School of War - Ep. 21: Matthew Kroenig on Ukraine and Putin’s Nuclear Weapons

Episode Date: March 16, 2022

Matthew Kroenig, Professor in the Department of Government and Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and Director of Studies at the Atlantic Council, joins the show to discuss Russian nuclear doctrine and what it means for the war in Ukraine. Times 00:49 - Introduction 01:07 - Forecasting Russia's potential gains in Ukraine 02:45 - The nuclear dimension in Ukraine 05:05 - Russian nuclear doctrine: escalate to de-escalate 10:52 - Potential U.S. responses to Russian nuclear strikes on NATO allies 12:54 - Perceptions of nuclear weapons, from the Cold War to now 15:46 - Battlefield nuclear tactics 18:32 - Russian thinking on employing chemical weapons 21:05 - U.S. nuclear weapons policy 25:44 - Scenarios when Russia would use nuclear weapons 27:16 - Putin's rationale and next steps 29:21 - Russian strikes and potential fault lines in Western unity 32:30 - U.S. reliance on Russia's brokerage of a nuclear deal with Iran

Thinking about the unthinkable. That's how Herman Kahn described talking about nuclear war, but three weeks into the fighting in Ukraine, we have to confront the fact that Russian doctrine calls for the use of nuclear weapons on the battlefield under certain circumstances. Let's get into the details of that. It is a prescription for war, this Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamous. The bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a state. We continue to face a grave situation in Iran.

We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We shall never surrender. I'm Aaron McLean. Thanks for joining School of War. Delighted to be joined today by Matthew Cronick. He's professor in the Department of Government and the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, also director of studies at the Atlantic Council. Matt, thanks so much for joining. Thanks for the invitation, Aaron. It's great to chat with you.

So the subject of the day, unsurprisingly, is Ukraine. And you are a specialist in nuclear weapons, strategic questions pertaining to nuclear weapons. So we'll explore that dimension in particular. But before we get to that, I just kind of wanted to ask you, you know, we've had guests on the program in the last few weeks who are divided in their views of how this war is likely to shake out in sort of in conventional terms. Will this be a conventional setting aside, you know, grand strategic outcomes for a moment? Will this be, will the Russians accomplish their conventional military goals or not? And there's sort of a spectrum of opinion. Where do you, where do you fall on that spectrum? Well, I think you're right that there are a number of ways this could play out.

It could be a decisive Russian military victory. It could be a decisive Ukrainian and Western military victory where Russian forces are completely expelled from Ukraine. I think my best guess right now is it will resolve. in some kind of negotiated settlement that Russia will succeed in taking parts of the country, but not the entire country. And then Moscow and Kiev will work out some kind of arrangement. So not my preferred outcome, but if I were betting, that would be where I'd place my bets. And so that sounds like on the spectrum, probably closer to what the Russians had hoped for

from the start if perhaps at a higher cost and on a longer timeline they had been anticipated. Yeah, I think that's right, although it's hard to know what Putin was thinking at the beginning. It's certainly similar to his demands at the beginning, but is that really all that he wanted or did he hope that he was going to be able to take the entire country? We just don't know. So let's talk about the nuclear dimension at play here. And I mentioned to a guest last week that, you know, if you'd asked me in March of 2021, what the chance was of a nuclear weapon.

being released on the European subcontinent in the coming year. I would have said, you know, zero or effectively zero. So negligible is to be zero. And of course, sitting here in March of 2022, the answer to that question is not nearly as clear cut. The answer seems to the extent that anything's clear. The answer is not zero. I'm curious to know your view of what you think, what you think the odds are. It's kind of an impossible question. But maybe on our way there, you could, you could talk to us a bit about the nuclear alert that Putin sort of ostentatiously announced in the early stages of this conflict. Was that something unanticipated or extremely alarming or unusual? Is that from the perspective of someone who follows these things closely as you do,

