Russia Matters, 6/3/24

Russia’s leading scholar of nuclear arms Alexey Arbatov has crossed swords with one of the most renowned pro-Kremlin experts on geopolitics, Dmitri Trenin, on whether and how nuclear arms control can be revived, while also debating whether the tenets of Russia’s nuclear deterrence should evolve. In a commentary for Interfax, Arbatov describes Russia’s current approach as defensive deterrence, but also acknowledges the calls for a transition to offensive deterrence made by what he has described, tongue-in-cheek, perhaps, as “independent strategists,” and which would be employed to support the country’s military offensives. In his commentary, Arbatov also calls for “restoring arms control, renovating the negotiation process and expanding them from bilateral to various multilateral formats and new weapons systems.” In his turn, Trenin writes in his commentary for Interfax that “arms control is dead and will not be revived.” Moreover, Trenin calls for “an active strategy of nuclear deterrence that would lower the threshold for use of nuclear weapons that is too high today.” Instead of authorizing use of nuclear weapons over “a threat to the very existence of the state,” Russian strategic documents should authorize such use over “a threat to the vital interests of the country,” according to Trenin. Implementing Trenin’s suggestion would require revising not only the language on the use of nuclear weapons in the 2014 Military Doctrine and 2020 Basic Principles of State Policy of the Russian Federation on Nuclear Deterrence, but also the language on national interests in, for instance, Russia’s 2021 National Security Strategy, which describes national interests such as “maintaining… harmony” and in “conservation of natural resources.”*