In a Sept. 26 interview with MSNBC, U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken called Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Sept. 25 announcement of a new nuclear doctrine “totally irresponsible,” and accused Putin of “rattling the nuclear saber.” President Putin announced that, after careful deliberation, Russia would be changing the statutes for its use of nuclear weapons in response to escalatory actions against it. While not naming Ukraine or NATO, he made it clear to whom he was referring, when he said that Basic Principles of State Policy on Nuclear Deterrence would now include “aggression against Russia by any non-nuclear state, but with a participation or support of a nuclear state, should be considered a joint attack on the Russian Federation.”
Instead of eliciting shock or caution from Western leaders, it seems many—including Secretary of State Blinken—are deaf to the reality they are facing.
In an article published Sept. 26, Newsweek interviewed a handful of even more rabid “experts,” who all insist that Putin is bluffing and NATO’s aggression should go even further. Gustav Gressel, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, called Putin’s comments “a bluff” and that they do not signal any changes to Russia’s nuclear posture: “If they’d mean it, we’d all have had a nuclear escalation already,” he proclaimed.
