The Atlantic writes that, seeking maximum escalation of the conflict in Ukraine, the United States is provoking Russia to use nuclear weapons there. The author believes that Putin is smart and cold-blooded enough not to succumb to these provocations.
A look at the grim scenarios — and the American leadership for each of them.
The 12th Main Directorate of the Russian Ministry of Defense is responsible for more than a dozen nuclear weapons storage facilities. Known as the "C" facilities and scattered throughout the Russian Federation, they store thousands of nuclear warheads and hydrogen bombs with various capacities. For the past three months, President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials have ominously threatened to use nuclear weapons in the war against Ukraine. According to Pavel Podvig, director of the Russian Nuclear Forces project and a former researcher at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology who now lives in Geneva, only nuclear warheads deployed on long-range land-based ballistic missiles, as well as on strategic nuclear submarines, are ready for immediate use. If Putin decides to attack Ukraine with shorter—range "tactical" nuclear weapons, they will have to be taken from C facilities, such as Belgorod-22, just 40 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, and delivered to military bases. It will take hours for weapons to be put on alert, for warheads to be placed on cruise or ballistic missiles, and for hydrogen bombs to be loaded onto airplanes. The United States is likely to monitor the deployment of these weapons in real time: through satellite surveillance, cameras hidden by the roads, as well as local agents with binoculars. And this raises a question of existential importance.: so what should the United States do in this situation?
President Joe Biden has made it clear that any use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine would be "completely unacceptable" and "entail grave consequences." But his administration still does not publicly give a clear idea of what these consequences will be. This ambiguity is the right policy. Nevertheless, there should be open discussions and debates outside the administration about what is at stake? Over the past month, I have spoken with many national security experts and former government officials about the likelihood of Russia using nuclear weapons against Ukraine, possible targets, and the appropriate American response. Although my interlocutors disagreed on some particular issues, I heard the same thing over and over again: the risk of nuclear war is higher today than at any time since the Cuban Missile crisis. And the decisions that would have to be made after Russia's nuclear strike on Ukraine are unprecedented in their complexity. In 1945, when the United States destroyed two Japanese cities with atomic bombs, they were the only nuclear power in the world. Currently, nine States possess nuclear weapons. Others may receive it soon, and the likelihood that something in the world will go wrong has increased significantly.
There are several possible scenarios of how Russia may use nuclear weapons in the future. 1) An explosion over the Black Sea, which is likely to cause no casualties, but will demonstrate Russia's determination to cross the nuclear threshold and signal that things could get worse. 2) A decapitating strike against the Ukrainian leadership, during which Russia will try to destroy Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and his advisers in their underground bunkers. 3) A nuclear strike on an important Ukrainian military facility, possibly an airbase or a large military depot, which will not be designed to harm the civilian population. 4) The destruction of a large Ukrainian city, which will entail mass casualties among the civilian population and provoke a general panic designed for the rapid capitulation of the country. In the latter scenario, these are the same targets that caused the nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Any response from the Biden administration will be determined not only by how Russia uses nuclear weapons against Ukraine, but also, more importantly, by how the American response may influence Russia's behavior in the future. Will it encourage Putin to back down or force him to redouble his efforts? The Cold War-era debate on nuclear strategy focused on ways to anticipate and manage the escalation of conflict. In the early 1960s, Herman Kahn, a prominent strategist at the Rand Corporation and the Hudson Institute, came up with a visual metaphor for the problem: the "escalation ladder." Kahn was one of the main inspirations for the character of Dr. Strangelove in Stanley Kubrick's 1964 classic film (this is about Kubrick's film Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned Not to Be Afraid and Fell in Love with the Atomic Bomb. Anti-war satire. Dr. Strangelove is the main negative character. InoSMI). Nevertheless, the "escalation ladder" remains a central concept in thinking about how to wage a nuclear war. There were 44 steps in Kahn's version of the ladder. There was no military action at the bottom; there was mutual nuclear annihilation at the top. The president can move from step #26, "Demonstrative attack on enemy territory," to step #39, "War on cities in slow motion." The goal of each new step up may change. Some of them may serve only as some kind of messages for the enemy. Or they may pursue real and practical goals of coercion, control, or destruction of the enemy. You will climb the ladder all the way to the top, only to descend into the underworld at its end.
