Karaganov doctrine

The Karaganov doctrine refers to a cluster of arguments advanced by Russian political scientist Sergei Karaganov, honorary chairman of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy and academic supervisor at the Higher School of Economics, urging Moscow to lower the threshold for nuclear use as a tool of strategic coercion against the West.

The doctrine gained international attention with Karaganov's June 2023 essay in Profile magazine, titled in English roughly as "A Difficult but Necessary Decision," in which he argued that Russia should be willing to launch a limited nuclear strike on a European NATO member to "break the will" of the West and restore the credibility of nuclear deterrence, which he claimed had eroded since the Cold War. He framed this as a way to end the war in Ukraine on Russian terms and to deter further Western support for Kyiv.

Key elements commonly associated with the doctrine include:

• Restoring "fear" of nuclear escalation as a deterrent currency.
• A willingness to use tactical or limited nuclear weapons first, breaking the post-1945 taboo.
• Treating NATO expansion and Western liberalism as existential threats justifying such steps.
• A civilisational framing in which Russia leads a "world majority" against a declining West.

The proposals provoked sharp debate inside Russia. Several Russian analysts, including Ivan Timofeev and Dmitri Trenin (the latter partly sympathetic), publicly contested aspects of the argument, and the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that Russia's official nuclear doctrine remained unchanged. Nevertheless, elements of Karaganov's reasoning appeared to influence the November 2024 revision of Russia's Basic Principles of State Policy on Nuclear Deterrence, which broadened the conditions for nuclear use.

Western analysts generally treat the doctrine as an escalation-signalling exercise rather than a formal state policy, but it is widely cited in debates about strategic stability, nuclear taboo erosion, and the future of arms control.