{"id":78397,"date":"2024-06-21T22:20:05","date_gmt":"2024-06-21T22:20:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/21\/putin-shows-he-can-antagonize-the-u-s-far-afield-from-ukraine\/"},"modified":"2024-06-21T22:20:06","modified_gmt":"2024-06-21T22:20:06","slug":"putin-shows-he-can-antagonize-the-u-s-far-afield-from-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/21\/putin-shows-he-can-antagonize-the-u-s-far-afield-from-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"Putin Shows He Can Antagonize the U.S. Far Afield From Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/06\/22\/multimedia\/22russia-putin-assess-01-gtkb\/22russia-putin-assess-01-gtkb-facebookJumbo.jpg?fit=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Putin Shows He Can Antagonize the U.S. Far Afield From Ukraine\" title=\"Putin Shows He Can Antagonize the U.S. Far Afield From Ukraine\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">His ominous warnings, at the end of a two-day trip to North Korea and Vietnam, placed Russia and the West in a new round of escalation over Ukraine. They come amid distraction and political uncertainty among Kyiv\u2019s chief backers, with potentially game-changing elections on the horizon in the United States and France.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Beyond using nuclear weapons or causing more destruction on the battlefield in Ukraine, the Russian leader is seeking to prove he can pressure and antagonize the West in other ways and other places.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI am afraid we are in a bad spiral, that policymakers have an illusion of control,\u201d said Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. \u201cThe really dangerous part of what is happening is that Russia is ready to act as a spoiler and is determined to extract a cost from the West for supporting Ukraine militarily \u2014 and it is ready to do several irreversible acts, like sharing sophisticated military technology with North Korea.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">With Western officials more inured to Mr. Putin\u2019s threats than during the early days of the war, the Russian leader has changed the content and turned up the volume, asking rhetorically at one point Thursday why Moscow shouldn\u2019t \u201cgo all the way\u201d \u2014 an apparent reference to nuclear war \u2014 if the West indeed is seeking its \u201cstrategic defeat.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">From the start, Mr. Putin has used the threat of nuclear war as a way to deter Western nations from supporting Ukraine. <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/02\/24\/world\/europe\/why-russia-attacked-ukraine.html\" title=\"\">When he launched his full-scale invasion in early 2022<\/a>, he warned any country considering intervening that they would face consequences \u201csuch as you have never seen in your entire history.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Initially, the threat worked. President Biden\u2019s administration made the avoidance of nuclear war the North Star of its Ukraine policy. The United States and its allies withheld a full suite of sophisticated weapons from Kyiv out of fears that Mr. Putin would carry out a nuclear strike or retaliate directly against a NATO member state.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Critics of that restraint have <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/2024\/01\/09\/ukraine-war-win-chance-west-lost\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">argued<\/a> it robbed Ukraine of its best chance at victory during the first year of the invasion, when Russia was failing badly on the battlefield and Ukraine still had an abundance of trained personnel.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But supporters say the approach allowed the West to arm Ukraine with weapons that would have triggered a stronger reaction from the Kremlin had they been given all at once. Ukraine\u2019s allies gradually increased the sophistication and scope of their weapons deliveries, first with HIMARS missile launchers, later with tanks and F-16 fighter jets, in a strategy that some Western officials likened to the gradual boiling of a frog.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The latest change \u2014 permission for Ukraine to conduct limited strikes into Russia to defend itself against cross-border attacks \u2014 appears to have Mr. Putin feeling the heat. Since that shift, he has frequently mentioned his nuclear arsenal and suggested other ways Russia could escalate in response to the West.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Skeptics of Mr. Putin\u2019s rhetoric say they see little reason for him to use a nuclear weapon. A senior NATO official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss private assessments, said the alliance judged it \u201cunlikely\u201d that Mr. Putin would use nuclear weapons in the conflict and hadn\u2019t seen any changes to Russia\u2019s nuclear posture to suggest otherwise.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But Mr. Putin showed in Pyongyang that he can take measures short of firing off a nuclear weapon and far afield from Ukraine, and still unnerve the United States and its allies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Russian leader\u2019s willingness to brandish the possibility of arming Pyongyang, which earlier in Mr. Putin\u2019s tenure as president would have been unthinkable, shows how much the war in Ukraine has become a singular, defining principle of his foreign policy and his rule.