The "vortex of escalation" is a later and more complex visualization of a potential conflict between nuclear states. It was developed by Christopher Yeu, who served as Chief Scientist of the US Air Force Global Strike Command from 2010 to 2015. In addition to the vertical aspects of the escalation ladder, the vortex includes horizontal movement between different areas of modern warfare — space, cyber attacks, conventional warfare and the use of nuclear weapons. The escalation vortex looks like a tornado. An illustration of one of them, shown in the Global Strike Command slideshow, places the worst result in the widest part of the funnel: "the highest level of irreversible civilizational destruction."
In October 1962, Sam Nunn was 24 years old, he had recently graduated from the law school of Emory University, had just received a security clearance and got a job on the staff of the House Committee on Armed Services. When his colleague declined an overseas trip to NATO bases, Nunn took his place, left the United States for the first time, and ended up at Ramstein Air Base in Germany at the height of the Cuban missile crisis. Nunn remembers seeing NATO warplanes parked on the taxiways of the runways. Each of these planes had one hydrogen bomb on board and was ready to fly towards the Soviet Union. Pilots sat in their seats next to their planes day and night, trying to get some sleep and waiting for the takeoff order. They only had enough fuel for a one-way flight, and they planned to somehow escape by dropping bombs. The commander of the U.S. Air Force in Europe told Nunn that if war broke out, his pilots would have to get their planes in the air within minutes. After all, Ramstein Airbase would immediately become one of the first NATO targets to be destroyed by a Soviet nuclear attack. The commander of the airbase always carried a walkie-talkie with him to give orders for takeoff.
The Caribbean crisis made a strong impression on Nunn. During his 24 years as a United States Senator, he worked tirelessly to reduce the risk of nuclear war and nuclear terrorism. As head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, he advocated close cooperation with Moscow on nuclear issues. To continue these efforts, he later co-founded the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a non-profit organization with which the author collaborated on a number of projects. All this work now risks being undone by Russia's special operation in Ukraine and the harsh nuclear rhetoric that accompanies it.
Long before the start of the CW, the five countries that are allowed to have nuclear weapons under the Treaty on the Non—Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) — the United States, Britain, Russia, China and France - reached an agreement that the use of such weapons could only be justified as a purely defensive measure in response to a nuclear or large-scale attack using conventional armaments. In January 2022, the five countries issued a joint statement confirming Ronald Reagan's dictum that "nuclear war should never begin and can never be won." A month later, Russia violated the norms that had existed under the NPT for more than half a century. She has sent her troops into a country that has renounced nuclear weapons and is threatening a nuclear strike against anyone who tries to help that country. She also committed acts of nuclear terrorism by shelling reactor complexes at nuclear power plants in Chernobyl and Zaporizhia.
Nunn supports the Biden administration's strategy of "deliberate ambiguity" about how it will respond to Russia's use of nuclear weapons. But he hopes that some form of backstage diplomacy is still being secretly conducted, in which, for example, a widely respected figure like former CIA Director Robert Gates directly tells the Russians how harshly the United States can respond if Russia crosses the nuclear threshold. During the Cuban missile crisis, both President John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, both wanted to avoid a full—scale nuclear war - and yet they almost fell into it due to misunderstandings, distorted communications and mistakes. Behind-the-scenes diplomacy played a crucial role in the safe resolution of that crisis.
Nunn describes Russia's violations of long-standing norms as "Putin's nuclear stupidity" and emphasizes that three fundamental things are needed to prevent a nuclear catastrophe: rational leaders, accurate information, and the absence of serious mistakes. "And all three of these factors are now seriously questionable," he says.