something to be expected? So what actually happened there and how does it fit into the broader context of Russian thinking about nuclear weapons? Yes. Well, I think you're right that many people were surprised, but to be honest, I was not. And I was predicting and, I was, I was predicting. the fall as this was heating up, that it would become a nuclear crisis soon, because this is what Putin does. This is the Russian strategy. It's sometimes been referred to as escalate to deescalate, but essentially the idea is to threaten nuclear war early in a conflict, hoping that the other side will back down, and if necessary, as the conflict continues, actually employing nuclear weapons. Not a full-scale nuclear attack, but one or two or three, try to convince the rest of the

the world make them think, oh my God, what are we doing? Is this really worth a nuclear war? Maybe it's time to back down. So yeah, I can go into a lot more detail. I've thought about this a lot for seven years, but I was not surprised. Yeah, alarmingly, I will point out to our listeners that Matt is smiling as he conveys this news. I think maybe out of his sense of how surprising it is probably to people who haven't followed all this closely. Maybe because it makes me a little little uncomfortable as well. Yeah, well, let's start with the second half of what you said, because I think it's probably the most obviously alarming part.

Not that the threat, right, would be part of Russian doctrine, but the actual expectation of use. So how in Russian doctrine does that play out? What kinds of weapons do you use and what circumstances do you use them? Let's speak theoretically for a moment. Yeah, well, you know, so they have a large stockpile of tactical nuclear weapons, 2,000 or so tactical nuclear weapons. You know, we only have about 200 in the United States, 200 gravity bombs. But essentially any weapon you can imagine, Russia puts a nuke on. So they have

nuclear torpedoes, nuclear depth charges, nuclear naval and landmines, nuclear surface to air missiles to go after airplanes, nuclear armed missile defense interceptors to go after incoming missiles, nuclear short range ground launch missiles, intermediate range, air launch. So they have a wide variety of weapons to choose from, and many of them are low yield. You know, so Hiroshima was 15 kilotons. Russia has some sub-kiloton weapons. So, you know, you could imagine in the war in Ukraine, Russia using a low-yield nuclear weapon against the airport in Kiev or tanks on the battlefield or against an airplane. And so limited damage, you know, what would have an effect, of course, on the battlefield, but, you know, it's not nuclear holocaust, but I think the message received

in the West would be, you know, oh my God, Putin's just used a nuclear weapon. There's a mushroom cloud. There's radiation. You know, this is really escalating fast. What are we doing? We need to search for off-ramps. And that's really the goal of the strategy. Secretary of Defense Mattis referred to it as trying to force us into a position of suicide or surrender. You know, so either we get into a nuclear war with Putin that leads to our own suicide or we surrender and give him what he wants. So it's a clever and diabolical strategy in that way. It raises sort of, I'm just thinking this through in real time as you explain this to me. Doesn't it raise the following question for the Russians before they embark on this course of action?

How big of a bomb do you need to actually generate that kind of panic? The fear of out-of-control escalation, as you describe it as the goal of the act or one of the main goals of the exercise. You know, because, you know, you talk to these sub-kilat-ton weapons. if the damage really is so slight as to be, you know, tantamount to a very, very large conventional weapon. Do you achieve that effect on the West? And if not, you know, do you need to use something bigger? How do you think they're thinking through a problem like that?

How do you think about that? Well, well, I'll give you my answer. Be interested in your view, too, because I know you have some background in journalism. But my sense is that any yield nuclear weapon, the way it would be. reported in the West, the reaction would be, oh my God, the first nuclear weapon used since World War II, probably images of the mushroom cloud, images of people going to the hospital with radiation poisoning. I don't know. I think there would be even just one small yield nuclear weapon. There would be a lot of panic. But if there wasn't, they could use a second or a third, larger, larger

