When he arrived at Christ the Savior Cathedral to pay his respects to the ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who had died of COVID-19, Russian President Vladimir Putin carried a clutch of red roses.
The man beside him was carrying a briefcase.
That briefcase appeared to be Russia’s version of the “football” that is carried by a military aide to U.S. presidents and contains the codes for launching strategic nuclear weapons.
French King Louis XIV had stamped upon his cannon the inscription, “Ultima Ratio Regum” — The Last Argument of Kings.
In our era, nuclear weapons are the ultima ratio of nation-states. And what Putin was saying with his briefcase-carrying aide beside him was that, rather than accept defeat and humiliation in the Ukraine war, he may resort to the use of tactical atomic weapons.
And Putin is not the only one reminding us of the utility of having nuclear weapons and the folly of giving them up.
In 1991, when the Soviet Union dissolved into 15 nations, a newly independent Ukraine controlled its own large arsenal of nuclear weapons.
At the behest of the United States and in return for U.S. security guarantees, Kyiv gave them up and sent them all back to Russia.
Ukraine is living today with the consequences of that decision.
It is a victim of aggression by Russia, while the U.S. is inhibited in what it will do to assist Kyiv by an awareness that Russia has hundreds of tactical nuclear weapons, which Putin has signaled that, in the event of a true “existential” crisis, he may use.
Ukraine is in its present crisis because Moscow has the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, while Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in the 1990s.
The world is surely taking note of this fact.
South Korea relies on U.S. nuclear weapons to deter a nuclear-armed North Korea. Seoul also relies on the U.S. to retaliate against the North for any first use of nukes against the South.
And the issue is not an academic one.
Last week, Pyongyang warned that in the event of a clash with the South, its nuclear weapons would be used “at the outset of war.”
Seoul must today be observing Ukraine with some intensity. For there the U.S. is carefully calibrating whether the weapons they send to help Ukraine fight for its national existence violate a Moscow red line.
Could South Korea expect similar U.S. caution as to what weapons it would use in defending the country from a nuclear-armed North?
According to one U.S. poll, 71% of all South Koreans support the acquisition of their own arsenal of nuclear weapons.
China, too, has been observing how the United States has been inhibited by Russia’s nuclear arsenal in deciding which weapons to send, and which not to send, to Ukraine.
In Beijing, this question is surely being debated:
If the Americans, who have no treaty commitment to defend Ukraine, are inhibited by the threat of war with a nuclear-armed Russia into limiting their military aid to Ukraine, will the Americans be similarly intimidated by a nuclear-armed China — from going to war for Taiwan?
China may soon be testing U.S. resolve in the Taiwan Strait. For, like Ukraine, Taiwan has no treaty alliance obligating the United States to defend it.
In East Asia, the nations most hostile to us and our allies — Russia, China, North Korea — all have nuclear weapons. But none of our friends and allies in East Asia — Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, Australia — have nuclear weapons. All rely on us for nuclear deterrence.
Observing the restrictions we have put on military aid to Ukraine, what must they be thinking now?
Consider the Middle East.
Iran is currently renegotiating a return to the nuclear arms deal of 2015. Under that agreement, Iran was granted relief from sanctions and a return to the world economy. In return, Tehran pledged not to test or acquire nuclear weapons and to open its nuclear facilities to inspection to show it was complying with the treaty.
Why has Iran, which has the ability to enrich uranium to weapons-grade but has never done so, forgone the testing and the building of nuclear weapons?
Iran appears to have concluded that its security would be more imperiled than enhanced if it sought to test a nuclear device preparatory to building a bomb.
A nuclear weapons test, if successful, would bring to Iran the possibility of war with a nuclear-armed Israel, as well as the potential destruction of all of its nuclear sites by the United States.
If Iran built a bomb, the Turks and Saudis might soon follow, and the ayatollah’s Iran would be less secure than it is today. Iran’s Persians, after all, are a minority in an Arab-dominated Middle East, and Iran’s Shia are but a fraction of the numbers of the Sunni Arab population.
What the Ukraine war has demonstrated is the vulnerability of not having nukes.