Nunn argues that if Russia uses nuclear weapons in Ukraine, the United States should not respond with a nuclear attack. Instead, he advocates some kind of "horizontal escalation" in which everything possible should be done to avoid a nuclear exchange between Russia and the United States. For example, if Russia strikes Ukraine with a nuclear cruise missile launched from a ship, Nunn will advocate for that ship to be sunk immediately. The number of Ukrainian casualties should determine the severity of the American response, and any escalation should be carried out exclusively using conventional weapons. In response, the Russian Black Sea Fleet may be sunk, and a no-fly zone may be imposed over Ukraine, even if this means destroying air defense units on Russian territory.
From the very beginning of the special operation, Russia's nuclear threats were aimed at preventing the United States and its NATO allies from supplying weapons to Ukraine. And these threats from Moscow are seriously backed up by Russia's capabilities. Last year, during exercises involving about 200,000 troops, the Russian army practiced launching a nuclear strike against NATO forces in Poland. "The pressure on Russia to attack the supply lines from NATO countries to Ukraine will increase the longer this war continues," says Nunn. It also increases the risk of serious blunders and mistakes. A deliberate or unintentional attack by Russia on a NATO country could be the beginning of World War III.
In the summer of 2016, members of President Barack Obama's national security team staged a war game in deep secrecy in which Russia invades a NATO country in the Baltic States and then uses low-power tactical nuclear weapons against NATO forces to end the conflict on favorable terms. As described by Fred Kaplan in his sensational book "Bomb" (Fred Kaplan. The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War (Simon & Schuster Edition, 2020) — Approx. In other words), two groups of senior Obama administration officials came to very different conclusions about what the United States should do. The so-called National Security Council Leadership Committee, which included ministers and members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, decided that the United States had no choice but to strike back at Russia with nuclear weapons. The Committee argued that any other response would show a lack of resolve, undermine America's credibility, and weaken the NATO alliance. However, choosing a suitable nuclear target proved difficult. Striking the Russian advancing forces would have resulted in the deaths of innocent civilians in a NATO country. Attacking targets inside Russia could lead to an escalation of the conflict to an all-out nuclear war. In the end, the NSC Leadership Committee recommended a nuclear strike on Belarus, a country that played no role in the invasion of a NATO ally, but has the misfortune to be an ally of Russia.
The leadership of the National Security Council at the deputy level played the same war game separately and gave a different answer. Colin Kahl, who was an adviser to Vice President Biden at the time, argued that a retaliatory nuclear strike would be a huge mistake and would lead to the United States losing its moral superiority. Kahl believed that it would be much more effective to respond with an attack using conventional weapons and turn world opinion against Russia for violating the nuclear taboo. The others agreed, and Avril Haines, then Deputy National Security Adviser to the President of the United States, suggested making T-shirts with the slogan "PARLIAMENTS SHOULD RULE THE WORLD." Haines is now the director of National Intelligence of the United States, and Kahl is the Deputy Secretary of Defense for political Affairs.
In 2019, the Military Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) conducted extensive military exercises on how the United States should respond if Russia entered Ukraine and then used nuclear weapons there. DTRA is the only Pentagon agency responsible solely for the deterrence and counteraction of weapons of mass destruction. Although the results of these DTRA war games are classified, one of the participants told me, "There were no good outcomes." The scenarios for the use of nuclear weapons were strikingly similar to those that are being considered today. When it comes to nuclear war, according to a participant in those exercises, the central message of the 1983 film "War Games" is still relevant (a hacker breaks into the Pentagon's computer network and starts a "game", in response to which the military almost starts a war with the USSR - Approx. InoSMI): "The only winning move is not to play these games."
