Statement by Daryl G. Kimball, Executive Director
For Immediate Release: November 19, 2024
Media Contacts: Daryl Kimball, executive director (202-463-8270 x107); Xiaodon Liang, senior policy analyst (202-463-8270 x113)
(Washington, D.C.)— As foreshadowed by an earlier statement by Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin issued a decree that revises Russian policies regarding the employment of nuclear weapons in war in a way that further blurs the threshold for Russian use of nuclear weapons and adds significant uncertainty to the already unsteady balance of nuclear terror between Russia and the United States and other members of the NATO alliance.
The new doctrine includes language that asserts that Russia “reserves the right” to use nuclear weapons to respond to a conventional-weapons attack that creates a “critical threat” to its “sovereignty and territorial integrity,” whereas the previous doctrine, which was issued in 2020, only reserves the right to use nuclear weapons if an attack on Russia threatens “the very existence of the state.”
From the beginning of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly issued threats to use nuclear weapons to reduce the level of U.S. and European support for Ukraine in its defense against Russian aggression. So long as Russia’s war on Ukraine continues, there will be a heightened risk of nuclear war. Any use of nuclear weapons by Russia in the context of its war on Ukraine would be disproportionate and militarily counterproductive, in part because it would very likely trigger a direct military clash with U.S. and NATO forces that would be extremely costly for both sides and could lead to all out nuclear war.
As Presidents Reagan, Biden, Xi, Gorbachev, and even Putin have all said, a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. Once nuclear weapons are used in a conflict between nuclear-armed states, there is no guarantee it will not result in nuclear retaliation and escalation to an all-out nuclear exchange with catastrophic global consequences.
Because nuclear war would affect all people, Russia’s dangerous behavior demands a global response. We call on all responsible governments everywhere to clearly condemn all nuclear threats, explicit or implicit, and any use of such weapons, and speak out against changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine, or any other state’s nuclear-use doctrine, that allows for the use of nuclear weapons in response to a non-nuclear attack. As the powerful Group of 20 (G-20) nations said in joint statements at their 2022 and 2023 summits, the use of nuclear weapons and threats of use are “inadmissible.”
Current U.S. policy asserts that the “fundamental role” of the U.S. nuclear arsenal is to deter nuclear attacks as well as “a narrow range of other high consequence, strategic-level attacks.”
Until nuclear weapons are eliminated, the sole purpose of nuclear weapons should be strictly limited to deterring nuclear attacks by other nuclear-armed states. There is no plausible military scenario, no morally defensible reason, nor any legally justifiable basis for threatening or using nuclear weapons first—if at all.
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