Opinion

Despite Putin’s bluster, the world is no closer to nuclear war

Putin’s threats have sparked doomsday scenarios in the media but it is no more than propaganda, meant not so much for the world but for the Russian public

No one can guarantee against a nuclear war but, for now, our world is in a state of nuclear equilibrium

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Chen Gong, founder of the Anbound think tank, is a scholar and author, well known for his achievements in the field of information analysis in public policy.

Published: 1:30am, 19 Mar 2022

The way the West has jointly mobilised to impose comprehensive sanctions on Russia in response to its war on Ukraine is likely to have exceeded Russian President Vladimir Putin’s expectations.

Putin – perhaps to show that he is in charge of a major power or a leader who holds true to his words – has ordered Russia’s nuclear deterrence forces to be put on high alert, or “special mode” as he called it. That he has ordered the fortification of Russia’s 6,000-warhead arsenal is tantamount to a major step towards the launching of a global thermonuclear war.

Putin’s order, of course, has provided good fodder for the Western media. As nuclear weapons are frequently associated with world-ending catastrophe in popular thought, countless imaginative narratives have emerged in newspapers, on television and in other media around the world, instilling panic among citizens, as if nuclear war were at hand.

However, simply put, it won’t happen. Putin’s so-called threat is not “nuclear deterrence” or even “nuclear intimidation”. Rather, it is merely “nuclear propaganda”.