U.S. Would Not Go Nuclear if Russia Used Nukes in Ukraine, Mearsheimer Says

If the Russians were to use nuclear weapons inside of Ukraine today, we would not respond with a nuclear attack on Russia, he said.

Professor John Mearsheimer imagined an unlikely scenario where Russia started to lose the war in Ukraine and said Moscow could decide to go nuclear, which would not result in a U.S. nuclear strike of its own.

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Mearsheimer was on Piers Morgan’s “Uncensored” podcast and talked about how nuclear deterrence has historically prevented major militaries from going to war. He mentioned how a nuclear-armed Iran could help stabilize the Middle East because — like in the Cold War — the U.S. and the Soviet Union both had nuclear weapons which made the likelihood of a conflict between them much less likely.

“All three countries [Iran, Israel, and the U.S.] Would be remarkably cautious in terms of approaching each other with military force,” he said.

Morgan asked him if he believed Russia would turn to tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine if Kyiv started to win back territory after the major $95 billion injection from the U.S.

“I think the Russians view what's happening with regard to the Ukrainian War as an existential threat, and given that the Russians think it's an existential threat, if they were in deep trouble… they were losing the war in Ukraine, I think they’d turn to nuclear weapons,” he said.

Morgan asked if that contradicted his earlier theory about nuclear weapons preventing major wars, and he said no.

“If we responded with nuclear weapons against Russia, Russia would then respond with nuclear weapons against the United States of America,” he said. “And no American president, in my opinion, is willing to sacrifice New York or Chicago or Los Angeles for Ukraine.”

He continued, “If we hit Russia with American nuclear weapons, or Western nuclear weapons, the end result is the Russians will retaliate against us… and we do not want to be hit with nuclear weapons.”

“But the point is that if the Russians were to use nuclear weapons inside of Ukraine today, we would not respond with a nuclear attack on Russia because that would precipitate a general thermonuclear war and the last thing we want is a general thermonuclear war. This is not to say we would be happy about the fact that Ukraine was hit with nuclear weapons, because we certainly would not be, and we certainly would respond in some way but we would not respond with a nuclear strike on Russia.”

Alexey Goncharenko, a Ukrainian MP, said Ukraine must obtain a nuclear weapon — or produce one itself — if it stands a chance against Russia.

RT, the Russian news outlet, reported in Febraury “that Goncharenko pressed U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the issue at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday.”

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Goncharenko said Ukraine has three options: NATO membership, allying with a nuclear power, or “restoring our nuclear potential.”

Russia claimed that Ukraine tried to obtain nukes before its February 2022 invasion, a claim that Ukraine denied.

Rafael Grossi, the director of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency, said in 2022 that the agency has no “information that there is any deviation of material, any undeclared material or activities leading to the development of nuclear weapons” in Ukraine. 

Those in favor of all-out war for Ukraine have seized on the 1994 Budapest Memorandum that vowed security assurances as long as Ukraine transferred its nuclear arsenal obtained after the fall of the Soviet Union. 

The U.S. and U.K. vowed to come to Kyiv’s aid, but denied Kyiv’s request for a “legally binding guarantee.”

“I’m going to point out the elephant in the room,” Bill Browder, the CEO of Hermitage Capital, posted on X. “The U.K. and U.S. committed in 1994 to protect the territorial integrity of Ukraine in exchange for Ukraine giving up its nuclear weapons.”

The Brookings Institute noted that the Budapest Memorandum was signed by the U.S., UK, and Russia – and included security “assurances,” not “guarantees.”

Guarantees would have implied a commitment of American military force, which NATO members have, according to the think tank.

Ukraine once held the world’s third-largest amount of nuclear weapons—about 1,900 strategic warheads, 176 intercontinental ballistic missiles, and 44 strategic bombers, according to armscontrol.org.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton said in April 2023 that he feels a “personal stake” in the Ukraine War because he said he pressured Ukraine to give up its substantial nuclear arsenal in 1994.

He said Russia was unlikely to attack if Ukraine still had its weapons.

“I knew that President [Vladimir] Putin did not support the agreement President Yeltsin made never to interfere with Ukraine's territorial boundaries - an agreement he made because he wanted Ukraine to give up their nuclear weapons. They were afraid to give them up because they thought that was the only thing that protected them from an expansionist Russia. When it became convenient to him, President Putin broke it and first took Crimea. And I feel terrible about it because Ukraine is a very important country,” he said.

In 2023, Waldemar Skrzypczak, the Polish general and former junior defense minister, said he does not rule out the possibility that Ukraine’s military has nuclear capabilities – as Washington’s State Department remains diplomatically impotent.

The general said he cannot rule out the theory because Ukraine has “nuclear power plants, scientists, laboratories and know-how.”

“In other words, everything they need to possess such a weapon. In fact, today no one is in a position to prohibit the Ukrainians from having it,” he said.

Pavlo Rizanenko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament, told USA Today in 2014, “We gave up nuclear weapons because of this agreement. Now there's a strong sentiment in Ukraine that we made a big mistake.”

He continued, “In the future, no matter how the situation is resolved in Crimea, we need a much stronger Ukraine. If you have nuclear weapons, people don't invade you.”