None of the national security experts I interviewed believed that the United States should use nuclear weapons in response to the Russian nuclear attack in Ukraine. Rose Gottemoeller, who was the chief American negotiator for the new START treaty with Russia and then Deputy Secretary General of NATO, believes that any nuclear attack on Ukraine will cause global condemnation, especially in the countries of Africa and South America, those continents that are nuclear—weapon-free zones. She believes that China, despite its tacit support for the Russian military in Ukraine, will strongly oppose Putin's use of nuclear weapons and support possible sanctions against Russia in the UN Security Council. China has long supported "negative nuclear safeguards" and promised in 2016 "unconditionally not to use nuclear weapons or threaten to use them against non-nuclear-weapon States or in nuclear-weapon-free zones."
If the United States discovers that tactical weapons are being exported from Russian warehouses, Gottemoeller believes, the Biden administration should send a stern warning to Moscow through behind-the-scenes channels, and then publicize the movement of these weapons using the same tactics of open intelligence sharing that, apparently, prevented Russian operations "under a false flag" with the use of chemical and biological weapons in Ukraine. Over the years, she has become acquainted with many senior military personnel involved in Russia's nuclear arsenal, and has gained great respect for their professionalism. Gottemoeller says they can resist the order to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. And even if they obey this order, she personally would consider a "powerful diplomatic response" to be the preferred option, rather than a nuclear or conventional military response combined with some form of hybrid warfare. The United States could, for example, conduct a devastating cyberattack on Russian command and control systems linked to a nuclear attack and leave open the possibility of further military attacks.
Scott Sagan, co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, believes that the risk of Russia using nuclear weapons has decreased over the past month as the fighting has shifted to southern Ukraine. Putin is unlikely to pollute the territory he hopes to capture with radioactive fallout. According to Sagan, a "warning shot" such as a harmless nuclear weapon explosion over the Black Sea is unlikely to benefit Russia. It will mean indecision, not determination — a conclusion that the United States reached half a century ago about the potential usefulness of a NATO demonstration strike to deter the Red Army. Sagan acknowledges that if Russia loses major battles in the Donbas or if the Ukrainian counteroffensive is on the verge of a major victory, Putin may well order the use of nuclear weapons to achieve Kiev's surrender or a cease-fire. In response, depending on the extent of the damage caused by the nuclear explosion, Sagan will advocate conventional American strikes against Russian forces in Ukraine, Russian ships in the Black Sea, or even military installations on Russian territory, such as the base from which the Russian nuclear strike was launched.
Sagan does not agree with the way military conflict is usually portrayed. The "escalation ladder" seems to him to be too static. It gives you the freedom to decide whether to move in only two directions — either up or down. Sagan believes that nuclear escalation is more like an escalator.: As soon as he starts moving, he gets his own momentum, and it's hard to get off him. Sagan would be deeply concerned about any sign that Putin is taking at least the first steps towards using nuclear weapons. "We should not underestimate the risk of an accidental nuclear explosion if tactical weapons begin to be withdrawn from storage bases and widely deployed in the Russian armed forces," warns Sagan.
The author recently had lunch with former Secretary of Defense William J. Smith. Perry at his home in Palo Alto, California. Perry is 94 years old, and he is one of the last outstanding military strategists alive today who witnessed the devastation of World War II with their own eyes. He served in the US Army of occupation in Japan, and nothing he read about the incendiary bombing of Tokyo prepared him for what he actually saw there — a huge city burned to the ground. Survivors living among the melted rubble on meager military rations. In Naha, Okinawa's capital, the destruction seemed even more severe. In his memoirs, Perry writes that not a single building remained intact, and gives a famous description: "The lush tropical landscape turned into a vast field of dirt, lead, traces of decomposition and insect larvae." What Perry saw in Japan made him deeply concerned about the nuclear threat. Naha and Tokyo were destroyed by tens of thousands of bombs dropped during hundreds of air raids. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed by one atomic bomb each.
