Russian President Vladimir Putin's implied threat to turn the Ukraine war into a broader nuclear conflict presents President Joe Biden with choices rarely contemplated in the atomic age, including whether to raise the alert level of U.S. nuclear forces.
WASHINGTON -- Russian President Vladimir Putin’s implied threat to turn the Ukraine war into a broader nuclear conflict presents President Joe Biden with choices rarely contemplated in the atomic age, including whether to raise the alert level of U.S. nuclear forces.
The Biden administration was assessing Putin’s move, which it said unnecessarily escalates an already dangerous conflict. In fact, Putin’s words amount to the kind of threat rarely heard even during the Cold War period, when vastly larger nuclear arsenals of the United States and the former Soviet Union threatened the world with nuclear Armageddon.U.S. officials, while disturbed by Putin’s words, indicated they did not know what he intends.
“Inserting nuclear weapons into the Ukraine war equation at this point is extremely dangerous, and the United States, President Biden, and NATO must act with extreme restraint” and not respond in kind, Kimball said. “This is a very dangerous moment in this crisis, and we need to urge our leaders to walk back from the nuclear brink.”According to U.S. nuclear doctrine, the weapons’ alert level is central to their role in deterring attack.
During the Cold War, U.S. and Russian weapons were not only more numerous but also in a higher state of readiness. President George H.W. Bush in 1991 took the historic step of ordering U.S. nuclear-capable strategic bombers off alert as part of a broader move to reverse the nuclear arms race. The bombers have remained off alert ever since.
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