Originally Posted by
Azor
I think that you are conflating Russia’s official declared nuclear doctrine with controversial statements made by Russian officials, politicians and analysts in recent years.
Russia’s 2010 doctrine was the first to declare that Russia could respond to conventional aggression with nuclear weapons, although the idea had been gaining ground since 2003 or earlier. Putin is keenly aware of Russia’s conventional weakness and so I do not believe that he ever believed that a NATO-Russia conflict would not escalate to the nuclear level. Russia has used nuclear weapons in its exercises since 2000 and it has increasingly relied upon nuclear deterrence. Tactical nuclear weapons do not negate MAD (initially based upon strategic bombers rather than ballistic missiles); rather, they provide more options, or what McNamara referred to as a “flexible response”.
Note that during the period of American conventional weakness, the US Army deployed nuclear-armed recoilless rifles and US nuclear doctrine post-New Look/Massive Retaliation provided for degrees of nuclear escalation e.g. tactical first, counterforce first, etc. I feel like a broken record here, but the similarities between how US and Russian/Soviet nuclear doctrine is predicated upon conventional capability should be very apparent.
According to Mark Galeotti, the concept of “nuclear de-escalation” is not taken seriously by the General Staff or Ministry of Defense.
Putin does not believe in “nuclear de-escalation”.
Firstly, there is the issue of the target of the tactical warhead strike. Would Russia detonate a nuclear weapon in the Baltic, Black or North Seas as a demonstration that inflicts no casualties? Would Russia strike at a civilian target such as Warsaw or Bucharest? Would Russia strike at a military target? Putin may be a gambler but he would be insane to think that NATO would tolerate nuclear mass murder in East-Central Europe. As for military targets, how can Putin know how the French, British or American people will respond if their soldiers are among the victims? Each has separate nuclear C2, and each could decide to respond with nuclear weapons. If the victims are all Polish soldiers and the attack is unanswered, the US-led alliance will not survive accusations of “Western betrayal” (for the third time in the Poles’ view).
Secondly, NATO can hammer Russia with conventional stand-off weapons and destroy the Russian state without resorting to nuclear weapons, and this would first involve attacking Russia’s tactical nuclear assets. Nor is NATO reliant upon stand-off weapons given the stealth and capacity of the B-2s. This would allow NATO to secure the moral high ground and escalation dominance, as Putin will be forced to respond while knowing that NATO is still retaining its tactical and strategic nuclear capabilities and is now on full alert.
Thirdly, the enormous risks of “nuclear de-escalation”, given that neither the Americans nor Russians ever believed that a limited nuclear war was possible or a conventional-only war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact or Russia, what objective would be worth it?
I also believe that you are confusing the SS-21 for the SS-26 Iskander…
Russia has only turned up the heat when it felt that it was pushing back against NATO or the EU, first in Georgia and then in Ukraine. It is not as though Russia has been creating a second Kaliningrad in Transnistria, which would allow Putin to menace Russia’s southeastern flank.
For someone well-versed in BMD, it surprises me that you mistook the Tochkha for the Iskander, and that you are conflating the GMD and the Patriot.
The US-Polish agreement under Bush was to install a number of GBIs in Poland of the same variant deployed in Alaska and California. In addition, Poland would receive PAC-3 batteries for air defense, which it considered of far more importance. Basically, the US wanted to create a branch of GMD in Poland to counter ballistic missiles, while Poland wanted an advanced SAM to mainly counter Russian aircraft. The GBI uses ERIS technology from the SDI, whereas PAC-3 uses ERINT. Given the US withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, how could Russia not see the expansion of GMD to Central Europe as an attempt to target Russian ICBMs?
THAAD also uses ERIS technology but is more intended for SRBMs and IRBMs rather than ICBMs. Obviously, there are developments to fuse GMD, THAAD, Aegis BMD and Patriot into one layered system that can protect against all types of ballistic missiles and even cruise missiles in the future, with the missiles complemented by railguns and lasers. This ties in with your point above about the importance of the various programs' radars (e.g. PAC-3) to other systems.
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks