In fact, the doctrinal change is less important to the ongoing debate over whether Washington should lift restrictions on Ukraine’s use of the ATACMS short-range ballistic missiles and Storm Shadows it’s been given. The larger question is how the US would respond if Russia were to break the nuclear taboo in pursuit of its war goals in Ukraine.
The US has made it known that it probably wouldn’t respond with some kind of nuclear tit-for-tat, avoiding the potential for rapid and catastrophic escalation. Instead, it has threatened a massive conventional intervention, in which it would inflict heavy damage on Russia’s military capabilities.
CROSSING ONE IMAGINED RED LINE AFTER ANOTHER
But in a sense this misses the point. Russia’s nuclear doctrine is a political document. It creates a framework for the operational procedures that control nuclear use and never see light of day. The public doctrine is designed to be vague enough that the commander-in-chief can take more or less any decision on nuclear use he deems necessary, while sending out signals of Russian intent.
The Kremlin has used this kind of nuclear signalling to impose an excess of caution on the pace and sophistication of military aid to Ukraine. This tactic has a long pedigree, dating back to a technique adopted by the Soviet military in the 1970s, called “reflexive control”.
The goal, according to a paper written for the Dutch military in 2018, was to first understand and then influence the decision-making assumptions of an enemy, such that they end up making choices that are detrimental for them, but beneficial to Moscow. That involves reshaping narratives, so that once the other side sits down to decide how to act, it happens within a framework that was designed in Moscow.
Publishing distorted military doctrines was on a checklist of tools written for Russian commanders to achieve reflexive control, together with other ruses such as creating Potemkin military installations. One Soviet example cited was the parading of massive, fake, multiple warhead missiles on Red Square, followed by fake documents and conversations designed to be found or overheard by foreign spies, to create a backstory that made the fake more realistic.
Russia’s nuclear threats have been tested as the US and its European allies have crossed one imagined red line after another. Putin was never going to push his red button, but that doesn’t mean he won’t push others.
Source: CNA
