Can Putin actually fire Russian nuclear weapons unilateraly though? I don’t think a vote in the Russian parliament or anything is needed, but I suspect it takes more than just Putin by himself. (Maybe it needs the prime minister or head of the armed forces to also agree). Not knowing these exact processes is a big source of uncertainty in how this would turn out. Especially as the process-in-practice might deviate from the process-in-theory. (Eg. in theory Putin says fire, the head of Russian nuclear forces fires. In practice, Putin says fire, the head of Russian nuclear forces rings the Russian prime minister and says “so, like the president says .. but like .. what do you think...”
Formally, it needs to be approved by 3 people: the President, the Minister of Defence and the Chief of the General Staff. Then (I think) it doesn’t launch rockets. It unlocks them and sends a signal to other people to actually launch them.
Also, it is speculated to be some way to launch them without confirmation from all 3 people in case some of them cannot technically approve (e.g. briefcase doesn’t work/the person is dead/communication problems), but the details of how exactly it works are unknown.
If Putin says, fire it goes to the General Staff of the Armed Forces who are then supposed to carry out the orders. Putin’s orders do not directly go to the head of Russian nuclear forces.
In practice, I expect that the General Staff then needs to decide to either carry out the order or start a coup d’état.
If someone has a plan to overthrow Putin, but waits because it is too dangerous, the command to launch the nukes might be the very thing to convince them that not acting is even more dangerous.
(But this of course assumes that the person would learn about the command and have enough time to react, which is too optimistic. Unless they are already prepared for this, which assumes too much competence, which doesn’t exactly seem to be a frequent trait in Russia’s military.)
Another possibility is that the command is executed (meaning we are in the kaboom scenario), and the US does not escalate immediately but says that there will be a respond at a time and place of their choosing. This could give time for someone to overthrow Putin to prevent escalation.
Can Putin actually fire Russian nuclear weapons unilateraly though? I don’t think a vote in the Russian parliament or anything is needed, but I suspect it takes more than just Putin by himself. (Maybe it needs the prime minister or head of the armed forces to also agree). Not knowing these exact processes is a big source of uncertainty in how this would turn out. Especially as the process-in-practice might deviate from the process-in-theory. (Eg. in theory Putin says fire, the head of Russian nuclear forces fires. In practice, Putin says fire, the head of Russian nuclear forces rings the Russian prime minister and says “so, like the president says .. but like .. what do you think...”
Formally, it needs to be approved by 3 people: the President, the Minister of Defence and the Chief of the General Staff. Then (I think) it doesn’t launch rockets. It unlocks them and sends a signal to other people to actually launch them.
Also, it is speculated to be some way to launch them without confirmation from all 3 people in case some of them cannot technically approve (e.g. briefcase doesn’t work/the person is dead/communication problems), but the details of how exactly it works are unknown.
If Putin says, fire it goes to the General Staff of the Armed Forces who are then supposed to carry out the orders. Putin’s orders do not directly go to the head of Russian nuclear forces.
In practice, I expect that the General Staff then needs to decide to either carry out the order or start a coup d’état.
If someone has a plan to overthrow Putin, but waits because it is too dangerous, the command to launch the nukes might be the very thing to convince them that not acting is even more dangerous.
(But this of course assumes that the person would learn about the command and have enough time to react, which is too optimistic. Unless they are already prepared for this, which assumes too much competence, which doesn’t exactly seem to be a frequent trait in Russia’s military.)
Another possibility is that the command is executed (meaning we are in the kaboom scenario), and the US does not escalate immediately but says that there will be a respond at a time and place of their choosing. This could give time for someone to overthrow Putin to prevent escalation.