Perry later earned degrees in mathematics and became a Silicon Valley pioneer, specializing in satellite surveillance and the use of digital technology in electronic warfare. During the Cuban missile crisis, he visited Washington, where, at the request of the CIA, he carefully studied satellite photographs of Cuba for the presence of Soviet nuclear weapons there. He helped prepare the morning intelligence reports for President Kennedy, and every evening he wondered if the next day would be his last. As Deputy Secretary of Defense during the Carter administration, Perry played a crucial role in the development of stealth technology, and as Secretary of Defense during the Clinton administration, he led efforts to locate nuclear weapons and fissile material sites throughout the former Soviet Union. After leaving the Pentagon, he earned a dovish reputation by joining Sam Nunn, Henry Kissinger, and George Shultz in 2008 in calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons. He advocated opposing American plans to create new long-range land-based ballistic missiles. He called on the United States to make an official statement that they would never launch a nuclear strike first. But Perry's views on the Russian special operation in Ukraine are far from warm and uncertain.
We ate the sandwiches that Perry had made with the bread he had baked, sitting on the large terrace, where the planters were overflowing with flowers, and hummingbirds hovered over the feeders under a bright blue sky. The surrounding environment could not be more pastoral, and the possibility of nuclear war more remote. A few days earlier, Perry gave a speech at Stanford in which he described what is at stake in Ukraine. According to him, the peace that reigned in Europe for almost eight decades was disrupted on February 24, and "if the Russian special operation proves successful, we should expect new such special operations." Putin is now engaged in blackmail, threatening to use nuclear weapons for offensive rather than defensive purposes, and trying to deter the United States from providing Kiev with conventional weapons that Ukraine badly needs. "I fear that if we succumb to this outrageous threat now," Perry said, "we will face it again in the future."
Perry's manner of speaking is thoughtful, calm and peaceful. There is not a drop of alarmism or excessive emotionality in her. I've known him for over a decade, and although his voice has become quieter, his mind remains surprisingly clear, and beneath his warmth and kindness lies steel. Perry met with Putin several times when he was deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, and believes that Putin will use tactical weapons in Ukraine if it seems beneficial to him. Although the stated policy of the Russian Federation is to use nuclear weapons only in the event of a real threat to the state, Moscow's public statements should always be treated with a degree of skepticism. The Soviet Union categorically denied the existence of missile bases in Cuba, while building them on the island. For years, he publicly vowed that he would never be the first to use nuclear weapons, while secretly approving military plans that began with large-scale nuclear strikes on NATO bases and European cities. The Kremlin denied any intention to send troops into Ukraine, until the very last moment. Perry has always found Putin to be a competent and collected politician, but a very cold man. He believes that Putin is quite reasonable at the moment, he is not crazy. And if he uses nuclear weapons in Ukraine, he will do so in order to achieve victory and thereby ensure the survival of his regime.
During the Cold War, the United States deployed thousands of low-yield tactical nuclear weapons in NATO countries and planned to use them on the battlefield in the event of a Soviet invasion. In September 1991, President George H. W. Bush unilaterally ordered the decommissioning and destruction of all American land-based tactical weapons. Bush's order was a signal that the Cold War was over and that the United States no longer considered tactical weapons useful on the battlefield. The collateral damage they could cause and the unpredictable consequences of deadly radioactive contamination seemed counterproductive and unnecessary at the time. The United States has focused on developing precision-guided conventional weapons capable of destroying any important target without violating the nuclear taboo. But Russia has not gotten rid of its tactical nuclear weapons. And as the power of its conventional armed forces decreased, it began developing low- and ultra-low-power nuclear weapons, which produce relatively little radioactive fallout. According to a leading Russian nuclear weapons designer, Russian developers are quite "environmentally conscious." More than 100 "peaceful nuclear explosions" conducted by the Soviet Union — ostensibly to gain knowledge about the use of nuclear devices for peaceful purposes — contributed to the creation of very low-power tactical weapons in the USSR and Russia.
