Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger says the world must consider how to react if Russian dictator Vladimir Putin decides to use nuclear weapons in his war on Ukraine.
“If that line is crossed, that would be an extraordinarily significant event,” Kissinger said during an interview at a weekend conference sponsored by the Financial Times. “And we have to think of how to react were it to happen,” he added.
Kissinger, who served as Secretary of State in the Nixon administration, said the ongoing spread of nuclear weapons and increasing sophistication of delivery systems means “we are now living in a totally new era.” He added that “there’s almost no discussion internationally about what would happen if the weapons became actually used.”
In the past, both Russia and the United States have accepted defeat at the hands of non-nuclear countries — namely Afghanistan — “without resorting to weapons, which, in a purely technical sense, could have ended the conflict,” he said.
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Putin holds “a kind of mystic faith in Russian history,” according to Kissinger, who has met the dictator more than a dozen times. He said he couldn’t predict what might trigger Putin’s use of nuclear weapons.
Putin, “miscalculated the situation he faced internationally, and he obviously miscalculated Russia’s capabilities,” Kissinger said.
However, the invasion of Ukraine means recognizing that “we have not thought through globally,” how the world should respond if nuclear weapons are used.
However, a response would be crucial.
“One thing we could not do, in my opinion, is just accept it. Because that would open a new method of blackmail,” Kissinger said.
