I
All I will be asking of you, the reader, is a bit of patience in bearing with me while I put forth my defense of what, admittedly, is an "odd” yet complex view on what up to now seems to me to be inevitable. That, is the fast-coming end of the physical world, as we have known it so far, and which we gotten used to. And that it is also to be the end of the Humanity that inhabits it.
I call that never-before and at once never-after event— the “Ultimate Reality,” which not unironically will too be the end of most everything in the world that, earthlings-at-the-end-of-things as we are, have made familiar to us. The Ultimate Reality I speak of will then itself become the absolute realm of the real, or if you prefer, relative human nothingness. As you, the reader, might have guess it, I am speaking here about the coming nuclear war.
My view on this subject is double-fold in the articulation of its logic. Such view is sustained and moves forward on two basic observations. On the one hand, there is the observation that, as it seems to me, the Kremlin does not appear to quite know what their nuclear weapons are for. And on the other, I will also make the observation that such is the reason that, with every passing day, we getting are closer to a near-world ending nuclear detonation addressed to Russia by the US of A. Because the Kremlin apparently does not know what its nuclear weapons are for, the Americans just might claim the world title to destroying that very world. All in character with a nihilistic nation that claims to be first and number one in everything it considers good for itself, even when that might come from evil.
It should immediately be clarified herein that this whole problematic is a case of a very specific philosophical shortcomings by Russia. “Philosophical” here indicates that such shortcoming is not a problem of "techniques" or technology, and by no means, it is neither a problem of shortcomings in political fitness by the Russians. The substantiation for my admittedly "odd" view follows below.
Although, in general terms, every power that already possesses them know what nuclear weapons can do, it does not necessarily follow that they always know what their nuclear weapons are for, under specified circumstance or condition, and in concrete way. Hence that the grammatical possessive above is given in Italics. That initial remark should be followed by stating that what the nuclear armament in the possession of a nation is for, is to be determined and conditioned by the capability, technology, amount in stock or in production, of its conventional arsenal. Thus, according to the view I am developing here, to know or not to know what one's nuclear weapons are for stands on strict relation to how one's conventional, non-nuclear arsenal, get used in an ongoing conflict. These remarks can be restated thusly: Whoever possesses superiority in highly reliable and effective conventional weaponry that is backed up by a nuclear weaponry that stands in even footing with their conventional arsenal can, and is enabled thereby, to freely escalate a conflict to the brink of a nuclear confrontation. That is the case with Russia in Ukraine as up to now. I will be pressing this apercu throughout.
As it is universally known, the Russians possess the larger nuclear weapons arsenal among the world nations, possessing more than a handful over the Americans, who are a close second. Avowedly, the Russian arsenal is equipped with the most advanced modern technology available to the world today. The calculation is that a handful more or a handful fewer weapons detonated on an enemy could be decisive in acquiring beforehand knowledge about which nation would come out of a conflict with more of its former self intact.
As far as the literature on this subject in the public domain is transparent, unlike the Americans, Russia's philosophical stance on nuclear weapons is that they are exclusively to be employed only for the purpose of "deterrence." By that, the Kremlin means that such weapons serve a strictly self-defensive, strategical purpose. Accordingly, for the Russians nuclear weapons, at least in theory, are an ultimate recourse triggered when, and if, the Russian State ever faces an existential threat. That is altogether different from what the Americans hold nuclear weapons are for, which in turn has to do with the philosophical differentials in the understanding of the concept of “deterrence” between the Russians and the Americans. The Russian’s conceptualization of “deterrence” does not literally translate to what the Americans mean by the same term.
Whereas for the Americans, “deterrence” simply implies persuading an enemy to consider or reconsider the consequences for itself before deciding a nuclear or conventional attack on American soil, or on that of their allies. And that holds even if no essential harm, let alone a threat to the existent or functioning of the American State or American global power or position, is at play. Thus, for the Russians “deterrence” is a more exacting concept, in the literal sense. In accordance with their manner of thinking this matter, their nukes are there for dissuading an enemy from carrying an attack, with either nuclear or conventional weapons, of a magnitude that would “threaten the existence of the Russian State,” or an attack with conventional weapons alone but one which could negate Russia’s nuclear capabilities to respond to such an attack.
Thus, unlike the Americans, the Russians set for themselves maybe unnecessarily too high a threshold for the use of their nuclear weapons. As it should be obvious to the reader from the lines above, the concept of “deterrence” handled by the Americans hides a dissuasive threat to an enemy, whether another State, or any other type of organization, not to carry out any kind of attack by any means, conventional, bio-chemical, or nuclear, which the American military could construct as representing a challenge, overtly or covertly, to American domination, or just to the privileged position of America in the world. But then, the concept of “deterrence” the Americans have think up for themselves also extends to any type of organization, whether a State or not, and whether potentially a foe or a recognized friend, who just might be suspected of efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. Here, for example, Iran comes to mind.
Thus, the nuclear philosophy of the Kremlin follows from the political ethics of the religious orthodoxy of the Russians, which in turn is a reflection of an aspect of something deeply ingrained in the Russia national character, which I call “anti-nihilism.” And that ethical stance reaches a logical boost in the adoption by Russia of the No First Use principle. By this principle, the Kremlin states its determination to be in any event the second, never the first, to resort to nuclear weapons in an armed conflict. And thus, it establishes a fundamental difference between itself and the Americans. Not that such a differential is necessarily a good thing, especially since the Americans do not believe Russia means to upheld that principle for long, once an armed conflict with the West is started. (Ref. Nuclear Posture Review: “Enhancing Deterrence with Non-strategic Nuclear Capabilities,” XI).
One can say, in brief, that the Americans, as a matter of pragmatic Americanism, dealing with Russia as if though with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, are well-disposed toward the use of nuclear weapons whenever, while the Russians do have a pinpointed nuclear philosophic position that is intentionally the exact opposite of the attitude, or “posture,” of the Americans on this existential realm.
For, it bears calling attention to how, while the Russians have given themselves a clearly delineated approach thereof, one cannot say of the Americans that they engage ethical determinations concerning their nuclear arsenal. Therefore, it cannot be said of the Americans either that they have a philosophic approach to nukes use. The Americans “ethics” concerning nuclear weapons is limited to efforts aimed at containing their “proliferation,” which they do basically because by containing the number of countries that would be allowed to possess such weapons, the US poses itself as the natural defensive and protective guarantor for Western Europe, using its anti-proliferation posture as their rationale to legitimate placing there its nuclear weapons at will, while opposing or objecting to Russia placing such systems everywhere else outside from, say, Belarus.
Simply put, for the Americans nuclear weapons are tools; no doubt they are regarded and handled as highly specialized tools and rather complex ones. But in last analysis, for the Americans they are just political tools with militaristic functions, or the other way around, depending on the region of the world they are to be placed. As any other kind of tools, for the Americans nuclear weapons are to fulfill the end for which they were designed, and independently of the circumstance, that end is called “to-end-it-all.” Whenever and wherever they are summoned, that is, deployed, activated, and launched, the end of the nuclear weapons of the Americans is to totally destroy an enemy either after or before every other militaristic means has failed, or if any other means is beforehand ruled out as inefficient to the end of ending it all. That is the lesson that the Americans set out to give the world with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which of course, goes without a mention in their Nuclear Posture Review.
Therefore, whereas the Russian approach to nuclear weapons use is a cautious, and even over-cautious formalized legalist treatise, known as the Fundamentals of Russia’s Nuclear Deterrence State Policy, the Americans counter that with what boils down to a policy underpinned by veiled threat of launching “low-yield” nukes on any country or organization who would dare to challenge the rules of the game they have unilaterally imposed on the world.
That approach, the Americans consistently communicate in the language of "pragmatic ambiguity" which their Nuclear Posture Review is written in. Pragmatic ambiguity is a discursive practice which intentionally says little to the essence of the subject, and whatever it says, it does in a loose terminology that is readily adaptable to the circumstance. Unlike the Russians, the Americans strategically reserve for themselves inflicting a nuclear tactical surprise on an enemy, and go as far as to manufacture the conditions that would then impose on themselves executing such a tactical surprise. That is how Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed, something which, consistent with American pragmatic ambiguity, it is summarily left out of the US Nuclear Posture Review. But then, Japan is a phenomenal illustration of the full extent to which the Americans know what their nuclear weapons are for.
This is a lesson by the Americans the Russians are yet to learn: when a country is nuked with limited or low-yield capacity, the attacking nation can acquire a vassal State for itself, which is what Japan has become to the Americans ever after. Thus, because the Americans know what their nuclear weapons are for, they have consistently rejected subscribing to the No-First Use principle. And yet, even when the Russians stick to such principle, the Americans still accuse them of training and exercising to be first in launching a nuclear attack (Ref. NPR. “Enhancing Deterrence with Non-strategic Nuclear Capabilities,” XI).
