... reinforce his message, on February 27, 2022, at a meeting with then-Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, the Russian president issued
orders
to put the Russian deterrence forces on a special regime of combat duty.
Nuclear deterrence can essentially be interpreted as a specific foreign policy tool—the threat to use nuclear weapons to prevent an adversary from implementing certain actions. The 2020 policy paper “Basic Principles of State Policy of the Russian Federation on Nuclear Deterrence”
spells out
the possible actions by other states that should be prevented ...
... Kiev actively lobbied for it. On the Russian side, warnings about a possible response were also transparent and clear, including conventional missile and nuclear options. Changing the nuclear doctrine towards expanding the conditions for the use of nuclear weapons has also been discussed for a long time.
The new stage has not changed the situation on the battlefield, but has opened the way for a transition to new stages of escalation with a minimum of incentives to reduce it.
The basic scenario ...
....” The mention of strikes using nuclear weapons or other types of WMD against Russian bases or forces outside Russian territory, which could also lead to the use of Russian nuclear weapons, also catches the eye. The previously existing principle of nuclear deterrence continuity up to the use of nuclear weapons has remained intact. What may come after such use is still a matter of question, but it is unlikely to be anything good.
Vadim Kozyulin, Head of the Center for Global Studies & International Relations at the Diplomatic Academy under the ...
... strategic planning documents pertaining to military security, which undoubtedly include the “Basic Principles of State Policy on Nuclear Deterrence,” is both necessary and natural.
One last point: the 2020 edition of the doctrine clearly states that nuclear deterrence is ensured continuously, but only up until nuclear weapons are actually used. It will be extremely interesting to see whether this wording is retained in the new document.
First published in
Profile
... dangerous due to the involvement of non-nuclear-weapon states in the preparation and planning of US nuclear operations. The essence of “extended deterrence” is changing: “nuclear umbrellas” are being replaced by supporting the possible use of nuclear weapons by non-nuclear forces. This trend is particularly evident in the interaction between Washington and Seoul, which established the Nuclear Consultative Group and approved (on the margins of the NATO summit) the Guidelines for Nuclear Deterrence and Nuclear Operations on the Korean Peninsula.
New coalition and alliance constructs resembling NATO are taking shape: AUKUS, new formats in Northeast Asia between the United States, South Korea, and Japan emphasizing space infrastructure....
... 24 hours, and 121 carriers or 1,139 charges within 30 days. Of particular significance are the U.S. plans to deploy tactical nuclear weapons, including medium-range missiles, which further increases their strike potential. In this context, the development ... ... Pentagon’s desire to create a broad regional missile defense infrastructure in Asia Pacific to meet the country’s unique nuclear deterrence needs [
5
]. Notably, no country of East Asia, in whole or in part, has ever expressed its intentions to unprovokedly ...
... can be inflicted through the ‘
application of calibrated damage
’. By placing an increased emphasis on ‘
strategic non-nuclear deterrence
’ since 2014, Russia has raised the threshold for nuclear use. That being said, while some of the Russian ... ... such as UAVs, through ‘tailored combinations of conventional … capabilities, together with the unique deterrent effect of nuclear weapons.’ Further, as noted by the U.S. Congressional Budget Office, the dual capability of hypersonic missiles may ...
... nuclear strike as a response to a nuclear attack by the enemy. Both assumptions are wrong. First, even the line between a first strike and a retaliatory strike is blurred and will be dissipating more and more as time goes by. Second, modern doctrines of nuclear deterrence envision the use of nuclear weapons not only in response to nuclear aggression.
The dichotomy of the instant retaliation
Dmitri Trenin:
Two Worlds of Russia’s Foreign Policy
During President Putin’s conversation with soldiers’ mothers in December 2022, one of them ...
... 2018 during Donald Trump’s presidency.
One of the key functions of any publicly available strategic document is to deliver information to other states – both friendly and hostile. Yet only in few areas does this matter as much as in the field of nuclear weapons.
NDS-2022, and particularly NPR-2022, contain a significant number of clearly defined U.S. norms and doctrinal guidelines regarding nuclear weapons and strategic stability, with the main target audience being the top political brass of ...
... possible negotiations on this topic.
However, there are provisions that, in my opinion, do not completely address the objectives of the document or are not generally constructive.
First, the document does not state what role Russia assigns to its tactical nuclear weapons in nuclear deterrence.
In addition, the presence of what is called in the West strategic unpredictability is explicitly stated in Paragraph 15, Clause D: one of the principles of nuclear deterrence is “unpredictability for a potential adversary in terms ...
