Threats of nuclear war are the last thing the economy needed

Economic pain arrives as the end of the Cold War ends

A hundred dollar bill.
(Image credit: Illustrated | iStock)

It's one thing for North Korea — a country that hasn't fought a war since 1953 — to saber rattle with its small nuclear arsenal (the nation's "treasured sword," according to dictator Kim Jong-un). It's quite another when Vladimir Putin does it. Russia has nearly 6,000 nuclear warheads, and its ongoing invasion of Ukraine is Europe's largest ground war since World War II. Moreover, things don't seem to be going as smoothly or quickly as Putin anticipated. Finally, Russia's nuclear war doctrine suggests a dangerous willingness to engage in a limited nuclear war to win a conventional conflict — especially one, perhaps, inciting economy-crippling sanctions by the rest of the world.

So no wonder the United States and the rest of NATO howled after Putin placed his country's deterrence forces, including nuclear weapons, on high alert, and warned that interference in Ukraine would spark consequences "never before experienced in your history."

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James Pethokoukis

James Pethokoukis is the DeWitt Wallace Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute where he runs the AEIdeas blog. He has also written for The New York Times, National Review, Commentary, The Weekly Standard, and other places.