Conversely, nuclear symmetry—which began with the Soviet Union achieving parity with the United States in the 1970s and 1980s—has usually contributed to the progress of negotiations.
However, the current symmetry of strategic capabilities and views on their importance does not guarantee a resumption of dialogue and reduction of the nuclear threat. This apparent paradox is explained by nuclear deterrence’s nature as a special kind of military and political relationship between states.
The Dichotomy of Nuclear Deterrence
The dual nature of nuclear deterrence arises from the blurred distinction between the use of nuclear deterrence as a political tool to prevent war and the practical use of nuclear weapons as a means of warfare. After all, any deterrence is only feasible if it relies on the material basis of nuclear weapons and the willingness to use them in accordance with military doctrine, strategy, and operational plans.
In today’s world, all states openly (or, like Israel, by default) maintain and improve their nuclear weapons for deterrence purposes. At the same time, no weapons system is actually created for deterrence, because it is too general and amorphous a concept for the military planners and arms designers. The development of all nuclear weapons systems integrates the latest technical achievements to perform specific military tasks: the destruction of certain military and civilian targets in the specified conditions of conflict. At the same time, certain technical aspects of weapons and related operational plans may increase the likelihood of a military conflict or its escalation. Today, all of this is happening under the influence of technological and military developments and new strategic concepts among the leading nuclear powers, and is being exacerbated by the growing political tensions between Russia and the United States.
The enormous destructive power and technical complexity of existing nuclear forces have effectively left critical political decisions hostage to strategic concepts and operational plans developed in military offices long before an outbreak of armed conflict. And these plans are dictated by the technical specifications of the weapons and their command-and-control information systems. With regards to the present day, the classical Clausewitz postulate can be reformulated as follows: war (at least global nuclear war) is no longer the continuation of policy by other means. It is the continuation of military doctrine and the technical specifications of weapons systems that determine the plans and methods of their employment.
An illustration of this is the concept of launch-on-warning as outlined by the Russian leadership. It is mainly driven by the vulnerability of strategic forces to a massive nuclear missile strike. However, this only relates to ICBMs in hardened silo launchers, underground command posts, missile submarines in bases, and bombers at airfields. Land-based mobile missiles on deployment routes, submarines at sea, and aircraft in the air are all able to survive nuclear attack and deliver a “deep second strike,” but this potential seems to be considered insufficiently destructive.
The “assigned level of damage” mentioned in the Russian military doctrine therefore probably implies that a launch-on-warning of silo-based missiles must be carried out against the aggressor, in particular, launches of the most powerful heavy-class ICBMs (such as the current SS-18 Satan and its upcoming follow-on Sarmat).26 And this means that the technical specifications of weapons (such as the inability to make mobile heavy-class liquid-fueled ICBMs, the hardness of their silos, as well as the number, yield, and flight time of the attacking warheads) would dictate the decision of the state’s leadership to end the world: to strike back before the arrival of nuclear attack, the consequences of which were so eloquently described in Putin’s speech at Valdai.
Meanwhile, the concept of launch-on-warning carries a fair risk of unintended nuclear war. This comes from the possibility of a technical failure of the missile attack warning system—which is composed of satellites and ground-based radars—or the unauthorized launch of missiles by the opponent, incorrect interpretations of the other side’s actions, or an uncontrolled escalation of a crisis or local armed conflict.
In the short term, this risk may grow significantly along with the development of military hardware and changes to the strategic balance. For example, space weapons and cyber warfare are likely to have the ability to disable early warning systems or trigger false alarms. The proliferation of sea-based nuclear missiles poses the risk of provocative “anonymous” third-party attacks from underwater. The development of hypersonic systems will deprive ground-based radars of the ability to determine, in a timely manner, the trajectory of enemy missiles and their impact area, which means that a launch-on-warning response will have to be authorized immediately upon detection from satellites, which periodically signal false alarms.
Finally, the collapse of the INF Treaty and the possible deployment of new U.S. medium-range missiles in Europe and Asia will, due to their short flight time or low trajectory, neutralize the Russian concept of launch-on-warning, as there will simply be no time for its implementation during an attack. According to statements by authoritative military commanders, this might force Russia to accept the concept of a preemptive nuclear strike.27 It is clear that such a strike would be more destructive than a purely retaliatory strike, but in any case, the subsequent nuclear retaliation by the enemy would be fatal for Russia. And if the United States accepts the concept of a preemptive strike, any possible crisis situation would force both sides to speed ahead of the other: not for any political reasons, but because of the vulnerability of Russian strategic forces and command-and-control system to the first strike by the other side.
Another example of the self-destructive tendencies of nuclear deterrence is the concept of a limited or selective nuclear war. The perennial question that strategic planners have fought over for decades is what to do if nuclear deterrence fails. These scenarios include if an attack by an enemy using conventional weapons threatens imminent defeat (including destruction of nuclear forces in bases using high-precision non-nuclear capabilities), if the other side uses nuclear weapons in any kind of limited way, or if it uses other weapons of mass destruction or cyber attacks.
From the early 1970s, the United States—starting with then secretary of defense James Schlesinger—promoted the concept of “retargeting:” various options for selective and limited strikes against Soviet military targets.28 But all of these plans were dashed by the likelihood of a massive nuclear response by the Soviet Union, which categorically rejected such ideas and strengthened the potential for a “devastating retaliation.”29
Changes began many years later. In 2003, in an official Ministry of Defense document, Russia announced plans for the “de-escalation of aggression [by] the threat to deliver or by the actual delivery of strikes of various intensity using conventional and (or) nuclear weapons.” As such, the document assumed the possibility of “dosed combat employment of selected components of the Strategic Deterrence Force.”30
It should be noted that, since then, subsequent editions of Russian military doctrine and other official strategic documents have made no mention of such concepts. At the same time, the adopted doctrinal formulations do not exclude such actions, since they do not specify how Russia can “use nuclear weapons … in the event of aggression against the Russian Federation with the use of conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is in jeopardy.”31 Neither is it clear when and how exactly the existence of the state can be considered in jeopardy, and what level of damage to the enemy is interpreted as sufficient.32 The United States is not transparent about these points either, but officially allows for the possibility of a limited nuclear war.
