The Right Answer to Putin's Nuclear Threats -- Put Him at the Top of the Target List
Go to kotlikoff.net/columns. You’ll find seven columns on Ukraine since Putin invaded in February. This one, published on March 15th in The Hill, is entitled, NATO Must Set Additional Red Lines for Russia — Immediately. Six months later, the “experts” are saying the same thing. Here’s my latest example.
The Administration is doing what the talking heads are demanding. It’s making tougher public statements. National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, just publicly warned Russia of “catastrophic consequences” if it uses nuclear weapons against Ukraine.
Catastrophic consequences for Russia is far stronger than:
Any use of nuclear weapons in this conflict on any scale would be completely unacceptable to us as well as the rest of the world and would entail severe consequences.
These are President Biden’s carefully parsed words back in May. Back then Biden was suggesting tit for tat. Example: Putin takes out Kharkiv, population 1.4 million. We take out Nizhny Novgorod, population 1.2 million.
Biden was engaging in what game theorists call cheap talk — saying words that help coordinate outcomes when there are many potential outcomes (what economists call multiple equilibria).
I thought then and think now that Biden’s signaling that limited nuclear war was ok was beyond crazy. Two antagonists agree to cut off each other’s right arm rather than each other’s head?
But maybe Biden thought, back then, that he could swap a small-sized Ukrainian city for one in Russia. The Russians may now be signaling that their small-sized city target would be Dallas, population 1.3 million. If so, Sullivan’s pronouncement that a Russian nuclear attack would be catastrophic is signaling that Moscow, not Nizhny Novgorod, is the price tag for attacking Dallas.
Using the word “catastrophic” is significant. So is using it publicly.
Why make red lines public?
Doing so is a commitment device. If you say, in private, you’ll do X if they do Y and they do Y, no one will know you threatened X if you back down. State it publicly and you face being labeled a coward or a phony if you don’t follow through — inducing Putin to take out Dallas at too low a price.
Saying things publicly also leads the other side to worry that you’ve given irretrievable orders to subordinates, e.g., nuclear submarine commanders, to do X if they do Y.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis President Kennedy publicly stated,
It shall be the policy of this Nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.
The Administration is converging on a parallel statement.
Any nuclear attack by Russia on Ukraine, any of our allies, or the United States will invoke a full retaliatory response upon Russia.
Putin might now decide that losing all of Russia is unacceptable. He may respond with,
Any nuclear attack by the United States or any of its NATO allies on Russia will lead to Russia’s wiping every major U.S. city off the face of the earth.
This cheap talk would coordinate the nuclear exchange to big cities.
The U.S. could then say,
Any nuclear attack on the United States will lead to the vaporization of Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and every other decent-sized city we can find.
Then Putin might decide that he likes his Kremlin office and raise the price of taking out Moscow to include all U.S. medium-sized cities. We could respond in kind, threatening Russia’s medium-sized cities. But, yikes, we’d need to use up all their medium-sized cities to fill our quota of Russian large-sized cities.
The fact is that the U.S. and other NATO nations are target-rich environments. Russia is not. We have far more to lose than Russia from a limited, let alone full-bore nuclear war.
Maybe we could add Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong to our target list. This would ensure China doesn’t end up picking up all the pieces, well ashes. It would also likely get the Chinese to order their client state, Russia, to pull out of Ukraine tomorrow if they want to keep selling oil and gas to China. China is now Russia’s biggest importer of energy, with annual imports running at roughly $70 billion.
This all sounds insane, for one reason. It is. Nuclear war is, at the extreme, a mutual suicide pact.
But what I find really crazy is that we are making public threats to destroy Russia, which we shouldn’t, and making no public threats to destroy Putin, which we should. Putin is, Earth to the Biden Administration, the real enemy and, thus, needs to be our primary target. Our public red line should sound like this.
Any nuclear attack by Russia on Ukraine, the United States, or any of our allies or any issuance of orders to this effect by President Putin will lead to the instant deaths of President Putin, all of President Putin’s associates, all of his top military commanders, all of the top members of his security services, as well as any Russian who pushes a nuclear button.
This type of statement is, as I suggested in March, likely our best deterrent. If I’m a Russian nuclear commander, I will realize that following a launch command is a decision to commit suicide. And if I’m President Putin, I will realize that ordering a launch will be the last thing I do.
Given Putin’s practice of sitting at 20-foot distances from visitors who might be infected with COVID, it’s clear that he dearly values his life. This also explains why he’s not visiting his troops in Ukraine. He’s too scared. He could be killed by Ukrainian artillery or shot by his comrades.
Yes, I’m presuming we can keep and are keeping careful track of Putin and co. But if we can’t, no one will know this for sure. If the Putin won’t risk going to Ukraine, he won’t risk our not knowing where he’s hiding. And if we do know where he’s hiding, signaling this fact via, for example, sending the same letter, addressed to Putin, care of a thousand Russian homes located closest to his bunker, is paramount.
A Putin-specific red line is far safer for the U.S. than what Jake Sullivan just proclaimed. If Russian nuclear commanders believe we will level their country, they will launch on command to avenge their families. If they believe we are targeting Putin and their personas, if they launch, they may well stand down.
So, yes, it’s high time to publicly set red lines. But we are setting the wrong red lines. We don’t want to warn/threaten Russia. We want to warn/threaten Vladimir Putin, his close associates, his top commanders, and every Russian with the ability to launch a nuclear weapon.
What else can the U.S. do to end Putin’s war? It can announce the admission of Ukraine in NATO (with the U.S. signing a mutual defense pact pending Ukraine’s formal admission) and simultaneously call for Russia to return to its pre-invasion lines in exchange for the lifting of all sanctions and the recognition of pre-invasion occupied territories as Russian. This will let Putin declare victory. It will let President Zelensky declare victory, and it will lift the nuclear Sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of hundreds of millions, including our own.
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The question is not the need for clear, publicly pronounced red lines. The question is