Iowa Senate candidate: Putin could nuke own people, blame other nations

By DOUGLAS BURNS
d.burns@carrollspaper.com

One of the highest-ranking former military officers to seek office in the history of Iowa says an increasingly isolated and unstable Russian president Vladimir Putin could resort to a host of nuclear tactics, murdering untold innocents and disrupting the world order, or worse, catalyzing a broad nuclear war.

“As a desperation a tactical nuclear weapon is in the realm of the feasible” from Putin, Retired Adm. Mike Franken, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate from Sioux City, told this newspaper in an interview.
Franken, who commanded 24 ships during his time in the Navy and lists policy and Capitol Hill experience on his resume, sees Putin as potentially using nuclear weapons depending on how the Russian invasion of Ukraine develops.

“I believe as a cornered badger, as the ineptitude of the Russian military is greater displayed and the assault fails and stalls, and reports of human atrocities increase, and the world opinion gets more severe, I believe that Putin, you’ve to question his emotional stability in such a situation,” Franken said.
The problem is Russians view the use of nuclear weapons as a tactic, Franken said.

“It’s viewed significantly differently by the United States and others,” Franken said.

While tactical weapons can be more precise than strategic nuclear weapons, ones aimed at taking out entire cities, regions, instead of hitting military or more specialized targets, the use still crosses a major international line, Franken said.

“This is just too bizarre for words,” Franken said. “The mushroom cloud, though, is still the vision you want to think of with a tactical nuke. Nagasaki, Hiroshima, the size of those weapons was rather miniscule compared to what is capable today.”

Franken is concerned about a “wag-the-dog” scenario in which Putin unleashes a nuclear weapon in Russia itself, and blames another nation for it.

“I mean, if they are blaming Ukraine for being Nazis, it’s not a far leap to expect that they would blame another country,” Franken said. “We can’t go down this spiral.”
There is no evidence of widespread “Nazi” influence in Ukraine, but Russia is using such lies as propaganda to support atrocities in Ukraine.

In terms of the war’s impact in Iowa, Franken said he is concerned about Iowa farmers facing substantially higher costs for planting this season as fertilizer costs outpace the boost to commodities. Agricultural analysts expect exports of both fertilizer and grain from Ukraine and Russia to decrease.

“I’m not so sure they are going to be offset with the planting costs that are going to be on the forward wave of this,” Franken said.

In typical years, fields would be planted in the Ukraine in the next three weeks, he said.

“That’s just not going to happen,” Franken said.

He’s also worried that Russian mines could remain in fields in Ukraine, sub-munitions that can kill farmers in coming years.
Then there are other geopolitical concerns, Franken said.

“My thoughts are China has the potential to develop a closer relationship with Russia, but it also has less need for their one belt, one road, stretching across the expanse of Asia because the markets are not going to be there and people will have shut off Russia,” he said.

In dealing with Russia and its traditional tank warfare, convoys on highways, the addition of Apache helicopters to the Ukraine resistance from the United States or a European ally would have been “an absolute game-changer” for Ukraine, Franken said.

“I’m really reticent to provide arms to nations,” Franken said. “Our track record of doing so is exceedingly mixed. You really have to be exceedingly self-actualized, knowing what is in the heart of that nation. We missed the mark with Afghanistan. We thought they had a little more staying power, when in fact, they folded so badly. I believe Ukraine is not in that same category. We would have been safe to provide them more significant military assistance.”
Franken said Trump is dangerously wrong in referring to Putin’s invasion as “genius” and “savvy.”

“I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, ‘This is genius.’ Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine — Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful,” Trump said in a radio interview with “The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show.” “He used the word ‘independent’ and ‘we’re gonna go out and we’re gonna go in and we’re gonna help keep peace.’ You gotta say that’s pretty savvy.”
Franken said the correct descriptions of Putin’s moves in Ukraine are “reckless” and “deadly.”
Franken notes that John Bolton, former national security advisor to Trump, and a leader Franken personally briefed during his career, is on record saying the former president “barely knew where Ukraine was” when he was in the Oval Office.

“That is Donald Trump, that is the self-serving perspective of that man, who cares not a whit about that portion of the world,” Franken said.

Franken said Trump and Putin share a worldview: “For them to prosper, others must suffer.”

“The crazy thing of it is 74 million Americans (Trump voters in 2020) for some bizarre reasons were OK with it,” Franken said. “I don’t think that number is but half of that today.”
Trump could have been a “guardian” of the region around Russia with closer relations to its neighbors, Franken said.
“He shunned them,” Franken said. “He was an unsteady partner in trading policies.”