yield weapon. I think they have a lot of limited options, you know, between nothing and full-scale nuclear war. And do you think that the effect that you described them as wanting to achieve that that they would achieve that? You know, how do you think that NATO in general, this administration specifically is, is likely to respond to it, given the fact that, you know, presumably there are folks like yourself advising them that this is a very realistic outcome or possibility in the coming least. Yeah, so after this happened, after the Ukraine invasion in 2014, and people kind of miss this, but the Ukraine invasion in 2014 was also a nuclear crisis. Putin at the time said Russia is a major nuclear power. It's best not to mess with us. He didn't put nuclear weapons on alert in that

crisis, but he later threatened that he thought about it or bragged that he thought about it. And so after that episode, people like me began thinking, okay, what happens if he, if he does this against a NATO ally, how would we handle it, and including following through with nuclear use? And so to get around this suicide and surrender problem that I mentioned, the Trump NPR, the 2018 NPR essentially said, you know, it's bureaucratic language, but essentially said, okay, Putin, you know, we see you, we're not going to get forced into this suicide or surrender problem. You use one or two nuclear weapons. We're going to use one, two, or three right back at And so if you thought you use one nuclear weapon and you win, you're actually incorrect. You know,

you just get into a limited nuclear war with NATO. Is that really what you want? So don't go down this path in the first place. And the Trump NPR said to, this isn't just cheap talk. To make this credible, we're building two new low yield nuclear weapons precisely for this problem. So you might remember the controversy over Trump's low yield nuclear weapons four or five years ago. But this is the problem they were designed to solve. So a long-winded way of saying, if this happened against a NATO ally, I think we know what the strategy is. What makes this so confusing is it's not a NATO ally. And Biden has explicitly said that military options are off the table.

Military options are off the table. And he does seem, the White House does seem very concerned about avoiding escalation. So it's hard for me to imagine them deciding to get involved militarily after a nuclear weapon is used. So my best guess is they continue a version of the same strategy, that they say, okay, more sanctions, more diplomatic protests, more arms to the Ukrainians, but that even a nuclear weapon being used wouldn't be enough for the Biden White House to get involved militarily. Sticking for a moment with the at this point in time, March the 16th, a slightly more theoretical scenario of a tactical nuclear strike on a NATO ally. Everything you just described in terms of the way that the Trump administration. set up a possible response to that that was proportionate and sort of got us out of this, you know, dilemma that you were describing. It sounds so reasonable. It sounds so straightforward.

Very sensible stuff. As you, as you know, I'm very sympathetic to it. And yet, I think we owe it to our listeners to point out that this is widely criticized and extraordinarily controversial. What was at the time is now? What, considering how reasonable it sounded when you explained it, what could possibly be the complaints? Well, the major concern that people would have is, okay, he uses a nuclear weapon. We used one or two. He uses four. We use seven. He uses 14. Where does it stop? We're just on this pathway to general nuclear war. And so it's better not to get on that path in the first place. The problem, though, with that is then, you know, essentially you're telling Putin threaten nuclear war or use a nuclear weapon and you can do whatever you want. You know, we're not going to, we're going to back down. And, you know, today it's Kiev, tomorrow it's Warsaw. And so I do think you need a tough response. So my best guess, even if it's a NATO ally, is that the instinct of a lot of the people in the administration would be to say, well, let's not retaliate with nuclear. So let's say he uses a nuclear

weapon against Warsaw or the U.S. air base imposed on Poland. I think many in the administration would say, well, we need to defend our NATO allies. So this is an act of war. We'll, you know, defend every inch of NATO territory, as Biden said, but we'll do it with conventional weapons only. We're going to maintain the moral high ground. And just because he used nuclear weapons, we don't need to sink to his level. We're not going to do the same thing. But then what if he uses a second, third, fourth, you know, these can have devastating battlefield effect. So I think that's not the best strategy, but I'm guessing that's what their instincts would be. This notion, so when we talk about, you know, battlefield effects of nuclear weapons, I think we're entering into terrain that

