How Ukraine reveals Russian nuclear strategy

Stephen Blank

Defense & Security Analysis, 2023, vol. 39, issue 3, 353-368

Abstract: If we examine the role played by nuclear weapons in Russia's war against Ukraine, we find that they play an offensive role in Russian strategy. The deterrence mission is as much intended to free Russia's hands for conventional war on its periphery as it is intended to prevent a nuclear first strike from the West. Indeed, the evidence of exercises etc. strongly points to a readiness for attacking Western sea-lines of communication in the Atlantic were a Western response to come as a result of the attack on Ukraine. Similarly, the potential for nuclear threat exists in the vicinity of the Black Sea as shown by Russian exercises in advance of the war there and in the Eastern Mediterranean. Those exercises reveal that Moscow's power projection policy into the Levant and beyond is also part of its deterrence strategy and has amongst its objectives protecting the Black Sea as a Russian lake, an inherently offensive posture. Therefore Russia's nuclear strategy in this war and in general stand revealed as offensive ones which the West must reckon with.

Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1080/14751798.2023.2204595

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