Concern is growing in NATO over Russia’s nuclear strategy and indications that Russian military planners might be lowering the threshold for using nuclear weapons in any conflict, alliance diplomats say.
NATO officials drew up an analysis of Russian nuclear strategy that was set to be discussed by alliance defense ministers at a meeting in Brussels yesterday.
The study comes amid high tension between NATO and Russia over the Ukraine conflict and rising suspicions on both sides that risk plunging Europe back into a Cold War-style confrontation.
Western concerns have also been fueled by increasingly aggressive Russian air and sea patrolling close to NATO’s borders, such as two Russian “Bear” nuclear-capable bombers that flew over the English Channel last week.
The threat of nuclear war that once hung over the world has eased since the Cold War amid sharp reductions in warheads, but Russia and the US, NATO’s main military power, retain massively destructive nuclear arsenals.
Russia’s nuclear strategy appears to point to a lowering of the threshold for using nuclear weapons in any conflict, NATO diplomats say.
“What worries us most in this strategy is the modernization of the Russian nuclear forces, the increase in the level of training of those forces and the possible combination between conventional actions and the use of nuclear forces, including … the framework of a hybrid war,” one diplomat said.
Russia’s use of hybrid warfare in Ukraine, combining elements, such as unmarked soldiers, disinformation and cyberattacks, has led NATO’s military planners to review their strategies for dealing with Russia.
All NATO nations, except France which is not a member, were due to meet yesterday as part of NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group, which NATO officials describe as a routine meeting focusing on the safety and effectiveness of NATO’s nuclear deterrent.
However, all 28 ministers, including US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, planned to have a broader discussion of Russia’s nuclear strategy. No immediate action was expected from NATO’s side.
Ministers were likely to ask officials to look into the implications of Russia’s nuclear strategy for the alliance, and only then could there be any consideration of whether any changes were needed to NATO’s nuclear posture.
At a time of heightened tension with the West, Russia has not been shy about reasserting its status as a nuclear power.
Russian President Vladimir Putin in August last year said that Russia was a leading nuclear power, adding: “It’s best not to mess with us.”
A report by the US Congressional Research Service last year said Russia “seems to have increased its reliance on nuclear weapons in its national security concept.”
Russia has embarked on a multibillion-US dollar military modernization program and Russian General Staff head General Valery Gerasimov last week said that support for Russia’s strategic nuclear forces combined with improvements in conventional forces would ensure that the US and NATO did not gain military superiority.
He said the Russian military would receive more than 50 new intercontinental nuclear missiles this year.
In December last year, Putin signed a new military doctrine, naming NATO expansion as a key risk. Before the new doctrine was agreed, there had been some calls from the military to restore to the doctrine a line about the right to a first nuclear strike.
It was not included in the new doctrine, which says Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in response to a nuclear strike or a conventional attack that endangered the state’s existence.
The Arms Control Association, a Washington-based advocacy group, estimated Russia has about 1,512 strategic, or long-range nuclear warheads, a further 1,000 non-deployed strategic warheads and about 2,000 tactical nuclear warheads.
Tactical nuclear weapons can include short-range missiles and artillery shells, mines and bombs.
The US had 4,804 nuclear warheads as of September 2013, including tactical, strategic and non-deployed weapons, the association said.
Among other NATO allies, France has less than 300 operational nuclear warheads and the UK has less than 160 deployed strategic warheads.
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