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Why Russia calls a limited nuclear strike "de-escalation"
http://thebulletin.org/why-russia-calls-limited-nuclear-strike-de-escalation
Why Russia calls a limited nuclear strike "de-escalation"
Nikolai N. Sokov
13 March 2014
In 1999, at a time when renewed war in Chechnya seemed imminent, Moscow watched with great concern as NATO waged a high-precision military campaign in Yugoslavia. The conventional capabilities that the United States and its allies demonstrated seemed far beyond Russia’s own capacities. And because the issues underlying the Kosovo conflict seemed almost identical to those underlying the Chechen conflict, Moscow became deeply worried that the United States would interfere within its borders.
By the next year, Russia had issued a new military doctrine whose main innovation was the concept of “de-escalation”—the idea that, if Russia were faced with a large-scale conventional attack that exceeded its capacity for defense, it might respond with a limited nuclear strike. To date, Russia has never publically invoked the possibility of de-escalation in relation to any specific conflict. But Russia’s policy probably limited the West’s options for responding to the 2008 war in Georgia. And it is probably in the back of Western leaders’ minds today, dictating restraint as they formulate their responses to events in Ukraine.
<snip>
... to be effective, such a threat also must be credible. To that end, all large-scale military exercises that Russia conducted beginning in 2000 featured simulations of limited nuclear strikes.
De-escalation rests on a revised notion of the scale of nuclear use. During the Cold War, deterrence involved the threat of inflicting unacceptable damage on an enemy. Russia’s de-escalation strategy provides instead for infliction of “tailored damage,” defined as “damage (that is) subjectively unacceptable to the opponent (and) exceeds the benefits the aggressor expects to gain as a result of the use of military force.” The efficacy of threatening tailored damage assumes an asymmetry in a conflict’s stakes. Moscow reasoned when it adopted the policy that, for the United States, intervening on behalf of Chechen rebels (for example) might seem a desirable course of action for a variety of reasons. But it would not be worth the risk of a nuclear exchange. Russia, however, would perceive the stakes as much higher and would find the risk of a nuclear exchange more acceptable. Indeed, in the early 2000s, Russian military experts wrote that US interference in the war in Chechnya could have resulted in a threat to use nuclear weapons.
The new strategy did not come out of the blue. Its conceptual underpinnings follow from Thomas Schelling’s seminal books The Strategy of Conflict and Arms and Influence. At the operational level, the strategy borrows from 1960s-era US policy, which contemplated the limited use of nuclear weapons to oppose “creeping” Soviet aggression (as expressed, for example, in a 1963 document produced by the National Security Council, “The Management and Termination of War with the Soviet Union”).
<snip>
Why Russia calls a limited nuclear strike "de-escalation"
Nikolai N. Sokov
13 March 2014
In 1999, at a time when renewed war in Chechnya seemed imminent, Moscow watched with great concern as NATO waged a high-precision military campaign in Yugoslavia. The conventional capabilities that the United States and its allies demonstrated seemed far beyond Russia’s own capacities. And because the issues underlying the Kosovo conflict seemed almost identical to those underlying the Chechen conflict, Moscow became deeply worried that the United States would interfere within its borders.
By the next year, Russia had issued a new military doctrine whose main innovation was the concept of “de-escalation”—the idea that, if Russia were faced with a large-scale conventional attack that exceeded its capacity for defense, it might respond with a limited nuclear strike. To date, Russia has never publically invoked the possibility of de-escalation in relation to any specific conflict. But Russia’s policy probably limited the West’s options for responding to the 2008 war in Georgia. And it is probably in the back of Western leaders’ minds today, dictating restraint as they formulate their responses to events in Ukraine.
<snip>
... to be effective, such a threat also must be credible. To that end, all large-scale military exercises that Russia conducted beginning in 2000 featured simulations of limited nuclear strikes.
De-escalation rests on a revised notion of the scale of nuclear use. During the Cold War, deterrence involved the threat of inflicting unacceptable damage on an enemy. Russia’s de-escalation strategy provides instead for infliction of “tailored damage,” defined as “damage (that is) subjectively unacceptable to the opponent (and) exceeds the benefits the aggressor expects to gain as a result of the use of military force.” The efficacy of threatening tailored damage assumes an asymmetry in a conflict’s stakes. Moscow reasoned when it adopted the policy that, for the United States, intervening on behalf of Chechen rebels (for example) might seem a desirable course of action for a variety of reasons. But it would not be worth the risk of a nuclear exchange. Russia, however, would perceive the stakes as much higher and would find the risk of a nuclear exchange more acceptable. Indeed, in the early 2000s, Russian military experts wrote that US interference in the war in Chechnya could have resulted in a threat to use nuclear weapons.
The new strategy did not come out of the blue. Its conceptual underpinnings follow from Thomas Schelling’s seminal books The Strategy of Conflict and Arms and Influence. At the operational level, the strategy borrows from 1960s-era US policy, which contemplated the limited use of nuclear weapons to oppose “creeping” Soviet aggression (as expressed, for example, in a 1963 document produced by the National Security Council, “The Management and Termination of War with the Soviet Union”).
<snip>
6 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
James Blunt apparently prevented a third world war. The singer made the claim in an interview about his military career. "I was given the direct command to overpower ... 200 or so Russians (in Kosovo)," he said. "And the practical consequences of that political reason would be then aggression against the Russians."
...
It didn't come to that. British general Sir Mike Jackson sent an admonishing message down the wire. "
His) exact words at the time were, 'I'm not going to have my soldiers be responsible for starting world war three'. [He] told us why don't we sugar off down the road (and), you know, encircle the airfield instead." Asked if he thought the original order could indeed have set off a third world war, Blunt replied: "Absolutely."
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/nov/15/james-blunt-world-war-three
...
It didn't come to that. British general Sir Mike Jackson sent an admonishing message down the wire. "
His) exact words at the time were, 'I'm not going to have my soldiers be responsible for starting world war three'. [He] told us why don't we sugar off down the road (and), you know, encircle the airfield instead." Asked if he thought the original order could indeed have set off a third world war, Blunt replied: "Absolutely."
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/nov/15/james-blunt-world-war-three
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=860&dat=19900509&id=qIBUAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Lo8DAAAAIBAJ&pg=6724,1118782
Just before 9/11
March 6, 2001
Pledging 'No First Strike': A Step Toward Real WMD Cooperation
...
Challenges to the Cold War arms control paradigm have been crystallized by U.S. plans to deploy an NMD system. As Russia’s nuclear arsenal continues to shrink with age, a significant NMD could give the United States, for the first time in the nuclear age, a true “first-strike” capability—the ability to launch a pre-emptive attack destroying enough of Russia’s nuclear force to permit the NMD to intercept any residual retaliation. A nuclear first-strike capability would be the ultimate military advantage, giving the United States enough force to threaten the survival of any rival.
http://www.cfr.org/world/pledging-no-first-strike-step-toward-real-wmd-cooperation/p3916
After 9/11
Sunday, May 15, 2005
Not Just A Last Resort?
Early last summer, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld approved a top secret "Interim Global Strike Alert Order" directing the military to assume and maintain readiness to attack hostile countries that are developing weapons of mass destruction, specifically Iran and North Korea.
...
Surprisingly, however, global strike also includes a nuclear option, which runs counter to traditional U.S. notions about the defensive role of nuclear weapons.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/14/AR2005051400071.html