Some countries want nuclear weapons to prop up a tottering state. Pakistan insists its weapons are safe, but the outside world cannot shake the fear that they may fall into the hands of Islamist terrorists, or even religious zealots within its own armed forces. When history catches up with North Korea\u2019s Kim dynasty, as sooner or later it must, nobody knows what will happen to its nukes\u201d\u201dwhether they might be inherited, sold, eliminated or, in a last futile gesture, detonated.<\/p>\n
Others want nuclear weapons not to freeze the status quo, but to change it. Russia has started to wield nuclear threats as an offensive weapon in its strategy of intimidation. Its military exercises routinely stage dummy nuclear attacks on such capitals as Warsaw and Stockholm. Mr Putin\u2019s speeches contain veiled nuclear threats. Dmitry Kiselev, one of the Kremlin\u2019s mouthpieces, has declared with relish that Russian nuclear forces could turn America into \u201cradioactive ash\u201d\u009d.<\/p>\n
Just rhetoric, you may say. But the murder of Boris Nemtsov, an opposition leader, on the Kremlin\u2019s doorstep on February 27th was only the latest sign that Mr Putin\u2019s Russia is heading into the geopolitical badlands…. Resentful, nationalistic and violent, it wants to rewrite the Western norms that underpin the status quo. First in Georgia and now in Ukraine, Russia has shown it will escalate to extremes to assert its hold over its neighbours and convince the West that intervention is pointless. Even if Mr Putin is bluffing about nuclear weapons (and there is no reason to think he is), any nationalist leader who comes after him could be even more dangerous.<\/p>\n