It works much like the haunted house at Gröna Lund. Where it’s darkest, where the way forward looks most uncertain, that’s where Putin lunges forward and says “Boouh” and rattles his nukes.
The aim, of course, is for us all to be scared. Put your legs on your back and flee the field in a panic.
But it’s all a show. A charade of a cunning tyrant.
Certainly Vladimir Putin is dangerous. For real. He wants to overturn the world we live in. He wants to split the EU, destroy NATO and crush Ukraine and together with the communist dictatorship China create a new authoritative world order. All of this is serious. It is a dangerous threat that must be met with force.
Weaker than ever
But the Russian president is weaker than perhaps ever before.
Putin has driven the Russian economy to the bottom. He has failed to win the Ukraine war despite the fact that several hundred thousand Russian men have been forced to take their lives.
He has made himself completely dependent on China.
He is wanted by the International Criminal Court.
He has been forced to ask the world’s most blacklisted state, North Korea, to come to the rescue with soldiers and grenades.
Without the nukes he would have been swept away long ago.
So nuclear weapons are fundamentally important to him, vital to his survival.
But Putin’s nuclear arsenal works best as a threat. He has been threatening the outside world in this way for over 10 years but his “red lines” have been proven to be empty talk every time.
Three big reasons
And in addition, today there are – at least – three more reasons why Russia will not use nuclear weapons:
1) Putin’s friend Trump takes office soon. If Putin embarrasses himself and detonates a nuclear bomb, it puts a big damper on Trump’s plans to get the world to accept a peace deal favorable to the Kremlin.
2) Russia’s economic mainstay, China, has taken Putin in his ear on several occasions. The message from Beijing seems to be “go to war but keep your paws off the button”. Under no circumstances does Xi Jinping want a nuclear war that sabotages all global trade.
3) If Russia were to really use a tactical – smaller – nuclear weapon, Putin knows that NATO would have to respond strongly; probably with the most powerful of conventional weapons.
The result: key Russian military bases would be knocked out and Vladimir Putin himself could become a target.
Russia – with only two large population centers – is also particularly vulnerable in the event of a retaliatory attack.
Putin does not want to take that risk.
NATO is superior both in terms of nuclear weapons and conventional weapons systems. It’s a war Putin would lose.
And the former KGB agent does not want to lose. He dreams of many more years as the all-powerful ruler of his kleptocracy, enjoying his immense wealth with his large family.
A nuclear armageddon is the last thing Putin wants.