Moscow’s Perspective on Nuclear Deterrence and War

Abstract

While the threat of Russia’s use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine remains, it becomes ever more important to address the long history of confusion among Western analysts in trying to understand the Kremlin’s thinking. Anzhelika Solovyeva contends that while the Soviets were more serious and systematic in terms of deterrence than has often been assumed, layered deterrence and theatre-level war-fighting constitute two complementary but different paradigms of Russia’s current nuclear strategy.◼