This Moment: The Blog - Jessica C. McWade, Ed.D.

Of course it's a "war of aggression" and a "war of choice." The Russian dictator Putin has long had designs on the independent nation of Ukraine. He acted on those brutal instincts repeatedly this century and finally chose to engage in an illegal and immoral, full-scale invasion and occupation in 2022. Outgoing NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was right to remind us of these truths yesterday at a meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations. He was asked about Putin's most recent clumsy but dangerous claim that he is prepared to use nuclear weapons in certain scenarios. Stoltenberg said that there is little new about this" pattern of nuclear rhetoric" and that "it's not succeeding." The NATO leader pointed out that Putin "has declared many red lines before and did nothing" when Ukraine sought to defend itself with the help of the West. Putin's nuclear threat was specifically tied to NATO member-countries supplying