Russia in Global Affairs

The world has been changing so dramatically lately that even the Russian approach to strategic stability, characteristic of the period after the collapse of the USSR, and its understanding adopted in 1990 are rapidly becoming obsolete. As non-nuclear weapons acquire strategic properties and the line between war and peace becomes increasingly vague, the very nature of the threat of nuclear war is changing fundamentally: its outbreak becomes much more likely due to the escalation of a non-nuclear conflict than to an unexpected nuclear attack.