Russia’s Nuclear Threats

Vladimir Putin has announced plans for changes in Russia’s nuclear doctrine. How much difference will this make in how his war in Ukraine is being fought? Probably not much.

Fabian Hoffmann has categorized Russia’s actions relative to nuclear weapons:

1. Cheap talk: “…Most of Russia’s nuclear threats fall into this category. A good example is the discussions regularly held by eccentric guests on Russian talk shows, who fantasize together with the moderator about launching nuclear weapons against cities like London, Paris, Berlin, Washington D.C…. These threats are not state-sanctioned, occur in a vacuum, and completely ignore the tremendous costs nuclear use would impose on Russia. Thus, these threats are inherently non-credible and should be ignored.”
2. State-sanctioned rhetoric: Also rhetorical, but from official channels. “In this case, the nuclear threat is made directly by Russian decisionmakers, including Putin himself… Putin’s latest and very direct nuclear threat related to lifting targeting restrictions for Western long-range strike weapons also falls under this category. So does the announced nuclear doctrine change, as a nuclear doctrine essentially is a formal policy document reflecting state-level discourse on nuclear weapons.”
3. Preparations for limited nuclear use. This involves activating the military unit responsible for nuclear weapons and moving the warheads to be mated to their delivery vehicles.
4. Preparations for largescale nuclear use. This would involve activating the long-range missiles and bombers.

The last two would be observed by the US, by satellite and by other means of intelligence-gathering. The Biden administration declassified observations of the Russian preparations for war to warn Putin against attacking Ukraine. It’s likely they would do the same if it looked like Russia was preparing for a nuclear strike.

Hoffmann’s whole article is short and worth reading. I disagree with him on one point: that the US has been too wary of Russian threats. We want to avoid not only actual nuclear use, but the steps leading up to it. Every step increases the probability of use. Going to step 3 is to be avoided. Once preparations start, they can develop their own logic of going forward, and to back down from such a step involves significantly more loss of face than backing down from verbal threats.

The term “red lines,” which has been frequently used by reporters to characterize Putin’s choices, is misleading in a similar way. As we have seen, what appeared to be “red lines” turned out not to be the tripwires that this term implies. Further, it is a gendered term that brings down the level of wartime decisions to that of barfights. From what we have seen in the Ukraine war, Putin makes decisions more carefully than that term implies.

Putin, wisely, has not stated precisely that particular actions constitute red lines. This gives him the ability to make decisions without being seen to “back down,” again part of the gendered concept.

So the United States and its allies provide Ukraine with weapons and capabilities after an equally careful consideration of the military necessities and what Russia’s response is likely to be. They have artfully pressed the apparent limits and now are considering the question of Ukrainian strikes into deep Russian territory, a question that might well have led to a Russian nuclear strike if such strikes had been implemented suddenly in, say, the fall of 2022.

Putin has had to consider each uptick in Western support of Ukraine in the context of the time. So far, gradual upgrading of Ukrainian capabilities has not been severe enough for him to decide that a nuclear countermove is necessary. Ukraine has now moved into Russian territory and has occasionally struck weapons and energy targets in Russia far from the front lines of the war. Russian doctrine is that nuclear use is justified only in case of an existential danger to the state. Clearly none of Ukraine’s actions so far meet that criterion.

Putin makes a calculation with each uptick in Western support on how to conduct the war. He is a human decision-maker, however, rather than the rational man of deterrence theory. So he is subject to the pressures of a masculinist framework, the day to day concerns in other areas of Russian life, and even a bad night’s sleep. All that is (or should be) in the calculations of Western weapons suppliers.

My overall sense is that there is little immediate danger of Russian nuclear use. But that is not license for “anything goes” on the part of the West.