So what should America's response be to Russia's large and growing nuclear arsenal? Do we worry or just pretend to worry?
Russia's nuclear arsenal is large and its threshold for use is formally low:
In April 2021, noted Russian journalist Pavel Felgenhauer wrote, "Indeed, taking into account nonstrategic (tactical) nuclear weapons, which no one has ever verifiably counted, Russia may have more (maybe twice as many overall) than all the other official or unofficial nuclear powers taken together.” ...
In June 2020, Putin signed an unclassified Presidential directive on nuclear deterrence. Pavel Felgenhauer noted, “First, the nuclear threshold is becoming lower…Moscow’s threshold for employing military force in conflict situations may also drop further.”
Both of these factors are because of Russia's conventional force weakness:
Russia's military power is fairly weak between the levels of special forces and nuclear war, when you factor in their long land borders and the economic power of potential foes in Europe and China.
Special forces and small-scale operations give the impression of conventional power; but Russia relies on their nuclear weapons to really deter or stop a large-scale invasion.
Russia is a regional military power with continents-spanning borders built on a relatively backward economy that relies on a foundation of natural resource exports.
And Russia's conventional military power is a pyramid of some good quality troops resting on a larger base of cannon fodder that is poorly equipped and trained. This has limited Russian conventional war options in Ukraine, let alone against NATO or China.
And Russia can no longer rely on cannon fodder despite a reputation built on losing 25 million people in World War II. The Russians don't have the tolerance for casualties that we think they have.
So Russia relies on huge numbers of nuclear weapons to defend their border and defend their claim of being a super power. That initial article says "Russia clearly has many more nuclear weapons than the U.S." Further, "In August 2019, then-Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Matters Rear Admiral (ret.) Peter Fanta confirmed the Gertz story stating that 'The Russians are going to 8,000 plus warheads.'"
Should we believe that?
In a sea of backwardness and poverty that has eroded Russia's conventional military so much, the nukes still work just fine? And Russia can pop them out of their factories like they're coming out of a Pez dispenser? Despite repeated Russian boasts of super weapons that never turn up in actual Russian units, the nukes are fully reliable and expanding in numbers?
I wonder if many of Russia's ICBM's work. The Russians do have a history of pretending to have a nuclear deterrent.
I honestly wonder if America's policy of treating Russia as a peer nuclear state is a favor to Russia to hold off the Chinese. Heck, maybe the Russians are happy if America "responds" because they know somebody needs working nukes to deter the Chinese.
