Nuclear Deterrence Reconsidered: The Emerging Threat of Limited Nuclear Warfare

Thomas Rijntalder

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To cite this article:Rijntalder, Thomas, “Nuclear Deterrence Reconsidered: The Emerging Threat of Limited Nuclear Warfare,” Military Strategy Magazine, Volume 10, Issue 3, fall 2025, pages 4-10. https://doi.org/10.64148/msm.v10i3.1

Thomas Rijntalder holds an MSc in Medicine and an MA in Philosophy and has recently completed the requirements for an MA in International Relations and War at King’s College London. He served as a public health physician during the pandemic and as a policy advisor at the Dutch Ministry of Health. In 2022, he provided medical care to refugees in Ukraine, an experience that gradually redirected his focus towards geopolitical and military analysis.

Introduction

According to Clausewitz, war is ‘the continuation of politics by other means’,[1] and the use of military force is therefore guided by political objectives. A limited war, consequently, can be described as a conflict in which belligerents do not harness all available military resources and in which the utter destruction of the enemy is not the objective; it is confined with regard to the intensity of fighting, geography, and political aims.[2] There can be other things at stake, such as territory and power, and the sacrifices made must be proportional to the value of the political goals.[3] When one side decides that defeat in a limited war is preferable to escalation into total war and its consequences, the war comes to an end.[4]

Regarding limited nuclear war (LNW), a conflict involving the controlled and restricted use of nuclear weapons, there is no universally accepted definition. To some, including American strategist Bernard Brodie, the very notion of a ‘limited’ nuclear war is conceptually implausible. The destructive power and escalation risk of nuclear weapons, it is argued, make true limitation nearly impossible in practice.[5] For the sake of clarity, and in line with the concept of limited war, this paper proposes that an LNW would involve low-yield nuclear weapons (LYNWs), a limited number of warheads, for limited military and political objectives, and confined to a relatively small geographical space.[6] While an empirical answer to the question of LNW’s feasibility cannot be established, this paper argues that the likelihood of states adopting an LNW strategy is increasing. Due to shifting global power dynamics and technological advancements, the use of nuclear weapons could, if specific conditions are met, achieve political objectives without the conflict escalating into all-out nuclear war in a way that Cold War dynamics did not. However, attempting to do so involves treading a fine line, and the risk of escalation remains substantial.

The Dilemma

The main problem with the concept of LNW is that, in the fog of war, it is difficult to convey to the enemy whether a first strike is truly limited or the initial step in an all-out nuclear war. Between the 1960s and 1980s, RAND Corporation and the Pentagon conducted multiple wargames that tested various LNW scenarios as an alternative strategy to Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), since the latter left little room for gradual escalation control and was therefore seen as a flawed deterrent vis-à-vis the Soviets. However, as most of these scenarios escalated into total nuclear war, the theory of LNW partially receded into the background, despite several U.S. presidents occasionally considering flexible nuclear options.[7] It was followed by an approach to limited war that was fought with conventional weapons.[8]