Paul
Goble
Staunton, June 4 – Two days ago, Vladimir
Putin went public about the conditions under which Moscow would use nuclear
weapons, including a first strike against countries where there were no such
weapons but a concentration of forces that could be used against the Russian
Federation.
The nuclear strategy document the
Kremlin leader signed specifies that Russia may employ nuclear weapons against
other countries that use weapons of mass destruction against it or even
countries without such weapons but having large concentrations of conventional
forces directed against Russia (rosbalt.ru/russia/2020/06/02/1846766.html).
Such
a document almost certainly has existed for some time, but the Kremlin has kept
it secret, independent security analyst Pavel Felgengauer tells Rosbalt’s
Aleksandr Zhelenin. By going public now, Putin clearly wants to put pressure on
the West to extend arms control accords and to use nuclear weapons as blackmail
against it (rosbalt.ru/russia/2020/06/04/1847083.html).
The Americans have “an analogous
document,” Felgengauer says, although it contains more details about American
plans. “In our current decree, there are more words but few specifics, with the
exception of the idea that we will use nuclear weapons whenever we want to do
so.”
“This was always the case,” he says;
but “now we simply are saying so in public.” There are many possibilities for the
decision to go public about this both foreign -- it constitutes a threat that
other countries must now focus – and domestic – it sends a signal to the defense
establishment that Putin plans to build more and better nuclear weapons.
Leonid Brezhnev issued a no-first-use
pledge, Felgengauer notes; but now Putin has put a formal end to something that
likely was never more than something that could be used for propaganda. He
apparently feels no need to retain it and possibly compelling reasons to do
away with it. That leaves China as the only nuclear power with a no-first-use commitment.
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