Russian nuclear doctrine, especially regarding its large stockpile of non-strategic nuclear weapons, has become one of the most pressing issues in Euro-Atlantic security, according to a research paper by William Alberque.
The report aims to build an understanding of Russia’s strategic nuclear weapons doctrine through empirical research, including by examining the continuities and discontinuities in doctrine across time, through the Cold War, to the collapse of the Soviet Union, to Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and in Russia’s ongoing war on Ukraine.
“Russia appears to continue to believe in its ability to establish and maintain escalation dominance, due to its willingness to use and threaten to use dual-capable theatre systems
against a variety of adversaries and its greater tolerance for risk and losses compared with the US and NATO.”
“Therefore, escalation control, either to prevent the US and NATO from engaging or to coerce them into war termination on Russian terms, remains essential to its own theory of victory. Indeed, knowing that the West is casualty and risk averse, Russia may seek to use enough NSNW to inflict damage preventing its own defeat, knowing that the US would be unwilling to cross the nuclear threshold in retaliation, and may be willing to terminate the conflict early.”
You can read the paper here.
If you have a few spare minutes, have a butchers at this YT video:
RUSSIA’s 9 Step Plan for World War 3 as Plans to Invade Poland Could Cause Full Scale War with NATO
Al that requires NATO and Poland to just sit there and let pootin get all his ducks in a row🙄 Quite simply not going to happen even IF he could scrape up the resources to even think about it!
Article implicitly provides the rationale for continuing investment/development of an independent British and French nuclear deterrent. Multiple, independent decision nodes should create complications, uncertainty and risk in Mad Vlad’s strategic geopolitical calculations. 🤔😳🤞
The most important think is the acknowledgment that tactical usage will engender a strategic response….we cannot play Putin at the tactical nuclear game…he simply has to know..”you use them you die”.
A strategic nuclear response can only come from the United States. And it means that the United States would be prepared to risk its own destruction for the sake of Ukraine. That seems unlikely.
But the reality is that were Russia to use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine, pandora’s box would be opened. Just about anything could happen – ranging from Russian regime collapse, to Ukrainian/western surrender to total nuclear destruction.
To be honest Roy I don’t believe there would be a nuclear response to Russia using a tactical nuclear weapon on Ukraine as its not a nuclear umbrella country…there would be mass protest, Russia would become completely isolated…but no one would respond back with nuclear weapons..
I was talking at the NATO response to an attack on NATO with nuclear weapons.
as for Ukraine I suspect the reason Putin would not use nuclear weapons again ukraine is
1) because his own population would see it as an evil act..after all the dialogue is Russia is saving Ukraine from the Nazis…detonation of a nuclear weapon would end that and destroy his pol Italy warfare strategy
2)…china would have a shit fit and likely remove all support..although it’s building its strategic forces..it has a very strict no first use policy and view around nuclear weapons…it does not even mate up its warheads with its strategic rocket forces..to show its posture…
3) the west would loose its shit and arm Ukraine with everything it could ever want.
4) the UN would probably boot Russia of the security council ( and I suspect china would even support) then vote to send in peace keepers.
5) the prevailing weather would blow most of the radioactive materials in the atmosphere right back into Russia and Belorussian.
6) Putin wants Ukrainian real estate and Ukraine for himself so it would be counter productive it irradiate a section of it.
I could be wrong but unless..Russian forces collapses and Ukraine somehow got the ability to March into Russia I would say it would be unlikely to rare on the likelihood scale.
But……
First thing is that Soviet battlefield projectile nucs are fired from a very unique and venerable mortar…..if that was deployed it would be obvious.
If the Russian AF were entrusted with it there is zero guarantee it would hit the correct country.
The Russian navy are not impressive in any manner.
It would be gloves off for supplying Ukraine with heavy hitting conventional weapons?
On a slight tangent, my favourite tactical delivery system has to be the ‘Davy Crockett’ Nuclear Recoilless Rifle.
