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The Russo-Ukraine war has underlined that the threshold for potential nuclear weapons use still remains where it has always been – to deter threats to the survival of the state

There is one simple reason why there has been no further use of nuclear weapons in warfare since August 1945. The destructive power unleashed by the dropping of the only two nuclear weapons exploded in anger wrought an extent of devastation that was almost incomprehensible. Since then, a number of countries have developed a nuclear weapons capability: moreover, the destructive power of many of these weapons is of many orders of magnitude larger than those detonated in 1945; in addition, these weapons now exist in their thousands.

It is almost inconceivable that further use would occur without the realisation that such use would bring – or at the very least, would risk – unimaginable destruction on a global scale.

‘Little Boy’, the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima from the US Air Force B-29 bomber ‘Enola Gay’ on 6 August 1945 and exploded 579 m (1,900 ft) above the Japanese city at 08:15, carried an explosive power of roughly 13 kT – equivalent to 13,000 tonnes of TNT. ‘Fat Man’, the weapon that was dropped three days later on Nagasaki, carried an explosive power of roughly 21 kT – equivalent to 21,000 tonnes of TNT.

A test launch of the Trident II (D-5) missile, taking place at 18:45 on 12 June 1987, from Complex 46 on Cape Canaveral. The D5 is a three-stage, solid propellant, inertially guided fleet ballistic missile launched underwater from US Navy Ohio class, and Royal Navy Vanguard class submarines.
Credit: US Navy

A US Navy (USN) Ohio class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) is fitted with 24 missile tubes that can carry the Trident II/D-5 submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM). The 14 Ohio boats carry different nuclear weapons options, designed to provide the US with flexibility in its deterrent capability. They can carry the W76-2 lower-yield warhead, designed to deter the use of tactical nuclear weapons: this warhead has a reported explosive power of 5-7 kT, so equivalent to roughly 5-7,000 tonnes of TNT explosive power. However, the primary armaments onboard the USN’s SSBNs are the W76 and W88 warheads. According to Janes Weapons: Strategic, the respective yields of these two individual warheads are 100 kT and 475 kT each: so, the equivalent explosive power of 100,000 tonnes and 475,000 tonnes of TNT. The two warheads are delivered via multiple independently targeted vehicles (MIRVs), with up to eight warheads fitted per missile.

Russia is reported to be completing development of its new RS-28 Sarmat ‘heavy’ intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). While Sarmat’s warhead yield and other performance characteristics are unknown, the 2024 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Russian nuclear weapons report pointed to sources indicating that a Sarmat ICBM could carry up to 14 warheads. Incidentally, the most recent Sarmat flight test in late September 2024 ended in a catastrophic failure, with the missile judged to have exploded inside its silo, according to imagery analysis of the Plesetsk Cosmodrome launch site post-incident, published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ (IISS’) Missile Dialogue Initiative.

Russia’s new Sarmat ICBM, which is in development, is reported to be able to carry up to 14 warheads.
Credit: Russian MoD

Russia’s own in-service SLBM is the RSM-56 Bulava, which is currently deployed onboard seven Project 955/955A Dolgorukiy (Borei) SSBNs within a class that could number up to 14 boats in the longer term. According to Janes Weapons: Strategic, it is expected that each re-entry vehicle (RV) will carry a 100–150 kT nuclear warhead. That is an explosive power per warhead equivalent to 150,000 tonnes of TNT. Each boat has 16 missile tubes; Janes Weapons: Strategic has reported that each missile likely will carry four (or maybe more) MIRV-ed warheads.

Under the 2010 New START strategic arms control treaty, the United States and Russia (the agreement’s two signatories) had been sharing data every six months on strategic weapons levels numbers relating to the terms of the deal. On 21 February 2023, nearly a year after the outbreak of the Russo-Ukraine War in February 2022, Russia suspended its participation in New START. Consequently, the latest available combined dataset released was in March 2022. According to information provided by the US State Department at that time, the reciprocal declared force levels as of 1 March 2022 were: for Russia, 526 operationally deployed strategic launchers, 1,474 deployed warheads, and 761 deployed or non‐deployed ICBM, SLBM, and nuclear‐capable heavy bombers; and for the United States, 686 strategic launchers, 1,515 deployed warheads, and 800 deployed or non‐deployed ICBM, SLBM, and nuclear‐capable heavy bombers.

