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n October 6, U.S. President Joe Biden said the risk of nuclear “Armageddon” was at its highest level since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Biden said Russian President Vladimir Putin was a guy he knew fairly well, and that Putin was “not joking when he talks about the use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons.”

Lately Russia has been suffering major setbacks and losing strategic cities in Ukraine. Putin has repeatedly suggested using nuclear weapons if the “territorial integrity of our country is threatened.” The frequency of such rhetoric is escalating as the Russian army suffers major disappointments.

Joe Biden added that the threat from Vladimir Putin may be serious because the Russian military seemed to be “significantly underperforming.”

How have Russia’s nuclear threats evolved? What are Russia’s nuclear capabilities? Should the world really worry about a potential nuclear war?

Russia’s nuclear moves

Three days after Russia began the military invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Putin ordered the placement of Russian nuclear forces on high alert.

Russia drew criticism from many world leaders when Putin threatened to use nuclear weapons to defend annexed territories during the week of the annual UN General Assembly Meeting.

“This is not a bluff… those who try to blackmail us with nuclear weapons should know that the wind vane can turn and point toward them,” warned Putin.

On September 30, Putin also stated that the U.S. created a “precedent” by using nuclear weapons in World War II.

According to the Russian nuclear doctrine, Russia considers nuclear weapons as a deterrent. They can be used if attacked by nuclear weapons or other types of weapons of mass destruction targeting the Russian territories or the territories of its allies; when the existence of the Russian state is in danger with the use of conventional weapons; or when Russian critical governmental or military sites are attacked threatening its nuclear capability.

In this context, Putin’s signing of the four federal constitutional laws annexing the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson is important because in order to “defend” these annexed regions, Putin can resort to the Russian nuclear doctrine.

How destructive can these weapons be?

Even the smallest warhead could cause major damage and loss of life at the moment of strike, not to mention the long-term effects of radiation. However, there are factors that determine how destructive a nuclear weapon can be: yield and the surface where the blast takes place.

Yield is what defines the power of a nuclear weapon. Modern tactical weapons have a capacity of around 10 to 100 kilotons, which makes them more destructive than the nuclear bombs used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which respectively had yields of 15 and 21 kilotons.

Russia possesses the most powerful nuclear bomb that has ever exploded, the Tsar Bomba with a yield of at least 50 megatons.

Where the blast occurs may have an effect on the damage; depending on the terrain or on whether it occurs underground or on the surface, the surroundings may absorb some of the blow.

The immediate impact zone would likely be annihilated, and structures that are hit by the blast wave could be destroyed up to several kilometers.

Should we worry?

Yes—and no: while the destruction that these weapons cause is catastrophic, and Russia seems to be playing with fire, the tactical weapons that Russia may choose to use in Ukraine need to be transported and deployed. This could take days, and in the meantime, intelligence services from other countries would likely detect such activity.

Yet, the state of the nuclear non-proliferation regime is deplorable. According to the Federation of American Scientists, nuclear-armed states retain large arsenals for the indefinite future instead of planning for nuclear disarmament. Meanwhile, all nuclear-armed states continue to modernize their remaining nuclear forces at a “significant pace,” and several are adding new types and/or increasing the role they serve in national strategy and public statements.

This includes Russia, which continues a “comprehensive” modernization program to replace most of the Soviet-era weapons and introduce new types.

Q.What is the New START treaty and why is it important?

The New START Treaty is the last remaining arms control agreement between the United States and Russia that puts limits on their strategic nuclear weapons and provides transparency between the two countries regarding their nuclear arsenals. Under the New START Treaty, both sides are allowed to have 1,550 deployed strategic warheads, which means that the nuclear warheads are on launchers either missiles or bombers. Each side can also have 800 total launchers – missiles or the aircraft-, 700 of which can be deployed.

The reality, however, is that there are other weapons that are not deployed and not counted under this treaty. So, the warheads awaiting dismantlement are not included in this Treaty.

