CIA Director Bill Burns warned in a speech last week that the possibility of Russia using tactical nuclear weapons should “not be taken lightly.”
Coming from Burns, perhaps the most experienced and effective national security official in the Biden administration, this is nothing to sneeze about. A former U.S. ambassador to Moscow, Burns knows Russian President Vladimir Putin as well as any serving official. And Burns spoke about a Putin who has been backed into the corner — desperate, angry, and humiliated. He used a memorable line that Putin was “an apostle of payback.”
Still, this does not mean we should take our foot off the gas in terms of support for Ukraine. Not yet. I have said all along that we need to find that sweet spot of maximum economic and military pressure on Russia but with the caveat that this pressure does not cross escalation red lines. Maybe we are getting closer to those red lines as Ukraine beats back the Russians. We must be careful. We must think through each move. But I don’t believe Burns was saying to slow down.
Similarly, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky knows that Putin may react in a once-unthinkable manner. We worry in the United States about Putin’s use of nuclear weapons. Zelensky does the same but in a far more dramatic fashion. It’s his country, after all, that would face the consequences of those weapons being used.
Regardless, we must be laser focused on monitoring the Russian military units that would employ such munitions. Sea, air, and land-based platforms that we know are nuclear capable should be subject to extraordinary intelligence collection efforts. And if we see movement, the authorized intelligence disclosures will begin to kick into overdrive.Â
President Joe Biden, national security adviser Sullivan, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken will be on every major news outlet if such intelligence is collected. We may have some time to warn the world and pressure Putin to cease and desist. Put another way, I do not believe that Russia’s use of a tactical nuclear weapon will be something that we all just wake up to.
Such disclosures would serve as an obvious warning to Putin. But perhaps more importantly, in terms of changing behavior, the disclosures will be targeted at China. There is no way that China wants to see Russia go down this path. The Biden administration via both open and closed channels will lean heavily on Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping to intervene with Putin. Russia is now a client state of China. Putin will be compelled to listen to Xi.
Stopping any use of nuclear weapons wouldn’t stop here. I would imagine that the West and the Ukrainians alike would directly message nuclear-related Russian military units and commanders. The allies likely know exactly who would give and effect such an order. The message would thus go something like this: If you do go ahead and employ these weapons, you will be individually hunted as war criminals.
There’s another point to note, namely that if Putin does order a tactical nuclear attack, the odds of a revolt inside the Russian national security establishment, i.e., a coup — yes, let’s say that — increase considerably. I do really wonder if the Russian military and intelligence services, despite their incompetence and corruption, could support this move. The use of a tactical nuke will forever damn to hell anyone involved in making or carrying out such a decision. Access to the West and its luxuries will evaporate. Under unparalleled global sanctions, Russia’s economic future would go with it. I think the Russian national security establishment knows this. This leads to the final point: We must keep up the pressure on war crimes investigations.
I remember digging up a mass grave upon our infiltration into Iraq in April 2003. What haunts me is not the bones, the skulls, or even the death and stench that I saw and smelled. It was the villagers coming out and, even years after the event, having precise recollections of what happened. The Russians have committed atrocious crimes in Ukraine. It has been documented in an extraordinary fashion for the world to see. Where we are now is awful — and the employment of a tactical nuclear weapon would make anything we see now look like child’s play. One day, this war will end, but we cannot just let Putin and his military get off the hook.
Aggressively pursuing war crimes will be paramount both in ensuring accountability and as a deterrent for the use of tactical nuclear weapons. There must be a reckoning for those Russians who committed atrocities.
Marc Polymeropoulos is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. A former CIA senior operations officer, he retired in 2019 after a 26-year career serving in the Near East and South Asia. His book Clarity in Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the CIA was published in June 2021 by Harper Collins.
