Speaker 1: We have so clearly conveyed to President Putin that any
Speaker 1: use of nuclear weapons will have severe consequences for Russia.
Speaker 1: It will, it will of course totally changed the nature
Speaker 1: of the conflict. It's not clear what NATO or the
Speaker 1: US response would be if Russia used a nuclear tactical
Speaker 1: weapon on the battlefield in Ukraine. What do you think
Speaker 1: it should be? Well, I think the message to him
Speaker 1: is if use nuclear weapon, it's a suicide weapon. And
Speaker 1: and the response from NATO and the United States doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be nuclear. So that first voice was the
Speaker 1: guy who runs um what jin Stoltenberg NATO, Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's the native right, And then then that was General McMaster.
Speaker 1: After that, the question being asked to a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of people over the last week or so, do you
Speaker 1: think he'll use nukes? And what if he does? Too
Speaker 1: horrible to contemplate, Yet we must, So let's contemplate it
Speaker 1: with Dr Jeff mccaslins, CBS News, military consultant, founder and
Speaker 1: CEO of Diamond six Leadership and Strategy llc UH. Dr
Speaker 1: mccoughlin also Senior Fellow at the Stockdale Center for Ethical
Speaker 1: Leadership at the Naval Academy. Jeff, always a pleasure. How
Speaker 1: are you, sir? Doing well? Great with you guys. So
Speaker 1: it is practically uncontemplatable, and yet we must the idea
Speaker 1: that say, let's start with Vladimir Putin conducts a quote
Speaker 1: unquote nuclear test and blows up something under the ocean.
Speaker 1: On up through levels key of how what sort of
Speaker 1: reaction could we expect to see? Well, if you made
Speaker 1: an attack on Ukraine, I think the responses could be
Speaker 1: pretty broad. Albeit it is not going to be totally
Speaker 1: laid out in advance because one of the things that
Speaker 1: you want to enhance the terrance to a certain amount
Speaker 1: of ambiguity. But he will have to calculate how the
Speaker 1: West would response. What could the West do well? The
Speaker 1: first thing, if you would like a no fly zone
Speaker 1: over Ukraine with NATO airplanes flying over Ukraine, I can't
Speaker 1: think of a faster way to get there than the
Speaker 1: Papa nuke on Ukrainian territory. If you'd like to see
Speaker 1: NATO forces on Ukrainian territory at least providing direct logistical
Speaker 1: and training support, something they've requested, again, a quick way
Speaker 1: to get there. If you'd like to see a lot
Speaker 1: of NATO ships in the Black Sea facilitating the export
Speaker 1: of grain out of Ukraine. Two countries around the world,
Speaker 1: you might get there. And obviously, in addition to that,
Speaker 1: Mr Putin would have to calculate what would be the
Speaker 1: response elsewhere. Is support around the world is dwindling as
Speaker 1: this war goes on. Even the Chinese, I think are
Speaker 1: providing the best sort of tacit support. There's been no
Speaker 1: evidence of clear direct Chinese support except they buy a
Speaker 1: lot of oil at heavily discounted prices. So if you
Speaker 1: want to become the next, as Tom Freeman said, next
Speaker 1: North Korea and totally isolate yourself internationally, that's waiting the
Speaker 1: way to go. And then, last but not least, Mr
Speaker 1: Putine might want to calculate the use of the nuclear
Speaker 1: wepon Kreining a territory the winds blow from west to
Speaker 1: east and that part of Europe most generally. So any
Speaker 1: kind of a radioactive fallout would not only and as
Speaker 1: Ukraine of course and kill thousands of innicent civilians be
Speaker 1: a criminal act, but a lot of that radio TV
Speaker 1: could very clearly end up on Russian territory and on
Speaker 1: Russian forces well. General Petraeus yesterday on ABC This Week
Speaker 1: indicated that if he uses a tactical nuke, and he
Speaker 1: didn't specify of what level, but if Putin uses a
Speaker 1: tactical new we would wipe out everything on land and
Speaker 1: see that we could identify. Do you think we would
Speaker 1: go that far? And if we did, how long would
Speaker 1: that take? Well, it depends, of course on what kind
Speaker 1: of weapon and where it's done. I mean, you have
Speaker 1: to calibrate response to some degree like that. But clearly
Speaker 1: you know Dave's not off the mark. That would be
Speaker 1: one of the calculations. But I come back to what's happened.
