The Lesson of Richard Nixon for Interpreting Putin’s Saber-Rattling
Washington Post, Mar 2023: Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced plans to transfer a cache of nuclear weapons to Belarus. The action heightened the threat he has made over the previous year to possibly set off a “limited” nuclear weapon in Ukraine to pressure President Volodymyr Zelensky and his people to surrender territory. Rather than accept a quiet equilibrium, aiming for the delicate balance that became known during the Cold War as mutually assured destruction, leaders such as Putin in Russia or Kim Jong Un in North Korea have threatened their enemies with nuclear destruction. They have adopted a strategy, employed by President Richard M. Nixon, to convince their adversaries that they are “mad” enough to risk a nuclear confrontation, or at least they feign a willingness to do so…