Doctrine and Nuclear Weapons: Massive Retaliation and Vladimir Putin

Stated Doctrines Are Deterrents not Policies

Hi All,

I thought this week I would return to the question of the changes in Russia’s publicly stated nuclear weapons doctrine. These changes were announced (or at least trialled) last week and caused a little storm of reaction . I even received contact from different members of the press asking for comments about whether nuclear war was now more likely (relax—its not). Its fascinating to see the reaction that this move caused—which was certainly the Russian government’s intention.

However, before that, as I said in the Weekend Update this week, I’m going to hold a chat session for paying subscribers this Friday at 8pm UK time—3pm US East Coast Time. Its to discuss the new report: The Russia-Ukraine War: A Study in Analytic Failure, which I co-authored and which was just released last week.

There are two ways to do this. We can use the chat function on substack, which is basically a messenger service and which I can limit (Ive been told) to paying subscribers. The other way to do it is to have a dedicated substack post and use the comment section to send ideas back and forth—as that is also limited to paying subscribers. I’m happy to try either—so thought I would ask you to say what you prefer. Only subscribers can answer the poll.

Will give the answer when I send out the election update. Whatever is decided, I’m really looking forward to it.

The Russians Change Their Nuclear Doctrine

First last week (and then again this week) Vladimir Putin has announced a change in Russia’s nuclear-weapons use doctrine. Its a clunky change, that is entirely devised with the Ukraine war in mind. Basically, under the new doctrine, Russia would make no distinction between a nuclear and non-nuclear state in the use of nuclear weapons, if it was at war with a non-nuclear state but that non-nuclear state was supported by nuclear state.