in the Middle East and doubled-down on NATO enlargement, even suggesting publicly that Georgia and Ukraine join the alliance. With Bush 43, writes Haslam, the “American Republican Right had taken over and weaponized the ideals of President Woodrow Wilson . . . as an instrument for securing global supremacy.” First Bush with the Afghan and Gulf wars, and later President Obama with his commitment to the Arab Spring, signaled that the United States was on a crusade to subvert autocracies. Then the Obama administration under the guidance of Victoria Nuland, writes Haslam, promoted a subversive (to Moscow) color revolution in Ukraine which toppled a pro-Russian regime in favor of a pro-Western one. To Moscow it was evident, explains Haslam, that America’s purpose was to “fasten Ukraine’s elite to the West by means of integration with the EU . . . followed by its eventual inclusion within NATO.” Russia’s reaction was to seize the Crimea.

Haslam notes that before Donald Trump could attempt to improve relations with Russia, Democrats, deep state bureaucrats, and the military-industrial complex, aided and abetted by the media, conspired to force Trump from office on wholly unsubstantiated “Russia collusion” grounds. Trump’s efforts to follow Henry Kissinger’s advice to separate Russia from its growing partnership with China never got off the ground. But it wasn’t until the Biden administration took office that Putin, sensing weakness, invaded Ukraine.

Haslam is not a Putin apologist, and even suggests at the end of this important book that Putin’s war may lead to his eventual overthrow, reminiscent of the fate suffered by Czar Nicholas II in 1917. Haslam’s book was written prior to the recent escalation by both Biden and Putin. Trump has promised to end the war by negotiation instead of victory. The recent nuclear brinkmanship will not only make that more difficult but in the worst case scenario—the outbreak of World War III and the crossing of the nuclear threshold--make such a promise irrelevant. As the Geeks taught us, after hubris comes nemesis.

Francis P. Sempa writes on foreign policy and geopolitics. His Best Defense columns appear at the beginning of each month.