In the Thick of It
A blog on the U.S.-Russia relationshipPutin's Updated Conditions for Russian Nuclear Use Are Not So New
Not a week seems to go by without Russian officials issuing some kind of nuclear warning. During a meeting with the Russian Security Council on Sept. 25, President Vladimir Putin described “clarifications” proposed to the “Fundamentals of State Policy in the Sphere of Nuclear Deterrence,” a document he said officially defines and details Russia's nuclear strategy, including establishing the basic principle of using nuclear weapons.
In his remarks, Putin mentioned three apparently “new” conditions where Russia could consider the use of nuclear weapons:
- Aggression by a non-nuclear state against Russia “with the participation or support” of a nuclear-armed state would be considered an attack by both.
- A “massive launch of air and space attack weapons” crossing the Russian border involving “strategic and tactical aircraft, cruise missiles, drones, hypersonic and other aircraft.”
- An attack on Russia and Belarus, including with conventional weapons, “if the enemy… creates a critical threat to our sovereignty.”
Putin said these clarifications “expand the category of states and military alliances in relation to which nuclear deterrence is carried out, and supplement the list of military threats for the neutralization of which nuclear deterrence measures are carried out.” As such, they supplement the conditions outlined in the 2020 decree on nuclear deterrence.
The first “adjustment” is not as new as it may seem. As far back as in the 1994 Budapest memorandum, Russia (with the United States and United Kingdom) promised not to use nuclear weapons against any non-nuclear state party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), “except in the case of an attack” on Russia, its territory or dependent territories, its armed forces or its allies, “by such a state in association or alliance with a nuclear weapon state.” The United States later dropped the exemption.
This exemption was not mentioned in Russia’s 2010 military doctrine and has been absent since. So, restating it now clearly appears intended to warn Ukraine, the United States, United Kingdom and France about allowing Ukraine to use Western-supplied long-range conventional missiles to attack facilities deep inside Russia.
The second “adjustment” is also not entirely new. Although previous public documents didn’t explicitly mention “strategic and tactical aircraft, cruise missiles, drones, hypersonic and other aircraft,” air and space attack weapons were likely part of the previous conditions; it would seem odd if they had not been.
As with the first adjustment, the second appears clearly intended to communicate opposition to several things the West is doing: tactical aircraft (modernization of dual-capable NATO aircraft in Europe) and cruise missiles and hypersonics (U.S. plans to deploy INF-range missiles in Europe). Drone attacks are certainly an odd addition to a nuclear doctrine but may be less about current Uranian drone attacks than future U.S. drone swarm attack capabilities. In any case, Putin conditioned this on “massive” attacks, so presumably not the relatively limited strikes Ukraine can do with drones and missiles.
The third adjustment is also not new. Although Putin mentioned Belarus by name, previous versions of Russian doctrine have long included a reference to protection of allies. With Russia’s establishment of a “nuclear sharing” arrangement with Belarus, this adjustment was expected.
Here the key question is more what is meant by “a critical threat to our sovereignty.” The 2020 decree mentioned responding with nuclear weapons to a conventional attack “when the very existence of the state is jeopardized.” The “very existence of the state” is a very high bar; does “critical threat to our sovereignty” mean the same or is it a lower threshold?
Leaving uncertainty about the precise conditions that could trigger nuclear use is normal for nuclear-armed states. So, it might seem odd that Putin is injecting so much specificity into the doctrine about what types of attacks could potentially trigger a nuclear response. The current update is happening only four years after the previous update but after nearly three years of full-scale war against Ukraine. From the get-go of that war, Russian officials have issued warnings reminding the West about nuclear weapons.
Putin’s remarks about the doctrine should be seen in that context. He made them in public, so they are obviously intended to influence Western support of Ukraine and public opinion. Whether the adjustments will change how the Russian military would actually use nuclear weapons is another question.
This creates a credibility problem for Putin: for the adjusted doctrine to be credible and impress his intended audience in the West, they will have to believe he would actually carry through with the nuclear threat. But he has issued so many red lines that the latest change almost sounds like a desperate cry for attention. Escalating to nuclear use in response to anything happening in the Ukraine war does not seem credible because it wouldn’t help Russia’s war aims and could trigger a direct military clash with NATO that would be much more costly to Russia.
Hans M. Kristensen is the director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists. Opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author. Photo is by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP.