Tom Cruise gets endless rehearsals. We don’t.
“Well, this is more than a little terrifying. Shouldn’t we all be paying a little bit more attention?” asks Dan Froomkin.
It’s like something out of Mission Impossible. Recent Wagner mercenaries’ moves against Moscow leave the West wondering about Vladimir Putin’s fate, the stability of the Russian state, and the security of the Russian nuclear arsenal (Washington Post):
And in recent weeks the drumbeat has intensified, with some well-connected Russian strategic analysts and think tank experts openly proclaiming the “necessity” for Moscow to carry out a preemptive tactical nuclear strike on a NATO country, like Poland — to avoid defeat in the war on Ukraine and to revive Western terror of Russia’s nuclear might.
Since the Wagner rebellion, Sergei Karaganov, a former Kremlin adviser and influential Russian political scientist, has doubled down on calls for Moscow to do so. In an earlier article last month headlined, “A Difficult but Necessary Decision,” Karaganov argued the risk of a retaliatory nuclear strike on Russia, and nuclear Armageddon, “can be reduced to an absolute minimum.”
No sane American president would put the United States at risk by “sacrificing conditional Boston for conditional Poznań,” he wrote, referring to a city in Poland.
A hawkish Moscow-based military analyst, Dmitry Trenin, supported Karaganov, arguing that “an unambiguous — and no longer verbal — signal should be sent” to Washington.
Karaganov and Trenin sound like Mission Impossible villains. Zealots. Karaganov believes Russia was “chosen by history” to destroy the “Western yoke.”
You picked a bad week to stop sniffing glue, right?
Many Russian nuclear arms experts gasped in horror at the calls from Karaganov and Trenin. One, Ivan Timofeev, called it “extremely dangerous.”
There is no indication that Putin would deploy nukes save in the event of an existential threat to Russia.
But a worrying question is what would comprise an “existential threat” to Russia in Putin’s mind, given his profound conviction that he is the state’s sole guardian and protector.
It’s all a lot easier to live with in the dark of a movie theater when you know Ethan Hunt and his IMF team always save the day. The world does not get rehearsals.
[last lines]
Benji Dunn: How close were we?
Ethan Hunt: The usual.
Ilsa Faust: [incredulous] Usual?
Ethan Hunt: [chuckling] Please, don’t make me laugh.
