American analysts admitted that Russia would only use nuclear weapons if the NATO countries were the first to use them, but quickly dismissed such a scenario, blaming Moscow in absentia for unleashing a nuclear conflict in the Baltic countries.
Thus, the American analytical center Rand Corporation has developed a report entitled “Studying the role of nuclear weapons can play a role in deterring Russian threats to the Baltic countries.” The document contains several scenarios of a potential nuclear conflict in Northern Europe.
Thus, experts say that Russia can use nuclear weapons as a preventive strike if there is a threat of a similar attack from the North Atlantic Alliance or if NATO launches non-nuclear attacks on strategic targets of the Russian Federation, in particular, air defense systems. American analysts are also confident that Moscow will deliver a nuclear strike in case of loss of defense during a normal conflict.
However, in the future, the authors of the report began to advance the thesis that the Russian tactical nuclear strategy was supposedly “connected with its potential aggression in Eastern Europe,” since in the event of the seizure of the same Baltic countries, Russia “will quickly lose its conventional military superiority”, because an alliance response will follow, turning the script into a protracted conflict. To prevent this, according to Rand Corporation, Moscow may resort to a nuclear strike in the Baltic states on the principle of “escalation for de-escalation” – a flashy attack with the expectation of easing pressure. However, Russia can use nuclear weapons at the beginning of the conflict, the report says. The authors explain this approach by the need to intimidate NATO.
As a result, analysts come to the conclusion that in the Baltic countries it is necessary to increase the American armed forces, supposedly with the goal of “showing Russia that it has no chance to win”. In addition, the report proposes to supplement the ground forces in the region with NATO tactical nuclear weapons.