What’s Really Outrageous About Woodward’s New Book

Authored by Alan Tonelson via RealityChek,

So much outrage (including from Vice President and Democratic presidential contender Kamala Harris) about the claim in Bob Woodward’s upcoming book that Donald Trump during his presidency sent some test kits to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin at the height of the Covid pandemic when they were scarce in the United States. And about the famed journalist’s report that the former president called Putin seven times since the former left the Oval Office in January, 2021. (See, e.g., here.)

And so little about by far the biggest outrage described in War (if true, of course – as with the above revelations): that President Biden may have pushed the United States, and the world, to within a coin flip of nuclear war in Ukraine.

Think I’m kidding? Here’s the description by CNN – which broke the news about Woodward’s book – his account of a crucial moment in U.S. policy toward Russia’s invasion. It’s worth quoting in full:

By September 2022, US intelligence reports deemed “exquisite” revealed a “deeply unnerving assessment” of Putin — that he was so desperate about battlefield losses that he might use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

“Based on the alarming new intelligence reports, the White House believed there was a 50% chance Russia would use a tactical nuclear weapon — a striking assessment that had skyrocketed up from 5% and then 10%, Woodward reports.

“’On all channels, get on the line with the Russians,’ Biden instructed his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan. ‘Tell them what we will do in response,’ he said, according to Woodward.”

That’s the key phrase: “Tell them what we will do in response.”

It doesn’t necessarily mean that Mr. Biden had decided to use a nuclear weapon against Russia itself, or even against Russian forces inside Ukraine, or was considering such actions. Nor does it necessarily mean that the president had decided to deploy U.S. military forces in Ukraine in response.

But it’s difficult to imagine what else President Biden might have been thinking of that would deter the Russians from a step like tactical nuclear weapons use, or that would have convinced them to abandon this policy after firing one nuclear shot.

And the real outrage here – again, if Woodward has the story right – is that Mr. Biden actually was prepared to run such a catastrophic risk on behalf of a country whose fate Washington had never officially considered to be a remotely vital American security interest even at the height of the Cold War — and still hasn’t.

It’s one thing to threaten nuclear weapons use to protect a country or region that has been deemed a vital interest by U.S. leaders – like Western Europe or Japan. Or to do so when adversaries try to place nuclear weapons close to the American homeland (as was the case with the Soviet Union during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962).

But even to contemplate Armageddon in a situation meeting absolutely none of these characteristics? How can that be viewed as anything but needlessly reckless and even suicidal?

Bob Woodward reports that at one point Biden believed there was a 50% chance of Russia using nukes over Ukraine

He chose to escalate the war anyways and lied to the American people about the risk pic.twitter.com/Ce8IMAST9w

— Saagar Enjeti (@esaagar) October 8, 2024

Keep that in mind the next time you hear that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is too dangerously off his rocker to be fit for the presidency (in particular that his warnings about the current administration bringing World War III closer are nothing more than fear-mongering). And that the aforementioned Kamala Harris, when asked what she would have done differently from Mr. Biden, responded, “Not a thing that comes to mind.”