Despite the overall trend of US-Russian reductions in warhead numbers in recent decades, this is still a vast amount of nuclear firepower. Moreover, there are other nuclear players on the world stage. Given the current geostrategic context of conventional conflict in the Euro-Atlantic theatre between Russia and Ukraine, and persisting concerns regarding crisis and conflict risk in the Indo-Pacific between China and the United States, it is worth noting that China, France, and the UK are amongst these other nuclear players.

China has deployable ICBM and SLBM capabilities, and has an emerging strategic bomber fleet – so, like the United States and Russia, it operates all three legs of a nuclear triad. However, reflecting its focus on regional deterrence, a core emphasis of its nuclear posture is on medium- and intermediate-range systems like the hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV)-capable DF-17 medium-range ballistic missile. It is worth noting also that China’s nuclear force levels are not currently constrained by any nuclear weapons accord.

France is upgrading both elements (air and sea) of its nuclear dyad. The UK maintains a single, SSBN-based leg, but deploys it in a continuous at-sea deterrent (CASD) operational posture based around one SSBN on patrol. In the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR), the UK confirmed the single boat on patrol carries 40 warheads, deployed across up to eight operational missiles.

Strategic impact

Pictures taken in 1945 of US service personnel standing in the ruins of Hiroshima underlines just how little was known at the time about the full impact of even a single nuclear weapon detonation.

This picture of post-bombing Hiroshima in March 1946 speaks volumes regarding the level of devastation wrought by a single nuclear weapon, even one which is fairly low-yield by modern standards.
Credit: US Air Force, via US National Archives

What the short, select discussion above of the current nuclear orders of battle (ORBATs) of five of the world’s nine nuclear powers (India, North Korea, Pakistan, and most likely Israel being the other four) demonstrates is that, while much more is now known about nuclear strategy, nuclear posture, nuclear capabilities, and the potential effects of nuclear use, such increased knowledge is still unlikely to be able to comprehend the likely scale of devastation that would be wrought by even a short exchange of tactical and possibly strategic weapons – for example in central Europe, where such a risk was a dominant fear in the Cold War. With the Russo-Ukraine war, that fear has now returned.

In the 79 years following the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there have been a small number of occasions where general fears about the risk of nuclear war appeared to come quite close to reality. In the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, the Soviet Union deployed but then subsequently removed ballistic missiles in an incident that balanced nuclear rhetoric in public with diplomacy in private. In the latter instance, a now-famous letter from Soviet premier Nikita Krushchev to US president John F Kennedy underlined the risk for both countries, and the wider world, if a solution could not be found, with the “terrible forces [the] countries dispose” risking “reciprocal extermination”.

In the 1983 ‘Able Archer’ incident, a NATO exercise designed to simulate events and processes that could be part of escalation to nuclear war concerned the watching Soviets that the United States might be using the drill as cover for an actual attack; the Soviet response was to put its own nuclear forces on alert, concerning the United States in return but also prompting realization of the urgent need to de-escalate the crisis.

These two events occurred at particularly tense times in the Cold War period. The third occasion when international concern about the risk of nuclear war has been highest is now, during the Russo-Ukraine war. While the Cuban missile crisis and ‘Able Archer’ incidents took place at ‘hot’ times in a Cold War, they still took place in times of peace. Russia and Ukraine are at war, in what is the first state-on-state conventional conflict in Europe since 1945. In invading Ukraine, Russia appears to be trying to take a step towards rebuilding a territorial barrier, buffer zone, or sphere of influence between itself and NATO. As a consequence of the Russian invasion, Ukraine is fighting for national survival, and is relying on significant political and military equipment support from NATO and its member states. NATO’s support is what has prompted regular Russian mention of its options for using its nuclear capability, mentions designed to deter NATO from continuing with such support.

Nuclear rhetoric

In January 2022, the world’s five major nuclear powers – China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States – released a combined statement on preventing nuclear war and avoiding arms races. Collectively, the five countries said they “consider the avoidance of war between nuclear-weapon states and the reduction of strategic risks as our foremost responsibilities”.

“We affirm that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. As nuclear use would have far-reaching consequences, we also affirm that nuclear weapons – for as long as they continue to exist – should serve defensive purposes, deter aggression, and prevent war,” the statement continued.

