2021 Volume 2021 Issue 203 Pages 203_110-203_125
Russia, perceiving the U.S. political actions in Eastern Europe as threats to its vital interests there, developed the concept of ‘Strategic Deterrence.’ According to Russia’s ‘Military Doctrine’ of 2014, this concept means countering non-military and military threats to Russia’s interests by non-military, conventional, and nuclear means. Nuclear weapons can serve three purposes within this concept: ultimate means, conflict localization means, and narrative offensive means. Russia officially shows its readiness to use strategic nuclear forces as ultimate means to counter conventional threats to the existence of the state, and to develop conventional forces for local conflicts. When Russian officials mention the use of nuclear weapons, it serves as a narrative offensive means, which they expect will incite fear among the adversaries’ populations and weaken their united will to confront Russia, and thus fulfill the role of a non-military means of the ‘Strategic Deterrence’ framework. Russian military might think of what I call ‘conflict localization means’ in this paper, popularly known as an ‘escalate to de-escalate’ doctrine, a posture of using nuclear weapons to persuade adversaries to cease further military actions in a local conflict. ‘Military Doctrine’ of 2014 and other factors show little evidence of the existence of such a posture, but do not necessarily exclude the possibility. Partly to enhance a nuclear ‘narrative offensive,’ the possibility of use of nuclear weapons as a conflict localization means is made deliberately ambiguous. The Russian military did officially seek to realize the conflict localization means in the 2003 reform document, and debates on this matter continue. The ‘Grom-2019’ military exercise in October 2019 showed a possibility of forming a unified command and control not only of strategic nuclear forces but also of local-level weapons such as Kalibr and Iskander cruise missile systems with nuclear warheads. The issues of the nuclear threshold and strategic stability will depend on further development of forces and doctrines of Russia and the United States.
