Russia Keeps the West Guessing as It Mulls Nuclear Strategy Shift

A Yars intercontinental ballistic missile is test-fired from the Plesetsk launchpad on the Kamchatka peninsula in Russia on Oct. 29, 2024. Russian Defense Ministry Press Service/AP

Russia says it is reconsidering its nuclear doctrine—the document it relies on when deciding whether to launch a nuclear strike—and earlier this week, it carried out a major missile test.

But with Russian leaders invoking the specter of nuclear weapons each time the West changes the goal posts in Ukraine, is this more saber-rattling, or does it represent a genuine shift in posture? Does the West need to change its assessment of risk? And what significance does a nuclear doctrine really have?

On Sept. 25, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin warned of the consequences of the United States and its NATO allies allowing Ukraine to use longer-range weapons—which they have supplied—for strikes deep inside Russia.

He said it would put Russia at war with NATO.

Putin said the Kremlin is considering changing its nuclear doctrine, which considers a conventional attack on Russia by a non-nuclear nation, such as Ukraine, supported by a nuclear power like the United States, to be a joint attack on his country.

The revised document might allow Russia to use nuclear weapons in case of a massive missile or drone attack, he said.

This deliberate ambiguity is designed to deter NATO from permitting Ukraine to use such weapons, something Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been pressing for.

Putin’s comments followed an announcement by Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov on Sept. 1.

“There is a clear intent to introduce a correction [to the nuclear doctrine], caused ... by the examination and analysis of [the] development of recent conflicts, including ... our Western adversaries’ escalation course in regards to the special military operation [in Ukraine],” the state-owned Tass news agency quoted Ryabkov as saying.

The Nuclear Doctrine

Russia’s current nuclear doctrine, as confirmed by Putin in 2020, states that Moscow may use nuclear weapons in the event of a nuclear attack by an enemy or in response to a conventional attack that poses an existential threat to the Russian state.

As researcher Nikita Degtyarev outlined in an article for the Open Nuclear Network on Oct. 29, the doctrine has changed several times since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Pavel Podvig, a senior researcher at the U.N. Institute for Disarmament Research in Geneva, said the threshold for nuclear strikes has been raised in the post-Soviet era.

Originally, the doctrine stated nuclear weapons could be used in the event of “large-scale aggression with conventional weapons in situations critical to Russia’s national security.” This was changed to “in the event of aggression with conventional weapons when the state’s very existence is in jeopardy.”  

Podvig, author of “Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces” who writes a blog about Russia’s nuclear weapons, told The Epoch Times he does not believe Moscow will change the disclaimer about “the state’s very existence” being in jeopardy.

But Podvig said the doctrine itself was designed to be “vague” and ambiguous so the other side could not second-guess Russia’s moves.

Tim Ripley, a military analyst and editor of the Defence Eye website, said Russia’s leadership would use nuclear weapons only if they were “desperate.”

“The only sort of scenario where you could think it might be vaguely plausible is if [Putin’s] regime is under threat by a massive battlefield defeat,” he told The Epoch Times.

“If the Russian army is defeated and is in full-fledged retreat, and it’s panic and confusion, and the Ukrainians are driving across the border, and it looks like the end game—that is a more realistic sort of scenario for the thing getting out of control than where we are now.”

‘Edge of the Abyss’

Sam Faddis, a former CIA officer and senior fellow at the Center for Security Policy, wrote on Substack on Oct. 31 that “we are dancing along the edge of the abyss.”

“Putin is practicing for the end of the world. Don’t assume he’s just bluffing.”

On Oct. 29, Putin launched a massive drill to test the country’s nuclear missile forces with a simulation of a retaliatory strike.

The Kremlin’s nuclear arsenal remained a “reliable guarantor of the country’s sovereignty and security,” he said.

The Soviet Union tested its first nuclear bomb in 1949, and by the early 1960s, Moscow and the United States had recognized a tactical stalemate.

In 1962, Donald Brennan, a strategist at the Hudson Institute, coined the term “mutually assured destruction,” and the United States, the Soviet Union, and other countries such as Britain and France all recognized it would be madness to fire a nuclear missile at a nation that has its own arsenal.

In 1973, the CIA produced a secret document that detailed the agency’s understanding of the Soviet nuclear doctrine.

