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Russian nuclear saber-rattling, which has threatened the world since the start of the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, recently reached a fever pitch in the wake of authorizations for Ukraine to use Western long-range missiles to strike Russian territory. On Nov. 19, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law expanded criteria for the use of nuclear weapons, reserving "the right to consider a nuclear response to a conventional weapons attack" and to consider "any attack by a non-nuclear country supported by a nuclear power as a joint attack." Two days later the Russian military punctuated these threats with a dramatic demonstration of its potential to deliver a massive nuclear response by launching an "Oreshnik" intermediate-range ballistic missile at Ukraine.
The moves have been hailed by Russian hawks such as Sergey Karaganov, who has long argued for a preemptive strike on the West using "God's weapon" to save civilization from the "anti-human ideology" of liberal democracy. While high on menace these actions have ultimately been low on substance. Putin's latest nuclear threats do not represent a fundamental change in Russia's nuclear posture. Not yet at least.
It would be a mistake to dismiss Russia's nuclear threats entirely. There are conditions under which Putin, like the leader of any nuclear power, would authorize a nuclear strike. The actual circumstances under which Putin might consider it almost certainly remain narrow despite the newly revised policy. These exact conditions can't be discerned by analyzing official statements alone. Such statements are easy to make, and easy to retract, especially for Putin who has a habit of distorting the truth. Analysis is better directed toward identifying ways in which Putin might adopt what Nobel laureate and Cold Warrior Thomas Schelling has described as "commitment strategies," which could bind him to a decision to use nukes.
Credible commitments, whether in marriage or in nuclear war, require a surrender of alternatives. Despite his bluster, Putin has not shown a willingness to truly constrain his decision making and continually exhibits great creativity in escalating the war in Ukraine by other means, such as involving North Korean troops. This flexibility could change, and attention should be paid to three possible scenarios in which Putin might raise the stakes by deliberately closing off non-nuclear options.
The first scenario is a decision by Putin to handcuff himself to automatic nuclear responses to specific actions by Ukraine or the West. Russia's new nuclear doctrine has lowered the threshold for considering using nuclear weapons but still does not provide definite criteria for their use. Putin has himself never committed to nuclear retaliation as an option of first resort either. He has always provided himself flexibility by framing threats with cryptic language, such as warning of "consequences will be such as you have never seen in your entire history." Adopting more direct threats of "you do this, we respond with nukes," would give Putin less room to back down.
A second, more dangerous commitment Putin could make is to take the decision to use tactical nuclear weapons out of his hands entirely and delegate the authority to battlefield commanders. This move would require taking low-yield nuclear warheads out of storage and mounting them on bombs or missiles for use as a battlefield weapon, a more complicated and dangerous process than it would first appear. The readying of nuclear weapons would incentivize a NATO preemptive strike to eliminate them—a reasonable move considering Russia's repeated insinuations of possible nuclear attack on European capitals, and the difficulty of intercepting missiles once they are fired. To deter possible preemption, the Russian military would likely raise the readiness of its more powerful strategic nuclear forces. These escalatory moves would be mirrored by NATO, which would have to prepare to respond first in the event of a general nuclear exchange. The high potential for all of this to get out of hand makes any decision to decentralize control of nuclear weapons a credible step toward their actual use, not a bluff.
Finally, Putin could greenlight new nuclear testing as a way of rolling back norms around nuclear weapons. That Putin has not yet taken even this relatively minor step toward breaking the nuclear taboo indicates a broader strategic rationale for abstaining from nuclear use. At the top of these bigger strategic considerations is a need to retain the favor of major international partners such as India and China. Both countries have vigorously expressed their opposition to Russian nuclear use. Bucking the interests of his most valuable partners to resume nuclear testing, would indicate a determination by Putin to win the war at any cost, and represent a step toward making nuclear weapons one of the means for doing it.
Russia's provocative actions provide unsettling reminders that the risk of nuclear war resulting from its invasion of Ukraine is real. But so far Putin has avoided committing himself to policy options that would make nuclear use a real likelihood.
Dan White is a Program Associate at The Wilson Center's Kennan Institute.
The opinions expressed in this article are the writer's own.
