Putin has unleashed a new age of nuclear proliferation

There are many ways in which Russian President Vladimir Putin has made the world a more dangerous, brutish and frightening place. One is by raising the potential for nuclear Armageddon. Two scenarios stand out. The first involves the short term; the other, the long.

In the short term, we're all hoping his latest nuclear threat is just a bluff. During the rant announcing his attack on Ukraine, Putin sent this not-too-subtle message to the West: Try to stop me and "you will face consequences greater than any you have faced in history. [...] I hope you hear me." A couple of days later he ordered his country's nuclear forces to adopt "special combat readiness."

That's what the world has come to. The leader of a European nation in 2022 not only invades a smaller neighbor which did nothing to provoke him but threatens nuclear war in case things don't go his way. 

Even if it is a bluff, it's more frightening than anything since the Cuban Missile Crisis, for two reasons. First, there are questions about whether the man has become unhinged. Second, Russia's nuclear policy under Putin has in fact incorporated the option of precisely the sort of "tactical" nuclear strike he was alluding to. It's defined as a limited (if that is the word) atomic attack to end a conventional conflict on Moscow's terms. The Americans have dubbed this approach "escalate to de-escalate." 

Even aside from the moral nihilism, the flaw in his assumptions is glaring. Nobody knows how to "limit" a nuclear conflagration. Other nuclear powers must react within minutes — by retaliating or not, for themselves or on behalf of allies; or by preempting subsequent Russian strikes with their own assault on enemy arsenals.

But even if the specter of tactical nukes passes, there's the long-term damage Putin has already caused. That's because he has probably ruined any chance that the international community will ever drive or keep atomic warheads out of the hands of more — and more dangerous — people. 

To grasp this part of his legacy, look at this letter drafted in 1994, before Putin was even in power. It was sent to the Secretary General of the United Nations and underwritten by the Permanent Representatives of the UK, US, Ukraine and Russia. Signing for the latter was Sergey Lavrov, who is today Putin's foreign minister.

At the time, Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, had the third-largest nuclear arsenal — about 1,900 warheads — after the US and Russia. The world feared that its bombs and those in the other shards of the USSR would be impossible to control and fall into the hands of terrorists. But in history's greatest disarmament triumph, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan agreed to give up their warheads and join the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

In return, they got assurances outlined in that letter. Lavrov and the other signatories promised "to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine; [...] to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, [...] to refrain from economic coercion," and other good things.

So much for all that.

Putin — always parroted by Lavrov — has broken every single guarantee his country gave in the Budapest Memorandum, as that 1994 deal was called. As Russian artillery rains on them today, Ukrainians are right to regret giving up their nukes. If they had kept them, Putin might have thought twice about invading in 2014, and certainly about assaulting the whole country now. 

Every aspiring or incumbent leader across the world has taken note — from tin-pot dictators here to mullahs there, from aspiring superpowers to stateless terrorists. Putin has taught them that to disarm is a mistake, no matter what you're promised, because sooner or later you'll encounter somebody, well, like him.

Even before Putin's latest aggression, the NPT was already in trouble. In force since 1970, it recognized the five countries that already had nukes but expected all others to forego their own arsenals in return for monitored access to civilian fission technology. But four more states have since built warheads; more are trying or thinking about it. 

The treaty's tenth Review Conference (RevCon in the jargon) has already been postponed four times and is now slated for August. Thanks to Putin, nobody expects anything anymore. The same goes for all other arms-control talks. The only such treaty left in force (called New START) will expire in 2026. And it covers only strategic (basically meaning intercontinental) weapons, not the tactical kind Putin is betting on. Meanwhile, China is arming as fast as it can. 

Just the other day, there was another echo of Lavrov's mendacity in 1994. In January, the five states recognized in the NPT as nuclear powers jointly declared that "a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought." The wording harked back to a historic declaration by the US and the Soviet Union in 1985 — in retrospect almost an innocent and stable time. 

But this time the leader of one signatory country was Putin, who was already massing his troops around Ukraine for the invasion he denied even contemplating. With their lies, duplicity and bad faith, Putin, Lavrov and their coterie are doing everything in their power to lose the last, best hope on earth.

Disclaimer: This article first appeared on Bloomberg, and is published by special syndication arrangement.