Escalate to De-Escalate?

[CharlesHarris]

When war planners of both sides got together in the 1990's the US was totally shocked to discover that Russia had a totally different nuclear doctrine. Use, control and targeting. The US and SU had been fighting two totally different wars. SU nuclear doctrine was far more grounded in military and political reality. It's a pity Herman Kahn wasn't still around at the time. I'm huge fan of his. It would have been interesting to hear his opinion once the true SU doctrine became known...

By 2016 or so it became obvious that Putin was planning to move again soon and that limited nuclear use was a key part of his negotiating strategy of naked blackmail. Everything was shaped by the Russians for a Berlin 1961 style crisis in 2017 over Ukraine and the Near Abroad states. The events of 2016 up to November, especially the frantic pace and location of "special" Russian military exercises, was unprecedented since the early 1980's. As was all the Russian "hacking" activity.

Open source intel provides a good window into Russian doctrine, targets and politics. Back in 2016 targets were specifically mentioned times in Russian media, as were the supporting doctrine and politics. An interview in Tass by the head of the Iskander battery in Kaliningrad in 2016 being very explicit about where his missiles were aimed. The NATO response to a "Escalate to Deescalate" detonation was from careful reading of what was already in the public domain and in some background textbooks. The NATO response target list in Russian is pretty short given NATO doctrine.

The wildcard is the independent French Force De Frappe. The French are very coy about use doctrine and have made it very clear from the beginning (and recently by Macron) that if the Russians makes any use of nucs and NATO under US and UK pressure does not respond, then they will, like when they stomped Caspar Weinbergers "Limited Nuclear War in Europe" idea back in the early 1980's. Thats why there was a quick "re-calibration" of US nuclear use doctrine back to the 1970's status quo.

So like all history a complicated story of a comedy of errors.