A top Russian military commentator is enraged over reports in the German newspaper, Bild, that NATO carried out a recent nuclear weapons exercise in Germany.
The idea that “cretins” in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government allowed such an exercise, Konstantin Sivkov told a Kremlin media outlet, indicates that “German policy is directed by very narrow-minded people, perhaps not quite mentally healthy.” This is because “practicing nuclear war in Germany is a suicidal step. Especially for Germany.” Sivkov was just getting started. Were just one of Russia’s nuclear ballistic missile submarines to launch its 160 nuclear warheads at Germany, the European nation “would cease to exist, and there will be a radioactive desert in its place.” Expanding on this theme, Sivkov warned that suffering any battlefield use of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons, Russia “will not stand on ceremony — we will release all missiles at once … Several rockets in the Yellowstone volcano area, and the United States of America does not exist. And the entire U.S. is covered with a meter layer of volcanic ash, along with Canada. And then, we will plant apple trees on this volcanic ash.”
Ashes to Apples jokes aside, there’s more to this rant than you might think. A military veteran and regular fixture on state media, Sivkov exists to trumpet Vladimir Putin’s security narrative. Namely, the idea that Russia is ready on a moment’s notice to vanquish morally corrupt and physically insecure nations beyond its borders. In this role, Sivkov joins other nationalist propagandists, such as Dmitry Kiselyov.
Reality, however, has its issues with Sivkov’s assertions.
Although Russia is a powerful nation with a large and technologically evolving nuclear weapons stockpile, it is not the dominant force that Sivkov would have everyone believe. In the event of war, for example, most of the Russian ballistic submarines that Sivkov trumpets would be sunk by U.S., British, and French attack submarines before they could launch their missiles. Sivkov also helpfully forgets that the U.S. has deployed tactical nuclear weapons only as a countermeasure to Russian tactical weapons. And while the U.S. would use conventional force to defeat a conventional Russian invasion of Europe, the U.S. would not sit idle were Russia to attempt to turn Germany or Wyoming into a nuclear wasteland. In fact, imminent Russian preparation for such an attack would likely precipitate a full-scale U.S. preemptive nuclear strike. As much as victory is possible amid nuclear war, the U.S. would then triumph.
Putin knows this, and Sivkov likely also. Which begs a question. Why offer hyperbolic threats that lack credibility?
For a start, because they sound good to nationalist audiences at home. But when it comes to foreign audiences, there’s also a benefit here. Because the target of the threats is not NATO war planners or even the U.S. It is the population of various European nations. Putin’s propagandists know that Germans are much more keen, in both fiscal and political terms, on having the U.S. defend them than they are in helping to defend other NATO allies. A February 2020 Pew Research poll showed that while a 60%-29% majority of people in the U.S. are in favor of defending a NATO ally that found itself in a “serious military conflict” with Russia, the exact reverse is true of Germans. According to the poll, 60%-34% of Germans are against their nation supporting an ally under Russian attack.
This explains Sivkov’s further observation that “only a complete idiot or an enemy of the German people can plan to turn their country into a theater of nuclear war.”
This is about reinforcing the idea in Germany, and in other NATO states with populations less amenable to alliance defense, that they should judge the U.S. military presence on European soil more skeptically. The intent is not simply to undermine the political fabric of NATO. It is to lay the ground for the day when a conflict might erupt. If Russia were able to invade and rapidly cut off the Baltic States, it could then hope to offer the NATO alliance a binary choice: Accept a cease-fire in Russia’s favor or fight a bloody battle to recover the captured territory and risk nuclear war. Putin knows that while some NATO allies would choose to fight, other governments, Germany included, would come under immense domestic pressure to compromise. He might just be able to split the alliance.
Thus we see the art in Sivkov’s ranting. Yes, there’s a domestic nationalist component. But it’s about cultivating the idea that the risks of NATO membership outweigh any gains. Sadly, when one considers Germany’s approach to issues such as European energy security, it’s a message that finds more sympathy than we might want.