a lot of people in the West just haven't thought about for a very long time. You know, when we think about nuclear, what's the expression? We're thinking about the unthinkable when we think about nuclear war. And in fact, you know, the conversation that we've been having for the last 10 minutes, it sounds quite thinkable, horrible, to be sure, extraordinarily dangerous, obviously for the people in the area, but in the much broader sense of this could escalate. Actually, it's something that is more or less unthinkable. But my understanding is that's, you know, a development, a change in thinking in America

about nuclear weapons that only sort of set in quite a few decades into the possession of nuclear weapons. The early history of the Cold War, thinking about how to use nuclear weapons as a part of a battlefield strategy was commonplace. Am I correct in that? How did that thinking actually work? Yeah, so early in the nuclear era, actually Eisenhower speaking at a press conference about one of the conflicts in Korea or in Asia, I can't remember if it was Korea or Taiwan, was asked about the use of nuclear weapons, and he said, sure, we'll use nuclear weapons like a bullet or anything else. So I think that was the first, you know, kind of thinking about these weapons. You know, these are just, you know, big artillery shells. And then over time, you did have the rise of this,

you know, kind of anti-nuclear movement, the idea of a nuclear taboo. Although if you look at NATO defense strategy, really till the end of the Cold War, you know, we did have battlefield nuclear weapons in Europe. And the Russians had conventional military superiority. So really, it the end of the Cold War, our military strategy was to use nuclear weapons first or threatened to use nuclear weapons first to offset Russia's conventional superiority. This is one of the reasons the United States never went to a so-called no-first-use policy. Some countries say they wouldn't use nuclear weapons first. We would only use them in retaliation. The United States during the Cold War said, no, we have to use these first or we can't defend Europe. So the thinking never really changed

in Russia. And so I think that's important to understand. We see these as taboo weapons. It's unthinkable. I don't think Putin and the Russian see them that way. You know, so major Russian military exercises end with simulated nuclear strikes. You know, Putin appears, gives his state of the Union address and brags about the new nuclear weapons they're building actually shows at a state of the Union address a couple of years ago, showed a new nuclear missile striking Maralago, Florida, you know, unimaginable that Biden would, in a state of the union address, like have simulated nuclear strikes on a big screen behind him. But that's how the Russians think about. And I think they see this as an advantage. You know, they're willing to use these weapons and

we're not. And so, you know, let's fight where they have one hand tied behind their back. Matt, help us understand battlefield nuclear tactics, both as a historical matter, you know, in terms of the way that it seems in the past we used to think about things, but also as a present day consideration in terms of how Russians might employ them in Ukraine. Because on one level, speaking as a former infantryman, you know, when you're using conventional fires, even very large conventional fires, you can use them in very close to coordination with maneuver and you can maneuver right onto the spot where you're firing.

For obvious reasons, it seems to get a little bit more complicated when you're using nukes. But just help us understand how, um, how one, thinks, whether it's the Russians or more generally, one thinks about using nukes as part of the battle plan. Yes. Well, the first thing I'll say is, you know, for Russia, I think the primary purpose of this escalate to de-escalate strategy is not to win the battle. It is really more the psychological effect, you know, escalate to de-escalate. So escalate the risk of nuclear war, make the West afraid so that then the West de-escalates on terms favorable to Moscow. But, you know, they have more than symbolic effects. They can

have devastating battlefield effects. So one of the advantages, one of the reasons that Russia relies on them so much is because you don't have to be that accurate if you're using a nuke, you know, for an air defense system, a missile defense system. You know, we essentially have hit-to-kill technology. You need a direct hit. If you're using a nuke, you just have to kind of be close. If you're, if you're, you know, dealing with infantry or tanks, you know, one nuclear weapon, you know, clears the field rather than, you know, a bunch of conventional munitions. Same thing, a naval battle, you know, one nuclear weapon, you know, wipes the sea clean of the opponent's naval force.

