Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed his decree No. 991, dated November 19, 2024, on the “Approval of the Fundamentals of the State Policy of the Russian Federation in the Field of Nuclear Deterrence”. In other words, Moscow has revised its policy of using nuclear weapons.
The crisis of the liberal international order led by the United States, after the open revisionist challenge launched by Russia and China, has brought with it, among the theoretical consequences, a new idea on the concept and function of nuclear weapon, which, with the ongoing war in Ukraine, is considered by Moscow – which is the main supporter of this theory – as a “real” weapon that can also be used to achieve its own tactical objectives directly on the battlefield, which is an absolute novelty compared to the times of the Cold War.
If nuclear power is transformed into a "tactical" weapon and not just a "strategic" one, it will irremediably undergo a political and even psychological legitimisation which will no longer make it a symbol of deterrence - and almost a "safety valve" for peace when every other channel fails - but normal and accepted instrument of war.
Clearly, having chosen to sign an order amending the doctrine of the use of nuclear weapons the very day after the announcement by the US administration of the authorization for Ukraine to employ ATACMS missiles on Russian soil is a political choice. The revision of a doctrine and its updating in operational and situational terms is not a task that can be accomplished in a short time. The content of decree no. 991 must have been analyzed and structured for a long time by the Russian military leaders and by President Putin; therefore, it is part of a broader reflection on nuclear deterrence.
According to the new Moscow doctrine, aggression by any non-nuclear state, but with the participation or support of a nuclear country, will be considered a joint attack on the Russian Federation. In addition, a nuclear response by Russia will be possible in the event of a critical threat to its sovereignty, including with conventional weapons, in the event of an attack on Belarus as a member of the Union State, in the event of a massive launch by the enemy of nuclear weapons, military aircraft, cruise missiles, drones and other aircraft and their crossing the Russian border.
The idea of extending the national atomic umbrella to Belarus and including all that series of weapons and systems such as drones and cruise missiles as deadly threats to Moscow's security are new elements, which also overcome the old concept of the tactical-offensive nature of the "operational stalemate" as a situation that authorized the use of atomic weapons. A leap forward also determined by the fact that Ukrainian troops have managed to occupy a portion of the Kursk Oblast on Russian territory and that the removal of American vetoes for the Ukrainian use of ATACMS missiles on Russian territory is linked precisely to the defense of the area occupied by Ukrainian forces against Russian-North Korean friction.
The “depoliticization” and the consequent “militarization” of nuclear weapons open up new “Nitze scenarios” (from the name of its theorist, the historic Secretary of the Navy and Director of the Office of Policy Planning of the Department of State, Paul Henry Nitze) on the misperception of Russian nuclear strategy and Western “windows of vulnerability”. On the one hand, in fact, the new Russian nuclear doctrine follows the path of the increasingly fragile difference between strategic and tactical use of atomic weapons, which emerged precisely with the invasion of Ukraine and the application of the theories of escalating to de-escalate; on the other hand, the spectrum of use of nuclear weapons in a "counter-offensive" function has been greatly expanded compared to the previous doctrine.
Photo: Kremlin