Taiwan and South Korea, especially, should take note.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of “Nixon’s White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever.” To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com.
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Talks cheap. If ya don’t back up your promise then why should anyone believe you.
The war in Ukraine was engineered by the US. Ukraine is in it’s present crisis because of the meddling and intrigues of a faction in the US state. Ukraine is already an existential crisis or Russia. They have signaled their redline in Ukraine for years. The policy of the US should be to encourage their puppet Zelensky to reach accomodation with Russia. That will be painful for Ukrainian pride and dangerous for Z as his right wing body guards (SBU) will likely kill him.
American policy has already ensured that Ukraine will be partitioned. The question is how much of Ukraine will be left. As the war continues, it’s likely that eastern Ukraine will be liberated along with the southern coast of the Black Sea, leaving western Ukraine west of the Dnieper and land locked state dominated by fanatics.
Daniel F – you are correct. Most don’t have the 1st clue about what the ‘war’ in Ukraine is really all about. The US connection via the Biden/Democrat/communist leftist coup corporation ‘government’ has had a money making business going there as have their forebears. Z is a Nazi and has formed ad trained his own N army. The US leftist commie new world order bio-labs have been creating bio weapons in Ukraine for years, while human trafficking, especially that of children being captured and hung by nails while their internal organs are cut out of their bodies and their blood is drained for the much desired by the creepy side of (in)humanity pay fortunes to acquire the adrenochrome from these little victims blood. Other similar ‘research’ is carried on as well, and Ukraine is considered the main hub for such worldwide. Putin and Trump spoke about how to rid the planet of this evil scum and viola – the invasion of Ukraine, a Russian territory. The people were asking Putin to be delivered of this evil. Those not involved in the ‘business’ were given info to leave so the trash could be promptly taken care of. Russian soldiers discovered 35,000 children in one form or another in captivity in the tunnels beneath the streets and were carried out for medical attention. Now you have a brief overview of what Ukraine is really all about. This most likely will never be brought forth in the mainstream media and it remains to be seen if allowed to be published here..
LISTEN UP….PUTIN is Planning to USE NUCLEAR WEAPONS on UKRAINE…JAPAN…USA…ENGLAND. etc etc This was REVEALED to Me by GOD. PUTIN has Gone MAD. From SamuraiQueen. 😩😩😩😰😰😰😢😢😢
Nuclear weapons are and should be a deterent to WAR. When used in 1945 it was used as a deterent. If it ever happened, it would be the beginning of the end of civilization. Nukes are not Frontline weapons. GOD help us.
The Grand Duchy of Fenwick has the Q- Bomb!
The moral of the Ukraine story should be: NEVER give up your weapons!
Next time a politician says restrictive gun laws are for YOUR safety, ask “How am I safer unarmed?”
I think as far as “going nuclear”, maybe as a form of energy for Western Europe, this would be the key so as to decrease their dependence on oil/gas from Russia. The major thing we all saw from the Ukraine invasion is the close interaction of the U.S. (Biden) with NATO to live up to the very reason NATO was created–that is, to destroy a Hitler-wannabe (Putin), and we can be proud of this.
My wife and I, prior to our marriage, had a long talk. Among the things to which we agreed was that NOBODY would use “the ‘D-word’ (i.e., “divorce”) because the moment it was mentioned it became thinkable and the moment it became thinkable, it became more likely, and the more likely it became, the more inevitable it became, and, soon enough, a minor tiff had killed the marriage. Well, the threat of nuclear war is quite similar. It is NOT a threat to be made lightly and the moment someone makes it, it becomes too dangerous to be ignored. The potential targets prepare for war and both sides start watching for someone going for the trigger. Putin isn’t stupid. He knows what he’s put on the table and, frankly, at this point, he needs answered – forcefully and unequivocally. Unfortunately, we have a president who is neither forceful nor capable of not being equivocating. Give Putin credit – if he was going to dance with nuclear terror, he picked the right time with the right adversary.
I think it’s foolishness to think Iran doesn’t already have nuclear weapons…