Time For Nuclear Reminders?

Will Russia give the West a nuclear reminder?

 Dmitri Trenin

Strategic stability is usually understood as the absence of incentives for a nuclear-armed power to launch a massive first strike. Typically, it’s viewed primarily in military-technical terms. The reasons why an attack may be contemplated are usually not taken into account.

This idea emerged in the middle of the last century, when the USSR had achieved military-strategic parity with the US and the Cold War between them had entered a “mature” phase of limited confrontation and some predictability. The solution to the problem of strategic stability was then seen in the constant maintenance of contacts between the political leadership of the two superpowers. Which led to arms control and transparency in arranging their respective arsenals.

However, the first quarter of the 21st century is ending in conditions very different from the relative international political stability of the 1970s. The US-centric world order established after the end of the Cold War is being seriously challenged and its foundations are visibly shaken. The global hegemony of Washington and the position of the collective West as a whole is weakening, while the economic, military, scientific and technological might and political importance of non-Western countries –first and foremost China, but also India– are growing. This is leading to a deterioration in relations between the US and other power centers.

The two largest nuclear powers, Russia and the US, are in a state of semi-direct armed conflict. This confrontation is officially regarded in Russia as an existential threat. This situation has become possible as a result of the failure of strategic deterrence (in its geopolitical dimension) in an area where Russia’s vital interests are present. It should be noted that the main cause of the conflict is Washington’s conscious disregard –for three decades now– of Moscow’s clearly and explicitly expressed security interests.

Moreover, in the Ukrainian conflict, the US military and political leadership has not only articulated, but has publicly expressed, the mission of using its proxy to inflict a strategic military defeat on Russia, despite its nuclear status.

This is a complex undertaking in which the collective economic, political, military, military-technical, intelligence and informational capacity of the West is integrated with the actions of the Ukrainian armed forces in direct combat against the Russian army. In other words, the US is trying to defeat Russia not only without using nuclear weapons, but even without formally engaging in hostilities.

In this context, the declaration by the five nuclear powers on January 3, 2022, that “nuclear war should not be waged” and that “there can be no winners,” seems like a relic of the past. A proxy war between the nuclear powers is already underway; moreover, in the course of this conflict, more and more restrictions are being removed, both in terms of the weapon systems used and the participation of Western troops, as well as the geographical limits of the theater of war.

It is possible to pretend that a certain ‘strategic stability’ is being maintained, but only if, like the US, a player sets the task of inflicting a strategic defeat on the enemy at the hands of its client state and expects that the enemy will not dare to use nuclear weapons.

Thus, the concept of strategic stability in its original form – the creation and maintenance of military-technical conditions to prevent a sudden massive nuclear strike – only partially retains its meaning under current conditions.

Strengthening nuclear deterrence could be the solution to the real problem of restoring strategic stability, which has been seriously disrupted by the ongoing and escalating conflict. To begin with, it is worth rethinking the concept of deterrence and, in the process, changing its name.

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