NUCLEAR RISKSIs Putin Irrational? Nuclear Strategic Theory on How to Deter Potentially Irrational Opponents
Vladimir Putin’s astonishing lapse of judgment in invading Ukraine has fueled speculation that the Russian president may have taken leave of his senses. If this assessments is accurate, then the world faces a highly disturbing situation: a mad king in possession of the world’s largest nuclear arsenal. If Putin is not a rational adversary, then the policies that would deter a more-reasonable man may fail or even backfire.
Vladimir Putin’s astonishing lapse of judgment in invading Ukraine has fueled speculation that the Russian president may have taken leave of his senses. Former Secretary of Defense and CIA director Robert Gates commented in a recent CNN interview that Putin has “gone off the rails.” Sen. Marco Rubio, the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, tweeted after the invasion began that, “I wish I could share more, but for now I can say it’s pretty obvious to many that something is off with Putin. He has always been a killer, but his problem now is different & significant. It would be a mistake to assume this Putin would react the same way he would have 5 years ago.”
If these assessments are accurate, then the world faces a highly disturbing situation: a mad king in possession of the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, as he reminded the world when announcing an alert of his strategic deterrent forces February 27. If Putin is not a rational adversary, then the policies that would deter a more-reasonable man may fail or even backfire.
As nuclear strategists recognized decades ago, deterrence is necessary—but it isn’t always sufficient. The analysts and theorists who worked on these issues were bedeviled, in particular, by the problem of nonrational opponents. As the nuclear strategist Herman Kahn put it in 1962, “We want to deter even the mad.”
Kahn took comfort in his conclusion that “irrationality is a matter of degree,” so scaling up nuclear deterrence might still impress a “need for caution” upon irrational adversaries. Furthermore, “if the irrationality is sufficiently bizarre, the irrational decisionmaker’s subordinates are likely to step in.”
Theorist Patrick Morgan preferred the term “sensible” over “rational” to make it clear that an adversary doesn’t have to be perfectly rational to be understood and his actions anticipated. Sensible actors may have goals that are anathema to our own, but they pursue them in ways that appear likely to attain those objectives. They also may commit human errors. But even Morgan acknowledged that not every opponent will be “sensible” enough to respect a deterrent threat.
Nuclear deterrence theorists never identified a robust solution.
Fortunately, during the Cold War, the problem of irrational leaders wielding nuclear weapons never became acute. But now Putin’s behavior may be turning it into an immediate concern.
