TNW

• Russia is reported to have deployed nuclear weapons in Belarus, a step that was much telegraphed earlier this year and recently confirmed by Poland.
• Russia reportedly has the world’s biggest nuclear arsenal, with (as of 2023) 5,889 nuclear warheads compared to 5,244 deployed by the US.
• That said, the rhetoric from the Russian leadership since the invasion of Ukraine has regularly raised the threat of Russia’s nuclear stockpile.

Different classes of nuclear weapons

• This idea of mutually assured destruction is linked to strategic nuclear weapons – which can be used to strike big targets – such as cities – more than 3,500km away and carry huge payloads.
• But the weapons reportedly being stationed in Belarus by Russia are tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs).
• In 2018, then US defense secretary Jim Mattis, said: “I don’t think there is any such thing as a ‘tactical nuclear weapon.’ Any nuclear weapon used any time is a strategic game-changer”.

Russia’s nuclear policy

• Current Russian nuclear doctrine, outlines four cases in which it would use its nuclear weapons.
• The first three cases are currently largely inapplicable given no one is attacking or threatening Russia with ballistic missiles or nuclear weapons.
• This essentially means that a key part of Russia’s nuclear doctrine holds that to de-escalate a non-nuclear (conventional) conflict, Russia would have to escalate it first through the threat of a limited or tactical nuclear strike.
• Russia’s nuclear forces have been on “high alert” since February 2022, days after the invasion began.
• They looked at me like when I said I worry about Putin using tactical nuclear weapons.