And also, for the transparency measures, both the U.S. and the Russian sides can conduct 18 onsite inspections per year in nuclear facilities in the other country, and there is also information about the nuclear arsenals that is exchanged every six months, which helps both sides have some kind of confidence in their knowledge of how many weapons there are, and where they are located. That is important for stability and predictability in planning and why people are so worried about this treaty going away.

Q. What should we expect if the treaty is renewed -or not-?

First of all, I assume that the New START treaty will be extended, but if it were not, it would be the first time in 50 years without such limits on the U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons. And it feels that we would be losing that era of working together for our mutual security.

The U.S. plan for modernization accounts for having these weapons for the next 80 years, and thus it is hard to credibly say we are going to disarm when we have this plan for 80 years. On the other hand, you have the non-nuclear-weapon states in the world that are pushing for disarmament through the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which was negotiated in the summer of 2017. 50 countries ratified the Treaty, and it entered into force very recently on January 22, 2021. And so, you have this trend on one side with these non-nuclear-weapon states (NNWS) urging for disarmament  rather than modernization. Those two trends make this whole nuclear order very challenging right now.

Q. Are there any sign of a rather multi-lateral nuclear treaty that could replace the New START? Are there any official talk with other nuclear-weapon countries such as India, Israel, Iran, North Korea, etc.?

I think a lot of people would say, we hope eventually we get to a multilateral limit. But again, there is that pressure that the U.S. and Russia still have to come down in their arsenal numbers. In the absence of a formal treaty, there is still a lot of opportunities for countries to talk in  multilateral fora  about their nuclear doctrine and ways to reduce the risk of a potential detonation, whether accidental or on purpose.

I do think it would be good for P5 countries, China, France, Russia, the U.K., and the U.S. to work on that. They already have P5 meetings within the context of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which came into force in 1970, and it is still the cornerstone of the whole non-proliferation order.

But some of the other states you mentioned are not in the NPT; India, Pakistan and Israel for example never joined, and North Korea withdrew from the NPT in 2003. It is also true that South Sudan is not in the treaty, but I assume that at some point in the future, they will join.

Still, it is a very long long-term vision to think all of these nuclear weapons states, whether they are in the NPT or not, coming together and thinking about how to pursue nuclear reductions or how to improve their security relationships. That is very difficult to imagine, but even having talks would be useful.

Q. What about the Biden era? Which developments do you expect under the Biden administration?

This past year, President Biden wrote a piece in Foreign Policy, saying that he would consider a sole-use doctrine, which is based on the idea that nuclear weapons are only useful for deterring other nuclear weapons, and so that they are not used for any other kind of military contingency. We can say that Biden is trying to reduce the role of nuclear weapons and limit the scope of where nuclear weapons are appropriately employed.

I assume the Biden administration will quickly try to extend New START. There are a lot of people in the arms control and disarmament non-proliferation community that hope that the administration will extend for the full five years, which is allowed under the treaty. But there is also the pressure to develop the next treaty. There have also been some talks about whether to extend it, but for just one or two years. Five years is a long time, but it takes a lot of time to negotiate, so an extension of two years would put a lot of pressure to start negotiating the next Treaty.

Q. What would be different in this new Treaty that shall come to the table, an updated version of the New START?

I think the U.S. would like to see a treaty that is broader in terms of the types of nuclear weapons that it includes. The New START puts a limitation on deployed strategic weapons, but there is another category of nuclear weapons, called either “non-strategic” or “tactical weapons”, and these are not included in any treaties and have not ever been.

And so, the U.S. would like to capture these, because the Russians have more of these so-called “tactical weapons” than the U.S. does. And I think that at this point, many of us presume that any use of nuclear weapons is going to have a strategic effect. Even if it were a non-strategic weapon, it would still have huge consequences. Therefore this division between strategic and tactical is less meaningful.

The big security challenge in this realm from now on is going to be figuring out whether it is possible to bring different military technologies and capabilities to bear into one agreement because arms control is not just to limit weapons, it is to increase everyone’s security.