Ep. 21: Matthew Kroenig on Ukraine and Putin’s Nuclear Weapons

Matthew Kroenig, Professor in the Department of Government and Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and Director of Studies at the Atlantic Council, joins the show to discuss Russian nuclear doctrine and what it means for the war in Ukraine.

Times

• 00:49 - Introduction
• 01:07 - Forecasting Russia's potential gains in Ukraine
• 02:45 - The nuclear dimension in Ukraine
• 05:05 - Russian nuclear doctrine: escalate to de-escalate
• 10:52 - Potential U.S. responses to Russian nuclear strikes on NATO allies
• 12:54 - Perceptions of nuclear weapons, from the Cold War to now
• 15:46 - Battlefield nuclear tactics
• 18:32 - Russian thinking on employing chemical weapons
• 21:05 - U.S. nuclear weapons policy
• 25:44 - Scenarios when Russia would use nuclear weapons
• 27:16 - Putin's rationale and next steps
• 29:21 - Russian strikes and potential fault lines in Western unity
• 32:30 - U.S. reliance on Russia's brokerage of a nuclear deal with Iran