Defcon Watch: Russia's nuclear red line
What would it take for Putin to pull the trigger?
Despite a small sigh of relief from some Western analysts, Kremlin spokesman Dimitri Peskov’s recent statement that Russia would only use nuclear weapons in response to an existential threat fails to provide any clarity on the issue. Rather, his refusal to define how exactly Russia perceives an “existential threat”—something that the West has been debating since the nuclear standoff and mutually assured destruction came into vogue with the Soviet Union seventy-five years ago—serves only to create greater ambiguity and broaden the danger across the nuclear horizon, further darkening the fog of war.
Where is the red line?
Would a cyberattack against Russia’s defense or even financial infrastructure make the grade? What about the current sanctions regime—if it destabilizes the Russian economy to the point of sparking nationwide civil unrest? Or a palace coup that threatens to topple the regime but not Russia itself. Or a Kremlin-spun false flag operation involving chem or bioweapons in Ukraine that almost satircially prompts the Russians to talk themselves into dropping “the Big One.”
Perhaps it is ambiguity that is the most powerful (and volatile) weapon in any WMD arsenal.
In a sense the nuclear conflict is continual since all states in the international state system exist in cold war despite treaties and agreements. So the use of the weapon on the battlefield as a deterrent is as a talking weapon-"6 minutes to Moscow, 4 minutes to Moscow, vs. One minute to London." Then if used on the battlefield it need not be the Tsar Bomba. Conventional weapons do the job well. NATO bombing Serbia is a good example.