Putin's Nuclear Threats Could Embolden Other Dictators to Follow Suit

Any scenario where the end of the war in Ukraine doesn't include a defeat of Russia and its troops might embolden Vladimir Putin and other authoritarian leaders to make more nuclear threats in the future, an expert told Newsweek.

During the speech to the nation on September 21 where Putin announced a partial mobilization, the Russian leader also warned that Moscow was ready to use "all available means" to protect Russia and what it now considers part of its territory after sham referendums were held in four regions in southwestern Ukraine.

On Thursday night, President Joe Biden said the risk of an "Armageddon" was at its highest since the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.

"We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since [President John] Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis," Biden said, speaking at a fundraising event in New York. "We have a direct threat of the use of nuclear weapons, if in fact things continue down the path they are going."

The president added that Putin "is not joking" about using nuclear weapons, and his administration is trying to find a way to make him back down.

But while a nuclear strike by Russia would have a disastrous impact on our planet and humanity, Putin's nuclear threat is a danger in itself, even if nuclear weapons end up not being used.

"The other big danger here is [the] war is resolved, paused, concluded, frozen—whatever word you want to use—on terms that are favorable to Russia or in terms that provide Russia with a reason to claim victory," John Erath, senior policy director for the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, a U.S.-based nonprofit, told Newsweek.

If the war ends after Russia manages to occupy more of Ukrainian territory, causes a change in the Ukrainian government or obtained the promise that Ukraine will not try to join NATO in the future, "then nuclear threats will be perceived as having worked," Erath said.

"That is extremely dangerous because there are other dictators out there—Kim Jong-un comes immediately to mind, the China-Taiwan situation comes to mind—that are paying very close attention to this," he added.

These leaders could "take the lesson from this, that nuclear threats are an effective instrument of state policy," according to Erath. This, in turn, could cause nuclear threats to become "institutionalized and regularized as a policy tool available to governments who have nuclear weapons."

This chart, provided by Statista, shows estimated global nuclear warhead inventories.

Instead of a success for nuclear deterrence, a situation in which Russia doesn't use nuclear weapons but comes out somehow successful from the invasion of Ukraine could turn into a reason for more countries to acquire nuclear weapons.

"When you have a dispute with another country, they're not doing what you want, they're not acting in a way that you want—then you have this nuclear tool to get them to change their behavior," Erath said.

But this could eventually lead to an even greater risk of a nuclear war.

"If you make a threat, you have to be prepared to follow through on it. So the chances of a nuclear weapon being used sometimes, somehow by someone keep getting greater," Erath concluded.