In the autumn of 2022, after Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine had been pushed back by counteroffensives and Vladimir Putin’s forces were facing the prospect of a humiliating and costly defeat, US intelligence began to issue warnings that Russia was preparing to use a tactical nuclear weapon to stem Ukrainian advances and stabilise the position on the battlefield.
The intelligence – which had earlier correctly predicted the invasion of Ukraine – was supported by a series of belligerent statements from regime figures in Moscow, which spoke of a mortal threat to the Russian state, the threshold required by Russian military doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons.
The US Biden administration issued a series of public and private warnings to dissuade Putin, with Joe Biden also working through the Chinese and Indians to further pressure Moscow.
The episode has been much discussed in Washington and beyond.
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It is described in detail in an article published earlier this year by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, entitled “The Fall Crisis of 2022: why did Russia not use nuclear arms?” by German academic Ulrich Kühn. Someone has to think about these things, I suppose.
Citing reporting by Bob Woodward among others, it summarised: “The possibility of Russia using nuclear weapons against Ukraine led the administration of US President Joseph R Biden to confront the Russians directly in numerous and threatening calls, to reach out to China and other states in order to influence the Kremlin, and to issue public warnings.”
The US warned that the use of a nuclear weapon, even a small “tactical” one, would be viewed as a historic departure in world affairs, a crossing of a red line that would certainly provoke a Nato response.
[ There is ‘naivety’ in Ireland over Russian threat, says TaoiseachOpens in new window ]
What would that response be? Retired US general David Petraeus – perhaps saying things the administration couldn’t say publicly – spoke publicly about it, saying he believed that there would be an immediate massive conventional Nato response which would effectively destroy the Russian army in Ukraine.
“Just to give you a hypothetical,” he told ABC News, “we would respond by leading a Nato – a collective – effort that would take out every Russian conventional force that we can see and identify on the battlefield in Ukraine and also in Crimea and every ship in the Black Sea.”
Whether or not Biden would have gone ahead with such retaliation, we will never know. But US military superiority means that this was a realisable threat. This is – or was – the reality of the US security guarantee to Europe.
This week, European leaders gathered in Copenhagen to discuss the future of European security in the face of Russian threats and the war in Ukraine.
They met against a background of multiple Russian incursions into the airspace of central and eastern European countries in recent weeks, and unidentified drone activity around Danish airports and military bases during the run-in to the summit, widely presumed to be the work of Russian agents.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen said: “We are now in the most difficult situation in Europe since the end of the second world war. Our security and of course our freedom is under threat.”
I cannot emphasise enough how much the countries of central and eastern Europe – and now increasingly the Baltic and the north – feel the Russian threat to them is a real and present danger.
If you are a person of average age there – in the first half of your forties – you lived the first decade of your life under Russian domination; you are likely to have relatives who were carted off by the secret police. The freedoms we take for granted were denied to the peoples of the former Soviet Bloc until the 1990s. And now Russia threatens to return.
[ EU leaders huddle in Copenhagen amid growing threat from RussiaOpens in new window ]
And whereas until this year, you felt that the US was the guarantor of your security and liberty, that guarantee now looks a lot shakier. Would Donald Trump stand up to the Russians like Biden did? Would he threaten to destroy the Russian army? Would Putin take him seriously if he did?
If this seems remote to us, it is anything but to Ireland’s EU partners. They see a need to be ready to defend themselves and to deter Russia’s aggressive actions. They see a need for Ukraine to win – or at least not to lose – because they believe that makes them safer. This is not a world that anyone wants to live in. But it is the world we live in now.
Catherine Connolly’s horror at the remilitarisation of Europe is understandable. But it is a very strange lesson to take from the history of the 1930s that democracies, faced with the threat from aggressive autocracies, should not prepare to defend themselves.
In fact, the lessons are exactly the opposite: that political will and military strength are essential.
Strategically important but a laggard in defence issues, Ireland faces a choice: dramatically and quickly increase our defence capacities and play a meaningful part in the defence of the EU, or lose influence, respect, friendship and co-operation in Europe.
And no, “using our voice for peace” will not be an adequate substitute to investment in radar, maritime surveillance capabilities, cyber defences and other security necessities.
You’ll find that pretty much everyone in the EU is in favour of peace: that’s why they are prepared to deter war. In the coming year, Ireland will be looking for allies on Mercosur, on the future of Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) funding, on the nitrates directive, on the next EU budget. Of course, there’s no connection between these issues and defence. But at another level, everything is connected.
Alliances are a two-way street. So is EU membership.
