[Soodang Security Studies Colloquium #17] Russian Nuclear Strategy: Change and Prospects

• Presenters: Sunwoo Paek (Korea University DIS) and Iordanka Alexandrova (Korea University PDI)
  
• Discussant: Seong Ho Sheen (Seoul National University GSIS)
• Date and time: February 25, 2025 (Friday) / 17:00
• Organized by: Peace & Democracy Institute, Department of Political Science and International Relations

On February 25, 2022, Korea University’s Institute of Peace and Democracy held the 17th Sujean Security Colokium.

Dr. Sun Woo Baek of Korea University’s Graduate School of International Studies and Iordanka Alexandrova of Korea University’s Peace & Democracy Institute participated as presenters, and Professor Sheen Seong Ho of Seoul National University’s Graduate School of International Studies participated as debaters.

In Colloquium, the author published his first draft, “Russia’s Nuclear Strategy: Change and Prospects.” Russia’s nuclear strategy has long been the subject of debate among many scholars. This is further triggered by the announcement that new Russia can use nuclear weapons against conventional attacks after the end of the Cold War. Against this backdrop, there has been ongoing discussion about whether Russia is pursuing a “escalate to de-escalate” strategy of obtaining policy concessions from its opponents by threatening that conventional war may unintentionally escalate into a nuclear war.

Therefore, the author analyzed the changes and aspects of Russia’s nuclear strategy from the time the Soviet Union took possession of nuclear weapons in the 1950s to modern Russia. According to the author, from nuclear development to the mid-1960s, the Soviet Union adopted an asymmetric expansion strategy that responded to conventional threats with nuclear attacks, and from the late 1960s to the end of the Cold War, an assured retaliation strategy that focused on deterrence. The key point of this draft was that Russia’s nuclear strategy returned to its asymmetric expansion strategy during the post-Cold War era, but after 2010, Russia’s nuclear strategy was reinforced by massive military modernization efforts and shifted back to a corroborative retaliation strategy. Since the establishment of the new Russian government, Russia has repeatedly rejected the principle of non-preemptive use of nuclear weapons in 1993 and has repeatedly shown that it has adopted an asymmetric expansion strategy, indicating that it can respond to conventional attacks with nuclear weapons. But since the massive military modernization efforts in the 2010s, Russia has again shown its role as a weapon to deter nuclear attacks, while focusing on strengthening strategic nuclear weapons for corroborative retaliation rather than on developing tactical nuclear weapons required by asymmetric expansion strategies.