Page 50 - North Atlantic and Nordic Defense

North European and North Atlantic Defense: The Challenges Return

For the Russians, President Putin announced in December 2015, that Kalibr cruise missiles had been fired by the
submered Rostov-on-Don submarine from the Mediterranean for the first time.

He said TU-22 bombers also took part in the latest raids and that “significant damage” had been done to
a munitions depot, a factory manufacturing mortar rounds and oil facilities. Two major targets in Raqqa, the
defacto capital of Isis, had been hit, said Mr Shoigu.

President Putin said the new cruise missiles could also be equipped with nuclear warheads – but that he hoped they
would never need them.

He said: “With regard to strikes from a submarine. We certainly need to analyse everything that is happening
on the battlefield, how the weapons work. Both the [Kalibr] missiles and the Kh-101 rockets are generally showing
very good results.
We now see that these are new, modern and highly effective high-precision weapons that can be equipped either
with conventional or special nuclear warheads.”

http://www.sldinfo.com/the-fight-against-isis-the-russians-and-the-french-go-after-fixed-targets-with-cruise-
missiles/

The intervention in Ukraine demonstrated as well a skillful seizure of Crimea, and use of information warfare,
special forces, and internal subversion in Ukraine. There was very little interest demonstrated in a full up
classic invasion of Ukraine by a large Soviet army group.

In fact, if one looks carefully at the Russian military and how it has been modernized, the shaping of an
intervention force using modern means, and technologies has been a clear priority over the force structure
used in the past built around large army groups.

Not only is this more effective to serve the global policy of Putin, but if one inserts tactical nuclear weapons
within a conventional calculus, there really is no need for a large Soviet army group.

(Remember President Eisenhower, anyone?)

Strategic deterrence holds in Putin's view, for the US will not allow the Russians to shape an arsenal that would
have decisive consequences in nuclear exchanges, or put more bluntly, the US should focus on nuclear
modernization which keeps this kind of nuclear deterrence in place.

Yet there is no real consideration in US defense strategy for having nuclear weapons thought of OUTSIDE of a
ladder of NUCLEAR escalation strategy.
But what if small yield and precise nuclear weapons are used with limited effect to stop any potential war in
the West for such use with Europe in increasing disarray might make sense to achieve political results of
fundamentally collapsing the Western Alliance, the threat still considered by Putin a key one to Russia and its
ambitions?
As Dr. James Conca wrote:

In the end, however, our nuclear force crews, and the American public, see the threat of full-scale nuclear war as
“simply nonexistent.”

Not so in Russia. They’re ready. And what would we do if they used these tactical nukes against one of its
neighbors?
Second Line of Defense

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