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cRussian foreign policy is now structured around the war,\u201d Mr. Gabuev said. \u201cIn every relationship, there are three goals: first, support for the Russian military machine; second, support for the Russian economy under sanctions; and three, how can I instrumentalize this relationship to inflict pain on the U.S. and its allies for their support of Ukraine?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The discomfort could go beyond arming Mr. Kim. A <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cn44r9zjnpjo\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">comment<\/a> Mr. Putin made earlier this month in St. Petersburg led some analysts to suggest that he was considering giving weapons to <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/01\/24\/us\/politics\/houthis-red-sea-airstrikes.html\" title=\"\">the Houthis, the Iran-backed Shiite militants in Yemen, who have been attacking U.S. vessels and aircraft in and around the Red Sea<\/a>, or other groups hostile to the United States and its allies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Doubters of Mr. Putin\u2019s nuclear saber rattling reason that Russia is on the front foot in Ukraine, making him unlikely to do anything dramatic that could further mobilize Kyiv\u2019s backers or jeopardize his battlefield trajectory. Former President Donald J. Trump, who has made clear his distaste for U.S. spending on Ukraine, may be back in the White House in seven months.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIf Russia is fundamentally confident that the future is better than the past, then that makes the use of nuclear weapons very unlikely,\u201d said Nigel Gould-Davies, senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies and a former U.K. ambassador to Belarus.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Still, some analysts worry that Western desensitization to Putin\u2019s warnings have created a precarious situation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In Moscow, a foreign policy expert who has advised the Kremlin acknowledged that Russia at times has cried wolf, \u201cbut the wolf never appeared.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">There is a growing sense in Moscow, the person said, that Russia\u2019s threats directed at the West had not been sufficiently convincing and that it was necessary to raise the temperature a little bit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Beyond arming American adversaries, including North Korea and Iran, experts in Moscow were discussing the possibility of cyber or space attacks, the person said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared retribution for speaking with an American news outlet.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Andrea Kendall-Taylor, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, said there was now an increased risk of an unintended escalation, where one side takes an action based on a misperception of what the other is doing. Officials in the United States, for example, recently <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/national-security\/2024\/05\/29\/us-ukraine-nuclear-warning-strikes\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">expressed worries<\/a> about the Kremlin misinterpreting <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/30\/world\/europe\/ukraine-drones-russia-nuclear.html\" title=\"\">Ukrainian attacks against Russian sites<\/a> that are part of Moscow\u2019s nuclear early-warning system.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI think we keep focusing on nuclear escalation, and it\u2019s distracting us from fully coming to grasp all the ways he is escalating out of that domain,\u201d Ms. Kendall-Taylor said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Rogue arms transfers or increased sabotage attacks outside Ukraine would be a logical escalation for Mr. Putin, analysts say, given Russia\u2019s unique Soviet inheritance \u2014 global reach, weapons-making prowess and intelligence services skilled in unconventional warfare.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cPeople knock Russia and say it is a declining power,\u201d said Bobo Lo, a nonresident fellow at the Lowy Institute in Sydney, Australia, and a former Australian diplomat in Moscow. \u201cBut it is still a formidable disruptive power. That\u2019s its comparative advantage. It not only has the capability to disrupt, it has the will.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-798hid etfikam0\">Anton Troianovski<!-- --> and <!-- -->Lara Jakes<!-- --> contributed reporting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/06\/21\/world\/europe\/putin-russia-north-korea.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>His ominous warnings, at the end of a two-day trip to North Korea and Vietnam, placed Russia and the West in a new round of escalation over Ukraine. They come amid distraction and political uncertainty among Kyiv\u2019s chief backers, with potentially game-changing elections on the horizon in the United States and France. Beyond using nuclear [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/06\/22\/multimedia\/22russia-putin-assess-01-gtkb\/22russia-putin-assess-01-gtkb-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[70438,70437,209,1116,221,1130],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78397"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78397"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78399,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78397\/revisions\/78399"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}