Invading the invader requires daring. Especially when the latter has a large nuclear arsenal and you don't have the bomb yourself. Limited as it may be, with the occupation of some 1,500 square kilometers of Russian territory, the incursion begun on August 6 on Kursk by Ukrainian forces constitutes a turning point in the war in Ukraine, but also in the history of nuclear power.
In the grammar of deterrence as it has been forged since 1949, after the Soviets in turn acquired the atomic weapon, the latter is supposed to protect the territory of the country that holds it. The escalation could have been dizzying. The Kremlin chose to minimize the scope of the Ukrainian operation, even though it was the first attack by foreign troops in Russia since 1945 – if we put aside the incidents on the Russian-Chinese border in 1969.
The French word “dissuasion” comes from Latin dissuadethat is, to convince the other party by a firm, even threatening, word to renounce the action that he was planning. Its English equivalent, deterrencecomes from Latin earth“to scare.” The message must both show the determination of the person sending it, while remaining sufficiently vague so that the attacker cannot calculate the exact consequences of this or that act. To be effective, deterrence requires a subtle mix of clarity and calculated ambiguity, where the unsaid and the implicit count at least as much as the explicit.
“No nuclear-armed state has ever claimed that the slightest armed incursion into its territory would unleash nuclear lightning.”tempers Bruno Tertrais, deputy director of the Foundation for Strategic Research, recalling that “Geography matters” and that “Entering 100 kilometers into Russian territory is not the same as entering 100 kilometers into Israeli territory”. In fact, Russian nuclear doctrine states that the ultimate weapon will only be used in the event of an existential threat to the state. France's doctrine refers to the vital interests of the nation. For all powers that possess it, the bomb is the ultimate weapon.
Great upheaval
The war in Ukraine is nonetheless taking place in the shadow of nuclear power. Threatening, the Russian president recalled that his country was a nuclear power, prompting the French authorities to raise the alert level. A month after the start of the Russian invasion, on March 21, 2022, The Telegram announced that a third nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine was leaving Île Longue and that, for the first time since the end of the Cold War, three of the flagships of the French strike force would be at sea simultaneously. At the same time, the United States was increasing the number of its nuclear warheads hosted in five NATO countries (Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Turkey) from the 1950s.
You have 83.27% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
Source: Lemonde
