Our Sixty Days of Nuclear Chicken Have Begun

by Matt Taibbi | Nov 19, 2024

In an irony so miserable it must be true, widespread belief that peace talks are coming under after Donald Trump’s inauguration is pushing Russia and the U.S. into a game of nuclear chicken, leaving us with “60 days to decide on World War,” as one Russian newspaper put it this week.

While the story may not be getting Cuban Missile Crisis treatment here, Joe Biden’s decision to green-light launches of U.S.-made ATACMS missiles into Russia has that country’s media in freakout mode. Rhetoric was hotter than ever today, the 1000th day of the war, after at least six ATACMS were fired into Russian territory.

“Russia and the West have reached the point of no return,” declared Moskovsky Komsomolets.

“Halfway to Armageddon,” read a RuNews24 headline.

“The most dangerous moment of escalation in the history of this war, and maybe the most dangerous moment in European history since 1945,” historian Alexander Friedman told EuroRadio.

“World War III, closer still?” asked Irina Romaliskaya, at the top of Evening newscast.

“The last ‘red line,’” grumbled Andrei Krasov, First Secretary of the Duma’s Defense Committee.

A U.S. official told Reuters Russians intercepted two out of eight ATACMS, with the remainder landing near Karachev, a town in the Bryansk region about 110 kilometers from the Ukrainian border. The Russian defense ministry says it shot down five of six missiles. Either way, the move triggered another change of nuclear doctrine by Vladimir Putin, allowing for nuclear response to any attack on the “territorial wholeness” of Russia. The previous standard required a threat to the “very existence” of the Russian state.

Most Americans likely view the ATACMS strike as just another self-defense response by a Ukrainian army that’s been forced to rely on Western resources and weapons since Russia’s invasion two years ago, and not substantively different from the 34 drones sent to strike Moscow just over a week ago. The Russian government disagrees, but do they disagree enough to nuke someone?

“Once we start talking about high-altitude, long-range weapons of Western manufacture, it’s a completely different story,” a miffed Putin said, in an interview given after news of Biden’s go-ahead, but before the Karachev attack. “The Ukrainian army does not have the capability to launch such attacks on its own. Only military specialists from NATO countries can.”

Putin explained that the decision Russia faces now is not whether or not to allow Ukraine to strike on its territory (that’s already been happening), but whether this launch of American missiles into Russia constitutes “direct participation” in the war by the U.S. and Europe. If the second conclusion is reached, Putin said, it would change the “very nature” of the conflict, putting “various response options” into play.

Nuclear chicken

A parade of other Russian officials, from Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov to foreign minister Sergei Lavrov to former president and Deputy Security Council Chair Dmitri Medvedev, have warned the ATACMS launches mean a “new phase” and possible widening of the war. Medvedev tweeted that the new doctrine “means NATO missiles fired against our country could be deemed an attack by the bloc on Russia” and, “Russia could retaliate with WMD against Kiev and key NATO facilities… That means World War III.”

The United States is giving a big eyeroll to all this bluster. Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said, “We are not at war with Russia,” and “the party here that continues to escalate this war is Russia,” by “bringing in another foreign country into the battlefield.” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Russia’s only aim is to “intimidate both Ukraine and other countries around the world through irresponsible nuclear rhetoric and behavior.” EU Foreign Policy chief Josep Borrell said, “It is not the first time that Putin plays the nuclear gamble.”

But the U.S. and Europe also seem interested in gambling. British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer countered the ATACMS news by announcing the U.K. will be sending long-range Storm Shadow missiles for use against targets in Russia. “We need to double down,” Starmer insisted. “We need to make sure Ukraine has what is necessary for as long as necessary, because we cannot allow Putin to win this war.” A blinking, expressionless Starmer at the G20 in Rio de Janeiro sounded like an inpatient with a button-pushing fetish. Ask yourself if this inspires confidence:

Of course, neither side has realistic belief in “winning” anything, after American politics altered the schedule. Russians and Ukrainians alike seem to expect cease-fire negotiations to begin shortly after Trump is elected. The war “will end faster” once Trump takes office, said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. “This is their approach, their promise to their society, and it is also very important to them.”

As a result, combatants are all scrambling to grab what they can before any cease-fire. Yevgeny Kiselov, who was Russia’s most famous anchorman in the nineties but left for Ukraine in 2008 because “there is no open political debate” in Russia, told Ukrainian newsreader Yulia Litvinenko that Putin is “trying to seize as much Ukrainian territory as possible” in advance of Trump’s inauguration, so as to have “some kind of exchange to present at the negotiating table.” The Russians have made recent territorial gains in eastern and southeastern Ukraine. According to Zelensky, they came at heavy cost (2,000 dead per day, he claims) but Russian media has nonetheless been trumpeting its advances.

Meanwhile, unnamed U.S. officials told Reuters that greenlighting the ATACMS launches was similarly designed to help Ukraine make “gains” and “put Kyiv in a better negotiating position” before Trump shows up and upsets the military apple cart with peace talks. The United States is gambling that Putin will hesitate to expand hostilities or strike against Europe knowing he could be able to formalize gains in Ukraine in just a few months. It may be a good bet, but earth is a hell of a thing to gamble. As Dmitry Popov in Moskovsky Komsomolets wrote yesterday:

Will the collective West resort to really serious blows to Russia so that Ukraine’s position will strengthen not in words, but in reality? Will Putin restrain himself in this case (according to the doctrine, the decision to use nuclear weapons is made by the president)? These are the two main questions for the next 60 days.

With Russian media howling about NATO, the Russian-speaking Internet full of scary videos (see below) about which cities are in ATACMS range, and Kremlin and Duma officials rattling sabers at the West, the political pressure on Putin to strike back will grow with every American or British missile that lands on Russian soil. The smart money says he won’t, but if Putin were predictable, the war wouldn’t have started in the first place. Unless Biden and Starmer are trying to start a war, this “double down” seems like insanity: everything to lose, nothing but two months of flex to gain.

If everyone believes peace talks are just months away, why not just start them now? Because it makes too much sense, probably. God save us from armchair generals, and some of the real ones, too.