Countries like Iran and North Korea may feel emboldened to cross the nuclear weapons threshold, confident that flaunting their nuclear deterrent will make adversaries back down out of fear of escalation. Russia’s move threatens to undermine already lacklustre and admittedly halfhearted efforts towards non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and disarmament. By raising the risk by lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons, Russia has changed the understanding of how nuclear deterrence works. Simultaneously, its actions illustrate how nuclear weapons provide asymmetric advantages in case of conventional warfare. If the cloud of nuclear war floats above the battlefield, war could take precedence over deterrence and proliferation over disarmament leading to further nuclear instability.

Source: The Hindu May 22, 2024 14:40 UTC