What Does Biden Mean by ‘Armageddon’?

The U.S. president evokes the Cuban missile crisis and directs another warning at Putin.

“And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth.” – Revelation 16:1

“We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis,” U.S. President Joe Biden said recently at a Democratic Party fundraiser.

Armageddon? In the biblical book of Revelation by the apostle John, a raving fantasy about the end of the world written around A.D. 100 that is part of the New Testament, Armageddon is presented as the place of the final confrontation between God and his enemies. This confrontation at the end of time serves as a synonym for nuclear war in the Anglo-Saxon sphere.

What did Biden mean by that? Does the U.S. president really consider the danger of a devastating nuclear war between Russia and the West to be that great?

The reference to Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis seems to suggest so. A brief summary: Exactly 60 years ago, in October 1962, the U.S. and the USSR did, in fact, arrive at the brink of a nuclear war. Under Nikita Khrushchev, the USSR had stationed nuclear rockets in Fidel Castro’s Cuba that could have reached the United States in no time. In response, U.S. President John F. Kennedy imposed a naval blockade on Cuba. It would not be revealed until decades later that a Soviet submarine officer wanted to fire a nuclear torpedo. A third world war was avoided only thanks to a local Soviet captain. The Cuban missile crisis ended in a compromise: Khrushchev withdrew the rockets from Cuba and the U.S. withdrew its missiles from Turkey.

Biden also said that they are trying to gauge how Vladimir Putin could escape the situation without losing face or power. “We’ve got a guy I know fairly well,” Biden said. “He’s not joking when he talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons.”

A Dangerous Corner

Putin has, in fact, made such references several times when “sacred Russian lands,” that is, the newly annexed territories in Ukraine, need to be defended, which his army seems increasingly unable to do.

At present, nothing indicates that the Russian army has retrieved tactical nuclear weapons from its storehouses and moved them near Ukraine. In purely military terms, their use would make little sense against the widely dispersed and relatively small Ukrainian units. It would, however, still be possible to detonate such a weapon high above Ukraine or the Black Sea to make a statement without much loss, and to disrupt or destroy Ukrainian communication lines with the electromagnetic pulse.

Given the fact that Putin has maneuvered himself into a dangerous corner, those possibilities cannot be ruled out. More likely, Biden’s statement should be understood as another urgent warning to Putin not to let himself get carried away and commit an act of insanity. High-ranking military personnel and members of the Biden administration have already made clear, after all, that use of tactical nuclear weapons would have “catastrophic consequences.” The U.S. and NATO would not respond with the nuclear option, but with the most modern precision weapons that would destroy either the Russian flotilla in the Black Sea or important units of the Russian army.

Unlike the Cuban missile crisis, however, Putin has already committed an unacceptable military action. Can he be offered a compromise at the expense of Ukraine? Hardly. That is probably why the highest authority in the U.S., the president, issued this warning: Putin should know that he cannot continue to escalate without facing the gravest consequences. That is part of a strategy to leave no doubt about the West’s resolve.