In this archive episode, Hoffmann is asked how worried to be after Russia lowered the threshold for nuclear use in its official doctrine. He calls a doctrine mainly a signal to adversaries and says the real warning signs would be physical preparations, like warheads moving out of storage.
…all costs. Meaning, they also take these decisions that are militarily very, very unwise, and also what I think are politically very unwise. But in their perspective, this is what needs to be done in order to avoid this broader existential threat, which then also includes them and not only Ukraine.
…let's say the US, then Russia sees that as grouped together. Russia sees that as basically a nuclear state attacking it, Russia. So what do you make of all of these changes? And is this just Putin bluffing? Is this something that we should take really seriously? How concerned are you about it?
Yes, I'm not too concerned about that. I think a doctrine first and foremost is a signaling tool that is used to signal to the adversary under what conditions you're potentially willing to employ nuclear weapons. What a nuclear doctrine is not is an iron-clad tool of statecraft. This is not something like a law. I always say, you know, if Putin decides to use a nuclear weapon, I don't think there's any civil servant running into the room and telling him, oh, look, but our doctrine says this and this, and that's why you can't use it right now. That's not how it works. So in that sense, I am really not concerned about Russia changing its nuclear doctrine. What I do believe is I think it represents a bit of a step up from like this cheap talk that we used to from the Kremlin, right? Especially from talk show hosts that talk about nuking certain Western cities, a different one every week. It's not that, so it represents a step up from…
Right. So there isn't a world in which we wake up one morning and find ourselves under a Russian nuclear attack, right? Even if it's tactical nuclear weapons, there would be signals. The US intelligence community would know. I don't know how much time in advance, but they would know.
Almost certainly. I mean, you know, never say never. And as a nuclear strategist by training, you know, you typically prepare for the worst case scenario, which is a bold out-of-the-blue sky. Strike, which comes completely without warning. But if you put yourself into the position of Russia for a…
Let's also unpack another major reason for why Ukraine had to wait so many months before these restrictions were lifted. This is more like a DOD, strictly military kind of argument: is that one, the US doesn't have many attacks to give Ukraine. And so the amount that they could give us wasn't…