Simplicius analyzes the recent release of secret Russian nuclear doctrine dating back to 2014:
The first truly eye-opening detail is the claim that these secret internal Russian documents include plans for a potential nuclear “demonstration” strike, if things really begin escalating:
The presentation also references the option of a so-called demonstration strike — detonating a nuclear weapon in a remote area “in a period of immediate threat of aggression” before an actual conflict to scare western countries. Russia has never acknowledged such strikes are in its doctrine.
Such a strike, the files say, would show “the availability and readiness for use of precision non-strategic nuclear weapons” and the “intention to use nuclear weapons”.
To clarify: we’ve often talked about Russia doing a demonstrative nuclear test in order to get NATO’s attention in the Ukrainian conflict. That is something entirely different. A nuclear test would be something run by scientists for measuring purposes, conducted in a safe and controlled way, with a nuclear device usually detonated in a stationary mode somewhere on or near the ground.
That is why this is particularly eye-opening because it is something far more aggressive and threatening. It would entail Russia not setting up a test, but actually live-firing a real tactical nuke from one of their many systems into a remote area. The simple acknowledgment that Russia even has such contingencies drawn up is fairly startling and clearly draws a heavy shadow over the now-escalating Ukrainian conflict, where NATO’s involvement continues to grow more out of control each day.
I don’t view this as a bad thing at all. The threat of tactical nuke strikes to eliminate Europe’s already limited war-making capacity has existed all along, whether we think about it or not. So to know that the official doctrine incorporates a demonstration strike and a warning period is actually rather comforting, as it provides time for people to get away from any obvious military targets.
The risk of tactical strikes is much higher than strategic strikes, because the USA is not going to put itself on the line for Europe, not even if its own military bases are hit there. That’s the whole point of “foreign adventures”; keep them foreign and keep the bloodshed well away from the homeland. Even the foreign elite that runs the US empire is unlikely to react to tactical strikes on Europe for the same reason; they don’t want their homeland turned into a glass desert either.
It’s informative to observe how the USA, Germany, and the UK are all disavowing any knowledge of, much less involvement with, the Ukrainian Kursk offensive now that it has proven to be a tactical defeat and a strategic disaster.