Kremlin rulers and Russian officials have long threatened to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine and NATO countries. According to a new report, Russia’s nuclear weapons could actually be used in a situation where its conventional forces are clearly inferior to the adversary.
Furthermore, Russia could use nuclear weapons in a conflict with NATO, in the hope that the United States and other Western countries that possess nuclear weapons will not respond in the same way to Moscow’s move, the Times writes.
“Knowing that the West is typically risk- and loss-averse, Russia might consider using sufficient non-strategic nuclear weapons to inflict pre-emptive damage on its own, knowing that the United States would not want to cross the nuclear weapons threshold in a counterattack, and may be willing to end the conflict quickly,” the British think tank International said in a report by the Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).
Nonstrategic nuclear weapons are nuclear weapons designed for battlefield use. The impact range and explosion force of these nuclear weapons are lower than those of strategic nuclear weapons. With the help of the latter it is also possible to destroy large cities.
Some Western officials fear that Russia could attack some NATO members if it wins in Ukraine. Furthermore, Russian authorities and officials have repeatedly emphasized that they are ready to use nuclear weapons.
The President of the Russian Council for Foreign and Defense Policy, Sergei Karaganov, even predicted last year that the United States would not be ready to respond to a Russian nuclear attack in Europe, because, according to him, Washington would not be ready to “sacrifice”, for example, Boston for, for example, Poznan.”
Although threats by Russian officials are generally seen as a bluff within the Kremlin’s information operations, official Russian nuclear weapons doctrine allows for the first use of tactical nuclear weapons.
There are four scenarios in the Russian doctrine, writes the Times. The first two deal with responding to another country’s nuclear attack on Russia with one of their own. According to the third scenario, a Russian nuclear attack is possible if the adversary attacks Russian military or state institutions with the aim of neutralizing Russian nuclear weapons. The fourth scenario involves the use of Russian nuclear weapons when the existence of the Russian state is threatened, including by an adversary’s conventional forces.
“The latter scenario assumes that Russia can use nuclear weapons on the battlefield to stop opposing forces and show resolve if, in the event of a conflict, Russian conventional forces are unable to stop an attack on its territory,” it says the IISS report.
The IISS argues that, based on the superiority of US conventional forces, Moscow may view any conflict with the US as a threat to Russia’s existence as an independent state.
As part of its nuclear threats, the Kremlin announced last year that it had deployed tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko later claimed that Russian Iskander missiles with a range of 300 kilometers had been deployed in Belarus.
William Alberque, author of the IISS report and former senior NATO official, said that the decision to use nuclear weapons would require the Kremlin to carefully consider the “dose” of nuclear weapons to be used: it must be large enough that the West refuses to fight, but small enough that the conflict does not escalate into nuclear war.
According to Alberque, US officials are concerned about the possibility of Russia using tactical nuclear weapons. According to him, the main concern of officials is to prevent the conflict from turning into a nuclear war.
2024-01-23 06:50:00
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