The Growing Threat of Nuclear War

In the background of the political, military and economic machinations around the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian conflict is the ever-present threat of nuclear war. Many pundits and policymakers in the West see this threat as overblown, believing, for example, that Russia is bluffing when it speaks of implementing its nuclear doctrine in response to Nato intervention in Ukraine. But the threat of nuclear war is real and growing.

The world faces a greater threat of a nuclear conflict between the US and Russia than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. In many ways, the present danger is more acute, given that the mechanisms of diplomacy that helped prevent war then are not engaged today. Moreover, in October 1962, the nuclear arms race had not yet reached full stride — the weapons possessed by the two nuclear-armed adversaries then pale in quantity, quality and lethality to the arsenals that exist today.

And while the size of the present-day arsenals has been significantly reduced from the height of the Cold War, the institutional “muscle memory” that exists in both the US and Russia from that time makes the rapid rearmament of nuclear arsenals possible when the restrictions imposed by the last remaining arms control treaty — the 2010 New Start treaty — expire on Feb. 4, 2026. Indeed, the US has already spoken of nuclear rearmament “without restrictions” once the treaty’s caps are lifted.

The View From the US

In its 2010 Nuclear Posture Review, the administration of President Barack Obama de-emphasized the role of nuclear weapons in US security strategy by narrowing nuclear contingencies to the deterrence of an enemy nuclear attack. It moved away from the more expansive posture promulgated in the 2002 Nuclear Posture published by the administration of George W. Bush, which allowed for the preemptive use of nuclear weapons in a non-nuclear scenario. But the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review conducted under then-President Donald Trump returned to the Bush-era policy, allowing the potential use of the US nuclear arsenal to deter “significant non-nuclear strategic attacks.”

In 2020, then-presidential candidate Joe Biden declared that, if elected, he would implement a policy where deterring a nuclear attack should again be the sole purpose of the US nuclear arsenal. However, the Biden administration’s 2022 Nuclear Posture Review remained largely unchanged from Trump’s 2018 version.

This means, in effect, that the US today has a nuclear policy that incorporates scenarios where new “low-yield” nuclear warheads on Trident submarine-launched ballistic missiles could be used preemptively to enforce deterrence models predicated on the notion of “escalate to deescalate.” Put simply, the US could use nuclear weapons to compel an adversary or enemy to back down from actions that do not involve the use of nuclear weapons. The US has emphasized its forward-leaning nuclear posture in reassuring its allies — especially in Nato — that the US nuclear umbrella is viable in times of crisis.

The conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which has evolved into a de facto proxy conflict between Nato and Russia, has raised the specter of direct nuclear confrontation between the trans-Atlantic alliance and the Russian Federation for the first time since the Cold War. Nato has placed increased emphasis on the role of nuclear weapons in any potential conflict scenario involving Russia and recently discussed the possibility of placing up to 24 US-supplied B-61 bombs on operational status, meaning they could be loaded onto specially designated Nato aircraft for use at a moment’s notice. This would make any launch of nuclear-designated aircraft equivalent to a potential nuclear attack in the mind of the Russian government.

The Russian Response

Russian nuclear doctrine has remained largely consistent since it was first publicly declared in 2010. Under this, Moscow reserves the right to use nuclear weapons not just in response to the use of nuclear weapons or other types of weapons of mass destruction against Russia or its allies, but also in the event of aggression with conventional forces that threatens the existential survival of Russia.

The threshold appeared to be lowered after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, when Moscow linked its nuclear arsenal to potential Russian reactions to US and Nato interventions. Since then, the situation has devolved further, with the US and Nato embracing a policy posture that seeks the “strategic defeat” of Russia in Ukraine. Currently, the parameters for such a defeat include evicting Russia from five Ukrainian territories it has annexed. Russia has rejected any effort by the US to engage in nuclear arms control talks so long as the official policy of the US is its strategic defeat.

Russia has responded to changes in the US nuclear posture over the years by modernizing its strategic nuclear forces and by extending its nuclear umbrella to Belarus, where it has implemented a nuclear weapon-sharing program. Moscow believes that the Biden administration’s decision to leave the 2018 Nuclear Posture unchanged, combined with the potential Nato decision to place 24 B-61 bombs on operational status, lowers the US threshold for the use of nuclear weapons. Russia reacted by announcing in June 2024 that it would undertake a review of its own nuclear posture to see if it, too, needed to lower its threshold. Moscow followed this announcement with full-scale drills of its tactical nuclear forces in Belarus in early July 2024.

The Europe Factor

The danger of a world without arms control agreements is manifest. One need only look at the impact of the US’ 2018 decision to withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, a landmark agreement that eliminated the most destabilizing class of nuclear weapons in the world at that time from the US and Soviet/Russian arsenals — missiles with a range of between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. The US, together with Germany, recently announced it would begin redeploying intermediate-range missiles to Europe in 2026. In response, Russia declared that it would resume production of intermediate-range missiles and match the US deployment with its own.

The re-emergence in Europe of weapons previously banned under the now-defunct INF treaty would not simply re-impose the existential threat that these weapons represented when initially deployed in the 1980s but expand it exponentially. The new intermediate-range systems will include hypersonic missiles that, given their speed and accuracy, virtually ensure the destruction of their target within minutes of being launched. The first-strike potential of these weapons means that an adversary must have their own retaliation capability ready for a hair-trigger response.

The potential deployment of nuclear-armed cruise and hypersonic missiles by the US in Europe in 2026, combined with Russia’s likely response, effectively subordinates the existing protocols for the use of US strategic nuclear weapons to European contingencies. Russian President Vladimir Putin recently declared that since the new intermediate-range missiles will threaten Russia’s strategic command and control infrastructure, there is no difference from the Russian perspective between a European conflict and a US-Russian conflict.

Current protocols regarding the release of nuclear weapons by both sides envisage a 15- to 30-minute deliberation period for executive review, consultation and approval of any nuclear weapons release. However, in a future scenario involving European-based hypersonic missiles, the time between launch and impact of a US hypersonic intermediate-range missile would be less than 10 minutes. The time available for deliberation would be reduced to less than six minutes — leaving no time for protocol-based executive coordination and consideration of options.

In short, the deployment of intermediate-range missiles in Europe would put both sides in a position where any suspected missile launch would be treated as real upon detection, and thus trigger an immediate retaliatory strike.

As things stand, come 2026, any mistake, miscalculation or misjudgment by either the US, Nato or Russia could — and most likely would — prompt preemption by the other party. While nuclear planners in the US believe there are scenarios in which a limited nuclear conflict could be limited to Europe, Russian nuclear doctrine holds that any use of nuclear weapons against Russian territory will be responded to with a general nuclear attack using the totality of its strategic nuclear arsenal. As such, any scenario involving the threat of a European-based nuclear first strike against Russia could escalate quickly into a general nuclear exchange — in short, a global annihilation event.

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