The prospect of a nuclear war between the United States and Russia occurring within the next 10 years is low but not nonexistent.
The war in Ukraine is the dominant concern here. Russia views Ukraine as the detached limb of an imperium that was wrongly allowed to fade away with the end of the Cold War. Vladimir Putin views success in Ukraine not simply as a linchpin of his ambition to become a 21st-century version of Peter the Great but as a test of his viability as Russian president. Putin fears that the hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers who have been killed or maimed in Ukraine, the heavy economic costs suffered as a result of the war, and the drain on Russia’s global prestige will be intolerable to Russians, including security elites, unless Putin can credibly claim victory.
This joined ideological and political interest has led Putin to escalate his aggression not simply against Ukraine but also toward the U.S. and close American allies in Europe.
The Russian military is now emphasizing strikes against Ukrainian power networks to maximize Ukrainian suffering during the country’s brutally cold winter. But Russian intelligence services, most prominently the GRU military intelligence service, are also engaged in near acts of war against NATO. These acts include assassination plots against major European industrialists, arson at factories, and the placing of incendiary devices on cargo planes. To be clear, this escalatory action occurred prior to President Joe Biden’s November authorization for Ukraine to use U.S.-provided weapons against military targets inside Russia.
But the problem is clear: If Putin retains a major strategic interest in defeating Ukraine, and the West retains a major strategic interest in supporting Ukraine, where does the breaking point come? And if the balancing beam does break, might it lead to nuclear war?
Putin’s character and former career as a KGB intelligence officer leads him to seek opportunity via the dangling of threats. Putin’s most significant threat is nuclear weapons. In recent nuclear exercises, changes to nuclear use protocols, and warnings of nuclear apocalypse, Putin is attempting to deter continued Western support for Ukraine. He wants Americans to ask themselves why they should keep supporting a faraway country with tens of billions of dollars in aid when doing so now risks not simply their wallets but the lives of their children.
This concern has encouraged a growing number of American conservatives to oppose aid to Ukraine. President-elect Donald Trump has also emphasized the risk of nuclear war as a rationale for rapidly negotiating an end to the war. Russia hopes this will lead Trump to put significant pressure on Ukraine to make major concessions to Russia. The question is whether Trump will exert significant pressure on both sides so that the war can be ended in a manner viable for Ukraine. This would entail a resolution in which Ukraine’s democratic sovereignty is preserved alongside Kyiv’s retained control over the vast majority of its territory. And, crucially, a resolution that effectively deters Russia from attempting a renewed invasion five or 10 years from now.
The pursuit of such a peace would be hard work. At the same time, it would be a grievous error to underestimate Putin’s resolve in Ukraine. Yet, just as the U.S. has a major strategic interest in ensuring that Ukraine survives as a democratic state, Washington has an equally great interest in ensuring that Putin does not perceive that all he needs to do to compel desirable American action is to wave his nuclear sword. Allowing Putin to hold that understanding would open the floodgates to his future nuclear intimidation on many other issues. It would also encourage China to apply the same approach to its own engagement with the U.S. on controversial issues, such as the future status of Taiwan.
Still, for two reasons, a nuclear war will remain unlikely, even if the U.S. maintains robust support for Ukraine and broader efforts to counter Russian aggression.
First, because Russian interests in Ukraine are ill-served by acts that significantly advance the likelihood of a direct military confrontation with NATO. Putin could not win a conventional conflict with NATO. But Chinese leader Xi Jinping has also made clear to Putin that he must not use nuclear weapons, including tactical nuclear weapons, against Ukraine. This matters because Russia cannot sustain its economy or global influence absent its partnership with China. International sanctions imposed since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine mean the Russian economy depends on energy exports to China and high-tech imports from China. Losing this lifeline would mean losing the central foundation of the Russian economy and, Putin fears, domestic social stability. This is no small concern in that the Russian economy is far less stable than some Western commentators present. The inflation rate is just below 9%, interest rates are soaring, investment is falling, the ruble is weak, and the labor market is incredibly tight.
This brings us back to the China consideration. Because China would almost certainly isolate itself from Russia in the event that Putin used a nuclear weapon. Xi would do so because if he did not, he would jeopardize his own crucial economic links with the European Union. This same concern underlines why China has been hesitant to provide overt military aid to Russia. Put simply, Xi wants to balance his close relationship with Russia alongside his sustained relationship with Europe. And that balancing interest doesn’t simply flow from economic interests.
Xi regards his cultivation of European economic interests as the fundamental long-term ingredient in his political effort to supplant the U.S.-led democratic international order. If China can make Europe dependent on Chinese investment and export opportunities, it will use that dependency as leverage via which to demand that Europe reduce cooperation with the U.S. on Taiwan, the South China Sea, human rights, intellectual property theft, and espionage. But Xi knows that if Putin starts dropping nuclear weapons in Europe, the EU isn’t going to look kindly on his continued support for Moscow. Again, Putin cannot afford to lose Chinese support.
The second factor prohibitive to a nuclear war is that Russia knows it would lose a nuclear war with the U.S. and NATO. Putin makes great fanfare of his new strategic weapons, such as nuclear-powered torpedoes armed with radiological weapons, and hypersonic glide vehicles. But notwithstanding the questionable performance of the latter in Ukraine, Putin is well aware that the nuclear war odds are not in his favor in the face of the U.S. military.
Both the U.S. and Russia have a “Triad” nuclear weapons force consisting of ballistic missile submarines, strategic bomber aircraft, and land-based missiles. But the readiness, maintenance, and professionalism of Russian land-based missiles/associated forces is lower than that of equivalent U.S. forces. Moreover, where U.S. ballistic missile submarines and B-2 bomber aircraft operate with significant impunity against Russian detection and interception, equivalent Russian forces are older and easier to detect. This means, for example, that nearly every time a Russian ballistic missile submarine leaves port, it is shadowed by a U.S. attack submarine. In the event of war, that attack submarine would have a significant potential to sink the missile submarine before it could launch its missiles. This reduces Russia’s means of carrying out a successful first strike against the U.S. and increases the probability that the U.S. would be able to eliminate Russia as a viable nation-state without suffering reciprocal results.
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This is not to say that the risks of nuclear war with Russia are so low as to be irrelevant. The risks of such a war are higher now than they have been at any point since the end of the Cold War. That is a concern in and of itself. Nevertheless, there are sustaining reasons why World War III remains unlikely.
Most notably, no one would benefit from such a war, and no critical strategic interests are so threatened or feasibly soon-to-be so threatened as to justify the use of nuclear weapons.