The Strategic Problem of Tactical Nukes

Interesting read on the nukyular problem potentially on the table...

In a March 2014 article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Nikolai N. Sokov, a former Soviet and then later Russian arms-control negotiator who is now a senior fellow at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, described Russia’s current military doctrine as open to using tactical nuclear weapons to inflict “tailored damage,” which is defined as “damage [that is] subjectively unacceptable to the opponent [and] exceeds the benefits the aggressor expects to gain as a result of the use of military force.”

Imagine if Russia were to use low-yield nuclear weapons to destroy key air bases throughout Europe or attack an aircraft-carrier task force. How could NATO expect to operate a no-fly zone if its principal air bases are a smoldering ruin or one or more aircraft carriers is at the bottom of the Atlantic? Or imagine if Russia were to use low-yield nuclear weapons to destroy specific army bases, catastrophically damaging NATO’s ground-based striking power.

To put it another way, Vladimir Putin’s 2,000 tactical nuclear weapons make him the first opponent that NATO allies have faced since the end of the Cold War who has the raw military capability to destroy a substantial portion of NATO forces in the field.

Putin, Sokov argues, is borrowing from the 1960s-era American policy I described above. It’s a doctrine that enables a weaker power to deter a stronger power. It is not the strategy of an ascendant conventional military. Indeed, Russia’s struggles and losses in the first two weeks of its conflict with Ukraine serve only to underscore Russia’s conventional vulnerability. Those same struggles may very well make Russia more likely to pull the nuclear trigger. It is now painfully clear that its military is in no shape to wrest control of the skies or the ground from a motivated NATO force.

RTWT