Putin Must Know the Price He Will Pay for Using Nuclear Weapons

Here’s How the West Should Respond to Putin’s Nuclear Threats: Russian President Vladimir Putin, humiliated by repeated defeats in Ukraine, increasing hints that his forces might use nuclear weapons to regain momentum, retake lost ground, and simply punish the Ukrainians.

How Should the West Respond to Putin’s Nuclear Threats?

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is correct that Putin will likely use nuclear weapons if he believes he will face no consequences. Putin’s ego is paramount. He both despises Zelenskyy for outshining him militarily, politically, and diplomatically and resents that Ukraine’s success has impinged on the historical legacy Putin sought to craft. Whereas Putin saw himself as surpassing the legacy of Catherine the Great, who expanded Russian territory and ushered in a golden age, today, he has become a smaller, weaker version of Tsar Nicholas II, under whose rule Russia collapsed.

More practically, Putin instinctively knows that if he loses, he will face revolution.

While the West is right to fear Putin’s possible Parkinsonic finger on the nuclear button, it is crucial not to fumble the response. By telegraphing fear of nuclear Armageddon, President Joe Biden only enhances Putin’s power and encourages further brinksmanship. Even worse has been the response of French President Emmanuel Macron, who has undermined deterrence by announcing that he would stand down France’s own nuclear forces in the event of a Russian launch. This is dangerous because it undermines the deterrence that provides the best means to avoid a nuclear exchange.

To shrink or retreat in the face of a nuclear threat would guarantee more frequent nuclear crises. If Putin’s tactics work, Kim Jong-un will regularly threaten Seoul or Tokyo. Pakistan, whose economy makes Russia look solvent, will threaten Delhi and Mumbai. China will use nuclear weapons to extort the world over Taiwan, a country to which it has no historical or legal right.

Instead, it is time for the West to make clear, both publicly and in detail privately, the consequences of Putin’s actions.

Russia and Putin Must Pay a High Price

First, it is time to publish a list of all those subject to death should Putin use even a low-yield nuclear weapon. In 2006, I did a deep dive into the legality, both in international and U.S. law, with regard to assassination. Bottom-line upfront: The conventional wisdom that targeted assassinations violate the laws of war and Congress is wrong. To eradicate military leaders and civilian commanders is ethnical if it can forestall far greater violence. For men like Putin and the generals who surround him to believe they can order the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians and their own people with impunity is counterproductive to pursuing peace. Simply put, if even Putin’s most loyal henchmen understand that a nuclear blast in Ukraine will lead to the end of their own life, they are more likely to forestall Putin’s actions. The risks inherent in cutting Putin down are high, but they are better than the certain death the West must inflict should

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