BRUSSELS
— The White House has quietly assembled a team of national security
officials to sketch out scenarios of how the United States and its
allies should respond if Russian President Vladimir Putin — frustrated
by his lack of progress in Ukraine or determined to warn Western nations
against intervening in the war — unleashes his stockpiles of chemical,
biological or nuclear weapons.
The Tiger Team, as the group is
known, is also examining responses if Putin reaches into NATO territory
to attack convoys bringing weapons and aid to Ukraine, according to
several officials involved in the process. Meeting three times a week,
in classified sessions, the team is also looking at responses if Russia
seeks to extend the war to neighboring nations, including Moldova and
Georgia, and how to prepare European countries for the refugees flowing
in on a scale not seen in decades.
Those contingencies are
expected to be central to an extraordinary session here in Brussels on
Thursday, when President Joe Biden meets leaders of the 29 other NATO
nations, who will be meeting for the first time — behind closed doors,
their cellphones and aides banished — since Putin invaded Ukraine.
Just
a month ago, such scenarios seemed more theoretical. But today, from
the White House to NATO’s headquarters in Brussels, a recognition has
set in that Russia may turn to the most powerful weapons in its arsenal
to bail itself out of a military stalemate.
NATO
Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg underscored the urgency of the
preparation effort Wednesday, telling reporters for the first time that
even if the Russians employ weapons of mass destruction only inside
Ukraine, they may have “dire consequences” for people in NATO nations.
He appeared to be discussing the fear that chemical or radioactive
clouds could drift over the border. One issue under examination is
whether such collateral damage would be considered an “attack” on NATO
under its charter, which might require a joint military response.
The
current team was established in a memo signed by Jake Sullivan, Biden’s
national security adviser, on Feb. 28, four days after the invasion
began, according to the officials involved in the process, who spoke on
the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive planning. A previous
iteration had worked for months, behind the scenes, to prepare the U.S.
government for the likelihood of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
That
team played a central role in devising the playbooks of deep sanctions,
troop buildups in NATO nations and arming the Ukrainian military, which
have exploited Russia’s weaknesses and put its government and economy
under tremendous pressure.
Stoltenberg, sounding far more hawkish
than in the past, said he expected “allies will agree to provide
additional support, including cybersecurity assistance and equipment to
help Ukraine protect against chemical, biological, radiologic and
nuclear threats.”
As Biden flew to Europe on Wednesday, both he
and Stoltenberg warned of growing evidence that Russia was in fact
preparing to use chemical weapons in Ukraine.
These are questions
that Europe has not confronted since the depths of the Cold War, when
NATO had far fewer members, and Western Europe worried about a Soviet
attack headed into Germany. But few of the leaders set to meet in
Brussels on Thursday ever had to deal with those scenarios — and many
have never had to think about nuclear deterrence or the effects of the
detonation of battlefield nuclear weapons, designed to be less powerful
than those that destroyed Hiroshima. The fear is that Russia is more
likely to use those weapons, precisely because they erode the
distinction between conventional and nuclear arms.
Sen. Jack
Reed, D-R.I., who heads the Armed Services Committee, said on Wednesday
that if Putin used a weapon of mass destruction — chemical, biological
or nuclear — “there would be consequences” even if the weapon’s use was
confined to Ukraine. Reed said radiation from a nuclear weapon, for
instance, could waft into a neighboring NATO country and be considered
an attack on a NATO member.
“It’s going to be a very difficult
call, but it’s a call that not just the president but the entire NATO
Council will have to make,” Reed told reporters, referring to the
governing body of the Western alliance.
“The bottom line is this
is a NATO decision,” Reed said. “It won’t be the president’s decision
alone. I don’t think he’d want to take action unilaterally.”
One
major issue the Tiger Team is looking at is the threshold that could
prompt the alliance to use military force in Ukraine. Biden has made
clear that he is enormously reluctant to do so, fearing that direct
confrontation with Russia could escalate the conflict beyond control.
“That’s World War III,” he noted recently.
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A second team of
officials, also created by Sullivan’s Feb. 28 memo, is looking at
long-term opportunities for the United States to improve its
geopolitical position as a result of Putin’s invasion. Inside the White
House, it has become an article of faith that the Russian leader made a
huge strategic error — one that will diminish Russia’s standing, cripple
its economy and alienate potential allies for years. But it is early in
the conflict, other officials caution, and that conclusion may prove
premature.
The immediate concern is what Putin may do next —
driven by a desire to rescue a failing military effort or reestablish
his credentials as a force to be feared.
Officials believe the
chances that Putin will resort to detonating a nuclear weapon are small.
But Russia’s steady stream of reminders that it has its arsenal at the
ready, and could use it in response to anything it perceives as an
“existential threat,” has put Washington on high alert.
Biden
will take up with allies “how to deal with the rhetoric and the
commentary coming out of Russia on this whole question of the potential
use of nuclear weapons,” Sullivan told reporters Wednesday.
“We
haven’t seen anything that’s made us adjust our posture, our nuclear
posture, but it is of course something we will have to continue to stay
in close consultation with allies and partners on, as well as
communicate directly to the Russians.”
Several officials said the
White House and Pentagon have had some tension over how much detail the
Defense Department is willing to share on its highly secretive war
planning — especially concerning responses to any use of nuclear weapons
— even in the classified setting of the Tiger Team. (The term has been
used for many years to describe an emergency task force inside the
National Security Council.)
A U.S. official said Biden remained
adamant about keeping U.S. forces out of Ukraine. But the official said
the administration believed it would be misguided not to closely examine
the thresholds, if any, under which the president would reverse
himself, or to be prepared to deal with the consequences of the use of
weapons of mass destruction.
A senior administration official
said any use of a “small” tactical nuclear bomb by Russia — even inside
Ukraine and not directed at a NATO member — would mean that “all bets
are off” on the United States and NATO staying out of the war. But when
pushed, the official declined to lay out the responses under discussion.
The
official said American and NATO intelligence communities had not seen
any activity by Russian military officials that suggested preparations
to use a nuclear weapon. But he said that during internal discussions,
administration officials were urging caution, because there was more at
stake than just Ukraine.
If Putin did strike a NATO country
intentionally, he would not only bring the force of the military
alliance to bear on Russia, but also probably find himself facing NATO
troops inside Ukraine, Artis Pabriks, Latvia’s defense minister, told
reporters traveling in his country this month with Gen. Mark Milley,
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“He will get Article 5,”
Pabriks said, in a reference to the NATO pledge that an attack on one
alliance member is an attack on all.
“If he gets that, basically
that would also make us involved in Ukraine,” Pabriks said. “He has no
way out of that. So I don’t think he should be so stupid.”
Sen.
Angus King, I-Maine, a member of the Senate Intelligence and Armed
Services committees, visited the Polish-Ukrainian border over the
weekend, meeting with officials from allied countries, visiting a
refugee processing center and talking with Ukrainians. King said that as
Russian forces struggle to make headway, Putin could try to strike a
diplomatic agreement, intensify his bombardment of Ukrainian cities and
level them, or lash out against the West with a cyberattack.
“The
fourth is escalate to de-escalate, which is a tactical nuclear weapon,”
King said, using the term for a Russian military doctrine in which it
would employ a nuclear weapon as a warning — and then negotiate.
