Foreign Affairs
The decay of the post–Cold War bilateral nuclear order has made escalation in the Ukraine war a risky prospect.
Ukraine has been lobbying hard for the lifting of all restrictions on weapons use. During the recent visit, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Rustem Umerov identified a number of Russian airfields within range of U.S.- and European-provided long-range weapons, and Kiev is now seeking the green light to take the conflict to the next level. Zelensky himself will travel to Washington this month to present Biden with a “victory plan” that will reportedly outline Kiev’s path to achieving its war aims. Such a plan will undoubtedly include the acquisition and use of more long-range weaponry with offensive capabilities for striking Russia proper.
As of right now, it hasn’t happened. The likely reason is that even our otherwise myopic policy makers understand that Kiev’s dire situation on the battlefield leaves it with one strategic option: getting the United States more involved. Moscow has subsequently been signaling that the threshold between proxy war and open engagement has been reached. Whether this threshold will be crossed is dependent on the decisions arrived at in the halls of Washington (and perhaps Brussels) over the next several weeks.
The present peril has been significantly exacerbated in the past several weeks by reported changes to the respective nuclear strategies of both Russia and the United States.
As Ukraine has lobbied for further long-range capacities, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov took the occasion to further chide the West for “playing with fire.” The United States was “asking for trouble” by allowing for strikes on Russian territory, he stated, and it would be irresponsible of those “entrusted with nuclear weapons” to engage in such reckless brinkmanship.
Russian media also reported, following Lavrov’s announcement, that the Kremlin had now decided to “refine” the country’s nuclear doctrine in light of such provocative and escalatory behavior. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov confirmed the ongoing changes as well, citing Russia’s “Western adversaries’ escalation course in regards to the special military operation.”
Current Russian doctrine states that nuclear weapon use is allowed either in retaliation for a first strike by an enemy or if there is an existential threat to the Russian state. The doctrine also states that an attack on Russian facilities responsible for a nuclear response are treated as acceptable justification for nuclear deployment. Kiev has already launched drone strikes against nuclear EWS (early warning system) assets in Russia’s southwest in the recent past. Given the prospect of Western-supplied long range weaponry, it seems reasonable that the Kremlin is signaling a heightened readiness to respond in case such attacks should continue to expand in both frequency and intensity.
As a part of his statements on nuclear doctrine, Lavrov subsequently ridiculed Washington’s belief that it can maintain an open-ended proxy war with the express intention of weakening the Russian state, degrading its military capabilities,