The IISS report says fear of escalation with Russia has caused the West to hesitate in supplying arms to Kyiv.
That means Moscow’s shorter-range atomic weapons, known Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons or NSNW – designed for use on the battlefield – are becoming increasingly important to the Kremlin, according to Alberque.
“Russia has basically short range and medium range, air-launched, ground-launched and sea-launched missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads throughout the theater and able to hold all of NATO at risk.
Russia has already placed non-strategic nuclear weapons in the territory of its ally Belarus, which neighbors several NATO states.
We will have to make nuclear deterrence a convincing argument again by lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons.”.
Alberque notes that several other well-known political scientists in Russia have engaged in this nuclear debate following the publication of Karaganov’s paper.
“I think that they believe that smaller uses of nuclear weapons could be contained and could be advantageous for Russia. »
