During the Jan. 19 coverage of a military conference on state-run cable channel Vesti-24, Russia’s military chief of staff, Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, said Russia will use nuclear weapons — even preventively — to protect itself and its allies. “We do not intend to attack anyone, but we consider it necessary for all our partners in the world community to clearly understand … that to defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Russia and its allies, military forces will be used, including preventively, including with the use of nuclear weapons,” he said.
While Baluyevsky certainly tailored the statement to maximize impact, this does not mark a departure from Russia’s standing military posture. During the Cold War, Russia adhered to a “no first-strike” policy as part of its propaganda war against the United States, using the logic that Russia would prevail in any conventional military conflict in Europe and forcing the United States to take the public relations-unfriendly position of adopting a first-strike policy.
But after the Cold War, the Russian military degraded into a pale shadow of its former self, and in 2000, Russia switched its nuclear policy to match that of the United States. Baluyevsky’s comments were simply a reminder that this first-strike policy remains firmly in place.
But this leaves one question: Why did Baluyevsky feel the need to remind everyone? The answer is fairly straightforward: Kosovo.
The Russian government is painfully aware that it has invested a huge portion of its political capital in opposing EU and U.S. efforts to hive off Kosovo from Serbia. Should Kosovo split from Serbia despite Russia’s efforts, the image of Russian power would decline palpably, particularly in Russia’s near abroad. Baluyevsky’s reminder that Russia retains its first-strike doctrine is an attempt to indicate that Serbia is an ally and thus could be worthy of the Russian nuclear umbrella.
For this position to stick, Russia would need to more firmly link the words “Serbia” and “ally” in the Western mind. At present, there is no Russian military base in Serbia, and any supply lines to such a base would need to snake through the roads or airspace of NATO states or protectorates. The West interpreted Baluyevsky’s Jan. 19 statement as it did former Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s 1999 reminder of Russia’s nuclear option: bluster. That will remain the case unless Serbian politics evolve in a far more nationalistic and aggressive direction.
The implicit nuclear threat is simply Russia continuing to fish for a policy tool it can use to hammer home that it is willing to play hardball with the West over Kosovo, a message Moscow has failed to get across so far. The nuclear tactic, like threats of U.N. Security Council vetoes, simply is not sticking.
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