Putin's Fresh Cannon Fodder and Nuclear Threats Won't Work | Opinion

Even as the people of Russian-occupied eastern regions of Ukraine "vote" at gunpoint on annexation, the results of President Vladimir Putin's speech last week are playing out. It was his most important since he invaded Ukraine in February, and while he made two key points, he left much unsaid:

1. Russia needs a lot more soldiers for the war. What he didn't say is that he must compel them since they've stopped signing up voluntarily.
2. He is willing to use nuclear weapons to defend Russia if he thinks it is threatened. The threat itself was never defined. He alleged, without evidence, that the West is using nuclear blackmail against Russia. The exact opposite is true. He is using nuclear blackmail against NATO countries, which are supplying Ukraine with modern weaponry.

Will Putin's mobilization work? No.

Calling up 300,000 more men, as Putin ordered, will not improve Russia's combat capabilities. Neither would 1 million, which his order makes possible. Why not? Because the troops won't be properly trained or properly equipped. Take training. NATO recruits receive a full year's instruction or more, including drills with live ammunition. That's too expensive and time-consuming for Russia. Their draftees will be given a week or two's desultory training, at most, and then thrown into combat against an effective, well-trained army. That's a death sentence.

They won't be fighting with modern weapons, either. Ukraine's precision strikes already destroyed Russia's newest and best arms (which were none too good), and its defense industry cannot replace them fast enough to use in this war. They are also hamstrung by the lack of computer chips, which are essential components of modern weapons. Russia cannot manufacture them domestically or import them because of international sanctions. That's one reason it had to buy drones from Iran.

The bad news for the Kremlin doesn't stop there. When these conscripts reach the front line, they need to be fed, clothed, and supplied with fuel and ammunition. Russia will strain to do that. Its logistics have been terrible since the war started and have gotten worse as Ukraine systematically destroyed Russia's rail and road links to the frontlines. That destruction means Russia's primary supply lines—its railroads—now stop far from the soldiers who need supplies. The rail cargo has to be transferred (laboriously, by hand) to trucks for the remainder of the journey. These problems have significantly slowed deliveries and reduced the quantities of essential materials that reach the troops.

Mobilization solves none of these problems. In fact, it adds to them since more troops need more food, fuel, clothing, guns, and ammunition. They may not need them for long. These ill-trained, ill-equipped, ill-led troops will be slaughtered by the thousands. They are Putin's cannon fodder and, increasingly, they know it. That's why they stopped volunteering, even in desperately poor regions, and are scrambling to leave Russia before they are dragged onto military buses.

The troops already in combat are not in much better shape. The best units have been wiped out, and the rest are badly depleted. Morale problems are pervasive. They are likely to get worse for two reasons. First, these soldiers can see first-hand that they are losing. They know they are being pushed back, forced to dig defensive lines as the enemy steadily advances. Second, after months of grueling combat, they are now facing compulsory extensions of service, beyond the length they signed up for. Nothing crushes morale faster. And it was already low.

Morale seems to be flagging at home, too. That won't change because of sham referenda incorporating southern and eastern Ukraine into Mother Russia. Long-suffering Russians have enough experience with authoritarian rule to know these votes mean nothing. Their only effect will be to allow the Kremlin to say Ukrainian counter-attacks within their own country are "attacks on Russia itself."

There is no reliable way to poll Russian sentiment, but signs of discontent are emerging. The most obvious are the long lines of cars trying to leave Russia and cross into Finland, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and even Mongolia. Flights out of the country are booked solid at exorbitant prices. Men as old as 60 are prohibited from boarding those planes. There have been some street demonstrations as well, but the regime's security police have remained loyal and put them down.

Suppressing these demonstrations is crucial to the regime's survival. Putin and his supporters must be worried because the uprisings have spread to the political heart of the country, Moscow and St. Petersburg. Avoiding open dissent in those vital locations is why Putin delayed mobilization for so long and why, until now, he recruited exclusively from ethnic enclaves and distant regions.

Partial mobilization undermines that strategy. It means families in Russia's two important cities are now at risk of losing their sons in war. Putin will try to dampen the political impact by drafting disproportionately from outlying regions, but he can't avoid Moscow and St. Petersburg entirely. The fact that he was finally willing to take that risk is a sign he understands the dire conditions on the battlefield.

Another sign is his willingness to threaten nuclear weapons. He and his aides have done so before, but this time he added, portentously, that he is not bluffing. There's no way to know if he is.

Using even a small tactical weapon on the battlefield would cross a terrible line. Using one on a city would be far worse. None has been used since Nagasaki in 1945, and doing so now would make their use more likely in future wars. The whole world would be deeply shaken, its strategic environment transformed.

The war in Ukraine would be transformed as well. At the very least, the West would respond by cutting off all economic contact with Russia, providing Ukraine with more powerful weapons (some of which have been withheld), and conceivably entering the fight more directly. If radiation drifted into NATO member countries, the alliance might consider it a direct attack. In short, Putin has invoked a very dangerous possibility.

We cannot dismiss his threats, even though the United States has privately warned him and his allies, especially China, of a devastating response. Putin might not believe the U.S., or he might consider the alternative even worse, at least for him. After all, if his war-of-choice ends in humiliating defeat, he faces the very real danger of a coup and assassination.

Confronted with those grim circumstances, Putin might think he has nothing to lose by a dramatic escalation. Would his generals obey his nuclear order, knowing it could pose a mortal threat to their own country? Is anyone willing to risk trying to remove the man who gave that dreadful command?

Those are the chilling possibilities Vladimir Putin revealed to Russia, Ukraine, and the world.

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Charles Lipson is the Peter B. Ritzma Professor of Political Science Emeritus at the University of Chicago, where he founded the Program on International Politics, Economics, and Security. He can be reached at charles.lipson@gmail.com

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.