After launching an invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin sparked panic all over the world putting his nuclear forces on increased alert, in an unprecedented escalation of tension with the West, since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In a shocking move that immediately unearthed fears many thought permanently buried from the Cold War of the previous century, Putin ordered Russian nuclear weapons prepared for increased readiness to launch, ratcheting up tensions with Europe and the United States over the conflict that is dangerously poised to expand beyond the former frontiers of the defunct USSR.
The Russian president told his defence minister and the chief of the military’s General Staff to put the nuclear deterrent forces in a “special regime of combat duty”. “Putin’s words sound like a direct threat of nuclear war,” believes Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dmitry Muratov, chief editor of the Novaya Gazeta newspaper.
Now, the question that bothering the global community whether really Putin press the nuclear button? Everyone is worrying because due to vast potential of most modern and largest nuclear arsenal with Russia. Even USA also cannot match to it in a nuclear war. Putin has made it clear that nuclear weapons are no longer just a theoretical proposition.
However, Pavel Podvig, a leading nuclear arms expert and senior researcher with the UN Institute for Disarmament Research, points out that Putin’s order does not necessarily mean Russia is preparing for an imminent nuclear strike. Rather, the command is a means of putting Russia’s strategic nuclear defences into a better state of readiness should they need to respond to an attack.
Francesca Giovannini, the executive director of the Project on Managing the Atom at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science, believes that the nuclear option, while improbable, should not be completely ruled out. “The circumstances are very complex,” she argues. “And he [Putin] is under a huge amount of pressure.”
Will it lead to World War III!
Observers felt that pushing nuclear button will certainly lead to world War III, in all practical purposes. Unlike in the U.S., where Americans generally believe nuclear weapons should never be used, Russia incorporates nuclear weapons into its war fighting doctrine.
It is certain that if Putin turns the Russia-Ukraine war into a nuclear conflict, given the West’s continued thrust on damaging Russia’s economy, Europe could become witness to greater devastation than seen in Japan, where the nuclear weapons were first, and the only time, used in 1945.
Patty-Jane Geller, policy analyst for nuclear deterrence and missile defense in The Heritage Foundation’s Center for National Defense, told “The Daily Signal” issues behind Putin’s provocative rhetoric.
Russia has over 2,000 low-yields, nonstrategic—aka battlefield—nuclear weapons that Russia might use in a conventional conflict in Europe to compel the enemy to back down. Putin had been using nuclear saber-rattling during the buildup to his invasion of Ukraine, threatening nuclear war and conducting nuclear exercises.
Another difference at policy-level between two big powers is that Moscow seems to believe nuclear weapons can be used in a conflict to win, for which it violates nuclear treaties and lies about it. But the United States views nuclear weapons as a tool primarily for deterrence—preventing war completely or preventing war from escalating beyond the conventional.
Nuclear button as a last resort!
Defence experts believe that Putin might see the explosion of a nuclear weapon in Ukraine or at sea as his best way to compel Ukrainians to surrender- or prevent additional outside intervention. This extreme step may be taken only if Russia continues to fail in its conventional military efforts to take hold of Ukrainian cities and topple the Ukrainian government.
However, using nuclear weapons would break the 75-year taboo the world has established against using such weapons. Moreover, a nuclear attack on Ukraine, beyond the potential damage to the Ukrainian countryside and people, would only immensely strengthen the international response, deeply undermining Russia’s efforts at subjugating its neighbor.
Beyond that compulsions there may not be any scope for a nuclear attack on a NATO state or the US, as Putin is well aware that will attract nuclear response on Russian soil. It may be known here that as long as Russia is limited its use of weapons against Ukraine, USA or NOT cannot interfere.
As Ukraine is not a NATO member the United States does not extend its nuclear umbrella over Ukraine. That limitation is forcing both USA and NATO to keep away from the ongoing military conflict in Ukraine.
Putin certainly do not want the conflict extend to his soil, provoking USA and NATO to involve. However, USA, with its NATO allies would need to coordinate for a fitting response if Putin’s nuclear attack deters further aggression.
Russian aggressive warheads
According to Patty-Jane Geller, all of it Russia can deploy at least 1,500 warheads on hundreds of missiles based from air, land, and sea platforms that can strike the entire U.S. homeland.
Russia also is developing brand new “novel” capabilities that can strike the U.S., like hypersonic missiles and a nuclear-powered cruise missile and torpedo. Fortunately, the United States also maintains a nuclear triad that can strike all of Russia, providing a strong deterrent to a Russian attack.
The difference is that while Russia has modernized its nuclear forces about 90 percent of the way through, the U.S. still relies on platforms built during the Cold War. For instance, the U.S. is still squeezing life out of the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile that was designed in 1960.
Programs to replace these outdated capabilities with modern systems are just getting underway, and each year must overcome opposition from far-left members of Congress.
The U.S. missile defense system is designed to defend against limited nuclear attacks from rogue states such as North Korea, but that could not defend against Russia’s hundreds of nuclear missiles.
In Europe, the U.S. deploys an Aegis Ashore missile defense system in Romania and is building one in Poland, but those are directed at the Iranian missile threat. Russia’s missile arsenal can overwhelm those systems.
Moscow also alleges that the U.S. can launch offensive missiles from those defense systems at Russia, but that is also not true—the systems are purely defensive.
