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The role of nuclear weapons in Russia’s foreign and military policy has increased markedly since 2011, following the ratification of New START and the failure of dialogue between the United States and Russia on the joint development of missile defense systems. Ahead of his victory in Russia’s 2012 presidential election, Vladimir Putin stressed: “Under no circumstances will we give up the potential of strategic deterrence, and we will strengthen it. So long as the ‘powder’ of our strategic nuclear forces, created by the great effort of our fathers and grandfathers, remains ‘dry,’ no one will dare unleash large-scale aggression against us.”14 This policy implied the large program of modernizing strategic nuclear forces, including the deployment of 400 new intercontinental ballistic missiles and the construction of eight nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines.15

Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump said in 2017: “Let it be an arms race. We will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all.”16 The position of the current U.S. political and military leadership on all aspects of nuclear deterrence is laid out quite clearly in the Nuclear Posture Review, published in January 2018. It is immediately apparent that in its basic assumptions, this policy is in tune with the Russian approach: “A safe, secure, and effective nuclear deterrent is there to ensure that a war can never be won and it will never occur.”17 But the analogies do not end there. Both powers embrace not only retaliatory strikes in the event of an attack using nuclear weapons, but also their first use in response to an attack using conventional forces, as well as in some other situations.

The 2018 Nuclear Posture Review emphasizes: “Given the diverse threats and profound uncertainties of the current and future threat environment, U.S. nuclear forces play the following critical roles in U.S. national security strategy. They contribute to the deterrence of nuclear and non-nuclear attack; assurance of allies and partners; achievement of U.S. objectives if deterrence fails; and capacity to hedge against an uncertain future.”18 The Russian military doctrine, published in 2014, also calls for “permanent readiness of the Armed Forces, other troops, and bodies for deterring and preventing military conflicts and for armed defense of the Russian Federation and its allies in accordance with the norms of international law and international treaties of the Russian Federation.”19 Nuclear forces should “maintain global and regional stability and the nuclear deterrence potential at a sufficient level.”

In the event of war, the doctrine provides not only for a retaliatory nuclear strike, but also for a first strike: “The Russian Federation shall reserve the right to use nuclear weapons in response to the use of nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction against it and/or its allies, as well as in the event of aggression against the Russian Federation with the use of conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is in jeopardy”20 (emphasis added). The purpose of a nuclear strike is defined as “the infliction of the assigned level of damage on an aggressor under any conditions.”21

It turns out, however, that the Russian military doctrine is highly flexible. Answering a journalist’s question in Sochi in October 2018, Putin unexpectedly formulated the nuclear aspect of the Russian doctrine as follows:

“Our nuclear weapons doctrine does not provide for a preventive strike. I would like to ask all of you and those who will later analyze and in one way or another interpret my every word here, to keep in mind that there is no provision for a preventive strike in our nuclear weapons doctrine. Our concept is based on a launch-on-warning strike. This means that we are prepared and will use nuclear weapons only when we know for certain that some potential aggressor is attacking Russia, our territory. I am not revealing a secret if I say that we have created a system which is being upgraded all the time as needed—a missile attack early warning system. This system monitors the globe, warning about the launch of any strategic missile … and identifying the area from which it was launched. Second, the system tracks the trajectory of a missile flight. Third, it locates a nuclear warhead impact zone.

Only when we know for certain—and this takes a few seconds to understand—that Russia is being attacked will we deliver a counterstrike. Of course, this amounts to a global catastrophe, but I would like to repeat that we cannot be the initiators of such a catastrophe because we have no provision for a preventive strike. Any aggressor should know that retaliation is inevitable, and they will be annihilated. And we as the victims of an aggression, we as martyrs, would go to paradise while they would simply perish because they wouldn’t even have time to repent their sins.”22

Public attention focused mostly on that last, emotional phrase. The remaining, unnoticed part of Putin’s statement, however, seems to have made a fundamental amendment to Russia’s military doctrine: essentially, the declaration of no first use of nuclear weapons. This is something the Soviet Union declared in 1982 (though no one in the world took it seriously then) and that Russia abolished in 1993 (which everyone believed). Of the nine states that currently possess nuclear weapons, the only countries to have undertaken such a commitment are China (though few believe it) and India (though it has provided some reservations).

It is not clear what happened to the provision of Russia’s official military doctrine that claimed the right to the first use of nuclear weapons “in the event of aggression against the Russian Federation with the use of conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is in jeopardy.” Moreover, the described launch-on-warning concept clearly does not apply to the use of tactical nuclear weapons—which Russia probably has more of than all the other countries in the world combined—by ground forces, the navy, air defense, and the air force.23

Furthermore, although Putin referred to nuclear weapons in general, it is possible that the concept he outlined relates only to the use of strategic nuclear forces, and above all the silo-based strategic rocket forces. Otherwise, it is not clear why large investments have been made for many years in expensive, high-value systems such as ballistic missile submarines and land-based mobile ICBMs, which are primarily designed for the “deep second strike” (that is, a launch when there is no doubt about an attack and its initiator after nuclear weapons have been detonated on Russian territory). In any case, Putin said what he said, and all possible interpretations are the personal opinion of experts, not the official position of the supreme commander, especially since he called on “all of you and those who will later analyze and in one way or another interpret my every word here” to keep this statement in mind.

Besides, Putin implicitly reaffirmed the conviction shared by the Soviet Union and the United States in the 1970s and 1980s that a nuclear war would be a catastrophe for humanity, and therefore it cannot be fought and won. In any case, the historic importance of the above statement depends on whether or not the next edition of the Russian military doctrine is amended accordingly.

In all other respects, compared to the period of former U.S. president Barack Obama’s time in the White House, the views of the two leading powers on the significance of nuclear weapons have become noticeably more symmetrical. In the Obama years, Moscow had not expressed alarm over U.S. nuclear forces, but had consistently shown concern about U.S. non-nuclear missile defense programs and high-precision long-range conventional offensive systems. For its part, Washington had worried about Russian sub-strategic (tactical) nuclear weapons and general-purpose forces.

Now the United States sees Russia’s (as well as China’s) growing strategic nuclear potential over the past decade as a major threat, and intends to respond to this with an extensive program of modernization and expansion. In turn, Russia has clearly shifted emphasis in recent years to its long-range high-precision conventional offensive weapons, which finally aroused U.S. concern in the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review.24

Historical analysis shows that strategic asymmetries have periodically created considerable difficulties for nuclear arms control negotiations.25 Conversely, nuclear symmetry—which began with the Soviet Union achieving parity with the United States in the 1970s and 1980s—has usually contributed to the progress of negotiations.

However, the current symmetry of strategic capabilities and views on their importance does not guarantee a resumption of dialogue and reduction of the nuclear threat. This apparent paradox is explained by nuclear deterrence’s nature as a special kind of military and political relationship between states.