By Bytes and Borscht in politics —

Breathe in, breathe out - and then start writing.

A lot of fuss has been made about the fact that Russia released their revised nuclear doctrine pretty much the day that Ukraine used long-range missiles to attack targets inside Russia.

A lot of fuss has been made about the fact that Russia released their revised nuclear doctrine pretty much the day that Ukraine used long-range missiles to attack targets inside Russia - something that Ukraine had wanted to do for months already, but was prohibited from doing by their Western partners who had supplied the rockets to them.

The last few times when Putin rattled the nuclear sabres, the press went into (at least partial) overdrive and everyone got really worried. It wasn't much different this time, although luckily enough it seems that at least the reputable media outlets are getting more cautious and treat the threats more like what they actually are.

What a lot of people seem to forget, or seem to get wrong, is that this wasn't an ad-hoc decision by the Russian leadership. It wasn't the case that the Russian state was blindsided by the decision of the US to finally relent to Ukrainian requests and give permission for a more aggressive use of ATACMS and other munitions.

The Russian establishment was well aware of what was coming. And they prepared for it. The decision to release an updated nuclear doctrine was a calculated step, part of a process called "escalation management", a concept mostly used in customer support relationships, but somehow also pretty fitting for geopolitical tensions:

Escalation management is the process of identifying customer issues that could not be resolved at the first point of contact, and then going on to prioritize and resolve them in the best possible manner.

It's posturing. It's an attempt by the Russian government to convey to its adversaries that they disapprove of what they have just done. It's Russia seeking to intimidate "the West", through carefully considered verbal escalation in this specific case.

Looking at the actual changes of the document the intended audience of the signalling becomes quite obvious:

  • An aggression by part of an alliance is now considered an aggression by the entire alliance said aggressor is part of.
  • An aggression by a non-nuclear state with the support / participation of a nuclear state is considered to be a joint attack of both.
  • The main military threats that could be neutralized by nuclear deterrence have been extended and now include the expansion of military alliances towards Russian borders, the blocking / isolation of Russian territory through an adversary, the attack of "ecologically dangerous facilities" within Russia by an adversary as well as the holding of major military exercises close to Russian borders.
  • Conditions that determine the possibility of use of nuclear weapons have been extended and now include aggressive acts that critically threaten the sovereignty or territorial integrity of Russia and Belarus (the addition of Belarus is interesting, to say the least)
  • The command of all Russian nuclear weapons, including those residing outside of Russia, is centralized. (I'm genuinely not sure about this one, Google Translate didn't make a whole lot of sense here - happy for corrections!)

Additionally, some parts of the doctrine stayed the same with regard to the general meaning, but the wording has been changed to be more ambiguous. Potentially because ambiguity breeds uncertainty. Which is precisely what the Kremlin wants to achieve.

There's another point we should not forget: The Russian military doctrine might be called a doctrine, but it's got very little common with what military doctrine meant in the Soviet Union.

In Soviet times, the military doctrine might have contained the occasional meaningless stuff and might have included weird paragraphs here and there, but it was a relevant set of national documents. It was guidance, a set of policy documents that ensured that all parts of the Soviet military were working together and nobody would come up with any ridiculously stupid ideas.

That's not the case anymore. There isn't any coherent ideology within the Russian state ( "authoritarian kleptocracy" doesn't count as ideology), so there isn't really anything that would act as "glue" for keeping doctrines together. A "doctrine" can be whatever the Russian state, specifically Putin, want it to be. It's barely worth the paper it's written on.

Somebody on Twitter put it perfectly, stating that the decision making process if Russia employs nuclear weapons will at no point be, even remotely, influenced by the existence or lack of an appropriately worded doctrine.

No, the nuclear doctrine is another tool, yet another stick with which Putin can poke the evil West with, in order to frighten them and get them to do what he wants. A tool that he uses regularly, to great effect.

I did a quick search on the Internet in order to find out if my feeling that Russian nuclear threats are hurled into the void that is the media attention span can be supported by facts. Turns out it can be. The following examples go back to the year 2009. I'm pretty sure if you spend an afternoon researching you will probably find quite a few more:

Nearly every single year for the last fifteen years Russia has threatened other countries with nuclear weapons at least once. Like .. come the fuck on. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I understand that the thought of nuclear weapons being deployed makes people uncomfortable. And the nuclear capabilities of a state as well as the nuclear posturing a state performs shouldn't be ignored, no matter how laughably often someone threatens nuclear annihilation. But we should analyze these things reasonably, without hyperbole.

The risk of a nuclear weapon being used has never been zero ever since the weapon was first built towards the end of the Second World War. But the risk has consistently been low ever since, for a wide variety of reasons. And this hasn't changed. We shouldn't give the Kremlin the hyperventilation it so desperately wants us to suffer from.

Post Scriptum: If the Russian nuclear doctrine and the changes surrounding it make you nervous, I highly recommend you avoid looking at the French nuclear doctrine. It's a lot less .. restrained.