JRL NEWSWATCH: “Putin and the Psychology of Nuclear Brinksmanship” – Foreign Affairs

“The War in Ukraine Hinges on One Man’s Thoughts and Feelings.”
“Shortly after the West rebuked Russia for its 2022 invasion of Ukraine and imposed financial sanctions … Putin … put[] … nuclear forces on high alert. The Kremlin has issued many more nuclear threats, some oblique … some explicit …. Even before the war … Russia … reversed its longtime ‘no first use’ policy …. Some now believe Russia has switched to an approach known as ‘escalate to de-escalate,’ … [the concept of nuclear escalation] … [to] prov[e] one’s commitment to destruction … [to] forc[e] the enemy to capitulate. In Ukraine, that could mean … tactical, low-yield nuclear weapons on the battlefield — which CIA Director William Burns and … high-ranking U.S. military leaders have warned is possible. Putin … has … said … Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons … confronting an ‘existential’ threat. … [I]t is impossible to precisely assess the odds that Putin will use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. But uncertainty and imprecision are not the same as ignorance. Psychological theory and evidence … [and] the history of warfare[] point to a high enough risk that Western governments must plan ahead[] … [and] weigh … possible responses to an escalation that would come as a shock but should not come as a surprise. …”
Click here for: “Putin and the Psychology of Nuclear Brinksmanship; The War in Ukraine Hinges on One Man’s Thoughts and Feelings” – Foreign Affairs/ Rose McDermott, Reid Pauly, Paul Slovic