Hare Provides Insight Into Putin’s Nuclear Escalation
On February 27, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his country’s nuclear forces to a “special regime of combat duty.” Vox asked three leading experts of nuclear arms control to comment on the risks the world now faces and what might be done to address them. One such expert was Ambassador Paul Hare, Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University.
In the article, titled “How to think about the risk of nuclear war, according to 3 experts,” Hare argues that Putin’s objective is not to bring the world to nuclear war and that his escalation is more a reaction to severe international pressure and sanctions. The threat of nuclear war also serves to isolate Putin from not just the West but potential allies such as China who “will likely be urging him to restore the world order of global trade and investment on which China’s prosperity depends.” While he doesn’t believe that Putin’s goal is to use nuclear weapons, Hare states that his escalation has thrown the international order up in the air and made the path forward more complicated.
The full article can be read on Vox‘s website. Hare offered similar insights in an interview with Croatian TV RTL, which can be viewed online.
Ambassador Paul Hare was a British diplomat for 30 years and the British ambassador to Cuba from 2001-04. He now teaches classes at Boston University on Diplomatic Practice, Arms Control, Intercultural Communication, and on Cuba in Transition. His novel, “Moncada — A Cuban Story,” set in modern Cuba, was published in 2010. His book, “Making Diplomacy Work; Intelligent Innovation for the Modern World” was published in 2015. Learn more about Professor Hare on his faculty profile.