So, yeah, you don't need the accuracy and you get, you know, a big yield that can really devastate your opponent's military. And do you, I mean, in the case of chemical weapons, you could then sort of don your protective gear and maneuver into the space where you've been using them. Do you rush an infantry or ground maneuver units? Are they then avoiding the areas where they've struck because of the radiation? That's a good question. There is this so-called countering WMD concept about how you would kind of fight through an area where WMD have been used.

But I don't know how the Russians think about that, to be honest. Maybe they're just not too concerned about whether their soldiers die with radiation poisoning or maybe they'd avoid the area for a while. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, I saw Chernobyl, the HBO miniseries that documented the general attitude towards junior Russian personnel. So I take your point, not to mention what we're all seeing in Ukraine right now.

The reason I keep sort of pursuing this line of questioning, I take your point that the primary use of the weapons, even the smaller weapons, is sort of still strategic, even if they are themselves, you know, strictly speaking tactical. It's because, you know, the Russians face real military problems. I mean, it certainly surprised me. it seems to have surprised most people, except maybe the Ukrainians who were always, who knows, maybe they were this confident that they could gum up the works all along. But certainly here in Washington, most of us were surprised.

And so I just keep, I'm sort of compelled to think about, well, gosh, you know, a month from now, two months from now, three months from now, Putin is still sitting on the perimeter of Kiev, you know, maybe progress in the south is ground to a halt. You know, this is a pessimistic from his point of view prediction of how things will go. But you could imagine a point where the cost, resources to even maintain a stalemate is so high that you start thinking about battlefield use for battlefield purposes and they have these strategic effects as well. You know, I got, I got asked, since for this deeply grim subject matter, what about chemical weapons? What is the Russian thinking

in terms of employment there? Because those also have battlefield effects and there are these international norms, not to say international prescriptions of international law regarding them, but they have their purposes when properly employed. How do the Russians think about that. Yeah, I think the risk of a chemical use by Russia is probably even higher than nuclear use. You know, we saw Putin back Assad as Assad gassed his own people in Syria. And then we've heard the Russians in recent days essentially coming up with what sound to me like pretexts for Russian chemical or biological use, you know, accusing the Ukrainians of developing chemical weapons in consultation with the United States. So it sounds to me like preparation

for a false flag attack. Use a chemical weapon, say it was the Ukrainians were going to retaliate and then use chemical weapons back. And while chemical weapons, you know, in World War I, they weren't that effective on the battlefield. But we have seen with Saddam Hussein's use against his own people in Iraq, Assad's use in Syria, if really what you're looking to do is kill

and terrorize a civilian population, especially in dense urban areas, they can be effective for that. So given the change in Russian strategy, in over the past week or 10 days or so, you know, seeming to purposely target innocent civilians, you can see why that might be attractive as well. Yeah, preemptive counterinsurgency warfare. Yes. So back to American policy questions for for a moment. So you mentioned the Trump administration's movement in the direction of developing and deploying American tactical nuclear

weapons. You gave us a long list of items that the Russians have for some reason. I just can't help myself, I find the notion of a nuclear landmine to be like somewhat comical. It's not. There's no reason for it to be, but I just, I kind of can't help but chuckle at the notion. It reminds me of the very large IED we discovered in Helmand province in 2010. That was 20 pieces of military ordinance, daisy chain together, but it was a pool cord detonator that went onto the roof of a one-story building about 20 meters from the alley, essentially, but the thing was about to be cooked off. Unsurprisingly, we found it undettonated. Because it's sort of one of these classic like seemed like a good idea at the time when you're sending up ideas that you know the next

morning when time came to pull the cord no one really had the will to do it anyway sorry sounds like a suicide mission yeah indeed yeah and the i guess the um the guy who drew the short straw had second thoughts so what is the mix so you talked about the gravity bombs that we have what what is the mix of weapons that were under discussion for development the trump administration where do things where does this issue sort of stand now you know has has all movement on on this front been reversed. Good, yeah. And I do want to come back to the issue of scenarios where Putin might use nuclear weapons

because I have some more thoughts on that. But on this, you know, so during the Cold War, the United States had, you know, non-strategic nuclear weapons as well, as I said in Europe, but also in Korea. At the end of the Cold War, there was this presidential nuclear initiative, George H.W. Bush, and I think it was Yeltsin at the time kind of agreed. It wasn't a formal treaty, but they said, you know, that was kind of stupid, having all these, you know, battlefield nuclear weapons. What were we thinking? Let's get rid of this stuff. And the United States did. You know, the United States now only has, you know, 200 or so gravity bombs that could be, you know, dropped from F-16, F-18, F-35 fighter aircraft, lower yield.

Russia did get rid of a lot, but it kept a lot and it's building more, as I mentioned before. So what the Trump administration called for was a low yield submarine launch ballistic missile. So we already have nuclear armed submarine launch ballistic missiles. So essentially all they did was take a weapon that already exist and reduce the yield. And those have already entered service. So we have those. It's possible Biden could decide to reverse that. But it would be a little bit odd saying, no, I'm going to take a weapon we already have

and make its explosive yield, you know, even larger. It doesn't really seem consistent with this pledge he's made to reduce reliance on nuclear weapons. The one that I think is more at risk is the Trump administration called for a second low-yield nuclear weapon, a nuclear-armed sea-launch cruise missile, so a nuclear-armed Tomahawk, basically. We had those during the Cold War. We got rid of them. It was finally retired in 2010 by Obama. So the idea was to build a new one.

But this is, you know, it's going to take seven to 10 years to design and build a new weapon system. So it's in its infancy. And so I am afraid that Biden is going to decide to kill that weapon. But a little bit, you know, puzzling timing. It was a weapon designed to deter Putin from using nuclear weapons at a time that he's invading other countries, making nuclear threats. You know, it seems like it would be bad timing to kill that weapon. But my prediction actually is that is what we'll see. And could you just sort of put yourself in the shoes of someone defending that decision in the Biden administration?

What's the what's the case they would make for killing it? Well, I think they have a dilemma, you know, because Biden has promised that he's going to, quote, reduce reliance on nuclear weapons. And I think essentially he's speaking to to mostly the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, the kind of anti-nuclear, you know, thinking that you've often had on that part of the left. But I think his defense department realizes we need these weapons. And so I think, you know, he's got that kind of internal tug of war. So I think what he would say, somebody defending it would say, is, well, we still have a robust, you know, nuclear arsenal.

We're continuing plans to modernize, you know, that started with Obama, continued with Trump. We're keeping the low-yield gravity bombs. We're keeping the low-yield submarine launch ballistic missiles. We've got, you know, that'll be enough. We're just killing this one system. And so, you know, We have a balanced approach. We're reducing reliance, even while we maintain a strong nuclear deterrent. Well, you mentioned you have more to contribute on scenarios in which the Russians might use nuclear weapons. I'm all yours. So, you know, outside experts debate, does Russia have this escalate to deescalate strategy or not?

The U.S. government says that they do, as we've seen in recent weeks, they have pretty good insight into Russian defense planning. and so I agree with them. The outside experts who say they don't have the escalate to deescalate strategy say, look at the formal doctrine. And the formal Russian doctrine says something like Russia would use nuclear weapons first if the existence of the state of Russia were under threat or something like that. And so outside experts say, no, this means, you know, if we're driving, you know, onto downtown Moscow, he'd use nuclear weapons.

others, including senior Obama defense official, said, no, from Putin's, you know, this is Putin, in his mindset, if he loses a war on his border, his regime could be at risk. In his mind, that's the same thing as the existence of the state of Russia. And so this is a scenario that people thought about, you know, well before the current crisis. If, you know, he tries to invade Estonian, it goes poorly, you know, according to the doctrine, that's when you use nuclear weapons. So that's one of the scenarios I worry about. You know, if Ukrainians are doing well with Western support, they're actually pushing Russian forces out and Putin's looking at this embarrassing military defeat,

