Why Putin Won't Use Nuclear Weapons
Two Types of Authoritarians
There are two types of authoritarians.
The first is the calculating type — the King. He wants to stay in power, and he does it by thinking clearly. He is not necessarily unstable or mentally ill. He simply sees power as a game of stability and longevity, and he plays to win without taking unnecessary risks.
The second is the paranoid psychopath. He also wants to stay in power, but paranoia warps his judgment completely. He sees threats everywhere and reacts to shadows as if they are real. Critically, he has no regard for human life except his own — others exist only to serve his survival and indulgences.
Putin's Evolution
Unchecked power has a way of nurturing the seeds of paranoia. Years of absolute authority, surrounded by advisors too terrified to tell him the truth, have transformed Putin into a paranoid psychopath for whom Ukraine has become an old man's hobby.
Stalin at the end of his life represented the endpoint of this pathology — dying, sick, having his own doctors killed because paranoia made him see assassins in those trying to save him.
For Putin, when you have everything — absolute power, unlimited wealth, total control — what's left? Territorial conquest becomes a luxury indulgence, like collecting rare art, except the price is paid entirely in other people's blood.
The One Thing He Won't Do
People understand Putin is dangerous. They know he will do terrible things — invade a neighbor, crush dissent, kill civilians, send thousands to die for his territorial hobby.
But what they don't always see is this: there's one thing he will never willingly do — die.
One million could die. Ten million. A hundred million. None of it matters to him. These are not self-sacrificing types — they demand others die for "the motherland" while they would watch their entire country burn before accepting their own death.
And it's not just physical survival. People like Putin worry about their legacy — they want to live on even after death. Nuclear war doesn't just kill him, it destroys any possibility of being remembered as the great leader who restored Russian power. Putin wants to be Peter the Great, not the madman who ended civilization. That's not the kind of immortality a narcissist craves.
Nuclear Weapons and Survival
Nuclear weapons make that reality unavoidable.
A full-scale nuclear war is suicide.
A strike on NATO means certain and immediate retaliation.
Even a "limited" strike risks escalation he cannot control.
Putin knows this. That's why, even at the lowest points of the war in Ukraine, the missiles stayed in their silos. Nuclear weapons are leverage — tools to instill fear — not instruments of mutual destruction.
Nuclear use is not in Putin's plan. Only the threat to use them. Real use means he dies, and he knows it. The saber-rattling is psychological warfare, not military strategy. It works precisely because people take it seriously, but calling the bluff himself would be suicide.
This is crucial for understanding how to deal with such people: you cannot take their nuclear threats seriously, or they will own you. The moment you bend to nuclear blackmail, you've handed them exactly what they want — leverage without risk, control without consequences. Too often, Western leaders fail to recognize this distinction between bluff and genuine intent.
The Saving Grace
Here lies the paradox of dealing with such madmen who have nuclear weapons. They are mentally unstable about ALMOST everything — seeing threats that don't exist, making catastrophic decisions, destroying their own countries. But when it comes to their personal survival, they become coldly rational. This is their Achilles' heel.
Knowing this offers a way to find solace when dealing with such people. To live for one more day, they would let a million people perish. But they will not take actions that directly threaten their own existence.
The missiles remain in their silos not because of morality or restraint, but because Vladimir Putin knows that if they fly, he dies. Ukraine may be his hobby, but survival is his obsession.