Is Russian President Vladimir Putin facing a use it or lose it situation? Will the Russian leader perceive a critical need to employ a weapon of mass destruction to move his war in Ukraine into the win category for Moscow this summer? Are we entering a new nuclear era of uncertainty with an increasing likelihood of mistakes? These are a few of the daunting questions being bantered about by analysts in Washington this June. Next-generation sensors and machine-learning powered tools provide the United States with extensive and improved raw data collection once considered inaccessible. Although we employ the most advanced warning systems of a ballistic missile attack available, there are concerns about validation protocols, human mistakes, and more recently deep cyber intrusions. For the leadership in Washington, DC there is only about a two-minute window of opportunity to make a command decision on whether to respond by launching a retaliatory nuclear strike. There is less time from launch for Ukraine and other parts of Europe to decide on how to respond to a Russian nuclear escalation.
President Putin continues to threaten Ukraine with deploying tactical nuclear weapons. He is not alone in issuing such threats. North Korea’s Kim Jong-un has conducted a number of provocative ballistic missile tests. China is building its nuclear triad deterrent capability at a fast pace with its new submarine-launched missiles, and Iran is rebuilding its nuclear program. There is reason for concern in each case. In aggregate, it lends to the perception that the line between conventional and nuclear war is blurring, and the nuclear threat is re-emerging in the 21st century. Russia’s war in Ukraine exacerbates the immediate nuclear threat to Europe while simultaneously lowering the threshold for use by Putin’s declaring a tactical nuclear weapon no different than the large conventional bombs in the West’s inventories.
If a NATO nation is attacked, the United States under Article Five of the NATO Charter is required to come to the aid of that Member state. “We argue that this [Biden] administration should break from its predecessors and adopt a “decide-under-attack” posture. This action would shift the retaliation posture from a time-constrained decision in the fog of war to deliberate action based on evidence of an attack,” according to Johnathan Falcone, Jonathan Rodriguez Cefalu and Maarten Bos, writing in War on the Rocks. What if there is cyber exploitation of critical hardware and software components by Russia and the West is provoked into a false response? It could provide Putin with the justification he needs, and improve his domestic support to launch an attack on Western Europe.
For deterrence to be effective in Europe, adversaries must believe that a Russian first strike would be detected, and retaliatory weapons would be employed. In the post-Cold War era, modernized command and control systems are more reliant on computers but still susceptible to cyber exploitation. Falcone says, “This is a significant risk when combined with an outdated retaliatory option, as it impacts incentives for preemptive or retaliatory nuclear launch decision-making.” The war in Ukraine is different from concerns during the Soviet era and attacks against the then-vulnerable, American land-based Minuteman missiles.
Today, a Russian cyber-attack creating a scenario of a nuclear launch, spoofing a tactical or strategic missile attack, could create confusion, would be difficult to verify for the West, and add to the overall threat level to Europe. In a worst-case scenario, it might end in NATO’s decision to retaliate. Putin knows that the absence of real-world data means the West will rely on limited data sets from simulations and intelligence developed on his nuclear delivery capabilities. An increasing reliance on tools in a launch-under-attack option means greater uncertainty in model outputs. Inaccurate intelligence or bias in the machine-learning systems could lead NATO to misinterpret real events.
In a decide-under-attack option, the US President along with NATO, will be able to reduce the time pressure by introducing a delayed response. It could help in the event of Russian fabrication of a false signal and expand the decision space to launch a retaliatory strike. If Putin deceives the West into believing there is an attack in progress, the world could face regional warfare across Europe that would likely draw the world into a new age of nuclear warfare. Is this scenario unlikely? For now, the answer is yes. If the spring offensive leaves Putin in a worse military situation later this year, the odds of war across Europe change. Like a cornered snake, Putin is capable of striking out at anyone in his line of sight. The war in Ukraine is nowhere close to over.
Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.