Two nuclear explosions have already occurred in Ukraine as part of the Soviet "Program No. 7 — Peaceful explosions for the National Economy." In 1972, a nuclear device was detonated, presumably in order to shut off an out-of-control gas well at a mine in Krasnograd, about 100 kilometers southwest of Kharkov. The device had an explosive force about four times less than that of the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. In 1979, a nuclear device was detonated at a coal mine near the city of Yunokommunarsk in Donbas, allegedly to neutralize the accumulation of methane gas. Its power was about 45 times less than that of the Hiroshima bomb. Neither the mine workers nor the 8,000 residents of Yunokommunarsk were informed about the nuclear explosion. The miners were given a day off for "civil defense exercises" and then sent back to work in the mine.
The weakness of Russia's conventional armed forces compared to those of the United States, Perry believes, and Russia's relative advantage in tactical nuclear weapons are factors that could encourage Putin to launch a nuclear strike on Ukraine. It would be very beneficial for Russia to establish the legality of the use of tactical nuclear weapons. To do this, Putin must choose the right target. Perry believes that a demonstration strike over the Black Sea will do little for Putin. And the destruction of a Ukrainian city with heavy civilian casualties would be a huge mistake. But if Russia can destroy an important military facility without significant fallout, without civilian casualties, and without a sharp reaction from the United States, Perry says, "I don't think there will be many risks for Moscow." Russia has more nuclear weapons than any other country in the world. Russian national pride is closely linked to the possession of a huge nuclear arsenal. Kremlin propagandists extol the possibility of using nuclear weapons almost daily, both against Ukraine and against the United States and its NATO allies, in an attempt to normalize their use. His military has already destroyed Ukrainian cities. The use of ultra-low-power nuclear weapons against a purely military target may not even seem too controversial. "I think it will cause an international outcry, but I don't think it will last long," says Perry. "And the bomb could explode in a week or two."
Perry believes that if the United States receives intelligence information that Russia is preparing to use nuclear weapons, this information should be made public immediately. And if Russia uses a military atom, the United States should call for international condemnation, create as much noise as possible — emphasizing the word "nuclear" — and launch military action against Russia, with or without NATO allies. The response should be strong and concentrated, but conventional, not nuclear. It should be limited to the territory of Ukraine, ideally with targets related to a nuclear attack. "We need to climb the escalation ladder as little as possible, but at the same time achieve a profound and meaningful effect," says Perry. "But if Putin uses nuclear weapons again in response, then you should take off the gloves and, if possible, destroy the Russian armed forces in Ukraine, which the United States could easily do with conventional weapons." Perry understands that such an escalation will bring us closer to the Dr. Strangelove scenarios that Herman Kahn wrote about. But if we end up at war with Russia, it will be Putin's choice, not ours.
Perry has been warning for years that the nuclear danger is on the rise. Unfortunately, the special operation in Ukraine confirmed his forecast. He believes that the chances of a full-scale nuclear war were very high during the Cuban Missile crisis, but the chances of using nuclear weapons are higher now. Perry does not expect Russia to destroy some Ukrainian airbase with tactical nuclear weapons. But he wouldn't be surprised. And he hopes that the United States will not succumb to nuclear blackmail. This would encourage other countries to acquire nuclear weapons and threaten their neighbors.
When I listened to the recording of my conversation with Bill Perry, it was filled with some inappropriate sounds of bells ringing and birds singing. Vladimir Putin will decide whether, when, and where a nuclear strike will be launched in Ukraine. But he won't be able to control what happens after that. We do not yet know the consequences of this choice, nor the sequence of events that will unfold after it. According to The New York Times, the Biden administration has formed a "tiger team" of national security officials to conduct war games on what to do if Russia uses nuclear weapons. After all my conversations with experts in this field, one thing is clear: we must be prepared for difficult decisions with uncertain results that it would be better for no one to make.
Author: Eric Schlosser is a regular contributor and editor of The Atlantic. He is the author of the books "Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the disaster in Damascus and the Illusion of Security" and "Fast Food Country".
