“Russia and its leadership seem to be facing a difficult choice,” begins the academic paper by Sergei Karaganov. “It becomes increasingly clear that a clash with the West cannot end even if we win a partial or even a crushing victory in Ukraine.”
That frightening document, which published in late June, goes on for another 2,900 words to conclude using “God’s weapon of Armageddon” will prevent – not create – a worsening crisis in Europe. "The enemy must know," he writes, "that we are ready to deliver a preemptive strike in retaliation for all of its current and past acts of aggression in order to prevent a slide into global thermonuclear war."
The word "nuclear" is used 27 times and "nuclear weapon" is used 10 times by Karaganov, a historian and political scientist.
In the paper entitled "A Difficult but Necessary Decision," the goes on to write:
We can keep fighting for another year, or two, or three, sacrificing thousands and thousands of our best men and grinding down tens and hundreds of thousands of people who live in the territories that is now called Ukraine and who have fallen into the tragic historical trap. But this military operation cannot end with a decisive victory without forcing the West to retreat strategically, or even surrender, and compelling it to give up attempts to reverse history and preserve global dominance, and to focus on itself and its current multilevel crisis. Roughly speaking, it must “buzz off” so that Russia and the world could move forward unhindered.
Karaganov's chilling conclusion for forcing the West to retreat is to use nuclear weapons. "I, and many others, have written many times that without a big idea great states lose their greatness or simply disappear," Karaganov writes near the end of his essay. "History is strewn with the shadows and graves of the powers that lost it."
The academic paper has not gone unnoticed. Bob Maginnis, a national security analyst at the Family Research Council, tells AFN he carefully studied the advice of a Russian strategist who is advising Vladimir Putin. It is an apocalyptic-like recommendation to Russia’s president, Maginnis concludes, that should not go ignored.
“The United States may be all talk here,” Maginnis, says, “but the fact is that Russia might pull off something like this, what they call ‘escalate to de-escalate.’”
AFN has reported on that Russian military doctrine in past stories about the Russia-Ukraine War, including a story published one month into the invasion. In that story, Maginnis and other national defense experts explained Russia views a tactical nuke as a battlefield necessity to compete with NATO forces on a future battlefield.
That military doctrine is no secret on Capitol Hill or at the Pentagon. In a 2021 hearing, a U.S. Navy admiral told Congress a better description is “escalate to win” and agreed it’s a worrisome topic.
During the first weeks of the Russia-Ukraine War, now 18 months ago, few could have foreseen the fast-moving Russian troops that were encircling Kyiv would crumble and retreat. Now those troops are dug in and fighting a Ukrainian counter-offensive made possible by NATO-supplied weapons, ammunition, training, and intelligence.
Nor was Moscow 18 months ago witnessing Putin’s critics fall out of high-rise windows or, more recently, a fiery mercenary leader began an armed march toward Moscow while demanding Putin fire his top generals for failing to lead their troops.
Back in the Karaganov paper, Maginnis suspects Putin is being assured President Joe Biden would back down if Russia drops a tactical nuke and a peace negotiation would happen instead. In fact, the paper predicts only a "madman" who "hates America" would retaliate against Russia to defend Europe, because doing so would sacrifice the United States.
What is the national security analyst’s advice for the conflict? It is past time to end it, he says, before all of Europe is engulfed in another world war.
