It is time for Nato to call President Putin’s bluff

Editorial: The lesson seems to have been learnt, painfully and tardily, that only by threatening force, indeed war, can aggression be avoided

(Dave Brown)

What could he mean? When Joe Biden told a journalist at the Nato summit that the alliance would respond “in kind” to the use of chemical weapons by Russia in Ukraine, his comment raised eyebrows. He declined to answer follow-up questions by reporters.

After all, the United States, in common with most of the world, has renounced by international treaty the use of such weaponry, and it is impossible to envisage any western nation dropping poison gas on anyone, let alone on Ukrainian soil.

Whatever the US president and his counterparts have in mind has not been made clear. But that is useful, because it only adds to the doubts and uncertainties entering the mind of Vladimir Putin. Over recent years, Nato has made Mr Putin’s life immeasurably easier by ruling out any military intervention in Ukraine. Thus, Russia was given a green light to annex the country.

Before that, the alliance, led by Barack Obama (with Mr Biden as his vice president), committed the even worse error of setting down red lines on the use of chemical weapons in Syria by the Assad government – a government supported by Russia – and then failing to follow it up when Syrian civilians were murdered in defiance of the warnings.

The lesson seems to have been learnt, painfully and tardily, that only by threatening force, indeed war, can aggression (and perhaps a third world war) be avoided. Mr Putin understands power and force, and respects it. Nato, together with the network of western allies around the world, is more than formidable enough to deter Russia from any misguided interventionism. The west’s error was to allow itself to be intimidated by Mr Putin’s menacing talk about Russia’s nuclear arsenal. Thanks to his own determined aggression against a smaller neighbour, any lingering illusions the alliance might have had about Mr Putin’s intentions have been dissolved, and it is as strong and united as it has ever been.

So what should the west threaten? As Mr Biden has said, that would all depend on what atrocities the Russians next perpetrate. The threat is there, and it is non-specific, and Nato retains flexibility and the initiative. Boris Johnson, who has conducted himself with some surprising strength in the war thus far, warns against talking up the risk of superpower nuclear confrontation, which is both dangerous and what Mr Putin wants. His nuclear warheads are a rare negotiating strength for him.

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Few know what is passing through Mr Putin’s head at the moment, or even whether his closest counsellors are actually telling him the truth about what is going on. Such is the weakness of autocracy. If he does realise the war is not going to plan – and after a month it has unmistakeably not been won by Russia – he may well contemplate trying to break the stalemate. A chemical attack would be all Nato needs to justify a no-fly zone and take out chemical weapons facilities. Such an attack would have the potential to blow over into Nato member states, and an attack on one is an attack on all.

Aside from that, it is also tempting to think that a small consignment of out-of-date MiG jets donated by Poland to Ukraine, plus a few hundred tanks, would actually see Ukraine pushing the Russian forces back to where they were before the invasion. Such a humiliation might even be enough to push Mr Putin out of office. What use is a strongman if he leads his country to defeat?

At any rate, it is time for the most powerful military alliance the world has ever seen to call President Putin’s bluff. He is rapidly leaving the west with no choice.