Putin wields the big nuclear stick

Vladimir Putin is having another good day. He jumped in smartly when Emmanuel Macron suggested Nato might have to send troops to Ukraine and within a very short time every Nato leader was scurrying around making reassuring statements - reassuring to Putin, that is - that the alliance had no such intention. Sending troops would never happen, they said, almost to a man/woman. In fact, the way deterrence works is that one side or the other in an international security crisis situation, keeps alive the element of doubt. Otherwise, what is the point of deterrence? After two years of war in Ukraine when Russian troops are beginning to make some headway, Putin SHOULD be starting to worry about the potential consequences of what Nato might do if his invasion force makes big advances - it's not happening yet. But instead of having to take this into account he has been told in no uncertain terms that what Macron said was rubbish and Nato was definitely not going to send troops to help Kyiv. No need for Putin to worry then. To underline his satisfaction that his war threat had worked very nicely thank you, today in his annual state of the nation speech he added for good measure that any such move by Nato would lead to nuclear war. He has firmly put Nato in its place. Very worrying.