First Post- Welcome and Nuclear Use Questions
Around September 2022, after the dramatic success of two Ukrainian counteroffensives and subsequent nuclear threats from Russia, several of my friends, family, and colleagues had concerned questions for me regarding the radioactive elephant in the room—potential nuclear use in Ukraine.
For those that don’t know me personally, as a quick introductory blurb, I’ve been deeply interested in Ukrainian, Russian, and more broadly Eastern European history for well over a decade now. I initially went to college as a history major, seeking to specialize in Eastern Europe; as with many of my peers, life had other plans, and I ended up majoring in biology and environmental sciences. But I never lost that fascination with Eastern Europe—my family has history in Bukovina (Romania/Ukraine) and near the Volga in Russia, and I followed the Maidan revolution and the subsequent Donbas war closely. Starting on February 24, I was happy to be a resource1 to friends and family with questions or concerns, first in massive texts (my poor fingers!) and then in emails whenever a certain topic of questioning reached a critical mass. The hope is for this substack to serve as a repository and platform of these writings/essays/ramblings/recipes/lectures.
The following is adapted from an early October email; please excuse any overly casual language or outdated assumptions, seeing as the situation on the ground can and will change quickly.
A semi-brief overview of nuclear concepts, to ensure we’re all on the same page:
The odds of nuclear usage are still low, but there is no denying that they have risen from virtually nil in 2021. Russia possesses nukes, Ukraine does not (although, as an aside, they did actually have nukes at one point [Budapest Memorandum]).
There is no distinction, and absolutely no dividing line, between 'tactical' and 'strategic' nuclear weapons. The terms generally refer to 'smaller' and 'larger,' but there's no line between them and nuclear weapons range from the equivalent of large conventional bombs to the size of the bombs the US used on Japan in 1945 and far beyond to citykiller explosions thousands of times more powerful than the bombs used in 1945. Arguably the distinction lies in how they are used (against military targets or indiscriminately), which I’ll get to.
Ukraine does not have effective defenses against the kinds of nukes Russia would employ, and frankly we (the West) don’t either against any sort of serious attack from Russia.
There is a lot of discussion on how reliable, realistic, or legitimate Russia's arsenal and nuclear threats are. The US alleges their conventional (non-nuke) cruise missiles have a 50-60% failure rate, which is egregious, and elsewhere in the Russian military we see a systemic culture of corruption and failure to adequately maintain equipment and processes. However, for obvious reasons, it’s folly to blindly assume their nuclear weapons universally don’t function.
With that said, everything depends on how and where, and to a lesser degree when and why, nukes would be used. Here's a few options in rough ascending order of escalation; all of these assume they're used relatively soon (a timeframe of around 6 months from now) and the parameters of the war don't change drastically between now and then. Finally, keep in mind that this is oversimplified; minor details such as 'is it raining when the nuke goes off' or 'did it explode at ground level or 30 feet above' make huge differences in consequences; similarly, a statement like ‘negligible fallout’ is very relative and debatable.
Russia conducts a nuclear test over the Arctic as a threat. Victimless and no significant radioactive fallout.
Russia explodes a nuke over the Black Sea as a demonstration. Negligible fallout.
Russia bombs Snake Island, a strategic but tiny island off Ukraine's coast that has been fought over a couple times. This would have symbolic value seeing as this is where the 'Russian warship go f*ck yourself' video came from. Would result in ~100 deaths or however many men Ukraine has on the island, plus some fallout over the Black Sea.
Russia explodes a nuke at very high altitude (check out those pictures!) in the stratosphere over Ukraine, causing an electromagnetic pulse that disrupts or destroys electronics over a wide area. This is one of the most hotly debated scenarios; serious and credible doubts exist about how fallout-free, effective, and targetable the resulting pulse would be.
