'Must laugh at us': Putin succesfully scared the West into self-deterrence with empty nuke threats
The Ben Hodges interview: Part II
Delphi, Greece: Vladimir Putin must be laughing at how successful his empty threats to use nuclear weapons have been in scaring the West into self-deterrence, retired US Lieutenant-General Ben Hodges said.
Hodges was commander of United States Army Europe from November 2014 until he retired from the Army in January 2018. He is one of the leading military analysts of the Ukraine war.
In an interview with Latika Takes on the sidelines of the recent Delphi Economic Forum where he was a keynote speaker, Hodges said the Russian president’s threats to go nuclear were hollow and the West should have called his bluff years ago.
‘The reason I think it’s so unlikely is because there’s zero benefit for them if they use it,’ Hodges said.
‘It’s only the threat of them using it that creates opportunity for them.
‘We, the US, Germany, everybody else, stop because we’re terrified that he might use a nuclear weapon.
‘Once he does it, then it’s over.’
But Hodges said instead of calling Putin’s bluff, the West had scared themselves into a position of self-deterrence, by withholding from the Ukrainians the weapons they really needed to expel the Russians from their land and take back Crimea, which Putin illegally annexed in 2014.
‘We have self-deterred now for years and they must laugh at us,’ he said.
‘We’re in a very dangerous place because we’re wilting in front of their threats of nuclear weapons.
‘The Russians say “we’re thinking about moving a nuclear weapon into Belarus” and people started wetting themselves.
‘But that did zero to improve their capability, this is not the 18th Century where you shoot a cannon and it only goes that far.
‘You don’t have to go to Belarus to improve the capability, it was just them conveying to the rest of us “hey we have nuclear weapons.”’
Hodges said it was important not to forget that the US had thousands of nuclear weapons. Estimates of Russia’s nuclear stockpiles range between 1900 to 3000.
Both US President Joe Biden and China’s President Xi Jinping have warned Putin that he must not use nuclear weapons in his war against Ukraine.
Crimea must be taken back
Hodges was adamant that the only way the war should end was with Russia’s total expulsion from Ukraine per its borders in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed and Ukraine became independent.
And this meant Ukraine reclaiming Crimea.
Last year Stian Jenssen, who directs NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s private office, suggested Ukraine could cede territory in order to join NATO sooner.
This would provide the bulk of Ukraine with the alliance’s security umbrella but would mean freezing the conflict along the current frontlines.
Ukraine scorned the idea and Jenssen subsequently walked his comments back, saying it was just one option and that it would be ultimately for Ukraine to decide.
Nevertheless, the proposition remains live in some circles for one way the conflict might end, particularly if international support for Ukraine wanes.
But Hodges said any proposal that did not amount to restoring Ukraine’s 1991 borders would ultimately be unworkable.
‘If they’re [Russia] able to keep what they’ve taken thus far, how will Ukraine be able to rebuild their economy?’ he said.
Hodges extracted a map of Ukraine from his briefcase to illustrate the strategic and economic importance of Crimea and its access to the Sea of Azov, waters which in 2003 Russia and Ukraine agreed to share, but Russia has now illegally occupied.
‘Why is Crimea so important? Because it blocks access into Azov Sea,’ he said.
‘Russia, by controlling Crimea and because of this big bridge, they block who comes in and out of there.’
Two of Ukraine’s five pre-war ports, Berdyansk and Mariupol, are in Azov. Russia built the Kerch Bridge connecting Russia and Ukraine after he annexed Crimea in 2016.
The bridge, Europe’s longest, was constructed in just two years and serves as a key road route to sustain Putin’s war effort. It is also a physical symbol of Russia’s dominance of the peninsula.
‘That bridge is too low for major shipping to go through — that was not an engineering accident in my view,’ Hodges said.
Ukraine has repeatedly attacked the Kerch Bridge and it remains a key target. Hodges said Ukraine would have to destroy it to take back control.
Russia is at war with us
Hodges said that only totally defeating Russia was the solution because there was no way Vladimir Putin would stop if granted Ukrainian territory in any peace agreement.
He said Moldova and Lithuania would be Putin’s likely next targets. While Moldova is not in NATO, Lithuania is and is one of Ukraine’s biggest supporters.
