Is Nuclear Threat Real?

Over the recent months, we have been witnessing an avalanche of speculations in the West, including by some leaders and senior officials in the US, as well as in the EU and NATO member states, about an alleged intention of Russia to use tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine – all wrapped in expressions of concern and warnings of a possible escalation of the conflict there to the point of a nuclear war. Countless comments by academicians and experts followed, e.g. an article by the President of the New York based Council on Foreign Relations Richard Haass (The Irish Examiner, October 20), raising number of questions about the role of nuclear weapons in the modern world.

Answers to these questions nowadays could be not as straightforward as before. After the World War II for more than half of a century, the global security and stability relied on the concept of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), which presumes that a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by an attacker on a nuclear-armed defender with second-strike capabilities would lead to a complete annihilation of both adversaries. That, in turn, created strong mutual deterrent. Proceeding from this principle, in order to prevent the apocalyptic scenario, the main superpowers, i.e. the USSR/Russia and the US, have worked hard to create a system of strategic nuclear arms control agreements, such as Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) treaties I & II, Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, Strategic Arms Reduction (START) treaties I & II, The Treaty on Open Skies, Strategic Offensive Reductions (SORT) Russian Treaty and the New START, not to mention presidential nuclear initiatives on reduction of warheads and several universal obligations. These treaties served their purpose for decades. However, only one remains today. The sole reason for degradation of this security architecture has been a relentless effort of the recent US administrations to shift the balance of defensive and offensive strategic capabilities in Washington’s favor, starting with George W. Bush withdrawing from the ABM Treaty on the pretext of protecting the US against “terrorists” and “rogue states.” Barack Obama and Donald Trump followed the path and finally cut the US-Russian arms control system to a bare minimum. It is balanced somewhat by the existence of multilateral legal framework (Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty etc.), which was greatly enhanced by the Joint Statement of the Leaders of the Five Nuclear-Weapon States on Preventing Nuclear War and Avoiding Arms Races (January 3, 2022).

So, why exactly now do political elites in the West pump an idea of nuclear threat from Russia? The first reason is rather obvious – it is an integral part of the unprecedented propaganda effort designed to demonize Russia in the context of the conflict in Ukraine. Effectiveness of this tactic is indeed highly questionable since position of Russia on nuclear issues is well known, very clear and has not changed. President Putin as well as Russian officials on all levels repeatedly reaffirm that Russian is strictly and consistently guided by the tenet that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. For decades, Russia has been voluntarily reducing the place and role of nuclear weapons in its Military Doctrine. Our nuclear deterrence policy is strictly defensive, and the conditions for nuclear weapons use are limited to extreme circumstances defined in the Russian policy documents that are publicly available.

The second reason for all that fake “saber-rattling” might actually be not innocent at all. There is strong impression that nuclear alarmism on the part of the US administration is in great part a diversion exercise aimed at creating a smokescreen for Pentagon’s plans to achieve superiority in the strategic nuclear area, as well as to test waters on lowering nuclear threshold. Following this logic, Washington contemplates specific scenarios, which sometimes leak into public documents. For example, on November 15, US Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas in his testimony before the Committee on Homeland Security of the US House of Representatives stated: “We do not anticipate that a nuclear detonation in Europe would have any direct consequences on the homeland”. In other words, should there be a nuclear explosion in Europe, Americans have nothing to worry about. So much for the so-called Euroatlantic solidarity! It should be taken seriously since this assessment does not seem just a slip of the tongue, but rather is a result of scrupulous analysis produced by US government experts. We should also take note that American nuclear weapons are not only deployed on the territories of European non-nuclear allies of Washington, but also the employment scenarios are being practiced in the course of exercises with engagement of the military personnel from non-nuclear countries. Moreover, it is well known that currently the US is speeding up plans to upgrade its nukes in Europe by enhancing nuclear stockpiles in European countries with modernized B61‑12 air-dropped gravity bombs.

On top of all that, no one can ignore plans of the Kiev regime for making a so-called “dirty bomb” and staging a low yield nuclear explosion to blame Russia for that and provoke drastic escalation of the conflict. The most recent incident with landing of the missile shot by Ukrainian Armed Forces on the territory of Poland, when Zelensky shamelessly lied about its Russian provenance in an attempt to provoke NATO to trigger Article 5 of the NATO treaty, proves how irresponsibly the Kiev regime can act. Continuous shelling of the Europe’s largest Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant by Ukrainian Artillery, though covered up by Western Governments and Media, is another example of an insanely dangerous behavior.

All that are pieces of a larger picture of a modern state of the world, where nuclear threat, regrettably, still exists reminding us of a devastating effect of the military use of nuclear power demonstrated during the atomic bombings of the Japanese civil population of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 by the US. Despite rhetoric in the West this threat does not come from Russia, which fully shares and promotes the ideas of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. It would be ideal to get rid of the MAD doctrine by consistently building down nuclear arsenals. While we are, hopefully, on this road, it is crucially important to manage the entire strategic equilibrium in a responsible way. Our diplomats are ready to talk with American counterparts about the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty in Cairo later this month, if Washington shows interest and readiness. In such a case it could be a starting point for rebuilding of the system of strategic stability in the world.