That was some messed up 1950/60 thinking going on with with little bad boy….I do believe they got rid in the end as no one was willing to bet nuclear Armageddon on a squad based decision.
I’d be more concerned about the ones on Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad and Belorussia, on Iron Bombs, cruise missiles etc.
Of the possible reasons enumerated, reasons 5 & 6 may well have the greatest weightings in Mad Vlad’s calculations.
However, a sufficiently devastating NATO conventional response to a hypothetical scenario involving the detonation of Orc tactical nukes in the UKR, could also trigger Mad Vlad’s further escalation. Really do not foresee a natural firebreak in the escalatory ladder, once nuke weaps employed. Public may not realize that the yield of some classes of tac nukes equals or exceeds yields of Hiroshima and Nagasaki weaps. 🤔
Indeed it’s better to ensure the Russian are very clear there is no escalation ladder when it comes to nuclear weapons..the west just does not want to play into that game or mindset…the Russians need to have a clear understanding that deploying tactical nuclear weapons against NATO will engender a strategic response…
Roy, Why do you say that a strategic nuclear response could only come from the US? Are you talking uniquely about the Russo-Ukraine war?
much easier said then done. Are you really willing to obliterate a major enemy population centre, knowing fall well the likely response, due to Russia destroying a large strategic target such as a port or airfield? doubtful and Russia knows this, hence why they flaunt their Tactical Nuclear force so much. it is a step in the escalation ladder that we would struggle to match, which would force us to either under or over react in any situation.
That is miss understanding the strategic response, western strategic response found be counterforce which means the strategic response is against the oppositions military infrastructure. Counter value is about cities…
Tactical weapons are about deploying them against deployed armed forces…the west and china does not formally have any escalation policy around using tactical nuclear weapons back as that would fall into someone like Putins hands…only the Russians play with the concept of the escalation ladder..the west uses the “cross out line reap the wind sort of policy”.. interestingly Russia a has the same sort of policy when it comes to someone using tactical weapons against them…tactical weapons have a profound cognitive dissonance attached to them..in that both Russia and the U.S. say they hold the right to use them if needed but also maintain the policy that if you use tactical nuclear weapons against them they will use a strategic response…we just remove the congestive dissonance and say we don’t have tactical nuclear weapons we don’t have them our response is the same as every other strategic power..simply a strategic one…
so in reality the only use for a tactical response is against a none nuclear power…it’s why we and France got rid and china does not play that game at all….everyone knows and acknowledges there is no real escalation ladder once you hit a nuclear threshold it’s a false belief that Putin has developed to sabre rattle and talk big.
They may not be our rules but Russia doesn’t have to play with them. Unfortunately the concept of MAD is not absolute and leaves room for limited nuclear conflict. to be the first to employee Strategic nuclear weapons would be seen and leveraged as a massive escalation. I am not talking about tactical nuclear weapons against Nuclear capable nations, as I agree that would result in a strategic response. But if Russia was to use a low yield devise on Odessa for example in an attempt to decimate the port, then how are we going to respond?
Honestly if Odesa’s was hit we don’t, no one is using a nuc back if Russia uses a nuc on Ukraine as it’s not under anyone’s umbrella…if it’s not NATO or a nuclear power the only thing stopping is the political and practical..which are the same things that have stopped tactical nucs in every other conflict in the 20/21 century
But Putin is not using a tactical nuc on Ukraine the backlash would be huge…the west would be freed to flow whatever it wanted into Ukraine, the U.N. would probably all kick Russia out, china would withdraw support ( china has a very strict no first use policy and does not like nucs). The message to the Russian people has always been Russia is saving the Ukrainians….he would loss his political warfare message if he used nucs….so he will not…but if he did the western nuclear powers would not respond with nuclear weapons….it’s not part of our nuclear posture.
Three years ago I would have told you that had a European nation openly invaded another and began a campaign of strategic bombing that blatantly targeted civilians while kidnapping children and mass raping woman. I would have told you that country would be completely ostracized and would collapse in months. And yet two years latter we don’t just have Russian apologists but even countries that are openly supporting them. I’m sorry but I simply wouldn’t rely on international reaction to prevent such things.
It’s not just the international response..if he deployed a nuclear weapon in Ukraine the prevailing winds would blow back into Russia…also it’s his own population…..there is a reason no one has ever used tactical nucs…even the Israelis when faced with mass invasion and had nothing left other than 7 tanks in the Golan heights did not use tactical nucs…they planned to use them at the point Israel was overrun as a revenge weapon on the invading states…when the U.N. was collapsing in Korea and 100,000 western troops were at risk of destruction the U.S. did not use tactical nucs…it’s just not something that gets do and any encouragement of Putin to think we would play a tactical nuclear game with him is profoundly deadly…we keep it simple..us a tactical nuc on us you get strategic level response…counter force.
Well Russia did actually invade Ukraine 10 years ago..but the west was pathetic and did nothing…
Yes plus Trident II is principally a nucleur counter force weapon. It would be used to take out Russia nuclear weapons. If he uses a nuke we take out all his toys then invade his country which will take about 2 minutes as his army and people desert him and he ends up like Saddam or Gaddafi.
That’s raw reality Putin has to know.
Indeed…and engaging in the possibility of a tactical response profoundly weakens NATOs deterrent..which is based on a strategic counter force response to any use of nuclear weapons against NATO.
Hi M8. The rational for U.K and France having an independent capability has always been it means Russia has to 2nd guess 3 Governments rather than just 1.
The Elephant in NATOs back yard has always been Article 5 and the idea of the Nuclear Trip Wire which is mainly dependant on the mind set of POTUS.
Scenario we are in a conventional war with Russia mainly in the Baltic and NE Poland, plus a lot of long range conventional missiles that have hit targets in Germany, Poland, Finland and the Nordic countries.
NATO has dug in and has stopped the Russians in the 1st 3 days and hit rear areas of the Russian Army / Airforce with cruise missiles.
To break the deadlock Russia launches 3 or 4 Iskander Tactical Nucs at NATO forces in the Baltic. NATO (US via proxies) replies and hits Kaliningrad and Belorussian Iskander Iskander sites tit for tat.
Now a Russian City has been hit so they hit Berlin, Hague, Rome and NATO bases including French ones.
Then what ? Does POTUS hit Russian City’s knowing full well New York etc is next ?
So much better to have 2 small Nuclear spanner’s to complicate things, and muddy the Russian Chess board. But my concern is the U.K. no longer has any Tactical Nuclear capability to reply with, it’s either conventional or a full Volley of Tridents. Unlike France who have the ability to take the option that we of all the known Nuclear powers don’t have anymore.
And we have either Biden or Trump as POTUS till 2029. Sorry but I’m not feeling very secure about either of them.
It needs to be made clear those Islanders be taken out, before they can be launched.
But could not Ukraine respond in kind? Surely they don’t need their own nuclear weapons when Russia has nuclear reactors in range of Ukrainian drones?? There’s a major plant in the Smolensk region a couple of hundred miles from Moscow. I’m sure this is within range of potential drone attacks and would not Ukrainian planners not already looked at it??? Any use of nukes in this conflict would just open a whole new can of worms in my book.
Nuclear reactors are incredibly difficult to destroy and the Radiation given off is substantially more dangerous then that from a nuclear device. One option Ukraine may have is to create a dirty bomb. By putting Radioactive elements in with conviential warheads. However, Again the radiation damage would be a lot more substantial.
I never did hear the rationale for the UK abandoning tactical nuclear weapons….yet retaining strategic nukes.
Agree about the Biden or Trump dilemma.
There wasn’t one TBH.
Only Tony Blair pandering to ex-CND types?
There were warhead reduction treaties all over the place at the time.
To be perfectly honest there was no credible threat profile at the time.