Yet, from the very outset of the Russo-Ukraine war, the risk of nuclear confrontation between Russia and NATO countries has been a constant factor. The war has been punctuated with Russian nuclear rhetoric, with such rhetoric continuing to bookend events as they unfold. For example, as Russian forces began rolling into Ukraine on 24 February 2022, Russian president Vladimir Putin said “To anyone who would consider interfering from outside: if you do, you will face consequences greater than any you have faced in history. All the relevant decisions have been taken. I hope you hear me.”

Putin’s 24 February 2022 speech included a veiled nuclear warning against intervention by external actors.
Credit: Office of the President of the Russian Federation

As the conflict has ebbed and flowed, fears of nuclear use and escalation risk have persisted. As reported by the BBC, the Director of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), William Burns, pointed to particular moments of concern. Speaking alongside UK Secret Intelligence Service (SIS; also known as MI6) chief Sir Richard Moore at the FT Weekend Festival in London on 7 September 2024, after the two intelligence service leaders had published a joint article in the Financial Times, Burns said there was a moment in late 2022, when Russia was suffering battlefield setbacks, when there was a “genuine risk” of potential Russian use of tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine. Underlining the enduring role of nuclear diplomacy, Burns said he passed messages to Russian officials warning of the consequences of nuclear use. The risk persists, however: “None of us should take lightly the risks of escalation,” said Burns, adding that Russian nuclear sabre rattling is likely to continue.

The most recent rattle came in late September 2024. It occurred while Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy was visiting Washington, DC, and amid ongoing discussion in the West about whether to allow Ukraine to use Western-supplied missiles for long-range conventional strikes into Russia. In comments reported in Western media, Putin followed up a meeting of Russia’s security council by indicating that Russia may be considering adjustments to its nuclear doctrine. “It is proposed that aggression against Russia by any non-nuclear state, but with the participation or support of a nuclear state, be considered as their joint attack on the Russian Federation,” said Putin. According to the reports, Putin said Russia would consider the possibility of nuclear use if it detected the start of a large-scale conventional strike that threatened the country’s sovereignty.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov expanded on Putin’s statement, the reports added. Briefing reporters, he said “It must be considered a specific signal – a signal that warns these countries of the consequences if they participate in an attack on our country by various means, not necessarily nuclear.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov giving a statement to the UN on 28 September 2024.
Credit: Russian MFA

In a speech to the United Nations on 28 September 2024, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said (according to a BBC report) that Western powers were trying to use Ukraine as a means to defeat Russia strategically. “I’m not going to talk here about the senselessness and the danger of the very idea of trying to fight to victory with a nuclear power, which is what Russia is,” Lavrov added.

As always with the language of nuclear deterrence, while clear words may be used, interpretations of their potential application and implication may be more ambiguous. Russian discussion of using a tactical nuclear weapon on the battlefield versus the option of using a nuclear weapon against a NATO state that has provided conventional missiles to Ukraine that have been fired against downtown Moscow may, according to deterrence theory, prompt different responses from the United States and NATO. In practice, however, they may not. As perhaps inherent in CIA chief Burns’ comments regarding messaging to Moscow, United States signals to Russia may well be that nuclear use is nuclear use. Moreover, China and India – two of Russia’s strategic allies – have both issued public statements warning against the use of nuclear weapons in the context of the Russo-Ukraine war.

Yet one area of concern is that Russia could detonate a single, small nuclear weapon somewhere that would not be a direct attack on a NATO member state and thus could be intended as not seeking to directly provoke the United States, while still being part of a demonstration to NATO and to Washington in particular. The use of a tactical nuclear weapon on the battlefield in Ukraine is one much-discussed option, here. There is another less-discussed option: the use of a nuclear weapon at sea.

The US Navy ballistic missile submarine USS Tennessee transits the Norwegian Sea on the surface in June 2024. The use of the sea has featured as a forum for communicating nuclear deterrence messages in the context of the Russo-Ukraine war.
Credit: US Navy

In a BBC article published on 28 February 2022, just after war broke out, the BBC’s Steve Rosenberg asked ‘would Putin press the nuclear button’? In the piece, Rosenberg quoted Moscow-based defence analyst Dr Pavel Felgenhauer’s discussion of the options Putin might have if progress in the war was difficult for Russia and if Western powers imposed, for example, significant economic and financial sanctions.

“One option for him is to cut gas supplies to Europe, hoping that will make the Europeans climb down,” Dr Felgenhauer was cited as saying. “Another option is to explode a nuclear weapon somewhere over the North Sea between Britain and Denmark and see what happens.”

