On the use of tactical and strategic nuclear weapons in NATO operations: a case study of Putin’s failure to test his military and civilian atomic energy
Putin also said he’d instructed his military and civilian atomic energy agency to be prepared to test additional nuclear weapons – should the U.S. carry out new tests first.
Russia continues to shell eastern and southern parts of Ukraine while facing attacks on its own soil as the war enters winter.
So, how worried should we be? The difference between tactical and strategic weapons is explained by former British army officer and former commander of the UK and NATO Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBrn) Units, Hamish deBretton-Gordon.
These weapons can be fitted to intercontinental missiles which can travel thousands of miles and are meant for the US, the UK, France and Russia.
Tactical nuclear weapons have a yield of up to 100 kilotons of dynamite, which is much less than the 1,000 kilotons of strategic nukes.
That said, tactical nuclear weapons could still create huge amounts of damage, and if fired at a nuclear power station – for example Zaporizhzhia in southern Ukraine – could create a chain reaction and contamination on a scale with a nuclear strike.
It is only Russia that has tactical nuclear weapons in this conflict, so it would be undeniable if they’re used that Russia is responsible, and hence trigger NATO action. So degraded are Russian conventional forces, that they would likely be quickly overcome by NATO forces if it came to that, which even with Putin’s other failings, presumably he realizes.
This might be the case for the tactical weapons. The warheads and missiles are probably in reasonable condition but the vehicles they are mounted on are, I believe and have on good authority, in poor condition. This is a fair assumption because the rest of the Russian Army equipment is on display in Ukraine.
It is likely that these launchers would need to travel hundreds of miles to get into a position where they could attack Ukraine, as they only have a range of up to 500 kilometers (310 miles). But from a mechanical perspective it’s unlikely, in my opinion, that they would get that far.
Also, it is likely these weapons rely on microprocessors and other high-tech components which are in very short supply in Russia – given international sanctions and the heavy use of precision guide missiles by Russia, which also use these parts.
This move is about attacking civilians instead of opposition forces. Attacks on hospitals, schools, and infrastructure like nuclear power stations are what this results in. If attacked, they can become weapons of mass destruction.
Unconventional warfare in Syria: What the Russians really want from a war in Ukraine and how they’re trying to halt them
Putin didn’t say how he would end the fighting or what the ultimate goal was, but did say that Russia wanted to protect the Russian-speaking population in eastern Ukraine.
Meteorological conditions at the moment indicate that all this contamination would also head west across Europe. This could be seen as an attack on NATO and trigger Article 5 – where an attack on one ally is considered an attack on all allies – which would allow NATO to strike directly back at Russia.
De Bretton-Gordon: The use of strategic nuclear weapons is extremely unlikely in my opinion. This is a war nobody can win, and at the moment it does not seem likely that this regional conflict in Europe would lead to a global nuclear war which could destroy the planet for many generations.
I’m sure that the checks and balances are in place in the Kremlin to make sure we don’t get sucked into a global nuclear conflict on a fleeting basis.
I hope the private discussions the Biden and Putin administrations have apparently been having are along the lines of, ‘you move your tactical nukes and NATO will take them out with long range precision guided missiles’. It would appear this is the case from what Jake Sullivan, the US National Security Advisor to the White House, disclosed over the weekend.
De Bretton-Gordon: I believe the Russians developed their unconventional warfare tactics in Syria. Russian forces entered Syria’s civil war in 2015, bolstering the regime. Had Assad used chemical weapons, he wouldn’t be in power, I think.
The massive nerve agent attack on August 21, 2013 on Ghouta stopped the rebels overrunning Damascus. Multiple chlorine attacks helped end the four- year siege of the city of Aleppo.
And it does not appear that Putin has any morals or scruples. Russia attacked hospitals and schools in Syria which it is repeating again in Ukraine. Unconventional warfare aims to break the will of civilians to resist, and Putin appears to be happy to use any means and weapons to achieve this.
However Soviet doctrine, which the Russians still seem to be following, allows local commanders to use tactical nuclear weapons to stave off defeat, or loss of Russian territory.
The attempted annexation of four districts through the current sham referendums makes the likelihood of tactical use very high, if these places are attacked. Though one still expects that local commanders would defer to Putin first before pressing their own equivalent of a red button.
Western military sources say that Putin is getting involved in the close battle and seems to be giving fairly low-level commanders their orders. This is extraordinary because it shows that a broken command and control system and a president who doesn’t trust his generals, as well as Putin losing confidence in his generals after Ukraine regained control of large swathes of the north-eastern region.
Even if Putin participated in an attack on a power station, the west would likely view it as a nuclear weapon and act accordingly.
