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Yet Putin’s repeated references to nuclear arms have succeeded in suddenly putting the subject of bombs back into public consciousness after decades of assumptions that the atomic threat was of a bygone era, bounded by the detonation of the first nuclear bomb in 1945 and the seeming end of the Cold War in 1989. “He would not say those things if the war wasn’t going badly,” Michael McFaul, a former U.S.

It appears to reflect weakness rather than strength, after the mediocre early performance of his military. Putin’s nuclear sabre rattling seems like an epic bluff, intended to divert the world’s attention and raise heart rates. A senior Pentagon official said that Washington remains “comfortable and confident in our own strategic deterrence.” In London, the British defense secretary, Ben Wallace, said that Putin’s threat was a distraction designed to spook the West.

“We have the ability to defend ourselves,” the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said. has not changed the posture of its nuclear forces. Asked on Monday whether Americans should be worried about nuclear war, Biden replied bluntly: “No.” The U.S. It has responded coolly to Moscow’s latest provocation. The Biden Administration has not taken Putin’s bait. Putin ordered them to put Russia’s nuclear forces on a “special regime of combat duty alert.” It’s an unconventional term, but it means that Putin wants the world’s deadliest weapons to be prepared for a possible launch-or at least for the world to think so. His commanders, who looked like deer caught in the headlights, clustered together at the distant far end. Putin sat at the head of a long table fit for a banquet. Putin went further on Sunday in a bizarre meeting with his long-serving defense minister, Sergey Shoygu, and the legendary military strategist General Valery Gerasimov. “Whoever tries to interfere with us,” he warned, “should know that Russia’s response will be immediate and will lead you to such consequences as you have never experienced in your history.” He said that Russia “is today one of the most powerful nuclear states.” In Putin’s incendiary harangue announcing the invasion last week, one ominous sentence from the Russian leader threatened more than Ukraine. Putin’s war has taken on global dimensions, even though the Ukrainians are the only ones fending off Russian forces on the ground.

Either out of political desperation or military conceit, Vladimir Putin is playing the nuclear card in the crisis spawned by his invasion of Ukraine.