Filenews 24 March 2022
By Andreas Kluth
We must now start from the assumption that a man like Vladimir Putin is capable of anything, even the use of nuclear weapons.
The President of Russia has made it very clear that human life is of no value to him, unless it is his own. There are scenarios in which he can incorporate the assessment that launching one or more nuclear weapons could keep him in power and save his "flesh".
Change of phase
This is because we have entered a world that, from a strategic point of view, is more like Europe in the unstable early years of the Cold War than its relatively 'stable', later stages. As a result, the old concepts of 'deterrent power' have been abolished in practice and the risk of an accidental nuclear Armageddon has increased.
In the years following World War II, the U.S. knew that its military forces in western Europe were inferior to those of the Soviet Union and would probably not withstand its attack. To compensate for this disadvantage, the Americans placed nuclear warheads of relatively low power (but still unimaginably destructive) on the territory of their European allies.
The message was that, in the event of a Soviet attack, NATO could use some of them on the battlefield to "grab victory from the mouth of defeat".
However, as the nuclear arms race escalated, the Soviet Union synchronized nuclear weapons with the West and "strategic" weapons became dominant. These are bigger bombs which can, for example, be fired with intercontinental missiles from the territory of one side to that of the other. These can now eliminate entire cities from the map at a time.
The saving "balance of terror"
As "Apocalyptic" as such a scenario may sound, this balance of terror has so far saved us from nuclear havoc. Figuratively speaking, West and East were personified in two faces who were in the same room, submerged to the middle of gasoline.
Each of them had a number of matches in their hands. Neither, however, lit them, because both would be engulfed in flames. This dead-end situation was called Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD).
In the two decades in which Putin rules Russia, however, the strategic big picture has changed once again. In a sense, it returned to the situation immediately after The Second World War, but with the roles reversed.
Now it is Russia that suspects that its army is inferior to that of NATO in a conventional war. It is therefore Putin who compensates for this weakness by threatening to use tactical nuclear weapons to win battles or wars that initially do not go to him as he would like. Rather oxymorons, this approach is called "escalation aimed at de-escalation".
To that end, Russia — which has roughly equal power to the U.S. in strategic nuclear weapons — has gained a 10:1 lead in tactical nuclear weapons. It has about 2,000, with America having only about 200, half of which are in Europe.
Putin has already hinted many times that he could "dive" into his rich arsenal if NATO exceeded its red lines. And because he systematically confuses his personal fate with the fate of his country, he is able to interpret any threat of personal humiliation or regime change in Moscow as such a line.
Let's say that the Ukrainians - who are fighting heroically against the surprisingly incompetent Russian invaders - are approaching victory. Or that a supersonic Russian missile hits "by chance" Poland, a NATO member. Or that the West is handing over weapons to Ukraine that could reverse the course of the war. Any of these reversals could make Putin fear his impending political death - and thus make him escalate.
"Staggered Blows"
His first blow would prove his intentions. He could drop a low-power nuclear bomb into an empty forest or into the open sea, just to show that he means his threats. As a next step, it could hit a specific enemy weapons depot, military base or battalion - in any case, not yet an entire city. The variable yields of tactical nuclear warheads make such a weighting possible.
Putin would thus signal his determination to go all the way, betting that the US and its allies would not retaliate in a similar way. Based on his reasoning, he would thus look tangible to the West that he is not bluffing. Cold War-era leaders in both camps knew they could not win a nuclear war. If Putin ever launches nukes, it will be because he believes he can.
But would he do it? NATO, and especially the US, must now prepare for painful decisions after a first Russian strike. Should the West ignite its own low-performance nuclear weapons in order to show determination? Where would the two sides head from there?
As soon as these weapons - the deadliest in all of human history, regardless of the power of each of them - begin to explode, the risk of misunderstandings, mistakes and accidents soars. A "limited" blow on the one hand will again seem of cataclysmic importance to the other. And the missiles fly so fast that the other side only has a few minutes to respond. The temptation to "use it before I lose it" would skyrocket.
Sustainable peace
Long before the nuclear age, a book-eating Prussian officer who had witnessed the Napoleonic battles, wrote "On War". Carl von Klauzevich understood the inherent tension created between the generals trying to keep the war limited and the war itself, which has the natural tendency to become absolute, resulting in the total destruction of one or all of the parties.
The imperative, Clausewitz concluded, is to always align tactics and strategy.
"War is nothing more than the continuation of politics by other means," he wrote in his most famous (and often misunderstood) phrase. He meant that one should fight only the kind of war that can make the ensuing peace viable.
Let us pray that there are people left in Moscow who understand this truth well.
Source: BloombergOpinion