President Joe Biden warned on Thursday about the risks of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats, as Moscow continues to suffer military setbacks.
It is striking for the President to invoke Armageddon at a fundraiser but his aides from the NSC to the Pentagon have spoken in more measured terms, saying they take the threats seriously but do not see movement on them.
We’re figuring out what is Putin’s off ramp. Mr. Biden said, adding: “Where does he find a way out? Where does he find himself where he does not only lose face but significant power?”
Three sources briefed on the latest intelligence and reported by CNN said the US is considering how to respond to a range of scenarios, including fears that Russians could use tactical nuclear weapons.
A US official said that despite Biden’s warning that the world is the closest it has been to a nuclear crisis since the 1960s, they have not seen a change to Russia’s nuclear posture as of now. The official said that there was no indication of a change in the posture of Russia and no change in the US stance.
The Secretary of State described Russia’s decision as unfortunate and irresponsible. The U.S. has previously accused Russia of violating the last remaining nuclear arms treaty between the two countries.
“Nothing was detected today that reflected an escalation,” the official said, who went on to defend Biden’s remarks because of the ongoing gravity of the matter.
“We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis,” Mr. Biden told a crowd at the second of two fund-raisers he attended on Thursday evening.
The Day After the Cuban Missile Crisis: Kennedy’s 2003 Presidential Campaign Challenge to the Soviet Union: The Case of SALT II and the Clinton-Chronsky Agreement
Editor’s Note: Julian Zelizer, a CNN political analyst, is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He’s the author and editor of 24 books, including The Presidency of Donald J. Trump. Follow him on Twitter @julianzelizer. The views he expresses in this commentary are his own. More opinion on CNN can be found here.
His logic came right out of the Cuban Missile Crisis which he referred to twice during his speech at the Democratic fund-raiser in New York. In that famous case — the closest the world came to a full nuclear exchange, 60 years ago this month — President John F. Kennedy struck a secret bargain with Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet premier, to remove American missiles from Turkey.
The fear of a nuclear war accelerated. In the 1980s, then-President Reagan’s bellicose rhetoric and a series of quick successions of Soviet leaders kept Americans on edge. Millions of viewers were terrified by the movie “The Day After,” in 1983, which depicted a fictional war that escalates to nuclear Armageddon. In his diary, Reagan wrote, “It’s very effective & left me greatly depressed.” A 16-year-old who watched the film told a reporter that he thought the show wasn’t as scary as he thought, and pondered if we were going to die.
The efforts of Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford to forge more agreements, including SALT II, slowed down in the late 1970s. Reagan focused his political attacks on arms agreements as a part of the conservative movement in America. Reagan said in his challenge to Ford that Détente was a one-way street. The Soviet Union is getting things that they want in return for the concessions we are making. Although Ford defeated Reagan, the attack had staying power, and Ford backed away from the policy of détente, shying away even saying the term in public. After conservative Republicans did well in 1978 elections, a new treaty became even more difficult, even though many of the candidates had called for being tough on communism.
Things weren’t made easier by Soviet aggression. After the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in December 1979, Carter admitted, “My opinion of the Russians has changed most dramatically in the last week than even the previous two and one – half years before that.” After seven years of negotiations, Carter signed the SALT II treaty in June 1979 but asked the Senate to take a break after the Soviets invaded. The treaty was never approved by Congress, but the US voluntarily observed the arms limits for several years.
There was a massive, international nuclear freeze movement that emerged during the 1980’s and made elected officials think about negotiations again.
Although the Cold War ended, nuclear weapons remained a topic of discussion – particularly how to keep them out of the hands of rogue states and terrorist networks. In 2002, while President George W. Bush and Putin signed a new nuclear arms treaty, the US later raised concerns that Russia was assisting Iran with what intelligence agencies deemed to be a nuclear weapons program. In 2015, President Barack Obama signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2015 that aimed to contain Iran’s nuclear program.
Donald Trump pulled out of the nuke agreement with Iran when he took over the presidency. In 2019, the United States also withdrew from the INF Treaty. The Open Skies Treaty had allowed participants to conduct covert flights to increase transparency and reduce the risk of war, and one year later, Donald Trump did the same.
WARSAW — When President Vladimir V. Putin announced at the end of a 100-minute speech on Tuesday that he would suspend Russia’s participation in the New START treaty — the last surviving arms control agreement between the two largest nuclear-armed powers — it was one more indication that the era of formal arms control may be dying.
As the world now faces the real possibility of those weapons being deployed, let’s remember Gorbachev’s wise words — a sentiment that was shared by Reagan – and make this world safer.
