Nuclear weapons experts, East and West, agree: the moment is delicate.
“New technologies make nuclear deterrence more complex” explains the British Matthew Harries of the prestigious RUSI. "If Ukraine is approached as a nuclear problem, it can end up in a nuclear conflict" continues, for his part, Vladimir Orlov of the Moscow PIR.
The use of the nuclear bomb is a "distant" threat. Or so it is claimed. Because the destruction would be total, there is consensus. And because most systems are organized for defensive purposes. Also because activating them is not so easy, at least for Russia.
And it is that all eyes now fall on the Kremlin. For the war in Ukraine. Even more so after annexing four Ukrainian territories in which the Kyiv counteroffensive is advancing. The question: will it use its nuclear power?
In June 2020, in the midst of a pandemic, the country signed the document that sets out the basic principles of the Russian Federation's state policy on nuclear deterrence. And in this, it is insisted: it would only press its red button "in response to a nuclear attack", or in the case of being the victim of an aggression with conventional means "when the very existence of the State is put in danger".
This does not seem the case today, according to Orlov, a voice heard in the Kremlin. Nor for the Donbass. But it is that the way to press that nuclear button does not play in favor either.
According to the Russian Constitution, the president is the head of the Armed Forces. And according to its military doctrine, the decision to use them must be made by the president for that very reason. Another thing is the authorization to use them, which is taken "jointly" by the president, the defense minister and the chief of staff.
The decision depends on President Vladimir Putin, but it does not only depend on him. He needs to activate the encrypted codes of his suitcase (cheget) but also the other two briefcases held by the Minister of Defense and the Chief of the General Staff, Sergey Shoigu and Valeri Gerasimov, respectively, in charge of planning and executing the nuclear deterrent, all for the secret communication network Kazbek that connects the three suitcases or cheget held by the three Russian leaders involved. Then it relies on another system, the Kavkaz, to contact the officers designated to operate the plan.
(Besides, the Perimetr works, the Russian system of last resort, only possible if there are detonations on Russian soil and all contact with the political and military authorities is lost.)
Hans M. Kristensen, director of Nuclear Information of the Federation of American Scientists, asked by La Vanguardia, sums it up in a few words: “The 'decision' to use nuclear weapons in Russia rests with the president, but once the decision has been made, decision, the military has to carry it out, so the cooperation of the Russian armed forces and high command is required.”
Translation: its use is in the hands of Putin as well as the military leaders. Your “cooperation” is key. And although Shoigu and Gerasimov have held their positions since November 2012, always at Putin's side, the lesson of the past is not forgotten. Pepe Cervera, a technological expert, quoted her shortly after the annexation of Crimea in 2014: in 1991, in the attempted coup against the last government of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev was disconnected from any communication system while he was at his dacha in Crimea.
"Throughout the process, this cheget had been rendered useless, erasing its magnetic memory, and technically left the USSR without nuclear response capacity," he stressed in El Confidencial.
You can pass? It's over.
Shoigu is considered one of the most loyal to Putin – but he already had responsibilities in the Kremlin before his arrival. Gerasimov has stood out more for his doctrine on hybrid warfare than for nuclear warfare. Both, in any case, are central to triggering any nuclear attack.
More so when the technological and procedural system inherited from the Soviet era remains in substance today, as José Miguel Palacios, a reserve infantry colonel and doctor of political science, cited in his note from the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies. He did so on the occasion of the publication of Russia's nuclear principles in 2020. "They do not contain any remarkable novelties," he asserted, since in addition the military doctrine of 2014, already with Crimea annexed and the war in Donbass, is still in force.
The fact that these nuclear principles were made public for the first time in 2020, moreover, is blamed among experts both on the negotiation to prolong the treaty to reduce nuclear capabilities, and on the rise of new nuclear powers – currently they are nine: the US, Russia, China, the UK, France, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea – in addition to the possible 'surgical' use of low-yield tactical nuclear weapons.
In the US, in fact, the decision-making process differs from the Russian one in that, although in both cases the decision rests with the president, in the White House, according to the Department of Defense, the authority would be “only” of the president. President. (Although the vice president, together with a majority of the Government or Congress, can declare him incapable of fulfilling the task; a debate that reemerged due to the personality of Donald J. Trump but that was very present with Richard Nixon after launching phrases like this in 1973 : “I can go to my office, pick up the phone and in 25 minutes, 70 million people will die”).
In the United Kingdom, the order depends exclusively on the Prime Minister, today Rishi Sunak, but can be vetoed by the Chief of Staff or the King. In France, in principle, the sole launching authority is the president; however, he would not be the only one in the process; as in Israel, although in this case there is no official confirmation or the arsenal. In Pakistan the decision is collective. And in India. And in China, with the necessary involvement of the Central Military Commission of the Communist Party.
In North Korea, Kim Jong Un has repeatedly exposed his growing nuclear force. Decision, and execution, is likely to be highly centralized.
