Remember when researcher William Alberque revealed why Russia could use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine?

The news that U.S. President Joe Biden has finally given Kyiv permission to use American long-range missiles within Russian territory in some type of capacity has stirred up worries about about Vladimir Putin will react.

In September 2024, Putin said that allowing Ukraine to use long-range targets inside of Russian territory would be viewed by Moscow as direct Western participation in the conflict.

According to BBC News, Putin said “it would substantially change the very essence, the nature of the conflict" and added that it would mean "that Nato countries, the USA and European states, are fighting with Russia.”

Putin essentially drew a red line at allowing Ukraine to use Western long-range missiles on Russian territory. What will happen now that Biden has reportedly approved their use is anyone's guess, including the possibility of escalation toward nuclear war.

However, while Biden's decision on long-range weapons could escalate the conflict from his action to finally help Ukraine in a crucial way that it needed, one expert previously warned that it was American inaction that would eventually lead the world into nuclear war.

When Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine, he not only disrupted the international rules-based order up which the modern world was built but he also brought back the worry that a nuclear war might happen. 

Throughout the last nearly three years of fighting, Putin and other high-ranking members of Russia’s political elites have warned Moscow could and would use its nuclear stockpile if any one of a number of situations played out. 

For example, on January 11th, 2024, Deputy Chairmen of the Security Council of Russia Dmitry Medvedev warned that any Ukrainian attack on Moscow’s missile launch sites inside of Russia with US-supplied arms risked a nuclear response. 

According to Reuters, Medvedev claimed Ukrainian military commanders were thinking about hitting missile sites in Russia with long-range missiles supplied by their Western allies, which he said would justify the use of nuclear weapons. 

Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By Vitaly V. Kuzmin

Whether or not Moscow would make good on the several nuclear threats its politicians have made since the war began has become one of the most pressing questions of the conflict, according to nuclear arms expert William Alberque. 

Alberque is the Director of Strategy, Technology, and Arms Control at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and on January 22nd, 2024 he published an in-depth analysis of why Russia might end up using nuclear weapons. Let's take a look at his analysis. 

First, it's important to understand that nuclear weapons can be split into two types. One type is known as strategic nuclear weapons, these are long range and used to attack a country directly according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. 

The second type are non-strategic nuclear weapons, sometimes referred to as tactical nuclear weapons, and they’re generally designed for use on the battlefield. They have a shorter range and are intended to help win a battle.

Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By Владислав Фальшивомонетчик - Own Work, CC BY-SA 3.0

It is the potential Russian use of tactical nuclear weapons that worries the world, and in Alberque opinion, the likelihood that Moscow would use its non-strategic stockpile in its fight against Ukraine is high for several reasons. 

Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By Vitaly V. Kuzmin

Alberque noted that scholarship on the use of tactical nuclear weapons during the Cold War taught policymakers that non-strategic nuclear weapons play a very important role in the Russian military mindset as a tool to win conflicts. 

Putin has adopted a similar mindset and claimed that the Russian nuclear stockpile is what guarantees the country’s sovereignty. Alberque pointed out that this likely means Putin sees their use as a flexible tool he can use in a variety of ways. 

For example, tactical nuclear weapons could be used to coerce Russia’s adversaries or as a measure to control conflict escalation. They can also be used as a weapon to dissuade outside powers from intervening in conflicts that affect Russian interests. 

Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By Vitaly V. Kuzmin

The Russian invasion of Ukraine reinforced the perceptions of the Russian nuclear arsenal as well as the Kremlin’s views on how its tactical nuclear weapons should be used according to Alberque, and that’s a worrying finding. 

Russia’s aggressive doctrine surrounding the use of its non-strategic nuclear weapons is reinforced by the country’s perception that the West lacks the “credible will” to retaliate and the ability to “accept casualties in conflict.” This could ultimately lead Russian leaders to use tactical nuclear weapons in pursuit of achieving their goals.

“Indeed, knowing that the West is casualty and risk averse, Russia may seek to use enough NSNW to inflict damage preventing its own defeat, knowing that the US would be unwilling to cross the nuclear threshold in retaliation,” Alberque wrote. 

Whether or not this scenario would play out in Russia’s current conflict with Ukraine was not yet known in January, but the variables that could lead to the use of tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield are in place according to Alberque. 

However, even if Russia didn't end up using a nuclear weapon in its fight to conquer Ukraine, Alberque warned that the world should still be very worried back in January of 2024 because of the eroding confidence in nuclear weapons as a deterrence to conflict. 

“They’ve always been very reliant on nuclear deterrence,” Alberque told The Hill’s Ellen Mitchell, which reported on his analysis. “I think there was some increase in confidence in their conventional capabilities…but I think that confidence has eroded."

“The general trajectory is that Russia will rely much more upon nuclear weapons in the future for their feeling of security,” Alberque added. A scenario that almost certainly will not bode well for the world and global peace in the future. 

While Russia has yet to use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine almost a year on from Alberque's analysis, Moscow seems more poised than ever to take an action that could fundamentally change the world forever.

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