As Russia Threatens Nuclear War, Who In This Administration Is Putting America First?

A former deputy assistant secretary of defense recently asked the million-dollar question of the moment: “Is Ukraine worth fighting a nuclear war over? If not, we should act accordingly.” If you answer that question by putting America’s interests first, the answer is obviously “no.”

If this is the case, that Ukraine is not worth fighting a nuclear war over, how then should the U.S. “act accordingly”? Reasonable responses could vary. But whatever a smart course of action might be, that’s not what we have witnessed over the last 10 days from the Biden administration and the pro-war crowd.

The most recent round of nuclear saber-rattling started around Sept. 21, when Russian President Vladimir Putin warned, “In the face of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country, to protect Russia and our people, we will certainly use all the means at our disposal.” He repeated a similar warning on Friday, Sept. 30, as Russia celebrated the annexation of four more regions of western Ukraine (Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia), talking about the “precedent” set by the U.S. using nuclear weapons in World War II.

When approaching this topic, some caveats and principled statements are necessary: 1) The Russian invasion of Ukraine should be condemned; 2) Putin should be taken seriously; and 3) The use of any kind of nuclear weapons, tactical or otherwise, in Ukraine, or in defense of the annexed regions, would be a massive escalation.

Risking Nuclear War

American interests demand we act accordingly to avoid a nuclear confrontation with Russia. But in response to the ratcheted-up rhetoric from the Russians, it appears we have lost our collective minds. Has it been decreed by the powers that be that it’s worth risking a nuclear holocaust over the Donbas? It seems so.

A week ago Sunday, National Security

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