As a Generation X kid who grew up during the Cold War, fear of nuclear war is still a deeply ingrained instinct. We read Alas Babylon in school and saw The Day After to give us a sense of what a nuclear apocalypse might be like. Everyone understood it was the summum malum, the end of civilization as we know it.
The fear of nuclear war did not stop all conflict during the Cold War, but it did ensure that conflicts were limited. During that tense time, there were no world wars or sustained fighting between the nuclear powers themselves. Instead, wars took place among proxies far from the territory of the superpowers, such as the wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan.
A few decades after the end of the Cold War—during which no one was particularly worried about a nuclear war—a new conflict with Russia has arisen due to major disagreements about the nature of the international order and our respective places within it. What began in 2014 as a limited confrontation between Russia and a western-backed Ukraine has evolved into an enormous conventional war.
After the West increased its support to Ukraine following Russia’s 2022 invasion, there was some recognition among western leaders about the dangers of provocation. Even so, such risk has increased in an incremental fashion. At first, western leaders thought it was too much to provide tanks, but soon the West relented, and the Ukrainians received M1 Abrams and Leopard II tanks.
Then, there was a lot of hemming and hawing about providing F-16 fighter jets. This surprised me, as they are not materially better than Ukraine’s MiG-29s, but, apparently, one of the Russian objections was that F-16s can carry nuclear armaments and risk confusion about western intentions. But now Ukraine has these as well.
We have since crossed the last phase line. Having provided Ukraine the Storm Shadow and ATACMS medium-range missiles, we have now authorized their use against Russian territory, in spite of increasingly desperate Russian warnings. After this authorization, Ukraine promptly fired them into Russian territory. Russia claims that these weapons can only be targeted with direct western involvement and that the West is practically and morally responsible for their use.
While Russia has conveyed many warnings, so far it has avoided directly targeting western countries and personnel. This week something different happened. First, after the West’s official authorization to use smart missiles against Russian territory, Russia expanded its nuclear doctrine to authorize the use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine. Then, in response to a Ukrainian attack using these sophisticated weapons, Russia launched several intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) with multiple independent reentry vehicles (MIRVs) against the Ukrainian city of Dnipro.
This is extremely serious. These launches and missile trajectories can be detected from space through our nuclear warning satellites. While Russia made normal deconfliction communications in advance of the missile launch, it is not clear if anyone on our side knew for certain whether or not the Russian MIRVs had nuclear warheads.
Nuclear warheads are typically the only thing delivered through MIRVs. Perhaps as the hypersonic weapons approached the target, the crews at NORAD were on the edge of their seats with anticipation, like a scene from the movie War Games. Dramatic footage of their impact showed sophisticated, fast-moving warheads that cannot easily be intercepted.
Regardless of anyone’s feelings about the war, Ukraine is not winning, and it will not recover its lost territories. It is not a question of its people’s commitment or the West’s. We have given them everything we could in terms of money and matériel, and they have fought with bravery and tenacity.
But this is a war of attrition, and reality has a vote. Ukraine has far fewer people than Russia, is losing territory at an accelerating pace, has likely lost several hundred thousand men killed, and many of the remaining men are avoiding service, remaining overseas, and building lives elsewhere.
When the conflict devolved into a war of attrition in late 2022, it was pretty clear that there was no realistic prospect for a Ukrainian victory. This was even more clear after the failure of the 2023 Ukrainian summer offensive.
The Kursk incursion earlier this year was supposed to boost Ukrainian spirits and change the strategic landscape. But the initial success of that campaign has proven to be entirely ephemeral, and this risky move accelerated the collapse of the Ukrainian front. It seems western leaders are only coming around to this realization now.
The Russian use of an ICBM is the first combat usage of such weapons in history. This is a very clear warning that Russia has nearly run out of patience with the West’s practice of incrementally increasing its assistance to Ukraine. Such weapons can reach European capitals in minutes, whether armed with conventional or nuclear payloads.
For NATO and the West, escalating brinkmanship might be justified if victory were in sight, some high principle like anti-communism were involved, or if any of this contributed to American security. But none of these things are true. We are risking the annihilation of the world over a border dispute that has nothing to do with our country or its security. The American people have rejected our continued involvement in this tragic war, but there are unfortunately many opportunities for escalation and miscalculation in the weeks ahead.
The only thing standing between the world and a nuclear war is the rational restraint of Vladimir Putin and any hope he harbors of a deal under President Trump. Let us hope Russia’s leaders remain more rational and restrained than our own in the weeks ahead.
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