The world is now involuntarily preparing for a nuclear war.
Even the scenario of such a war sounds quite frightening.
Unfortunately, a nuclear war is not impossible today.
Threats to use nuclear weapons have become the number one trump card of Kremlin leader Vladimr Putin.
Putin has recently decided to put his trump card on the table more aggressively.
On September 24, 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced significant updates to Russia's nuclear doctrine in response to what Moscow perceived as growing Western interference in Ukraine.
A few months later, on Tuesday, November 19, Putin formalized the changes as the official policy of the Russian Federation.
The revised doctrine, entitled Fundamentals of the State Policy of the Russian Federation in the Field of Nuclear Deterrence, expanded Putin's conditions for the use of nuclear weapons.
The Moscow regime is now ready to use nuclear weapons in retaliation for nuclear strikes and conventional attacks that threaten the sovereignty or territorial integrity of Russia and Belarus.
Russia's nuclear doctrine in 2020, before the November 2024 amendment, also authorized a nuclear response to conventional weapons attacks.
However, the old nuclear doctrine only applied in circumstances where the very existence of the state was threatened.
Now, with this doctrinal innovation, Putin was explicitly extending Russia's nuclear protection to Belarus, framing it as a commitment under the State of the Union treaty between the two nations.
In a telephone conversation with journalists, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that these changes mean that the Russian Federation reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in the event of an attack with conventional weapons against it or the Republic of Belarus.
Senior Russian security official Dmitry Medvedev has also raised concerns on this issue, saying that if the West were to supply nuclear weapons to Ukraine, Moscow could consider such a transfer as an attack on Russia and a pretext for a nuclear response.
This was seen as very contradictory and open to interpretation.
Putin had stooped so low as to make the use of nuclear weapons arbitrary.
But there is something that the trio of Putin, Peskov and Medvedev have missed.

The West, particularly the United States, and even China had clearly caught Russia's bluff.
China has warned Russia several times against its nuclear doctrine.
Putin's doctrine was crossing China's red lines.
China made it clear that it would stick to the nuclear agreements and that it would not walk shoulder to shoulder and share policy with Russia in case of an undesirable situation.
Given the interests and bilateral relations between Russia and China, Chinese pressure is something Putin cannot afford to ignore.
On the other hand, the response of the West and the United States to the Russian nuclear threat and bluff has been much harsher and more dramatic.
So how did the US and its allies counter Putin's nuclear trump card or bluff?
What measures and efforts were the US and the West taking to prevent Russia from starting a nuclear war?

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