NUCLEAR ESCALATIONHistory Never Ended: Ukraine and the Risk of Nuclear Escalation
Putin has issued implicit and explicit nuclear threats, and has also raised the specter of chemical weapons. Together, these threats imply that Putin may seek deliberate escalation in order to limit NATO’s options. Putin’s assumption may be that the West won’t be prepared to risk escalation to a strategic nuclear exchange and will back down even in the face of a demonstrative use of a low-yield nuclear weapon, or large-scale use of chemical weapons against urban areas in Ukraine.
Last Sunday, Russian missiles struck the International Center for Peacekeeping and Security at Yavoriv in western Ukraine, a mere 25 kilometers from the Polish border. The strikes were carried out with cruise missiles launched by Russian bombers from inside Russian airspace. The attack killed at least 35 people and injured 134; three former UK special forces soldiers were reportedly among the dead.
Had the cruise missiles missed their intended target and struck Polish territory, it’s highly likely that NATO leaders would now be in urgent discussions about a probable Article V request for military assistance. US President Joe Biden has stated in response to Russia’s initial attacks on Ukraine, ‘There is no doubt—no doubt that the United States and every NATO ally will meet our Article V commitments, which says that an attack on one is an attack on all.’
Russian President Vladimir Putin has issued implicit and explicit nuclear threats, particularly by placing his nuclear forces on ‘special’ combat readiness. He has also raised the specter of chemical weapons. Together, these threats imply that Putin may seek deliberate escalation in order to limit NATO’s options, even if that risks extending the war beyond Ukraine’s borders. Putin may believe that tactical nuclear weapons, whether employed as a threat or actually used as part of an ‘escalate to de-escalate’ strategy, would impose such costs on NATO that it will ultimately blink if challenged. He may see Russia as having escalation dominance given its superior numbers of tactical nuclear weapons as compared to US-provided nuclear gravity bombs under dual-key control with NATO.
Putin’s assumption may be that the West won’t be prepared to risk escalation to a strategic nuclear exchange and will back down even in the face of a demonstrative use of a low-yield nuclear weapon, or large-scale use of chemical weapons against urban areas in Ukraine.
In the decades since the end of the Cold War, the perception of nuclear weapons—at least from the perspective of Western liberal democracies—has been that they have little utility beyond traditional roles of deterrence based on mutually assured destruction. In Prague in 2009, US President Barack Obama called for a world without nuclear weapons and sought to reduce the perceived role of nuclear forces as part of the US national security strategy, while at the same time not undermining US deterrence.