Russia directly uses 'tactical' nuclear weapons on Ukrainian troops in the field or high-value military targets (airbases, logistical centers, etc.). This would result in some mortality and significant nuclear fallout. However, while this is the 'easiest answer' and most obvious target type for Putin to hit, all available research points to it being far, far more trouble than it's worth. This paper makes the point that nukes are far more destructive against cities than they are against troops in the field; here's a tweet that sums it up nicely. For context, Hiroshima's bomb was 15 kilotons; Nagasaki 21 kt. In short, battlefields nowadays are very spread out, very decentralized, and troops are relatively well protected, partially because weaponry is so long-ranged and lethal now.
Using a "strategic" weapon, Russia cracks Pandora's box and kills a Ukrainian city or three, resulting in thousands dead and massive fallout. I think this is highly unlikely, even if Putin has completely gone off the deep end (which I don't actually think he has). Remember also that multiple people need to sign off on nuclear usage and any one of them could halt this kind of attack at least for a time until Putin replaces them.
Russia fully opens Pandora's box and nukes NATO formations, military assets, or cities. This will not happen; I question the rationale of anyone saying it has better than a snowball’s odds in hell.
So right there we have seven-ish2 scenarios, and I'm sure I'm missing some since I'm not a world leader or CIA analyst and my exposure to nuclear strategy is purely from the literature and open-source analysis. Nuclear strategy, employment, doctrine, and responses are all also smoke and mirrors-- they have never been used except for 1945 when no one outside the US knew we had them, and all theories about how, when, and why to use them since have been completely theoretical. Fundamentally no one knows; anyone ‘in the know’ of when to use nukes, how to use them, the details of nuclear doctrine, and how to respond to their usage aren't the kind of people talking about the finer details. Just today and yesterday [October 2022] both Biden and Macron broached the subject and both said, "and I shouldn't discuss this any further." Finally, nuclear doctrine (and all doctrine) is just words and may have no bearing on how these are actually used.
What's indisputable is that any usage of nukes at all, even a victimless explosion over the Arctic or Black Sea, would result in extreme condemnation and ostracism of Russia internationally, further sanctions, etc, and an enduring stigma against Russia for letting the genie out of the bottle-- nuclear usage is probably the single worst international taboo we have. Ramifications beyond that are contingent on how these weapons are used and are deeply unclear. Every major world power has kept their potential responses to nuclear use intentionally vague; this is common in nuclear strategy.3 Ramifications range from diplomatic condemnation to additional sanctions to pressuring other countries to do the same all the way up to military action/strikes against Russia.
I don't think a US/NATO military attack on Russian forces would happen in response to scenarios #1-4. The US has the capability to cripple Russian armed forces without using nukes and without putting boots on the ground; such an action would of course raise the risk of true Armageddon. Finally, sanctions from neutral countries (using ‘neutral’ broadly), specifically India, China, and any grouping of Gulf or African economies, are a guillotine above Putin's head. I believe fundamentally Putin will do everything he can to avoid those outcomes, not to mention US/NATO military strikes.
At the end of the day, the benefits that Putin would gain from nuclear usage are slim. Even if a widespread nuclear attack wins him the war, the conflict would likely shift to an eternal insurgency, aided by the massive part of the world that is aghast by Russia's nuclear usage. The penalties Russia would suffer far outweigh the gains they would make. Turning into North Korea for the sake of a ruined and likely irradiated stretch of territory the size of New Jersey is not exactly a masterstroke of strategy.
The worry is that Putin's fear of losing the war or losing face may outweigh those considerations; my judgement is that we are nowhere near that.
Certainly not just for the thrill of pontificating. :)
Another niche use case is if the Ukrainians push down to Crimea—Russia might detonate a nuke at the neck of the Crimean Peninsula as sort of a 'come no further' signal. Ramifications are too contingent in this case to predict, and involve a lot of touchy subjects, so let's leave it out.
Nuclear strategy is an oft-discussed discipline that is, more or less, just theory. Fundamentally, though, it’s not “revolvers at twenty paces” but rather “flamethrowers at five paces with blindfolds,” and theory’s not much to go on without any empirical data since 1945.