who i think zelenskyy is channelling pretty well in this moment. in terms of would putin reach for the nuclear card, not the strategic one, not a big nuclear exchange, look, i despise vladimir putin, but i ll give him this. he loves his country. he loves russia. he doesn t seek a global war that destroys russia alongside much of the world. so would he use a tactical nuke? i think the chances of that have increased, perhaps to 10%, still unacceptably high. my own evaluation is he will not choose to do that. simply because it would swing many nations that are sill kind of in the middle on this over against putin. that would be disastrous for his economy. i don t look for the use of a nuclear weapon, david. admiral, stay with us, and clint watts, thank you very much for being on this morning. still ahead on morning joe. we have much more on the violent threats elected officials have faced over the past few years. we re going to get the admiral s take, and get michael steele
pressure in the west, see paragraph 1 about creating cracks in the political system. so putin has cards to play. david ignatius. you spoke about putin s efforts to break ukraine, and they don t seem to be working. i was there several weeks ago, boy, you hear nothing but defiant resolve. my question for you is whether you think it s likely or possible that putin will seek to further escalate in significant ways, and in particular, what your own personal evaluation would be about the use of tactical nuclear weapons. let s start with a historical analogy, david. during world war ii, hitler s strategy was to launch air-raids, try and demoralize the population, how did that work out, as you correctly point out in ukraine today, it simply energizes the population, it gives lift to inspirational leaders like winston churchill,
winter period, unfortunately you ll see putin continue these long range strikes. our job to conclude is to provide the ukrainians the best support we can, and in particular enhance their air defense systems so putin s strategy will not be successful. clint. admiral, i was wondering what you thought about russia in terms of their strategy. we have been talking, you know, for six months about their ability to fight and now can they continue to fight, you know. some of my research, we see russian troops showing up literally with just a bayonet. they don t even have water, drinking out of puddles. what would the effect be inside russia if even through the winter, russia can t feel the military anymore. what are you seeing in terms of that? i agree, clint, completely, with your analysis that the russian capability to take these 300,000 troops that they have pulled out of homeless shelters, pulled out of bars who are dead drunk, dragged off to recruiting stations, they re being told to
to force them to fight, but these are impactful attacks. indeed they are, and let s sort of stipulate, putin, if he can t take ukraine, he s going to break it. that s kind of his philosophy, is destroy it, you know, like the way soran went after shire at the end of lord of the rings, and he will continue striking. this is a card he ll continue to play. in terms of where the war is right now, the russians are still on their back foot. there s an important city called kherson, which the gateway to crimea. i think that will fall to the ukrainians, and that s a good thing because it s psychologically critically important. there s a third combatant about to enter the battle, ukraine, russia and winter. not to go all game of thrones on you, but winter is coming and it will impact both sides. it will slow the military action, but i think in that
by the way, and i know this from my prior life, for every actual act of violence, there are dozens, if not hundreds of threats of violence directed against that individual. and where we go from here, we have to change the climate one way or another, and it shouldn t take somebody dying to make that happen. and admiral stavridis, just your closing thoughts as we move forward. you were talking about this impacting our national security. indeed. let s put it this way. america, our nation, can meet any of these challenges in the greater world. we can defeat putin s invasion. we can stand up to china. we can manage through the many many crises in cyber. we have the capability, but the question is, can we do it together. how do we pull the nation together. you know, to steal a line from abraham lincoln, jon meacham s