It said the Soviets “consider deterrence the key objective for their strategic forces.”

The document states that the Soviets “plan for the possibility that deterrence might fail, but they do not contemplate launching a sudden first strike on the U.S., nor do they expect one on themselves.”

Britain and France still retain what are known as “independent nuclear deterrents,” and over the years, more countries have obtained nuclear weapons—China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and most recently, North Korea.

Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) shakes hands with North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un (R)  after a signing ceremony following talks at Kumsusan state residence in Pyongyang on June 19, 2024. Kristina Kormilitsyna/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

The U.S. and Russia both have around 5,500 nuclear warheads, a number restricted by the START treaty. Last year Moscow suspended its participation in the treaty.

START also restricts the number of warheads that can be deployed in intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

No ‘First Strike’ Capability

Podvig said the Soviets, or Russians, never had the capability to launch a “first strike.”

“The Soviet Union never had the capability to destroy more than about half of the U.S.’s ICBMs,” he said.

“The Americans actually had this capability of first strike, in a sense that they would have an advantage after an attack—meaning they could kill with their remaining force, 50 million people, and the Soviet Union would be able to kill 30 million.”

He said the Russians formally announced a “no first strike” policy in 1982, something the United States and NATO have never formally stated.

But the path to mutually assured destruction has meant neither side really wants to test the other’s resolve.

“The name of the game” is to send out signals to keep the other side cautious, and both sides are aware of the need for “escalation control,” Podvig said.

He said the United States is wary of getting too involved in Ukraine for fear that matters might escalate out of control.

There is a danger that “Russia will respond in some way, and then the West will respond in some other way.” Podvig said.

“You get into this escalation, and nobody has confidence that this escalation can be controlled ... This is a kind of a cycle that goes all the way up and ends up with the kind of full-scale nuclear exchange.”

Russians ‘Send a Message’

Ripley said it’s about sending a message.

“When the Russians talk about what’s in their secret document, it means they want to send a message. This isn’t WikiLeaks. This is the Russian government talking about their own secret document, and they’re doing that for a reason, a deliberate reason to send a message: ‘We have this stuff, [so] think carefully about what you do,’ and they’ve used it several times in the past,” Ripley said.

As part of the Oct. 29 drills, the Russian Defense Ministry said the Novomoskovsk and Knyaz Oleg nuclear submarines test-fired ICBMs from the Barents Sea and the Sea of Okhotsk, while nuclear-capable Tu-95 strategic bombers carried out practice launches of long-range cruise missiles.

Peace activists wearing masks of Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) and U.S. President Joe Biden pose with mock nuclear missiles in front of the U.S. embassy in Berlin, Germany, on Jan. 29, 2021. John Macdougall/AFP/Getty Images

The military also test-fired a Yars ICBM from the Plesetsk launch pad at the Kura testing range on the Kamchatka Peninsula.

Faddis pointed out the deadly power of the weapons.

“A single one of the warheads carried by the Yars missile impacting anywhere in the DC area would effectively destroy the entire metropolitan area. Those people not killed outright by the blast would find themselves living in a nightmare,” he said in his Substack article.

The Oct. 29 test followed a joint nuclear exercise earlier this year that Russia held with their ally Belarus, which has hosted some of Moscow’s tactical nuclear weapons.

Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, nuclear weapons belonging to the communist state were located in several Soviet republics, including Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine.

Ukraine Lost Nuclear Arsenal

The newly independent state of Ukraine was ironically pressured by the United States into giving up its nuclear weapons in 1994.

While, in hindsight, it might appear to have been a mistake, Podvig said that it simply “wasn’t an option” for Ukraine to keep them at that time.

He said Russia inherited the Soviet Union’s right to keep nuclear weapons, and the West was keen not to have more countries with nuclear weapons, especially new and possibly unstable nations.

“There was quite a bit of pressure on Ukraine to become a non-nuclear weapons state, which meant sending all the weapons to Russia,” Podvig said.

“The United States pressed Ukraine pretty hard on that. They said there was a choice: ‘You either remain in good standing with the United States and with the international community in general and become a member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, or you keep those weapons, and you are on your own—you won’t have any help or investment or anything.’”

Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.