By Nebojsa Malic

April 30, 2020 "Information Clearing House" - The US State Department’s case for tactical nuclear weapons is a case study in psychological projection not seen since the darkest days of the Cold War and its ever-present threat of world-ending atomic holocaust.

Back in February, the Pentagon announced the US Navy has fielded the first batch of W76-2 low-yield submarine launched ballistic missile (SLBM) warheads. A paper by the State Department’s Bureau of Arms Control, published last week, aimed to explain the reasoning  behind this move and “debunk” the critics. The 10-page document was endorsed by the acting Under Secretary for arms control Christopher Ford, who hailed the missiles as “reducing net nuclear risks.”

On Wednesday, however, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called the move “a deliberate blurring of the lines between non-strategic and strategic nuclear weapons” that “inevitably leads to a lowering of the nuclear threshold and an increase in the threat of nuclear conflict.”

Everyone who wants to do this should understand that according to the Russian military doctrine, such actions will be considered the basis for the reciprocal use of nuclear weapons by Russia

At the root of this discrepancy is a fundamental misunderstanding. Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon are basing their arguments not on the actual Russian doctrine or behavior, but on their belief as to what those might be.

For example, there is an unquestioned assumption in US policy circles that Russia has a nuclear doctrine described as “escalate to de-escalate” – which “purportedly seeks to deescalate a conventional conflict through coercive threats, including limited nuclear use,” according to a 2015 congressional testimony of then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work.

As former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter pointed out, Work’s own words reveal that this is not the actual Russian doctrine, but the impression of it by some US analysts. Whoever originated this utter fantasy is irrelevant; it ranks right alongside Molly McKew’s“expertise” on Russian nuclear posture or the likewise widespread acceptance of the nonexistent “Gerasimov Doctrine.”