President for life Vladimir Putin’s latest attempt to unsettle the West and hint at nuclear escalation—announcing the intended movement of Russian tactical nuclear warheads into Belarus at the request of his Mussolini-like ally Alexander Lukashenko—is risible. It represents a continuation of Putin’s efforts to manipulate Western fears (and the well-documented concerns of the Biden administration) about the escalation risks of continued military assistance to Ukraine.
Eric S. Edelman was undersecretary of defense for policy (2005-2009) and has served as the co-chair for the congressionally mandated Commissions to review the National Defense Strategy in 2018 and 2024.
Franklin C. Miller served for three decades as a senior nuclear policy and arms control official in the Pentagon and on the National Security Council staff. He is a principal at the Scowcroft Group.