I think he would use nuclear weapons before he would just accept defeat. Yeah. And, you know, despite where we started, which is, you know, among the outcomes, you know, a very possible outcome is some level of conventional Russian success negotiated, you know, partition of a sort on terms, you know, Finland. of what's left, you know, it's possible. Also possible is this thing just keeps going. And we end up in some sort of strange netherworld where we have an insurgency like conflict in some parts of the country, a conventional type conflict in other parts of the country. And in that kind of scenario,

yeah, I mean, you can absolutely imagine the risks to Putin's rule as the costs continue to mount, as the financial pressures, sanctions, et cetera, continued to mount. And everything you were describing would seem somewhat rational if it offered Putin a way to, at the very least, cut off Western intervention in the fighting, you know, a play to shock the West into stopping what help they're providing the Ukraine. Yes. And you mentioned the term rational. You know, that's one of the other debates we've had around this.

Is Putin still rational or not? You know, was it rational to invade? Would it be rational to use nuclear weapons? My read for what it's worth is that he is rational. rational and you just put yourself in his shoes and if your goal is to recreate the Russian Empire and if you look at his track record of using military force you know he used military force in Chechnya basically worked you used it in Georgia 2008 basically worked used it in Ukraine in 2014 basically worked Syria in 2015 basically worked so I think he's saying yeah I want to go down

as this great Russian leader I want to retake Kiev you know let's go to the tool that works I think this was a rational decision. And I think that using nuclear weapons in certain circumstances could be a rational decision from his point of view for some of the reasons you've mentioned. Because I've had people say, well, that would be irrational, doesn't mutually assure destruction still work. But for these limited use scenarios, if he can pop off a nuke and get the West to back down, that's a rational move from his point of view.

And we got into this little bit, but do you, in the Ukrainian sense, scenario. That is to say he releases a nuke against some target, you know, not on NATO territory in Ukraine. Does the West back down? I think we'd see this unity we've seen. I think you would see that fragmented. I do think you'd have some in Europe saying, okay, this has gone too far. Let's let's sue for peace. I think you'd see some in the United States saying this is gone too far. Let's sue for peace. So who knows how Biden, Macron, you know, other. would come down on this. My best guess is that actually we'd continue doing what we're doing and maybe dial it up a little bit. So more arms to the Ukrainians, more sanctions,

you know, UN Security Council meeting, maybe more reinforcements to the eastern flank of NATO. But I don't see us getting involved militarily. Yeah. Yeah. You know, if there's any unambiguous lesson from all of this, it's you referred to the United States and Russia downgrading their weapons stockpiles at the end of the Cold War. Of course, Ukraine, famously, you know, in return for some guarantees, gave up all of its nuclear weapons. That seems to me to be the major take. Don't give up your nukes if you have them. Well, I think that is a lesson that others may draw, but I actually think the Ukrainians made the right decision. Interesting. Please say more.

Yeah, well, one, you know, they never really had control of the nuclear weapons. It was, you know, Soviet forces on Ukraine and in possession. So the new Ukrainian government, you know, They didn't have commanding control over the weapons. Unclear if they could have even gotten control, would they have had to physically attack the, you know, the Russian soldiers in possession of them? So unclear if they could have gotten them. Second, we have to remember the time period. You know, this is the unipolar moment. The United States was putting a lot of pressure on Ukraine to give up the weapons.

