THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
Putin has rewritten the nuclear playbook and the world is a more dangerous place for it.
The reason? Because if one nuclear power changes their rules then the others have to reconsider theirs, and Putin has changed the rule book to make the use of nukes more likely.
Nuclear weapons in the past have been classified as a defensive weapon. Their purpose was to deter an enemy attack rather than to launch one.
Some countries - mainly China and India - have adopted a "No First Use" policy which means they will only use their nuclear weapons in response to a nuclear attack from another power. Beijing has a proposed a No First Use agreement with the US and been rejected.
The US, UK and France (the three nuclear NATO countries) have gone for the "Flexible Response" doctrine which means they will fire their missiles if faced with losing in the face of an overwhelming conventional weapons attack. This is more or less the policy of Pakistan, Israel (which refuses to admit to ownership of a nuclear arsenal) and even North Korea.
Barack Obama considered switching to a No First Use policy but was talked out of it by European allies who feared that it left them vulnerable to a conventional weapons attack from the large Russian army.
Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in 1982 pledged No First Use. The sincerity of the promise was questioned at the time and it was dropped in 1993 by the Russian successor state. Boris Yeltsin felt at the time that the deterioration of conventional weapons dictated greater reliance on the nuclear arsenal.
Then in 2020 came the Russian Presidential Executive Order on Nuclear Deterrence which made it clear that Russia reserved the right to use nuclear weapons to protect what it decided was its territory. This obviously includes the bits of Ukraine which it has annexed since 2014.
Putin has turned his nuclear arsenal from a purely defensive weapon into an offensive weapon by threatening to use them as part of a conventional weapons war for territorial gain.
He doesn't even have to use the weapons. The threat of use can be enough to either force Ukrainian capitulation or territorial concessions or deter NATO from supplying military and economic aid. It has already successfully deterred the Western Alliance from sending troops.
Of course, Putin's veiled and unveiled threats could be a giant bluff. As any poker player will tell you, that doesn't matter if the bluff works.
It may be argued that the existence of nuclear weapons has been an implicit threat since Hiroshima. Yes, but Putin has made it explicit and in doing so moved the hands of the Doomsday Clock that much closer to midnight.
If Russia comes out ahead of the game in Ukraine then Putin has opened the door to other nuclear powers using their conventional forces backed up by the threat of nuclear attack if the conventional option fails. These include North Korea and, probably in the near future, Iran.
That is why this week's G20 summit in Bali condemned not only the use of nuclear weapons but also their "threatened use."
Two of the key signatories of the summit communique (which also deplored Russia's invasion of Ukraine) were China and India. They are important backers because their support for the communiqué implicitly reinforces their commitment to a No First Use policy and moves them towards the Western camp in the Ukraine War.
Xi Jinping has clearly made his concerns about the Russian nuclear rhetoric known to Putin. Otherwise, he would not have signed the communiqué or denounced the threatened use of nuclear weapons when he met last week with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Chinese pressure could persuade the Russian leader to scale down the threats. But the words have been spoken. The policy has been changed. Putin has released a new version of the nuclear genii. It is, however, just possible to stuff it back into the lamp. But to do so requires the defeat of Russia.
