Putin’s chilling nuclear threat has one strategic target

This week, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a change in Russian nuclear doctrine. The new approach permits Russia to use nuclear weapons against conventional attacks. The announcement is hardly a surprise. Putin forecast the change in September.

The prospect of employing nuclear weapons has terrified the world since 1945. While experts disagree whether limited nuclear war is possible, there is almost universal agreement that we should not test this hypothesis.

If Putin can be believed, Russia moved some of its short-range nuclear weapons into Belarus last year. Credit: Sergei Savostyanov Sputnik, Kremlin Pool/via AP

Despite the awful prospect of nuclear weapons, superbly examined in Annie Jacobsen’s recent book Nuclear War, we should not overreact to Putin’s announcement. There are several reasons why. First, while the doctrine might have changed, Putin’s power over the Russian nuclear arsenal has not.

The first question that Putin would ask when considering the use of nuclear weapons would not be: “What does the doctrine say?” Putin remains the ultimate authority for use of Russia’s nuclear arsenal. He has always had the power to use them in response to any kind of threat to Russian territorial integrity, conventional or otherwise.

Second, Russian strategy considers nuclear weapons as part of its strategic deterrence and counter-escalation approaches. Throughout the war in Ukraine, the Russian leader has constantly referred to nuclear weapons. He does this because he knows US President Joe Biden is terrified of World War III. By rattling the nuclear sabre, Putin has deterred the US from providing enough weapons to provide a decisive edge to Ukraine’s military and he has ensured NATO has not escalated the conflict. Putin’s use of nuclear weapons as a tool of strategic coercion has worked just fine before this change in doctrine.

China has watched the Ukraine war closely and learnt the lessons of Putin’s nuclear coercion.

Third, the use of Russian nuclear weapons is focused on threats to the integrity and existence of Russia. At no point in this war has the territorial integrity of Russia, or its national leadership, been a target or placed at risk. It was Russia that violated Ukraine’s sovereignty in 2014 at the start of this war, and which greatly escalated the conflict with its 2022 large-scale invasion. While Ukraine has mounted a campaign in Kursk that temporarily occupies a minuscule proportion of Russian territory, Russian sovereignty is not threatened.

Finally, the long-range weapons that the US has approved Ukraine to use have been in Ukraine’s arsenal for some time. They are also available in smaller quantities and have a shorter range than Ukraine’s indigenous weapons that have struck much greater distances into Russia. None of these attacks elicited a nuclear response from Putin.

While the US military has seen no need to change its nuclear posture as a result of Putin’s announcement, many in the Western media have reacted to the Russian nuclear doctrine change exactly as Putin hoped: with stories about increased threats of World War III, which are designed in turn to shape the approach of the incoming US president, Donald Trump.

If we take a broader view, Putin’s announcement again highlights the West’s failed strategy for supporting Ukraine.

A series of decisions by a Biden administration lacking a Ukraine strategy has had tragic results. It has refused to place NATO boots on the ground. It has avoided providing weapons to Ukraine that might escalate the war, until it finally gave the go-ahead this week for it to fire US-supplied missiles into Russia.

Biden, fearing Putin on the brink of defeat may use nuclear weapons, appears more terrified of Russia losing this war than of Ukraine being vanquished. Perhaps he fears a fragmented Russia, or a power vacuum with loose nuclear weapons? But Russia has lost wars before – in Afghanistan and Chechnya – without resorting to nuclear weapons.

But millions of Ukrainians have been placed in peril as Russia has occupied increasingly larger parts of their territory. And Russia now believes the West lacks the will to do what is necessary to deliver a Ukrainian victory.

Putin, having observed the US and NATO decision-making over the past three years, believes he has the measure of his Western counterparts. This means he will be unwilling to accept a ceasefire except under the most advantageous of conditions, and that he may have the confidence for further acts of aggression against his neighbours in the medium term.

In the short term, however, Putin’s announcement is less about influencing the Ukraine war and more about influencing the policies of the incoming Trump administration.

Putin is demonstrating to his fellow dictators how to succeed in 21st century confrontations and wars against democratic nations. China, embarking on a significant build-up of its nuclear arsenal, has watched the Ukraine war closely and has learnt the lessons of Putin’s nuclear coercion. None of this bodes well for the West, nor for the future prosperity and security of Australia.

Mick Ryan is a retired major-general who served in the ADF for more than 35 years. He is the senior fellow for military studies at the Lowy Institute and author of the 2024 book, The War for Ukraine.

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