It is a bit like asking why are there only 6 x T45’s? Nobody could think of any use for them other than a rerun of Corporate. There was no identifiable high end aerial threat. But very good that they actually got built and we are fidning out that a good job was done there.
It was only Blair’s constant wars that made sure that something had to be built and Blair rather liked the prestige of some nice big aircraft carriers but G Brown didn’t – until the penny dropped about the end of shipbuilding.
UK has low yield single warheads deployed on Trident. Sub Strategic. Nothing like the flexibility of a bucket of sunshine from an aircraft but the capability exists.
Bringing back a modern version of W177 should be considered.
Red Beard was the UK’s first tactical nuclear bomb, 15-25 kt. Replaced with WE177 that some versions went all the way up to 400kt! I would copy trump, when he took the fusion boost out of a few 100kt Trident warheads, to create a “clean” 5-10kt tactical warhead. Put that in a Paveway IV body. The UK only needs 25-30. A useful extra deterrent.
Why ? BROACH warhead in a Storm Shadow can be replaced by a smaller tactical Nuc. It’s way safer for the poor bugger dropping it !
Either or, as long as we have got one. I mentioned Paveway IV, so F-35B & Typhoon could both use it.
Trouble with that is Russian satellites would immediately warn of a SLBM launch and there’s the risk of it being misinterpreted as a strategic escalation.
The main problem with those low yield sub-strategic warheads on Trident is that they would undoubtedly present to Russia and China as strategic missiles at launch and could prompt a strategic response.
Also, I doubt they are as much use to our army as its previous holding of tactical nuclear warheads (various types held from 1954 to 1992) – latterly 8″ and 155mm artillery shells and Lance missiles.
Wiki is informative: “…120 Honest John missiles with W31 nuclear warheads replaced ‘Corporal’ rockets in 1960, enough to equip three artillery regiments. Honest John remained in service until 1977, when it was replaced by the Lance missile.The US also supplied BAOR with 36 W33 nuclear warheads that equipped four batteries of eight-inch M115 howitzers. These were later replaced by M110 howitzers. The British Army deployed more US nuclear weapons than the RAF and Royal Navy combined, peaking at 327 out of 392 in 1976–1978.
When the Cold War ended in 1991, BAOR still had about 85 Lance missiles, and more than 70 W33 eight-inch and W48 155 mm nuclear artillery shells. The last Project E warheads, including … those used by BAOR, were withdrawn in July 1992″.
1983 Soviet Nuclear False Alarm incident. Google it, scarey !
If it looks like a SLBM, is launched like a SLBM and is headed in my direction without warning then the chances are it is a SLBM.
My Turn !
I remember the incident well – I was serving at the time, although I think the story broke a few years after it happened.
Others have said this but the other thing about launching a sub-strategic nuke(s) from Trident, is that the position of our one CASD boat is given away. If the Russians can near-instantly launch a counter-strike on the boat, we have lost our entire usable strategic nuclear capability in the blink of an eye.
Those were dual key weapons, so effectively US controlled. WE177 was British controlled.
Yes. I recall the nuclear artillery shells came with a US custodian.
And there is zero reason a low yield warhead (minus the reentry vehicle) can’t be fitted to Storm Shadow. All you need is perhaps a dozen declared for NATO and hint at the the ability to assemble more.
It all adds a layer of doubt in your opponents mind.
Timely issue. Raft of articles in the open press re USAF program to certify F-35A as DCA to carry B61-12 (latest dial-a-yield variant, w/ precision tail guidance kit) and the future B61-13 (precision earth penetrator). Projected initial deployment date is January 2024. Obviously on the cusp, but may still be resolving final technical/operational issues, or conceivably being coy re official announcement for various geopolitical/geostrategic reasons. Step change in capability for 5th generation NATO a/c to deliver precision gravity weapons, from multiple bases (probably including RAF Lakenheath in future) across Europe. Hopefully giving Ivan cause to pause. Uncertain whether this capability will ultimately be extended to F-35B&C. 🤔
It also saves the US government from having to take full moral responsibility for any decision to escalate.
