Should Ukraine have nuclear weapons?

By Slavoj Zizek

Following Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 US presidential election, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democratic congresswoman from New York, publicly appealed to those who had voted for both her and Trump. She wanted to know what motivated such an apparently inconsistent choice, and the predominant answer she heard was that she and Trump seemed more sincere, whereas Vice President Kamala Harris came off as too calculating.

It was a fruitful exercise, and we can ask the same of leftists who support both the Palestinians and Russia. After all, the latter has been bombing Ukrainian cities until they resemble Gaza, and just as the right-wing parties in Israel’s government want to create a Greater Israel, the Kremlin hopes to create a Greater Russia. Russia’s eliminationist project should thus remain top of mind whenever we assess developments on the ground.

Immediately after the recent decision by US President Joe Biden’s administration to allow Ukraine to launch US-furnished ATACMS missiles (with a range of up to 190 miles) into Russia, the Kremlin warned that any use of Western arms against the Russian Federation could trigger a nuclear response under its new nuclear doctrine. Nonetheless, the Ukrainians countered by firing six ATACMS missiles at a military facility in the Bryansk region (adjacent to the Ukrainian border) the next day.

Although Russia claims that the damage was negligible – five of the missiles were shot down, and there were no casualties – following the letter of its new nuclear doctrine would mean that it is now at war with the United States and has the right to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine. With some of those around Trump already accusing Joe Biden of taking a dangerous step toward a new world war, is it fair to say that Ukraine went too far? Has it disturbed the fragile balance that kept the conflict limited?

Before jumping to this conclusion, one must remember that the US has permitted Ukraine to target locations primarily in Kursk, the border region from which Russia has been launching many of its attacks against Ukrainian positions. As Josep Borrell, the (outgoing) EU foreign-policy chief put it: “Ukraine should be able to use the arms we provided to them not only to stop the arrow, but also to be able to hit the archers.”

Moreover, recall that Russia had escalated its own campaign against Ukraine mere days earlier, blanketing the entire country with drone and missile attacks against civilian energy infrastructure just before the onset of winter. While six Ukrainian missiles caused panic all around the world, Russia’s systematic destruction of Ukrainian infrastructure has been normalized – much like Israel’s razing of northern Gaza.

The situation is as obscene as it is absurd. Russia, having launched a war of conquest against its peaceful neighbor, now wants to keep its own territory out of the war, and it accuses Ukraine, the victim, of “expanding” the conflict. If Russia is serious about its new nuclear doctrine, let us offer an equally serious counter-doctrine: If an independent country is attacked with non-nuclear forces by a nuclear superpower, its allies have the right – even the duty – to provide it with nuclear weapons so that it has a chance of deterring an attack.

It is often said that Putin wants a return to the Soviet Union and Stalinism; but this is not right. Rather, his regime is sustained by a vision of the pre-1917 imperial era, when czarist Russia’s zone of influence encompassed not only Poland but also Finland. Time will tell if Putin’s neo-Czarism is more than a pipe dream. In the emerging multipolar world, the rise of strong empires, each with its own zone of influence, is quite conceivable.

As Putin told the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in June 2022, “sovereignty cannot be segmented or fragmented in the twenty-first century.” Upholding political sovereignty and national identity is essential, he said, but so is strengthening everything that “determines our country’s economic, financial, professional, and technological independence.” Clearly, only a new imperial Russia, not Ukraine or Belarus or Finland, will be able to enjoy the full benefits of sovereignty.

Making matters worse, on the same day that President Vladimir Putin announced the new Russian nuclear doctrine, the BBC reported that, “air pollution in India’s capital Delhi has soared to extremely severe levels, choking residents and engulfing the city in thick smog,” disrupting air transport, forcing schools to close, and halting construction. “And experts warn that the situation could get worse in Delhi in the coming days.”

While Russia indulges in imperial aggression and rattles its nuclear saber, hundreds of millions of people are finding it harder to breathe. Our media trumpet the use of Western weapons against Russia as front-page “breaking news,” and our blinkered leftists regard Ukraine’s “excessive” defense as a dangerous escalation. A threat to our very survival, however, barely merits mention.