In response to Ukrainian incursions into Russian territory with long-range missiles, Putin has repeatedly referred to atomic weapons. The West is convinced that this is merely a matter of “psychological pressure”, but this belief is based on theoretical models from 60 years ago. While Karaganov, one of the Kremlin’s most senior advisers, while ruling out the use of the “most devastating” weapons, speaks of their use “in proportion to the attacks suffered”.
Moscow () – In recent weeks, Vladimir Putin has repeatedly renewed his threats to the West to use nuclear weapons in response to the “NATO war”, which allows the Ukrainians to directly attack Russian territory with long-range missiles. The danger of a nuclear escalation has been very much on the minds of US leaders and their allies since 2022, trying to find appropriate containment measures. Even in the autumn of two years ago, Russia had suffered heavy losses, with the Ukrainian reconquest of territories in the Kharkov and Donetsk regions, and today with the Ukrainian advance in the Kursk region.
Since late 2022, the West has been supplying kyiv with progressively more powerful weapons, from tanks to Patriot systems, Storm Shadow missiles and Atacms and F-16 aircraft, with other more advanced weapons being manufactured directly in Ukraine. A third of Russian ships in the Black Sea have been destroyed in this way, and strategic targets such as airports, depots, oil bases and cities are regularly attacked, both in the occupied regions and directly in Russia, without Putin having so far initiated nuclear Armageddon.
In March, NATO Deputy Secretary-General Mircea Dan Geoană said he did not see “an inevitable threat”, describing Putin’s statements as “psychological pressure” and not indicating any preparatory actions for the use of atomic weapons. The “nuclear ladder” on the basis of which the real danger of a collapse of the world security system is established refers to the indicators established by the American expert Herman Kahn in 1965, which foresee 44 levels divided into 7 “steps”, as well as other theories of 7 or 17 steps, and Kahn himself had put forward the hypothesis of a ladder with 16 steps. In reality, these are only theoretical models, which “nobody really uses”, says expert Maksim Starčak from the Centre for Defence Policy at Queen’s University in Canada.
For the time being, Russia and the West are sticking to the “minimum” level of nuclear containment theories, that of formal declarations that can be largely controlled. As confirmed by Russian academician Aleksej Arbatov, control decreases at higher levels after the first strike, which Kahn’s theory says would reach level 21. Another Russian expert, Pavel Podvig, believes, however, that Kahn’s “scale” refers to a time long gone by, when representations referred to very different dimensions than those of today. But the point is that, apart from the bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, humanity has no direct experience of using nuclear weapons for military purposes, and “no one really knows how it can end.”
Sergei Karaganov, a political scientist at the Moscow School of Economics, explains that Russia is developing a new doctrine of “nuclear containment,” of which he was one of the initiators. In his opinion, “the theories of the 1960s and 1970s are outdated,” because they are based on the use of the most devastating weapons in the arsenal, which “is not only an incorrect approach, but also immoral.” The new doctrine must be based on the “certainty that must be conveyed to current and future enemies that Russia is ready to use nuclear weapons in proportion to the attacks suffered.” For Karaganov, one of Putin’s most listened-to advisors on the subject, “this is an obligation that we have not only in view of the sacrifice of our soldiers, but also in view of the entire world… We must revive the nuclear balance.”
Even the document signed by Putin in 2020 on nuclear doctrine seems to him to be “from centuries ago, not years ago”, since it is still based on “principles and chimeras of the 20th century”. According to Karaganov, we must instead be convinced that “nuclear weapons are a weapon of peace and war prevention”, as they were during the Cold War, and must be used “according to the needs of today’s world”.
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