Rusia

What Happens If Putin Goes Nuclear?

As the war in Ukraine rages on, Russian President Vladimir Putin has engaged in nuclear saber rattling. “Whoever tries to impede us, let alone create threats for our country and its people, must know that the Russian response will be immediate and lead to the consequences you have never seen in history,” Putin declared in February in the first of many statements warning of a potential nuclear strike. For the most part, Western observers have dismissed this talk as idle chest-thumping. After all, whichever side fired nuclear weapons first would be taking a very risky gamble: betting that its opponent would not retaliate in an equal or more damaging way. That is why the odds are very low that sane leaders would actually start a process of trading blows that could end in the destruction of their own countries. When it comes to nuclear weapons, however, very low odds are not good enough.

Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine has revived the perennial debate about the need to reform the United Nations (UN) Security Council, including permanent representation for Africa. But has the conflict also increased the likelihood of change? The council was conceived in warfare – can it also be reformed by warfare?

Russian President Vladimir Putin, by signing a new decree on legal recognition of four regions’ independence and finally to join the Russian Federation, shows another tremendous historical achievement since the collapse of the Soviet era in 1991. The decree, made available on the database, was published on the official Internet portal for legal information on September 30.

The speech was expected to be about Ukraine, where Russia’s military is struggling seven months into its invasion and where Moscow is claiming four partially occupied regions as its own in a land grab condemned by Kyiv and the West.

I agree with Jan Oberg

Dr. Jan Oberg, Co-Founder and leader of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, wrote a really excellent article on the question of who sabotaged Nordstream pipelines. In the article, he points out that Russia had no motive for sabotaging Nordstream pipelines. If the Russians had wanted to stop the flow of natural gas through the pipeline, they could have simply turned it off at the Russian end. Here is a link to Dr. Oberg’s fine article:

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to mobilize hundreds of thousands of Russian reserves this month will almost certainly exacerbate internal divisions within Russia by highlighting his regime’s poor military-personnel policies. This should prompt Ukraine and its Western allies to prepare for an onslaught of poorly trained, disjointed troops.