When they did, the West rewarded Ukraine with economic aid packages and other things. If they had made the other decision, no, we're going to keep these. I think Ukraine would have been treated as a rogue state for the past 25 years. It would have been like Iran or North Korea would have been subject to sanctions, military threats. So given that, I think they made the right decision. Also, I want to comment on the security guarantees. So this was the Budapest memorandum. This is one of the promises made to Ukraine that if they gave up their nuclear weapons,

they'd receive negative security assurances from the U.S., UK, Russia, and maybe one or two others. And so some people have misinterpreted that as saying, oh, we promised to protect Ukraine security, and now we're not living up to that commitment. But there's a difference between a positive security guarantee like we have with our allies, we'll protect you, and a negative security guarantee where we just say, you know, we don't pose a threat to you. So this was a negative security guarantee. And so the United States, the UK have lived up to that. We're not threatening Ukraine.

It's the Russians who violated this. So one of the many violations of international law that Putin is engaging in with this conflict. Just because you made reference to the country, I got to bring it up. But of course, you're sitting here Wednesday, March the 16th. Some of my friends and colleagues expect the announcement of a nuclear deal, renewed nuclear deal with Iran. soon others are more skeptical one way or the other we do seem to find ourselves in this sort of bizarre situation where we are engaged in supplying russia's enemies in ukraine with the means to to do battle against them and condemning their their behavior the russian behavior there

rightly so while at the same time engaged in negotiations that intimately involve the russians that probably understates it the russians are more or less brokers of the deal we are trying to make with Iran to somehow keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons. So maybe you could talk about your impression of where things stand. I'm curious to know where you come down kind of in the prediction business here. And also how you can tell from the way I'm framing the question, how absurd I find. But talk about this sort of situation we're in where on the one hand, we are vociferously opposed to what Russia is doing in Ukraine.

And on the other hand, apparently cooperating with them to achieve a goal, I'll just, I'll cut it off there before I leave the question. Yes. Well, maybe I'll start broad and go narrow. You know, I think broadly this shows that the Biden administration's global approach to foreign affairs hasn't gone as planned. You know, I do think they had this idea that they were going to come in and park the Russia relationship, put it on a stable and predictable footing as they called it, park the

Middle East by entering the Iran deal quickly and easily, and then focus everything on China. and, you know, Putin and the Ayatollah had had different ideas. And so, you know, now the crisis they're dealing with are not in Asia, but Europe in the Middle East. And I do think that may be causal, you know, the idea that we didn't want to have to deal with these regions gave leaders in Moscow and Tehran an incentive to push harder. So my best guess is that we still will reenter the the 25th, the version of the nuclear deal. I think it's a mistake. I was a critic of the 2015. deal. But I think the Biden administration really wants it. You know, it's one of the few things that Biden promised during the campaign. And even as negotiators leave, you know, he's still sticking with this.

And I think the Iranians ultimately want it because I think they're getting a pretty good deal. You know, they're getting limits on their nuclear program that expire in just a few years. And, you know, additional sanctions relief in addition to what they got in 2015. So my guess is that we'll still get the deal. Final thing, I guess I'll say on, on the last thing. I guess I'll say on the absurdity of all of this. I do think the Biden administration and many others have this idea that we can confront Russia where that makes sense, cooperate where that makes sense. Same thing with China, kind of a dual track approach. And I think there are maybe times or adversaries where that did make sense. Increasingly, I'm not sure if that makes sense in the world that we're entering now.

I mean, it does seem like Russia, China, Iran are cooperating more closely together. The areas of confrontation greatly outweigh, you know, the areas of possible cooperation. And so my thinking is we probably need to confront all three in the short term if we hope to have areas for more cooperative relations in the future. But I don't see how we dual track them really in the current moment. Matt Kronig, professor at Georgetown, director of studies at the Atlantic Council, author of a number of fascinating books, Return of Great Power Rivalry, The Logic of American Nuclear There's nuclear strategy, author of frequent op-eds and pieces of commentary that I make a point to read every time they're published. Thank you so much for joining.

Really appreciate it. Really a pleasure, Aaron. It was a great discussion and look forward to chatting again soon. This is a nebulous media production. Find us wherever you get your podcasts.