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20 November 2022

Dealing With Vladmir Putin’s Nuclear Crisis – The Case for Maximum Deterrence

Mark B. Schneider

In 2008, distinguished Russian journalist Pavel Felgenhuaer observed, “…our superiors are potentially ready to burn all of us in nuclear fire because of disputes over ice, rocks or South Ossetia.”[1] I have quoted this many times because I feel is sums up quite well Putin’s desire for territorial expansion (in this case the Arctic and part of Georgia) and the role of nuclear threats in supporting it. This has most clearly been on display in Putin’s long war against Ukraine. It’s noteworthy that in July 2014 Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made an implied nuclear threat against NATO relating to a hypothetical NATO response against the Russian invasion force in Crimea by referencing their military doctrine. In March 2015, President Putin said that during the Crimea crisis he would have put Russian nuclear forces on alert if it had been necessary. Felgenhauer was proved correct in September 2022 when Putin’s Deputy at the Russian National Security Council (and former President) Dimitri Medvedev declared, “The Donbas (Donetsk and Luhansk) republics and other territories will be accepted into Russia….Russia has announced that not only mobilisation capabilities, but also any Russian weapons, including strategic nuclear weapons and weapons based on new principles, could be used for such protection.” This statement was in support of President Putin’s nuclear threat associated with his mobilization decree. He said, “In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and to defend Russia and our people, we will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us. This is not a bluff.” “Territorial integrity” includes areas seized by force and annexed after a sham referendum.

According to Russian exile and former world chess champion Garry Kaparov, “I have been fighting Mr. Putin for 20 years and have always said that his regime is bound to become a fascist threat – not only to Russia, not only to its neighbors, but to the whole world.” Putin does not embrace the vile Hitler version of Fascism (although some of his supporters do) but he does embrace territorial expansion by war. Moreover, the Putin regime is not averse to threatening a nuclear holocaust even involving the entire world. According to Medvedev, “The idea of punishing a country that has one of the largest nuclear potentials is absurd. And potentially poses a threat to the existence of humanity.”

Boris Bondarev, a Russian diplomat who resigned in protest over Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, agrees that Putin has created a dangerous “fascist state” which if it defeats Ukraine will go on to attack a NATO state. In an important article in Foreign Affairs and in an interview with Sky News, he describes Putin as willing to accept World War II level casualties to win. He describes Putin as isolated from reality and says that the Russian Foreign Ministry is facilitating this. He reveals that Putin’s ultimatum to the West in the form of draft treaties that would fundamentally change the status of former Warsaw Pact states and increase the threat to them came directly from the Kremlin. Bondarev describes the following exchange with one of his colleagues:

For some, this was a way to evade responsibility for Russia’s actions; they could explain their behavior by telling themselves and others that they were merely following orders. That I understood. What was more troubling was that many took pride in our increasingly bellicose behavior. Several times, when I cautioned colleagues that their actions were too abrasive to help Russia, they gestured at our nuclear force. “We are a great power,” one person said to me. Other countries, he continued, “must do what we say.”

He also describes another exchange with one of his colleagues:

One official, a respected expert on ballistic missiles, told me that Russia needed to “send a nuclear warhead to a suburb of Washington.” He added, “Americans will shit their pants and rush to beg us for peace.” He appeared to be partially joking. But Russians tend to think that Americans are too pampered to risk their lives for anything, so when I pointed out that a nuclear attack would invite catastrophic retaliation, he scoffed: “No it wouldn’t.”

I believe Mr. Bondarev’s information is quite credible and explains why the Russian nuclear war threats are coming from the Kremlin and the Foreign Ministry. Notably absent are nuclear threats from Russian generals which is in stark contrast with previous Russian nuclear threats. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu’s description of the October 2022 Grom exercise as training for “a massive nuclear strike by strategic offensive forces” is clearly part of the orchestrated nuclear threat campaign. However, while Shoigu holds the rank of General of the Army, he is not a military man. However, significantly, Mr. Bondarev warns that the generals would likely implement a nuclear launch order from Putin. The argument that the generals have to “agree” for Putin to launch nuclear weapons, in my opinion, is nonsense. Only a mutiny followed by a coup could prevent such an eventuality.

There appears to be an enormous disconnect between the Biden administration’s stated perception about Putin and Russia and the nuclear deterrence policies it is pursuing, according to the Biden administration’s October 2022 National Security Strategy:“Russia’s brutal and unprovoked war on its neighbor Ukraine has shattered peace in Europe and impacted stability everywhere, and its reckless nuclear threats endanger the global non-proliferation regime.”

“Our competitors and potential adversaries are investing heavily in new nuclear weapons. By the 2030s, the United States for the first time will need to deter two major nuclear powers, each of whom will field modern and diverse global and regional nuclear forces.”

“Russia’s conventional military will have been weakened, which will likely increase Moscow’s reliance on nuclear weapons in its military planning.”

Recently, concern has focused on the threat of Russia using tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine, but most of Russian nuclear threats associated with Putin’s aggression against Ukraine have been aimed at the U.S. and NATO. President Putin does not want a nuclear war, but he thinks he has a nuclear advantage and his nuclear weapons can be used to intimidate the West. The constant Russian emphasis on its nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles is part of this saber-rattling strategy. Indeed, Medvedev declared, “Let them [the U.S.] run or crawl back themselves and ask for it [nuclear arms negotiations].” This is not only Medvedev. In 2013, then Kremlin Chief of Staff (and former Defense Minister) Colonel General Sergei Ivanov stated, “When I hear our American partners say: ‘let’s reduce something else’, I would like to say to them: ‘excuse me, but what we have is relatively new’. They [the U.S.] have not conducted any upgrades for a long time. They still use Trident [missiles].” The modernization asymmetry he cited is real. In August 2022, STRATCOM Commander Admiral Charles Richard said that Russia had modernized 86% of its strategic nuclear forces compared to zero for the U.S.

President Putin’s constant wielding of his nuclear superweapons reflects this same perception. When he brandished them in his 2018 State of the Nation address to the Duma, Putin declared, “Russia still has the greatest nuclear potential in the world, but nobody listened to us. Listen now.” What he means is not “listen” but “don’t oppose our aggression” and “don’t sanction us.” When he invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, President Putin threatened NATO should it intervene against Russia, stating that Russia would respond “…immediately, and the consequences will be such as you have never seen in your entire history. No matter how the events unfold, we are ready. All the necessary decisions in this regard have been taken. I hope that my words will be heard.”

According a recent article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “Today US and Russian nuclear arsenals are smaller than in 1962…” This is partially correct. There has been a vast reduction in the U.S. nuclear weapons numbers from the level that existed at the time of the Cuban missile crisis while Russia today reportedly has more nuclear weapons than the Soviet Union did in 1962. Moreover, Russian numbers are increasing while ours are declining. (This will be discussed below.)

The nuclear asymmetries favoring Russia today are not an accident. They are the result of policy decisions resulting in the U.S. and Russia going in opposite directions in the wake of the Cuban missile crisis. The path toward Minimum Deterrence was started by Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. He rejected the usefulness of nuclear superiority, evangelized the view that missile defense against Russia was a bad thing and that we should accept Mutual Assured Destruction. He set us on the long a path to today’s crisis. The world’s leading authority on deterrence Dr. Keith Payne has characterized U.S. policy as “The Great American Gamble.”[2] The current risk we face is the result of losing this gamble.

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