What to Think of Russia's Nuclear Threats

The Lawfare Podcast

The Lawfare Institute

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4.7 • 6.4K Ratings

🗓️ 17 July 2015

⏱️ 97 minutes

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Summary

While the world powers and Iran were embroiled in last minute negotiations last week, Brookings hosted a discussion on the meaning of another power’s recent nuclear threats: this time looking at Russia. In recent months, Russia has issued a variety of nuclear threats: Putin's has commented both on his nuclear options during the Crimea crisis and issued a mild threat to nuke the Danish navy. Given that Russia maintains the power to at least theoretically destroy the world, how serviously should we take these provocations?

The panel was moderated by Brookings Fellow Jeremy Shapiro and featured Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists and Brookings scholars Pavel Baev and Steven Pifer. Together, they take a deep dive into Russia’s recent nuclear threats during the Crimea crisis, the country’s capabilities---both conventional and nuclear---relative to NATO, and its ongoing modernization program. They conclude with terrifying thought: The folks surrounding Putin just might not fully understand deterrence.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The following podcast contains advertising.
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0:08.0	become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash law fair.
0:14.0	That's patreon.com slash law fair.
0:18.0	Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings,
0:22.0	rational security, chatter, law fair no bull, and the aftermath.
0:30.0	There were people in Russia who were really going through this school of nuclear deterrence stage after stage,
0:38.0	but you cannot find these people in Putin's inner circle.
0:42.0	Whatever you think about this combination of individuals,
0:47.0	that one fact we know for sure that they have no experience in the school of deterrence.
0:55.0	And I would even say that even among the top brass,
0:58.0	there used to be a very influential lobby,
1:01.0	which was pushing forward the agenda.
1:04.0	And that lobby is practically gone through the process of military reform,
1:09.0	one purge after another,
1:12.0	and the new defense minister Sergey Shoyev,
1:15.0	really brought in many new people with combat experience.
1:19.0	He prefers deterrence and warriors to military bureaucrats,
1:24.0	so these kind of top brass,
1:27.0	the nuclear weapons are entirely foreign matter.
1:30.0	They never really given it a thought or trained in any way to use them.
1:37.0	I'm Cody Poplin, and this is LawFair Podcast July 17, 2015.
	...

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