Russia using North Korea’s nuclear playbook
Russia and North Korea are the only two nuclear powers whose leaders continually boast about using nukes. That is no coincidence.
Russia and North Korea are also the two poorest and most sanctioned among the nine nuclear powers. Both leverage nuclear weapons to compensate for everything from diplomatic isolation to economic stagnation.
North Korean President Kim Jong-un has perfected this nuclear strategy. He is continually test-firing nuclear missiles and making unhinged nuclear threats as a bargaining chip. And, by doing so, he often extracts economic concessions from Western leaders.
Putin is taking a page from Kim’s playbook. Except he’s hoping to intimidate Western leaders into letting him have his way with Ukraine.
Of course, that will never happen, so long as Biden is president. But former President Trump infamously said that, if reelected, he would let Putin have his way even with NATO members who do not pay their dues. No nuclear threat would even be necessary.
Call Putin’s bluff
Like Pavlovian dogs, Western politicians and reporters chase the bone every time Putin and Kim threaten nuclear annihilation. But I’ve long argued that the best way to handle these boys crying wolf is simple: ignore them.
I published “Why Do World Leaders Give North Korea’s President the Time of Day” on October 4, 2006. It pertained to North Korea’s groundhog-day nuclear threats. But it pertains equally to Russia’s, including the latest threat Putin launched on Wednesday, which has so many in the West panting:
Putin said Wednesday that Russia’s nuclear triad — its three-pronged arsenal of weapons launched from land, sea and air — was ‘much more advanced’ than that of the United States. … Putin said Moscow’s nuclear weapons are fully ready and ‘from the military-technical viewpoint, we’re prepared’ to use them in case there’s a threat to ‘the existence of the Russian state, our sovereignty and independence.’
(Al Jazeera, March 13, 2024)
Like Kim, Putin plays this nuclear card as much to imbue Russians with a sense of pride as to intimidate Russia’s adversaries.
He lords over economic stagnation and compensates for his people’s empty stomachs by filling their heads with jingoistic rhetoric. And he invariably makes the oxymoronic contention that he’s threatening to attack other countries to defend his own.
Frankly, the irony here is thicker than a bowl of borscht. After all, under Putin’s regime, Russia has been the sole aggressor in Europe, invading sovereign nations like Ukraine and Georgia.
Yet, here’s Putin, playing the victim card with the skill of a seasoned gaslighter. He projects his own imperial ambitions onto others, conjuring up phantom threats to justify his own belligerent actions.
But I cannot overstate the categorical imperative of calling his bluff. After all, any first use of nukes could trigger a conflagration that would end the world as we know it. That’s why the Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) doctrine has prevented nuclear war for over 75 years. And, as mad as Putin and Kim pretend to be, both are sane enough never to dare pull that nuclear trigger.
Not to mention that, listening to their threats, you get the impression Putin and Kim think they’re the only ones who possess nuclear weapons.
That said, there’s no denying the performative nature of Putin’s threats. Russians will play bit parts in the presidential election he will orchestrate this weekend. But, instead of voting to protect personal freedoms and economic empowerment, Putin has them voting for him to defend them from his imaginary enemies.
I pooh-poohed this national farce just weeks ago in “Democratic Elections in Autocratic Iran and Russia? Why Do They Bother?” March 2, 2024. Yes, Iranians are obliged to play bit parts in similar elections.
The point is that everyone knows no country is ever going to threaten “the existence of the Russian state, our sovereignty and independence.” That’s why his nuclear saber-rattling is so patently hollow.
The birds-of-a-feather alliance between Russia and North Korea
If Putin were ever going to use nukes, he would have used them on Ukraine long ago. After all, Ukraine has not only fended off Russia’s genocidal onslaught by killing hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers, but also launched increasingly daring drone strikes inside Russia too.
But the irony is that North Korea alone is producing more shells and ammunition to supply Russia than the US and EU are producing to supply Ukraine.
On one hand, we have two pariah states, reportedly withering away under crippling economic sanctions. Yet, thanks to their military production, Russia is outgunning Ukraine 10 shells to 1.
On the other hand, we have the NATO alliance, reputedly the richest and most powerful in history. Yet, thanks to their bickering and dithering, Ukraine is retreating from its own villages due to a lack of ammunition.
This disparity in military support, with Russia and North Korea outpacing the combined efforts of the US and EU, is as astonishing as it is troubling. Ukraine’s Western allies should be ashamed.