One could only imagine how Intensive the joint consultations would be in that case.
Isn’t it a 2 key approach.
I agree, probably time to give Japan South Korea and Poland nucleur weapons of their own to complicate Russia and China decision making. NPT not working as all the bad guys have their own weapons.
Possible that future developments w/in SCS dictate a crash nuclear weapons program in both S.K. and Japan. Both countries undeniably possess the technical capability.
Both are latent Nuclear powers and if they wanted them, then they would have them. Both are happy to rely on Uncle Sam re N Korea and not upset China.
For that matter they don’t get on very well themselves.
Japan wouldn’t want them (if it did it would take very little for them to build their own). Korea might just use them and Poland well they’d probably be the 1st to use them.
They really hate Russians 😉
We have a rung or two missing on the escalation ladder following the retirement of the WE 177. If Russia deploys tactical nukes then the US could provide NATO with similar weapons to respond in kind. We however, only have a ‘strategic’ delivery system. It could be done such that a single Trident missile only deploys a single warhead with a dialled-down yield to achieve a ‘tactical’ effect, but no-one tracking the launch would know that until it actually hit its target. Since even a single Trident can in principle deploy up to 12 MIRVs with yields in the ~100 kt range, the very use of this delivery system invites escalation beyond the ‘tactical’. So our independent options would effectively be limited to ‘do nothing’ or ‘Armageddon’. Of course NATO does have plenty of destructive conventional options for escalation if it came to it.
But in the great tactical brinksmanship of nuclear weapon deployment the uncertainty is the thing you need. Is the D5 that is going to come our way after we set off a nuke going to be single low yield or multi hundred kiloton MIRV’s? That unknown is part of the deterrence strategy.
If a tactical nuke was used by ivan then NATO would not necessarily need to go nuclear. World opinion would be against Russia in an instant. Sanctions would come down iron tight overnight, No fudging the issue. Financial, shipping, oil and gas production would end. NATOs conventional response would flatten various installations and probably end ivans naval forces everywhere in the world within hours.
The mindset of those in Russia or China after seeing a D5 launch, will be in a bit of quandary. As unless the UK explicitly states that they have launched the D5. They may believe it was launched by the US.
However, they would probably also launch a single missile, but with a full payload. As they won’t know what the D5 is carrying until it deploys its warhead once in orbit. They could at that point deactivate all but one re-entry vehicle (REV), or have them target other locations. Bearing in mind that after the D5 has broached the surface, it will take about two minutes before it hits its target. Where around the 1 minute mark, it will deploy its warhead. Thereby leaving the decision makers with very little time to make an informed decision!
The idea of using Trident in a tactical sense is absolutely stupid and perhaps the worst ill conceived idea that the Government of the time made (I think it was Blair’s).
The position of China is key. Putin won’t want to upset them……
If you launch a single Trident missile , you give away the position of the submarine. You should only launch Trident if you launch the boatload.
At the very least, Russia needs to be told, that any use of a tactical nuke in Ukraine will result in total sanctions for at least 50 years. All Russian assets in the West will be confiscated, including the luxury homes & yachts of Putin’s cronies. Tax havens to be subject to extreme sanctions unless they allow access to Russian money & assets hidden there. No Russian, even if they pretend to be neutral, to be allowed in any international sporting event for at least 50 years.
The “British” tanker (well indirectly owned and operated by 2 U.K. companies) that the Houthi hit this week was carrying Russian Naptha. Ship to ship transfer just south of sunny Greece from a Russian owned Tanker.
Sanctions My Arse.
Would be ironic if the Houthi missile had Russian parts.
If they were that confident of getting away with using them they would have done so in Ukraine by now.
I suspect that may be down to China and its Red Lines. Putin cannot afford to annoy them for even a second.
Seems like a good reason to bring back the Pershing II