As Russian forces dig in and the US sends more arms to Kyiv, we need a public debate about the no longer ‘unthinkable’ nuclear option.
June 2, 2022
Written by Dan Froomkin
The New York Times “buried the lede,” as they say, in Wednesday’s major story by reporters David E. Sanger and William J. Broad about the “dangers of a new, riskier nuclear era” in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Urkaine.
The article recounted how “established restraints” are “giving way to more naked threats to reach for such weapons — and a need for new strategies to keep the atomic peace.”
The news peg, of course, is that the use of a nuclear weapon in Ukraine by Russian President Vladimir Putin, whether it’s out of pique or desperation, is literally no longer “unthinkable.”
What the authors waited over 1,000 words to tell us, however, is that the White House is scrambling to figure out how to respond:
A sign of the risks of this new age has been a series of urgent meetings in the administration to map out how Mr. Biden should respond if Russia conducts a nuclear detonation in Ukraine or around the Black Sea.
The casual mention of these life-or-death war-gaming sessions, deep inside the story, is a perfect reflection of the mainstream media’s lack of alarm – and lack of interest – in the threat of a nuclear conflict. This is true even as the Biden administration sends ever-deadlier and more advanced weapons into the region.
How should we respond if Putin uses a nuclear weapon in Ukraine? Do we escalate or de-escalate? How much should we worry about it?
These are questions that we should be hotly debating in Congress and in the media, not ignoring or burying.
Biden touched on the nuclear question in a New York Times op-ed published on Tuesday, but in vague terms, writing:
I know many people around the world are concerned about the use of nuclear weapons. We currently see no indication that Russia has intent to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, though Russia’s occasional rhetoric to rattle the nuclear saber is itself dangerous and extremely irresponsible. Let me be clear: 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.
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