Ray McGovern Warns, ‘Putin Makes REAL Nuclear Threat; U.S. Yawns’

Dec. 12, 2022 (EIRNS)—Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, in a column posted under the above headline on Antiwar.com today, takes note of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s statement of Dec. 9 that Russia is considering changing its nuclear doctrine to allow for the preventive use of nuclear weapons. “Such a change,” McGovern writes, “would align Russia’s nuclear posture with Washington’s own strategic doctrine and, at one stroke, make the world far more dangerous.”

McGovern warns: “Western pundits have been largely silent on this. Those few who have mentioned it speak of ‘saber rattling’ by Putin—bluffing. I would not be so cavalier.”

He explains why: “Putin’s highly unusual remarks leave no doubt that Russia views the U.S./NATO proxy war in Ukraine as the kind of existential threat that President John Kennedy perceived, when Moscow installed nuclear missiles in Cuba. Those missiles were capable of hitting, within minutes, Washington and the Strategic Air Command in Omaha.” U.S. missiles in Europe represent an even graver threat now to Moscow, McGovern stresses. “For readers who have missed this, U.S. missile capsules already emplaced in Romania and Poland—ostensibly for ‘ABMs’—can accommodate overnight what Russia calls ‘offensive strike missiles’—with even shorter launch-to-target time—than those Kennedy strong-armed Khrushchev to remove from Cuba, under threat of nuclear war.”

McGovern also argued that Putin’s remarks brought some clarity to the false accusation that Moscow intends to use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine. “That charge is a red herring—a highly mischievous one,” McGovern writes.

“The Kremlin strongly suspects some sort of false-flag nuclear explosion (perhaps a dirty bomb) might be used by West to ‘justify’ responding with some kind of tactical nuclear weapon lying in bunkers in several European NATO member states. The Russians fear that NATO might opt for this kind of nuclear ‘solution’ as the only possible way to stave off definitive defeat of Kiev’s remaining forces this winter. Yes, Russia is fully capable of inflicting such a defeat on Kiev, absent any prospect of serious negotiations.”

Putin, McGovern says, “has not explicitly threatened to use ‘tactical’ nuclear weapons; rather, from the outset in February, he has said he is committed to using ‘all the means at his disposal.’ ”

McGovern quotes from Putin’s Dec. 9 answer in his Bishkek press conference, so that readers do not dismiss his warning.