Russia-Ukraine War: What Is Moscow’s Nuclear Doctrine?

On 27 February, Russian President Vladimir Putin, referring to the economic sanctions imposed by the US and its allies, as well as the “aggressive statements regarding our country”, directed his defence officials to place Russia’s nuclear forces in a “special regime of combat duty”. It is unclear how this order changes the alert status of Russia’s nuclear forces – Russia, like the US, maintains many of its land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-based nuclear-tipped missiles at a high state of readiness.

Yet, Putin’s statement was immediately followed by the proverbial Tower of Babel, with some hinting at the imminence of a global nuclear war. On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that if a third World War were to take place, it would involve nuclear weapons and be destructive.

So, is Putin sending a political message, or is he preparing for a nuclear strike? If yes, on whom? The answer lies in Russia’s indefensibility and its nuclear doctrine.

Strategic Buffers

Russia, with the largest landmass but a population of just over 14 crore, is protected from the east – the weather, terrain, emptiness and size of the Siberian region east makes an attack very difficult. But it’s indefensible from the south (over the steppes between Russia and Central Asia) and the west (across the North European Plain). Russian history, therefore, is replete with invasions from these two directions. The absence of natural defensive barriers has, since the late 15th century under Ivan III, prompted Russia to annex strategic buffers in order to stretch and slow advancing enemies.

The Soviet Union was one such expansion. However, control of strategic buffers, usually inhabited by diverse ethnic groups, is problematic as it requires a huge intelligence-internal security-military set-up. With the nation diverting resources from its civilian economy and the best manpower to security forces, the cost of such control eventually causes the extended empire to collapse – which is why Russian history is also replete with examples of empire expansion and contraction.

The years 1989-1991 witnessed many key events – the withdrawal of the Soviet military from Afghanistan, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the US-led invasion of Iraq (Operation Desert Storm), and the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

Despite the chaos, Russian leaders noted how quickly the Soviet-equipped and Soviet-trained Iraqi forces were routed in Operation Desert Storm, and that the Russian military was a pale shadow of its Soviet predecessor. So, it delineated (November 1993) the "Main Provisions of the Military Doctrine", which envisioned nuke use only in a global war.

Post-breakup, fighting also broke out within Russia and its erstwhile republics. Within Russia, North Ossetia, Ingushetia, Tatarstan and Chechnya refused to accept Russian rule. The First Chechen War (1994-1996) didn’t go well for Russia and it was able to quell Chechnya only in the Second Chechen War (1999-2009). In the interim, Moscow saw NATO wage the information-led-precision-strikes campaign in Yugoslavia (1997-1999). And because the underlying issues of the Kosovo conflict were quite similar to those in Chechnya, the Russian leadership felt the US may interfere in Chechnya.

The 'Escalate to De-escalate' Strategy

So, Vladimir Putin, the then-Secretary of Russia’s National Security Council, evolved a new military doctrine. Signed in April 2000 by Putin as President, it mooted that if Russia was faced with a large-scale conventional attack that exceeded its conventional forces capacity for defence, it may respond with a limited nuclear strike aimed at ‘motivating’ the adversary to ‘de-escalate’ the conflict. It justified the use of nukes if Russia was faced with "silovoe davlenie" (‘compellence by force’).

In contrast to the Cold War’s nuclear threat of inflicting massive damage (‘Mutually Assured Destruction’), Russia’s ‘escalate to deescalate’ strategy looked at inflicting “tailored damage”, ie, damage that is limited but unacceptable to an aggressor as it would exceed the benefits he may gain in a war with Russia.

The reasoning was that the US may have many reasons to intervene on behalf of Chechen rebels, but it won’t risk a nuclear weapons exchange with Russia as the Chechen issue wasn’t of ‘core strategic interest’ to the US.

Notably, the conceptual underpinnings of Russia’s ‘de-escalation’ nuclear doctrine came from Thomas Schelling’s treatise, ‘The Strategy of Conflict and Arms and Influence’, while the operational level borrowed from the 1960s-era US policy, which envisaged “limited use” of nuclear weapons to oppose Soviet aggression in Europe (for eg., in the 1963 document by the US’s National Security Council, “Management and Termination of War with the Soviet Union”).

Two Missions for Russian Nuclear Forces

US Presidents George HW Bush and Bill Clinton had promised Russia that NATO would not expand into the former USSR. However, in 1998, NATO included Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, and in 2004, it absorbed the three Baltic states. After the November 2003 ‘Rose Revolution’ in Georgia, its new rulers began pursuing pro-Western foreign policies. The 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine ousted Russia-leaning Viktor Yanukovich.

Moscow and Putin perceived these as CIA-funded interferences that encircled Russia and threatened its security – “during the Cold War, St. Petersburg was about 2,000 km from a NATO country, but now, it’s 100 km away (Estonia)”.

President Putin, therefore, unveiled (October 2004) the "Immediate Tasks of Development of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation”. Apart from the Military Doctrine, it postulated two missions for Russian nuclear forces, viz, deterrence of a large-scale attack against Russia, and ‘de-escalation’ of a limited conflict if deterrence failed.

In March 2019, General Curtis Scaparotti, commander of NATO forces in Europe, told the US Senate Armed Services Committee that the US should help Ukraine build up its defences. In June 2020, Russia released a new document, “Basic Principles of the State Policy of the Russian Federation on Nuclear Deterrence”. Aimed at clarifying the implementation of nuclear deterrence policy, it recommended nuke use in response to conventional attacks in “situations critical to the national security of the Russian Federation”, a clear reference to the concept of ‘escalate to deescalate’.

Putin Has a Few Objectives

But the US or its allies haven’t intervened directly in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. So, why is Putin sabre-rattling his nukes? It does seem that Putin has three politico-military objectives:

First: Punish Ukraine and deter it from joining NATO. Georgia provides a case study: in 2006, the Georgian parliament voted unanimously for the integration of Georgia into NATO. Its January 2008 referendum on NATO membership got 77% votes in favour. NATO’s April 2008 Bucharest Summit favoured Georgia becoming a member. In August 2008, Russia attacked Georgia, annexed the Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and recognised them as independent states. Georgia, while an important NATO ally, has yet to join NATO.

Second: Deter the US and its allies from offering further military and political support to Ukraine, and thereby allow Russia to achieve its first objective. In the UK-led February 25 conference, over 25 countries had pledged massive military aid to Ukraine. The nuclear alert is a warning to the US and its allies to desist from interfering/intervening, failing which Russia may choose the “de-escalation” option. With US President Joe Biden ruling out the US military’s engagement with Russian troops in Ukraine, a nuke strike could be against Ukraine if Western military assistance persists and the fighting stalemates.

Third: “Liberate” the pro-Russian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine to create a small buffer. On 21 February, Putin signed a decree to officially recognise the independence of these two pro-Russian separatist regions. These had declared independence from Ukraine in 2014.

'Choose Your Friends Wisely'

In October 2021, US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin stated that Ukraine and Georgia may still join NATO. Putin began preparing and finally attacked Ukraine on 24 February, and on 27 February, he placed nuclear forces on combat alert. Carl von Clausewitz had famously observed that every strategy has its limits – "even victory has a culminating point … beyond that point, the scale turns and the reaction follows with a force that is usually much stronger than that of the original attack”.

Ostensibly, the US's strategy to push NATO right up to Russia's doorstep reached a limit with Russia, and the scale turned. Putin is unlikely to back off till most of his objectives are met.

One lesson from this conflict – “choose your friends wisely, as some may lead you to devastation”.

(Kuldip Singh is a retired Brigadier from the Indian Army. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)