Russia’s rhetorical escalation in the Ukraine War, with President Vladimir Putin’s direct threat to use nuclear weapons in the conflict, has put the atomic bomb back on the West’s discussion tables.
Bravado aside, in more serious circles of analysts on the subject there is great concern that Russia is preparing the rhetorical bed for actual action, but not with the armaments usually associated with apocalyptic metaphors.
The main speculation in the square is about the use of tactical nuclear weapons by the Russians. And what are these bombs?
By concept, they are weapons used to win battles or stop the enemy punctually, targeting limited concentrations of troops or military bases. They do this with less destructive power than is generally associated with nuclear devices, and with less radioactive contamination of the environment.
The vast majority of modern nuclear warheads have variable yield. The American tactical bomb B61, for example, can be set to explode from 0.3 to 80 kilotons, with each kiloton equivalent to 1,000 tons of dynamite. The Hiroshima bomb, the first used against a civilian target in 1945, was about 15 kilotons.
The adjustment is done by several methods: injection of specific gases at the time of the explosion or use of particle accelerators, to increase it, or physical containment – the largest artifact ever exploded, the Czar Bomb tested by the Soviets in 1961, had its layer of depleted uranium exchanged for one of lead, which led it to release half of the 100 megatons (100 million tons of TNT) it could yield.
In practice, everything is solved with a selector when boarding the bomb in an airplane or in a launcher, land or submarine.
The military problem with tactical bombs, never used in combat, is that depending on the terrain occupied by the enemy, many of them will be needed to actually have an effect, which increases the potential for releasing radiation against the troops that attack.
They were created starting in the 1960s, aiming to contain what the Americans saw as a potential catastrophic advance of Soviet troops through Western Europe in the event of war. The Russians have broadened awareness, and have an estimated 2,000 warheads of varying sizes, while the US only keeps 100 B61s in Europe and the same amount at home. There is no treaty control of this type of weapon.
The rise of satellite-guided weapons has also diminished the usefulness of tactical bombs, as the accuracy of the strike outweighs the need to destroy a relatively large area, as with nuclear weapons.
On the other hand, in 2018 then-President Donald Trump ordered a review of the American nuclear posture, expanding the situation in which tactical weapons can be used, and in fact ordered new bombs to be built for use on submarines. It was also up to him to dismantle the framework of mechanisms of mutual trust with the Russians.
But the real threat to the world as we know it would come from the deployment of strategic nuclear weapons. Again, it’s a concept: there are bombs of the type with similar power to higher-yield tactics, while current ones come in at around 1 megaton.
What matters, as in the case of tactics, is the function: in this case, winning wars, through the complete destruction of cities or industrial areas, in order to force the enemy’s surrender. To be more powerful, in addition to having the same yield regulators, the warheads are larger and carry more plutonium and uranium for the nuclear reaction.
They are the weapons created during the Cold War to ensure, according to the MAD doctrine (mutual assured destruction in the English acronym, but also the word “crazy”), that they were never used.
In the classic “On Thermonuclear Warfare”, published by the American theorist Herman Khan in 1960, the only possibility of successful use of such weapons is established: an attack without the enemy knowing that you are going to attack, to decapitate your ability to react. the maximum as possible.
That is why the main powers, especially China’s recent advance, have developed the so-called nuclear triad: bombers or fighter jets, missiles launched by submarines and from the ground (silos or mobile launchers). Thus, one layer of defense covers the other in case of attack.
Strategic weapons would not be viable in a punctual action in Ukraine, not least because they release a large amount of radiation, which would probably be carried back to Russia, given the region’s wind regime. Regarding tactical bombs, he agrees about their impracticality in the field.
The summary of the Russian threat is simple: by annexing about 15% of its neighbor’s occupied territory, the Kremlin will consider it its own. Putin signed a decree in 2020 establishing the conditions for the use of nuclear weapons, and among them are existential threats to the state, even with conventional means. He has already said that he considers an attack on new territories something like that.
The problem is complex. The use of a tactical nuclear bomb to intimidate Kiev, for example, could lead to an escalation on the part of NATO (the US-led military alliance). The USA, France and the UK have the club’s bombshell, and would hardly leave this type of aggression unanswered for fear of what would come next.
Then, the risk of things getting out of control grows, and we return to the apocalyptic scenarios, as these countries dominate almost the entire nuclear arsenal in the world – Russia and the US alone have 90% of the 13,000 existing warheads.
It remains to be hoped that Putin is using another Cold War doctrine, SOB (English initials for FDP), which strategists used to define leaders who posed as dangerous madmen to intimidate adversaries — such as American Richard Nixon or North Korean Kim Jong. -un.
With a wealth of experience honed over 4+ years in journalism, I bring a seasoned voice to the world of news. Currently, I work as a freelance writer and editor, always seeking new opportunities to tell compelling stories in the field of world news.