Speaker 1: That is, the Buying administration privately has made it pretty clear.
Speaker 1: So they claim to the Russians that the response would
Speaker 1: be pretty overwhelming. They're never gonna lay it out very
Speaker 1: close exactly what we're going to do, because to do
Speaker 1: so undermines your deterrence. Some US suggested, for example, that
Speaker 1: that Russians might do a demonstration strike. They might drop
Speaker 1: one over the Arctic, because they might have dropped one
Speaker 1: over the Black Sea to show how really angry they are.
Speaker 1: I kind of doubt that's going to happen. When you
Speaker 1: can I come back to Russian military doctrine, which I
Speaker 1: studied a lot. Lessons say in their military doctrine, we
Speaker 1: use a tax on nuclear weapon an effort to break up,
Speaker 1: you know, a static line of defense and for our addissary,
Speaker 1: and then use that to do a rapid armor advance.
Speaker 1: They don't have the forces left to do that, and
Speaker 1: and bringing in untrained recruits what they're doing right now
Speaker 1: is hardly going to enhance that effort. Furthermore, the Russian
Speaker 1: army in that particular region is in pretty sad shape
Speaker 1: right now. As a consequence, I don't think they're sophisticated
Speaker 1: enough to protect themselves, resupply themselves at the nessary protective equipment, water,
Speaker 1: et cetera, to protect yourself in close proximity to a
Speaker 1: nuclear attack. They would do a great deal of good. So,
Speaker 1: as a student students of of real politic and UH
Speaker 1: I have an enthusiasm for studying negotiation, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how Ukraine and NATO achieve their goals while
Speaker 1: giving putin on off ramp as they say that doesn't
Speaker 1: include the use of nuclear weapons and and that sort
Speaker 1: of thing. It's a it's a tough needle to thread
Speaker 1: right now. Giving Putin. Given Putin's disastrous uh moves of light,
Speaker 1: what do you picture as an end to this? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you're exactly right. Oh, by the way, Well, I
Speaker 1: think the use of actnutru weapon for a second longer
Speaker 1: is low probability. It's certainly not zero for sure. And
Speaker 1: the problem you get into is, at what point does
Speaker 1: Mr Putin say that, you know, backing off is such
Speaker 1: a personal or national humiliating catastrophe that I'm willing to
Speaker 1: you know, roll the cosmic, roll the dice with a
Speaker 1: nuclear weapon, which might be some degree of success. How
Speaker 1: blocked in? And are you Oh, by the way, this
Speaker 1: is something John Kennedy worried about almost exactly sixty years
Speaker 1: ago when we were going through the Cuban missile crisis.
Speaker 1: Ukrainians in their response to the announcement by the Russians
Speaker 1: that they have next this territory, you know, by the way,
Speaker 1: Mr Putin is taking up his offerings, because what he
Speaker 1: said in his speech on the thirtie was not only
Speaker 1: these provinces now Russian territory, even though they don't go,
Speaker 1: by the way, control the territory of those provinces, but
Speaker 1: that is permanent. He called on the Ukrainians to go
Speaker 1: to a ceasefire and come to the negotiations, but they
Speaker 1: indicated that would be with them accepting the permanence of
Speaker 1: that territory being transferred to Ukraine. Well, there's no way
Speaker 1: in health right, frankly, the Ukrainians are going to do that.
Speaker 1: In the Ukrainian response, again making this even more difficult,
Speaker 1: was to say they hardly saw any possibility of negotiating
Speaker 1: as long as Putin was still in charge in Russia.
Speaker 1: There are the cons and CBS News military consultant on
Speaker 1: the line. Go ahead, Jack, there are some headlines that
Speaker 1: have just come out. Um, they're not from your best
Speaker 1: media sources, but that a Russian nuclear train militrane has
Speaker 1: been seen on the move. We'll see that turns out
Speaker 1: to be verified or not, because that's one of the
Speaker 1: things I heard Secretary Lloyd Austin and others talking about.