The disaster that could have killed tens of millions of Americans and tens of millions of Soviet citizens was averted by that deal, which came to light later.
Putin was talking at a news conference. He implied that a nuclear strike could even prevent a retaliatory strike, by applying it to the control points.
Putin acknowledged that the war is going to take a while, as he also warned of the “increasing” threat of nuclear war.
Putin said he is suspending Russian participation in the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty with the US in order to endanger the last remaining agreement governing the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals.
The treaty puts limits on the number of deployed intercontinental-range nuclear weapons that both the US and Russia can have. It was last extended in the first quarter of 2020 and it means that the two sides will soon need to negotiate another arms control agreement.
Regular inspections under the agreement, to make sure neither side is cheating, were put on hold in March 2020 during the pandemic. Russia put off talks to restart those inspections, as relations between Moscow and Washington deteriorated.
Even before Mr. Putin dismissed the implementation of the treaty’s required inspections as “nonsense,” it was already in deep trouble. The State Department said last month that Russians were not in compliance with their treaty obligations.
Blinken said President Joe Biden’s administration remains ready to talk about the nuclear arms treaty “at any time with Russia, irrespective of anything else going on in the world.”
“If Russia does what they’re accused of, we need to make sure we are posturing appropriately for the security of our own country and that of our allies,” he said. “I think it matters that we continue to act responsibly in this area … it’s also something the rest of the world expect of us.”
The Bilateral Commission on the treaty was to meet in Egypt in late November but was abruptly canceled. The US has blamed Russia for this postponement, with a State Department spokesperson saying the decision was made “unilaterally” by Russia.
The Director of the Nuclear Information Project questioned whetherRussia will stop exchanging data with the US after Putin said the treaty had been put on life support.
“Nuclear powers do not lose major conflicts on which their fate depends,” Medvedev wrote in a Telegram post. This should be visible to everyone. Even to a Western politician who has retained at least some trace of intelligence.”
He made it clear that the United States would not be inspecting Russian nuclear sites. And more broadly, he sounded like a leader who was done with arms control at a time of escalating confrontation with the United States and NATO.
If that attitude holds, whoever is sitting in the Oval Office when the treaty expires in a bit more than 1,000 days may face a new world that will look, at first glance, similar to the one of a half-century ago, when arms races were in full swing and nations could field as many nuclear weapons as they wanted.
The Pentagon, the Russian Orthodox Church, and the Defense of the Republic of Ukraine in the Light of Vladimir Putin’s Address to the House of Representatives of the Russian Parliament
He said that he would not allow the inspectors to survey those facilities, because they could be used to launch more attacks by the Ukrainians. “This is a theater of the absurd,” he said. The attempts to strike at the bases by the Kyiv regime is something that the West is directly involved in.
There are many reasons. First, there is virtually no communication between the two countries. The Strategic Stability talks that Mr. Biden and Mr. Putin have agreed upon were suspended in the middle of the invasion of Ukraine.
Putin acknowledged Russia’s significant losses in the war and called on those present to stand for a moment of silence in their memory. The Russian leader also promised a range of social support packages for families of the fallen.
Missing from Putin’s address was any discussion of Russia’s significant setbacks on the battlefield and its evident failure in the early days of the war to occupy Kyiv and remove Ukraine’s democratically elected government.
” The goal of the U.S. and NATO is to see Russia’s strategic defeat.” And then, as if nothing happened, they say they’re prepared to visit our military bases, including our newest,” said the Russian leader.
Biden’s address follows his surprise visit to Ukraine’s capital Kyiv Monday — a move seen in Moscow as both provocative and proof that, in Ukraine, Russia is fundamentally fighting a proxy war with the United States.
The West’s morals and spiritual collapse are a list of grievances presented by Putin. The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Moscow Patriarch Kirill, was seated front-row center in the hall.
The leader of Russia equates the government in Ukraine to the Nazis, and said that Russia was defending itself like the Soviet Union did during World War II.
It was always going to be good that Putin’s speech made good on an overdue commitment: the Kremlin repeatedly delayed and then canceled last year’s address amid a trickle of bad news from the battlefield in Ukraine.
Russian lawmakers will gather for an extraordinary session of both chambers on Wednesday when Putin will address a mass rally at Moscow’s largest stadium.
It was precisely a year ago that the Russian leader called for the formal recognition of two pro-Russian separatist republics in eastern Ukraine — pronouncing international diplomatic efforts to preserve Ukraine’s territorial integrity and find a diplomatic solution to a simmering conflict in the Donbas “futile.”
Putin put his national security council together to discuss the independence issue in front of a televised audience, making it famous for the image of the Russian leader holding court in a hallway and talking to his closest advisors.