In the past year, nuclear weapons have become a popular topic of conversation. Only lazy Russian media commentators have not offered their take on nuclear use. The notion that using nuclear weapons should be a last resort but not an unthinkable option has become routine in Russian media and has framed common thinking about escalation in war. This recurring belligerent nuclear rhetoric—official and unofficial alike—has somewhat eroded the nuclear taboo, even if unintentionally.
The sources of nuclear normalization are unclear. It may be a naturally emerging, bottom-up phenomenon that reflects the Zeitgeist. The war, after all, has routinized violence and brutality in the country’s public consciousness, and the bellicose environment has radicalized much of the population.
But the messianic-existential aura that the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church have given to the war has also contributed to nuclear normalization. Both institutions are framing the conflict in almost transcendental terms—as a clash of civilizations and a civil war within the “Russian world.” The Kremlin and the church present Ukraine as a “prodigal daughter” that has become a proxy for the forces of darkness, specifically a collective West that is seeking to dismantle Russia spiritually and geopolitically. In their wartime speeches, both Putin and Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, have embraced the language of martyrdom, of purifying sacrifice, and of repentance—all for the sake of winning the war. This language is most obviously applicable to Russian soldiers, many of whom face death on the battlefield, and many of whom are blessed by priests before being deployed. But the rhetoric may also prime Russians at home to accept the highest possible costs as necessary in this clash of civilizations.
Wartime folklore—militaristic songs, clips, performances, and military heraldry—also bears religious symbols and apocalyptic motives, further eroding the nuclear taboo. This folklore venerates Russia’s nuclear might, painlessly threatens nuclear use, and glorifies Russian combat, past and present. A popular Russian rock singer, close to the Kremlin and sanctioned by Ukraine, produced a hymn to Sarmat—the country’s newest class of intercontinental ballistic missiles, for example. A video clip of the song, with the military orchestra of the Strategic Nuclear Missile Forces performing the music, highlights Putin’s eschatological figures of speech in relation to nuclear weapons and the fate of world, threatens the United States and NATO, and concludes with the words: “God and Sarmat are with us.”
The civil role of religion matters, too. The legitimization of the war by the Russian Orthodox Church is an extension of the years of ecclesiastical support for the Kremlin’s foreign policy gambits and nuclear assertiveness. The patriarch’s wartime sermons have transformed him into something like a national spiritual commissar. Before the war, the Kremlin actively portrayed itself as a faith-driven actor to enhance its coercive bargaining. Now, in war, the patriarch’s messianic and apocalyptic rhetoric, occasionally in unison with nuclear threats from the Kremlin, apparently assists Moscow in sending signals that line up with the “madman theory”—persuading adversaries that it is crazy enough to go to nuclear extremes to achieve its aims. The Russian public is not the target audience for this messaging. But inadvertently, the religious-military rhetoric has made nuclear employment more conceivable in the public’s consciousness.
The Kremlin could also be deliberately authorizing this public nuclear normalization to enhance its saber rattling. Russia’s nuclear threats, after all, might seem more credible if the country’s people appear willing to risk Armageddon. But even if Moscow worked to get Russians to embrace nuclear use, the tail might now be wagging the dog. Nuclear public discourse appears to have acquired a life of its own and may be detrimental to its master. Several Russian defense intellectuals and nuclear experts have been shocked by the unbearable nuclear lightness among the Russian public. These experts have said that public sentiment inaccurately represents the #Kremlin’s position, and that it is irresponsible because of its dangerous implications.
And irrespective of the source, the public’s nuclear normalization could corrode the norm against using atomic weapons—especially when coupled with the military leadership’s conceptual innovations and strategic concerns. The Russian sources reveal an anxiety that the West perceives Moscow to be weaker and less determined than it really is, and that Western states will seek to exploit this faintness. It is unclear how the Russian supreme command intends to address this concern. But within this self-reinforcing climate, there is simply now an easier path to escalatory conduct. Russia’s increased nuclear muscle flexing, designed to recharge the batteries of deterrence and restore Russia’s coercive reputation, should therefore come as no surprise. Moscow’s decision to build infrastructure in Belarus that can host its nuclear arsenal, the hints that the Kremlin could deploy its nuclear weapons in even more countries, the government’s reluctance to engage in arms control negotiations, and the experts’ suggestions that Russia might carry out a nuclear test all illustrate steps in this direction.