Realist IR Theory, the Russia-Ukraine War, nuclear threats and nuclear deterrence
Jeffrey Mankoff1 recently described the situation of Ukraine from his own “realist” international-relations perspective and offered this view of Putin’s nuclear threats since the start of the Russia-Ukraine War in 2022:
The most serious realist objection to continuing US support for Ukraine centers on the prospect that the conflict will escalate—either vertically (i.e., involving the use of more powerful weapons, including weapons of mass destruction) or horizontally (i.e., beyond Ukraine and into NATO member territory). Moscow has deliberately cultivated these fears: at the start of the invasion, Putin warned that countries attempting to interfere with the invasion of Ukraine would face “consequences … such as you have never seen in your entire history,” and in September Putin noted that the United States had created a precedent for nuclear use with its bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, hinting that Russia would be justified in resorting to nuclear use if it failed to achieve its objectives through conventional means. Threats of horizontal escalation have meanwhile been directed at Russian neighbors such as Moldova and Kazakhstan that have had the temerity to criticize the invasion of Ukraine or suggest they might seek to deepen alignment with the West in response. Many respected Western observers, including former White House staffer Fiona Hill, Harvard professor Graham Allison, and CIA director William Burns have warned that Putin’s nuclear threats should be taken seriously.
Taking them seriously does not, however, require discarding the core realist insight that states and leaders are motivated by self-interest—above all, an interest in survival. Russian nuclear doctrine is clear on the circumstances under which Moscow would use nuclear weapons: after an attack on Russia using weapons of mass destruction, or in response to a conventional attack when “the very existence of the state is in jeopardy.” Two caveats apply, however. First, doctrinal statements may not be dispositive, especially in a personalistic regime during periods of high stress, and second, Russia’s claimed annexation of Crimea and four oblasts of eastern Ukraine creates ambiguity around the question of where Moscow would draw the line regarding the “existence of the state.” [my emphasis]
And Mankoff makes this judgment: “The lesson realists should take from these developments is not that escalation is impossible, but that the old logic of deterrence, which allowed the United States and the Soviet Union to navigate the Cold War without resorting to nuclear conflict, still applies.”
He also has some worthwhile policy observations. Definitely worth a read. It’s yet another reminder of my love-hate relationship with realist international-relations theory. I always worry that the underlying assumptions are too cynical. But the Realists have an annoying way of looking at the most relevant decisions points.
Mankoff, Jeffrey (2023): The Realist Case for Ukraine. Foreign Policy Resarch Institute (FPRI) 01/25/2023. <https://www.fpri.org/article/2023/01/the-realist-case-for-ukraine/> (Accessed: 2023-27-02).