Speaker 1: We've seen no uh, indication of them moving around the
Speaker 1: forces or whatever that would lead us believe they're gonna
Speaker 1: use nukes. But away from that topic, Senator Marco Rubio
Speaker 1: yesterday said he's more concerned about a conventional sort of
Speaker 1: strike on a NATO country, like are we prepared for
Speaker 1: a response if Russia attacks a train station in Poland
Speaker 1: that is, you know, where a lot of the supplies
Speaker 1: are leaving from our that sort of thing, How how
Speaker 1: do we respond to that because it's not you know,
Speaker 1: it's not the clear red line of of of nukes
Speaker 1: that the world might um you know, rally around. Do
Speaker 1: we do we attack the same way or what happens? Then? Yeah,
Speaker 1: of course that would invoke Article five was an attack
Speaker 1: on one country as an attack on alcohol, and prudent
Speaker 1: fully understands that. But I mean there's a variety of
Speaker 1: ways that he can still escalate, and we've seen that
Speaker 1: played out over the last week or so as well.
Speaker 1: I mean, and I happen to believe, though I can't
Speaker 1: absolutely prove it that the attack on this UH pipeline
Speaker 1: in the ball that he was done by the Russians.
Speaker 1: I mean, I can't figure who else would do it. It
Speaker 1: It was a sophisticated attack, requiring submersible drones or divers.
Speaker 1: I don't think al Qaeda's got submercible drones in the
Speaker 1: Baltic right now. So I think that that was clearly
Speaker 1: the Russians, but it's an effort for them to further
Speaker 1: intimidate the Europeans over energy. Oh, by the way, they
Speaker 1: did it only a day or so after a new
Speaker 1: pipeline was opened between Norway and Poland, suggesting once again
Speaker 1: the Europeans it could be a cold winner if you
Speaker 1: don't force the Ukrainians to in fact come to the
Speaker 1: negotiating table. They could do the attack, like Rubia suggested,
Speaker 1: they could do a large scale cyber attack. They could
Speaker 1: cause problems elsewhere, for example in the Balkans or with Moldova.
Speaker 1: There's a variety of other things that Putin can do,
Speaker 1: and he has in his toolbox to escalate. And I
Speaker 1: trust that NATO leaders Washington included, are examining each one
Speaker 1: of those and trying to think through what would be
Speaker 1: our response and calibrating that based on what the Russians
Speaker 1: actually do. So my final question is I I was
Speaker 1: just reading that some of the Kremlin approved the channels
Speaker 1: in Russia are actually stating that NATO troops are on
Speaker 1: the ground in Ukraine fighting actively. We are already at
Speaker 1: war with NATO. Is that sort of thing going to work?
Speaker 1: It's all possible. Part of Russian propaganda and Mr Trutin's
Speaker 1: speech announced in the annexation. He really described this more
Speaker 1: and more as a conflict between the West and Russia,
Speaker 1: even described the United States and the West as a tonic.
Speaker 1: Are you ready for that uh? And suggested that in
Speaker 1: fact it was the goal of Washington and NATO to
Speaker 1: destroy Russia. But this is for domestic consumption back home,
Speaker 1: don't forget more. Young Russians have fled the country since
Speaker 1: he announced this three hundred man mobilization, then probably have
Speaker 1: fought in the Ukraine since this war began, So he's
Speaker 1: got to pay attention to domestic consumption and painting this
Speaker 1: as a threat by the West, a threat to the existence,
Speaker 1: rally to the motherland, all those kind of things. It's
Speaker 1: the traditional thing the Russians have done, and Putin has
Speaker 1: done it a couple of times during this crisis to
Speaker 1: get the people behind this particular effort. Dr Jeff mccausl
Speaker 1: and CBS News military consultant Jeff thinks has always really
Speaker 1: enjoyed it. My pleasure. Armstrong and Jetty