2024-03-23 03:20:14
Putin’s allusions to the use of atomic vectors, as the news channels relay them indiscriminately, are nothing new in the dialectic of nuclear deterrence.
If there is one area where many continuous media outlets have found a good opportunity, it is military nuclear power. Certainly, most often helped by President Putin and his information relays, including fake news. With the Russians trying to scare the Europeans, these media are adding another layer.
In this race for ratings and the battle for public attention, what counts is not the truth of the facts and the nuances, it is the catastrophism that can attract the average citizen is very unfamiliar with the language of nuclear dialectics.
Some edifying examples to boot. The placing of the Russian army on special combat alert regime in 2022 did not only concern nuclear power. This included mobilizing more personnel in different forces such as anti-satellite, anti-aircraft, anti-ballistic, denial of access weapons, cyber and other so-called traditional forces. Nothing specifically nuclear, but some went for this one intimidating version.
It is becoming urgent and necessary for the 24-hour TV media to stop playing on emotion and excitement in matters of military nuclear power.
Likewise, the recent media coverage by the Financial Times of the lowering of the Russian nuclear threshold, in fact involving old documents of training scenarios for a Russian-Chinese nuclear conflict, adds a lot of confusion.
As for the “discovered” and “confidential” plans on military planning around the use of tactical nuclear weapons, they have always existed on paper, in safes, and in very large numbers. They are not just “confidential” but at the highest level of security when it comes to nuclear. So inaccessible.
Messages to external and internal destinations
Also, the catastrophism of the comments following Putin’s speech to the nation on February 29 where he recalls that Russia can hit targets in Western Europe is a small message back – subliminal – of President Macron’s speech on the possible ground presence of soldiers from European countries in Ukraine.
Russian vital interests remain limited to the violation of their territory or in the face of nuclear aggression suffered first.
Russian speeches also an internal function aimed at the population in order to regain confidence, play on power, militarize society and strengthen Putinian nationalism against a backdrop of Orthodox space, via a mixture of concrete decisions and thematic propaganda. It’s about impressing “perhaps thinking [pouvoir] dominate each theater by playing on the risk of escalation”, as Dmitry (Dima) Adamsky already wrote in 2017.
In all cases, nothing new in the dialectic of nuclear deterrence. Russian vital interests remain limited to the violation of their territory or in the face of nuclear aggression suffered first.
It is becoming urgent and necessary for continuous TV media to stop playing on emotion and excitement, whether real or feigned for commercial purposes, the lack of knowledge being sometimes/often present. Continuous media also dramatize sometimes – tremolo vocals added – confusing (voluntarily or not) deterrence (“threaten to use so as not to use it”), and actual use (nuclear war, deterrence having not worked) from which no one will emerge victorious.
Three paradoxical logics
Obviously, nuclear posturing – namely, the threat of employment – is based on a dialectical game between the risk (cost/benefit) and the stakes (proportionality). A nuclear power is only credible if it organizes its dissuasive doctrine around three “paradoxical” logics.
The relationship to deterrence is not based specifically on quantity, but on the capacity for retaliation.
Primoa declaratory strategy ensuring that the signals emitted on the desire for employment are relevant (bluff), then playing on plausibility and cross-anticipation equations.
Secondlya strategy of means, namely operational credibility for operational use with first strike forces, but also protected retaliatory forces (range, power, precision, perforation, survivability, mobility, stealth).
Thirdlya procedural strategy with political decision-making centralityprinciple of State authority associating senior civil and military officials (weapon activation codes and order givers via protected channels).
And also to forget that the relationship to deterrence is not based specifically on quantity, but on the capacity for retaliation. Since then, potential allies and French ensure mutual deterrence against the Russianseach of which can promise mutually assured destruction via forces protected underwater, in silos or in land mobility.
Don’t fall into Putin’s trap
We obviously need to weigh certain rantings from the continuous channels. The daily repetition of the theme combined with all the sauces results in the promotion of frightening titles and images that in no way correspond to the nuclear systems described (images of tests of intercontinental missiles taking off to address tactical nuclear power on the set).
Putin’s goal is for Western countries to no longer support Ukraine.
Let us add a strong emotionality of certain journalist commentators, the presence of repetitive television banners out of context, the insistence on the nuclear theme outside of “critical periods” as well as poor mastery of concepts or their oversimplification.
In the same vein, we were also treated to maps showing the circumferences of the destruction of large Western cities razed by Russian nuclear missiles, as during the Cold War! An anxiety-provoking climate is thus createdwith also the unhealthy character of spending too much time thinking about the “risks” of a nuclear confrontation, long after Russian nuclear signals have “gone out” in the Kremlin’s speeches.
Many television reports were thus adorned with provocative titles, creating the conditions of shared anxiety for “ordinary mortals”, a Russian objective thus well and truly achieved. In other words, we are thus tantamount to striking fear into a part of Western public opinion that is unfamiliar with the nuclear dialectic. However, let us recall the “Putinian” objective: no longer supporting Ukraine.
Par André Dumoulinhonorary lecturer at the University of Liège.
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