In late 2022, the US began “preparing rigorously” for Russia potentially striking Ukraine with a nuclear weapon, in what would have been the first nuclear attack in war since the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki nearly eighty years before, two senior administration officials told CNN.
The Biden administration was specifically concerned Russia might use a tactical or battlefield nuclear weapon, the officials said.
I first reported US officials were worried about Russia using a tactical nuclear weapon in 2022, but in my new book, “The Return of Great Powers” publishing on March 12, I reveal exclusive details on the unprecedented level of contingency planning carried out as senior members of the Biden administration became increasingly alarmed by the situation.
“That’s what the conflict presented us, and so we believed and I think it’s our right to prepare rigorously and do everything possible to avoid that happening,” the first senior administration official told me.
What led the Biden administration to reach such a startling assessment was not one indicator, but a collection of developments, analysis, and – crucially - highly sensitive new intelligence.
The administration’s fear, a second senior administration official told me, “was not just hypothetical — it was also based on some information that we picked up.”
“We had to plan so that we were in the best possible position in case this no‑longer unthinkable event actually took place,” the same senior administration official told me.
During this period from late summer to fall 2022, the National Security Council convened a series of meetings to put contingency plans in place “in…
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