Ukraine Crisis Could Lead to Nuclear War Under New Strategy
- Ukraine Crisis Could Lead to Nuclear War Under New Strategy
by Three thousand American troops are headed to Europe, with thousands more on stand-by in response to the Kremlin’s threats against Ukraine. President Joe Biden is pondering further actions—and as U.S.-Russia tensions rise, a new American nuclear war plan, previously unknown, lurks in the background.
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For the first time, the war plan fully incorporates non-nuclear weapons as an equal player. The non-nuclear options include the realm of cyber warfare, including cyber attacks on the basic workings of society like electrical power or communications. Rather than strengthen deterrence, the emergence of countless options and hidden cyber attack schemes weakens deterrence, obscures the nuclear firebreak and makes escalation more likely. Why? Because an adversary such as Russia can be confused about where preparations for nuclear war start, and whether a multi-domain attack is merely a defense or the makings of a first strike.
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It isn’t the war plan of yesterday with hair-trigger alerts, bolts from the blue and global destruction. Instead, the standalone nuclear option has become the integration of many options: nuclear, conventional and unconventional, the latter of which most importantly involves the new domain of cyber warfare.
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In the eyes of nuclear strategists, this broad menu is a more effective way to thwart any peer adversary, giving the president options short of nuclear war. But experts also warn that the new flexibility might confuse an adversary; a series of non-nuclear moves might come to look like the opening salvos of a first strike, provoking the very thing that is being prevented.
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In the new nuclear war plan, integration of all military and non-military weapons in the American armory is labeled the new deterrent. Planners seek to debilitate and immobilize any enemy rather than physically destroy it. The dividing line between what is nuclear and what is conventional has been blurred more than ever. And with that, “strategic stability”—the singular objective of preventing the use of nuclear weapons, which has kept nuclear weapons sheathed for more than 75 years—has been made obsolete. Russia is not likely to invade Ukraine, but if a military confrontation unfolds, it would be the first test of this new approach to war.
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