During the Cold War, the concept of nuclear deterrence developed around the idea that damage caused by detonating atom bombs was too horrible to contemplate.
The weapons were developed and tested but not used as weapons after World War II, when the United States dropped two on Japan and destroyed two cities. Neither the Soviet Union nor other smaller nuclear states deploy them in warfare.
Fear that the use of the weapons would lead to mutually assured destruction, or MAD in its acronym, kept the weapons holstered.
Post-World War II, no one seriously contemplated that a nuclear power might drop atom bombs on a non-nuclear armed country or its backers.
Lately, Russian President Vladimir Putin has indicated Ukraine could be such a target. He also has repeatedly brandished the atomic menace against Western countries that support Ukraine.
Both NATO and Russia staged planned annual nuclear exercises on October 26.
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to Putin that the drills, known as “Grom” or “Thunder”, were launched to simulate a “massive nuclear strike” by Russia in retaliation for a nuclear attack on Russia.
The Kremlin said in a statement that all tasks set for the exercise were fulfilled and all of the missiles that were test-fired reached their designated targets, according to wire service reports.
But Putin seemed to back off on the same day, saying, “We have no need to do this. There’s no sense for us, neither political nor military.”
Perhaps Putin has been told that the payoff for a Russian nuclear attack on Ukraine doesn’t match the risks.
The fallout from even a small nuclear strike would “contaminate the territory that Russia claims as part of its historic empire and possibly drift into Russia itself,” Nina Srinivasan Rathbun, a University of Southern California professor of international relations, writes in The Conversation.
As for Putin’s threats against the West, “From a strategic standpoint, using them is not credible,” she concludes.
Yet, just over a week ago, Putin added a new, if spurious, justification for a possible attack. Ukraine is set to deploy so-called “dirty bombs,” which are composed of uranium wrapped in dynamite. When detonated, such bombs will not only kill but contaminate land for miles around.
Kiev, the United States and their allies called Putin’s accusations bunk. However, keeping in mind the Russian leader’s habit of trumping up spurious justifications for invading, the allies are nonetheless concerned.
Western leaders have issued almost daily warnings against the use of nuclear weapons by Russia, though the warnings are usually couched in vague terms. On Tuesday, US President Joe Biden warned that any use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine would be “completely unacceptable” and “entail severe consequences.”
William Burns, director of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), said: “Given the potential desperation of President Putin and the Russian leadership, given the setbacks that they’ve faced so far, militarily, none of us can take lightly the threat posed by a potential resort to tactical nuclear weapons or low-yield nuclear weapons.”
That leaves open the question: Is automatic retaliation – the threat of MAD – in operation if only Ukraine but not NATO is bombed?
MAD concerns were originally conceived to cover strategic weapons that produce blasts equivalent to millions of tons of TNT. There seems to be no clear military dogma covering the response to the use of weaker tactical bombs, also known as battlefield nuclear weapons. These can produce blasts equivalent to anywhere from 500 tons to 1,500 tons of TNT.
Russia possesses around 2,000 such warheads, though it is unclear whether any have been transported to the Ukraine battlefields. The power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima by the US was the equivalent of 15,000 tons of TNT. The US and Russians possess hundreds of bombs that can produce blasts equal in power from 100,000 to more than a million tons of TNT.
US officials say they can monitor big, strategic nuclear warheads on missiles housed in silos or delivered by airplanes, but not necessarily mobile tactical weapons. The US has positioned about 100 tactical nuclear weapons in Europe.
In September 1991, the US provided an opening for controlling tactical atomic weapons. Then-president George H W Bush ordered ground-based battlefield weapons to be destroyed.
He told the Kremlin that the United States no longer considered such weapons to be useful. Russia never rid itself of such arms, however. Thinking they would be useful to supplement its aging conventional arsenal, Moscow kept developing them.
Several factors might persuade Putin to actually use tactical nuclear weapons. Such bombs could reverse recent battlefield and territorial losses. In addition, the display of ruthlessness could satisfy Russian hardline critics who say Putin has mismanaged the war.
Among his options, observers say are to:
- detonate a bomb over the Black Sea as a demonstration
- decapitate Ukrainian leadership with a strike
- launch a nuclear assault on a Ukrainian military base or a supply depot
- destroy a city and wantonly kill civilians to precipitate surrender
Even the threat of tactical nuclear arms is forcing Ukraine’s backers into tricky debates over how to retaliate. They need to answer the question of whether the use of battlefield atomic weapons automatically triggers a nuclear response.
The scenario “would likely be designed to split the NATO alliance,” Jon Wolfsthal, a former White House nuclear policy expert, wrote on Substack, a blog distribution website.
Simply issuing threats, as Putin has done, puts pressure on Ukraine and its Western allies to avoid the quandary and agree to negotiate on Putin’s terms. At the least, he wants a neutral Ukraine, control of the Black Sea coast and eastern Ukraine, and a demilitarized Eastern Europe.
There are risks in any Russian scheme to use nuclear weapons. An atomic attack, especially if it results in civilian deaths, would destroy Putin’s argument that Ukraine is being liberated, rather than simply destroyed. Although the destructive range of a tactical blast is relatively small, nuclear fallout could drift into Russia and kill, or sicken, Russian citizens.
The tactic could also encourage Western powers to increase already formidable conventional military aid to Ukraine. China and India, along with many other countries that are formally neutral, seeing the move as dangerously damaging global stability, might take an anti-Kremlin position.
And then there is the possibility of a NATO retaliatory nuclear strike. Putin has said he is not bluffing, a statement that prompted the West to contemplate deterrent steps followed, if all else fails, by military action.
Published analyses in the US suggest that verbal threats ought to be the first response option and some vague ones have already been made. (“Repercussions” is a favorite.)
Some experts think the West should make specific threats of escalation, privately or publicly, in advance of any attack. The statements could include warnings that an attack on Ukraine would be taken as an attack on the US and/or NATO, and require harsh punishment.
The Atlantic Council, a private organization that defines its mission as shaping “the global future,” suggests that specific warnings should be made public. “US credibility would be on the line for the world to see” and the warnings therefore would command credibility, the council said.
One option, considered the softest, is to impose a new round of economic sanctions. However, the sanctions already imposed in response to the invasion have been porous. Europe still imports some fossil fuels from Russia. China, India and many other countries covet Russian oil and natural gas. Iran is providing armed drones to help Moscow weather Ukraine’s recent ground offensives.
A more forceful response would entail supplying Ukraine with additional powerful and sophisticated conventional weapons. So far, accurate artillery, rockets and drones have helped the Ukrainians destroy numerous Russian positions and equipment. Ukrainian leaders say more such weapons would help.
Next on the military escalation list is for NATO itself to use conventional weapons to hit Russian targets inside Ukraine, an option suggested by former defense secretary William Perry in a pre-war interview with The Atlantic magazine.
Although “direct military intervention would be perceived as a meaningful response,” advised the Atlantic Council, Russia might conclude that a conventional response means “the United States is unwilling to use nuclear weapons, encouraging additional Russian nuclear strikes.”
A more threatening option would be to make it clear that the United States would respond with nuclear weapons, whether or not NATO is willing to go along.
In any event, the US appears to be making preliminary nuclear war preparations. The Pentagon has speeded up the deployment of a more accurate version of its key nuclear bomb to NATO bases in Europe.
The dispatch of newly upgraded B61-12 unguided bombs, meant to be dropped from aircraft, was scheduled for next spring but is to happen in December instead. The bombs will be stored at European depots for eventual attachment to NATO bombers and fighter jets.