A Hard Look at the Risk of a Putin-Ordered Tactical Nuke

On the menu today: Just when you thought this newsletter couldn’t get any more grim, it’s time to take a long, cold, hard look at just what could lead to Vladimir Putin using a tactical nuclear weapon, the devastating effects of such a weapon, and how the U.S. can deter that horrific scenario. The unthinkable isn’t quite so unthinkable anymore.

What You Need to Know about Tactical Nuclear Weapons

On Monday, United Nations secretary general António Guterres warned that, “Raising the alert level of Russian nuclear forces is a bone-chilling development. The prospect of nuclear conflict, once unthinkable, is now back within the realm of possibility.”

As hyperbolic as that claim may seem, the circumstances that would spur the Russians to use a tactical nuclear weapon are starting to fall into place. As laid out yesterday, the war is going badly for the Russians. Advances are moving slowly, when they’re moving at all, and casualties are mounting. The Russian economy is collapsing. Something’s going to break; it’s just a question of what breaks first.

This newsletter has repeatedly discussed the official Russian military doctrine, “escalate to deescalate” — that is, “If Russia were subjected to a major non-nuclear assault that exceeded its capacity for conventional defense, it would ‘de-escalate’ the conflict by launching a limited — or tactical — nuclear strike.” In other words, Russia’s official strategy when losing a war is to escalate it by using tactical battlefield nukes in order to “deescalate” it on favorable terms.