Postures, Policy For Low-Yield, Disruptive Weapons.

• Author: Giordano, James

The immediate humanitarian and environmental effects of Russia's threatened use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine are not the gravest threats facing international peace and stability.

Rather, the greatest concerns should be the failure of U.S. nuclear deterrence, implications for broader proliferation and the resultant shift from the liberal democratic global order posed by any violation of non-use of nuclear arms. The implications extend to all forms of weapons of mass destruction and/or disruption that to date have been deeply regarded as opprobrious among democracies. Discriminate use of even the lowest yield chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons would be highly disruptive beyond the battlefield and would loosen norms and weaken U.S. leadership of the international order.

Since Moscow increased rhetoric on nuclear use, many observers have focused upon the danger of escalation that could put the United States and NATO into direct conflict with Russia.

President Joe Biden in October invoked worry over "Armageddon" in a speech about the Russian threat, stating that this is the first time since the Cuban missile crisis that there has been a direct risk of nuclear arms use. To be sure, escalating violence is a deeply valid concern, but hyperbole about nuclear exchanges is rooted in outdated fears of entire cities being obliterated in counter population strikes. Strategic planners should anticipate that the first violation of nuclear non-use in 77 years may not come from Cold War warhead designs that delivered ever larger thermonuclear yields.

Instead, serious planning for how to respond to an abrogation of counter-WMD norms should consider the fault lines in and around a discriminate employment against a justifiable military objective that may incur limited--if any--civilian casualties.

Continuing to categorize all yields and employment strategies of CBRN as tools of mass destruction precludes a genuine, objective assessment of their realistic possible use as potent disruptions of both intra-and international systems.

A nuclear explosion would surely get attention, but there is debate amongst experts on whether it would automatically lead to "nuclear winter" or other Earth-altering scenarios, according to a March 2020 article in Nature, "How a Small Nuclear War Would Transform the Entire Planet."

Consider Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea compared to the rancor over its "special military operation" in this year's general...