An implication of this point is that dropping a single nuclear weapon over the North Sea would effectively be a ‘shot across the bows’ of NATO, seeking to deter NATO from giving any further support to Ukraine.

Senior Russian figures have discussed another, similar option. In April 2023, following sanctions imposed by the UK on Russia, Dmitry Medvedev – deputy chair of Russia’s security council, and a former president – wrote on Telegram that the UK could be “sent into the abyss of the sea by waves created by the latest Russian weapons system”. Talking publicly about conducting a nuclear attack on a NATO member state that is a geostrategically isolated island could be part of Russian deterrent messaging to the United States and the rest of the alliance that Russia could consider a demonstration attack to dissuade NATO from continuing its support for Ukraine.

Oil and gas platforms are part of critical infrastructure in the North Sea. Targeting such infrastructure would be a non-kinetic, non-nuclear way for Russia to isolate NATO states.
Credit: NATO

Such a demonstration attack would not necessarily need to involve a nuclear weapon, either. In recent years, and especially since 2022, media reports in the UK and Irish press have routinely discussed Russian operations at sea to survey critical undersea infrastructure (CUI) around the UK and Ireland. Using conventional forces to target CUI would be a means of isolating the UK and sending another strategic-level message to NATO and the United States.

The United States may also have used the sea to conduct – and communicate – demonstrations of nuclear capability and commitment, in the context of the Russo-Ukraine war and wider Euro-Atlantic insecurity. Usually, it is unheard of that an SSBN would sail visibly on the surface while out at sea (as opposed to being in or near its homebase); it would usually be even more unheard of that the USN would take and actually publish photos of it happening. Yet, occasionally in recent years, this is just what has happened. Most recently, on 23 June 2024, a picture was published on the US Navy’s website of the Ohio class SSBN USS Tennessee transiting the Norwegian Sea on the surface. A few days previously, Putin had announced that Russia was considering changes to its nuclear doctrine following what Moscow perceived as NATO’s own discussion of lowering the threshold for nuclear use.

It is worth noting that Tennessee was the first Ohio SSBN to be fitted with the W76-2 lower-yield warhead, with its first deployment with the capability understood to have commenced in late 2019 (according to Janes reports).

Strategic use

The discussion of options for using nuclear weapons must be set in the context of why – in other words, what is the perceived purpose of using nuclear weapons, for example at sea? In the context of the Russo-Ukraine war, any Russian use of nuclear weapons at this stage in the conflict would not be for warfighting output but for strategic deterrent effect, signalling to NATO to stay out of it.

A UK-led carrier strike group operates in the North Sea in November 2023. Any Russian demonstration use of a nuclear weapon over the North Sea may strike the numerous NATO ships that operate in the region.
Credit: Crown Copyright 2023

Moreover, it can be argued that the Russo-Ukraine conflict and the escalation risk therein has re-baselined deterrence theory and practice to its original setting in the nuclear world. Conventional war in Europe appears to have reinforced the position that options for using nuclear weapons still sit solely at the strategic level, relating to the survival of the state. Despite the nuclear rhetoric and red lines in Russia’s language since February 2022, Putin’s latest statement underlines the clear link being drawn between options for nuclear use and perceived threats to the survivability of state sovereignty.

Certainly, a demonstration use needs to be clearly visible, and arguably attributable. However, even a demonstration use at sea would come with risk. For example, NATO naval ships are present widely across the North Sea region: this would raise the question of whether NATO might construe the destruction of NATO ships at sea to be a direct attack on those member states.

Yet the high stakes in the Russo-Ukraine war have only – so far – served to reinforce the risks of escalation in any prospective nuclear weapons use. Discussion of options for using ‘tactical’ weapons – whether on the battlefield in Ukraine, or over the North Sea – only seem to have underlined that the devastating effects that would be generated by any nuclear use, however small, would create not only an unprecedented level of unimaginable damage but would run the increased risk for the world of wider nuclear use, and the wider devastation that would accompany it.

Dr Lee Willett

Dr Lee Willett is an independent writer and analyst on naval, maritime, and wider defence and security matters. Previously, he was editor of Janes Navy International, senior research fellow in maritime studies at the Royal United Services Institute, London, and Leverhulme research fellow at the Centre for Security Studies, University of Hull.

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