Hodges said this would put the Alliance to the test because although NATO’s Article 5 says an attack on one member state is considered an attack on all, it is up to individual countries to respond with ‘such action as it deems necessary.’
‘So you can’t be forced to go fight and so that will be the danger,’ he said.
‘If the Russians think, “Okay I’ve been getting signals from Washington, or Berlin, or Paris that they won’t actually do anything’ – if that happens, then whatever credibility we still have is absolutely gone.’
But Hodges said this was a worst-case scenario and that he was optimistic that there were enough good people to prevent this from becoming a reality.
But he said that Russia’s permanent war footing with the West required a rethink about how to respond to Putin.
‘When I say that Russia’s at war with us, that doesn’t mean tanks and submarines and missiles - necessarily,’ Hodges said.
He said Russian warfare included anything from threats, disinformation, and economic corruption to the use of nuclear weapons.
‘They’re always operating somewhere along that continuum,’ he said.
He pointed to the recent hijacking of US financial support for Ukraine by MAGA Republicans as an example of Russian success.
Donald Trump has signalled he could withdraw aid for Ukraine and force Kyiv to the negotiating table if he becomes President again.
Already, his control of the GOP was behind House Speaker Mike Johnson’s decision to delay last year’s vote on new military spending for Kyiv until Saturday, when $61 billion in aid was overwhelmingly approved by the House. The stalling contributed to the fall of the Ukrainian city of Avdiivka in Donetsk Oblast earlier this year.
CIA Director Bill Burns said on Thursday that the Ukrainians ran out of ammunition before being driven from the city.
‘In the two days before the fall of Avdiivdka, one entire Ukrainian brigade, so more than 2000 personnel, had a grand total of 15 artillery rounds for the entire brigade per day,’ he told the Bush Centre’s 2024 Forum on Leadership.
‘Another entire brigade had a grand total of 42 mortar rounds.
‘So they were overwhelmed, it wasn’t for lack of bravery or determination in their part.’
Burns said with new US help, the Ukraine were ‘entirely capable’ of holding their own on the battlefield for the rest of the year and launching deeper strikes into Crimea and against Russia’s Black Sea fleet. Ukraine has already sunk 16 Russian warships in just six months.
However, despite the House finally providing Ukraine with the much-needed boost in funding, the vote only further underlined MAGA’s grip on the party.
Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor-Greene, a close ally of Trump’s and whom former Republican Congressman Ken Buck has dubbed ‘Moscow Marjorie’ for her pro-Kremlin positions, accused Johnson of betraying Americans and renewed threats to try and oust him from the Speakership.
Nevertheless, the breakthrough came after months of intense lobbying of MAGA Republicans including of Trump himself, to let the aid bill be put to a vote.
Some of those who have made the pleas directly to Trump include UK Foreign Secretary and former Conservative prime minister, David Cameron.
Cameron visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago earlier this month. A statement from the Trump campaign released after the visit said they discussed ‘how to end the killing in Ukraine.’
Hodges said while he was pleased Cameron spoke to Trump, the spectacle underlined the terrible state of US politics whereby the former president was operating a shadow White House at his golf club.
‘When you’ve got former British Prime Minister David Cameron going to Mar-a-Lago begging Trump to help, what kind of a horrible state of affairs is that?’ Hodges said.
‘That to me shows an incredibly successful Russian influence operation.’
Not against Macron’s troops idea
Recently French President Emmanuel Macron, who is losing support in the polls to the pro-Russian far right, has tried to reinvent himself as Europe’s most hawkish leader.
He has even proposed sending troops to Ukraine.
Hodges said he was not against the idea of US troops joining the fight but there must be a clear purpose and objective established first.
‘I would never say never but this is the mistake we make all the time, we throw military at it without describing what is the end state, for what purpose?’ he said.
‘I’m not against it, I could imagine air-defence, engineers, navy, all kinds of stuff, because I know the objective should be.
‘But if the president doesn’t say it’s our objective therefore here’s our policies to achieve that objective and one those policies is certain military capabilities that we’ll provide.
‘If you don’t say for what purpose, that’s how you get into forever wars, like we were in Vietnam, in Korea, in Afghanistan, because they never said, ‘this is the objective, we’re going to win and here’s what winning looks like.’