The former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff warned that it was counterproductive for President Joe Biden to invoke “Armageddon” when discussing the possibility of Russia’s use of a nuclear weapon in Ukraine.
Retired Adm. Mike Mullen, who was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, said in a Sunday interview on ABC News that the president’s recent language alarmed him because he views Russian President Vladimir Putin as “a cornered animal” who is getting “more and more dangerous.”
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“President Biden’s language — we’re about at the top of the language scale, if you will. And I think we need to back off that a little bit and do everything we possibly can to try to get to the table to resolve this thing,” the former joint chairman explained.
The Kremlin believes it could get away with using a tactical nuclear weapon without incurring a nuclear response from the United States, while the U.S.’s nuclear theory is based on mutually assured destruction and the belief that the weapons should never be used. Putin’s threat to use a nuclear weapon, a threat he’s repeated in multiple instances in the war, has taken on a new level of significance given Russia’s continued battlefield losses and limited resources.
“Well, depending on the size of them, he’s got some very small ones, which, theoretically, while devastating, would localize the damage,” Mullen added. “The winds all blow back on to Russia, so he would have to, in a way, contaminate his own country. He could pick a symbolic target. He could pick Zelensky’s hometown, for instance, as a target. As opposed to having a big impact on the battlefield that would badly hurt the Ukrainian Army, which has fought so well.”
He also warned that the State Department has to get both parties to the negotiating table to end the war. “The sooner, the better, as far as I’m concerned,” he said.
His comments come days after the president warned that for the “first time since the Cuban missile crisis, we have the direct threat of the use of a nuclear weapon if, in fact, things continue down the path that they are going,” adding, “I don’t think there’s any such thing as the ability to easily [use] a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon.”
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Biden’s stark warning resulted in a shockwave of concern, but the White House later reiterated that it had not seen any reason to alter its nuclear posture.
Since the president’s warning, there was an explosion damaging the Kerch Bridge linking Russia to the Crimean peninsula, which the Kremlin called an act of terrorism, and Russia subsequently launched dozens of missile strikes across Ukraine, hitting various cities, including the capital. Putin warned of continued actions.