Nonetheless and as I already intimated above, if their attitude, or rather “nuclear posture” makes the Americans potentially dangerous to the world, it is the No-First Use principle to which the Russians adhere which could facilitate the materialization of the danger the Americans pose to Humanity. Why?
That is because, in stark contrast to the Americans (who as I just said, know that their nuclear weapons are for tactically surprising an enemy towards ending it all), the Russians believe that having superior numbers of the most advanced NW's per se guarantees deterrence, and that such differential is in itself the surest of ways to deter, say, the Americans, from attacking Russia and/or its allies. Yet, there is no guarantee that a nuclear-armed, very resolute enemy, or an enemy in the grip of policies containing elements of political irrationality, as the Americans have proven overtime to be gripped by, could be effectively deterred from attacking, regardless the consequences for them. So, the concept of "deterrence" as understood at the Kremlin only helps to encourage the thinking that it does not know, in all certainty, what the Russian nuclear arsenal is for. There are, of course, a set of caveats to this reading which I will subsequently offer below.
But, in the meantime, we can imagine the precise scenario on which the No-First-Use principle of the Russians foster the thought that they do not know what their nuclear weapons are for. For, by way of illustration, in the grip of a policy guided by politically irrational calculations, many “reasons” could emerge for an enemy to persuade itself that while attacking Russia might be not worth it, it might yet be necessary. Thus, the likelihood of such a scenario suggests that the capacity for deterrence of nuclear arsenals diminish with the situations and the circumstances a resolute enemy could be facing before, during, and after an armed conflict emerges, throughout which it judges, or as it might turn out to be, misjudges that making recourse to nuclear arms is warranted from the standpoint of its own interests.
“Not worth it, yet necessary." That formula captures the situation the Americans could or would eventually find themselves in, whenever in a direct confrontation with Russia. And that is something which so far looks unavoidable. For, something might be already on the way, in the form of a terrifying Russian victory in Ukraine, which out of sheer desperation could persuade the Americans to set on the Ultimate Reality, by launching a surprise tactical nuclear attack on Russia itself, or on Russia troops in territories formerly Ukrainian. Bringing the world and humanity to the end of it all, the Americans would then be fulfilling the strategic aim of their nuclear arsenal.
Entered in a direct, although conventional military conflict with a Russia that clings to its No-First-Use principle— should the Americans find out on the battlefields that neither their weaponry nor their numerous allies can lead to the realization of their old long-term dream of defeating, conquering, and diving up Russian territories, but that on the contrary, their troops and military wares are fast getting decimated, while they continue to get stuck with an industry organization that once and again fails to produce sufficient shells, munitions, and new weaponry; with its finances in disarray, its national debt continuing to stratosphere— what would the Americans likely do next?
For, to be sure, in such scenario it would soon enough dawn on them they have very little left to lose. So, again, entered in a direct, conventional military conflict with a Russia which, while sticking to its No-First-Use principle, is nonetheless perpetrating on the Americans and their allies the same level of destruction it would have already had perpetrated on the Ukrainians— what else could the Americans place their hope on, but their arsenal of nukes.
The Americans— too used to believe they own a world on which for around a hundred years they have lived behaving as its masters, are historically and idiosyncratically programed to entertain the belief that, if it comes to it, it is their prerogative to destroy a world that could become no longer theirs. From their posture on nuclear weapons one can infer that the Americans would not easily survive or easily get used to living in a world they do not control. That is the source of the paranoic anxiety the dominant American elite exhibits as it somersaults the world in an attempt to retain the dying World-Rules they imposed beginning with the Pax Americana, which got consolidated and reinforced by the disastrous way the Cold War ended for the Russians.
From every corner of the world at the moment it looks like the so-far-hypothetical scenario of a nuclear combustion is what Humanity would be dealing with in a relatively short time. That is, of course, something we must assume the Russians are painfully aware of. But, are they, really?
If they did (assuming they have no undisclosed weapon systems capable of defeating an America nuclear attack on them), one would be right to assume the Kremlin would have by now committed itself to given up on their No-First Use principle, as it only serves to encourage the nuclear posture of the Americans. So, why doesn’t it?
I ask. But I know there is a most important question... I am sure that the indispensable question which most needs to be answered is: why does the Kremlin keep clinging to its "No-First Use" as its nuclear weapon principle? But, that notwithstanding, of the utmost importance is another question. It is this: what are the precise reasons for the Kremlin adopting such principle, in the first place? There is a set of possible, tentative answers here, admittedly, also of a speculative character. “Speculative,” because the Kremlin is legendary for being highly secretive, as it understandingly must. But, whatever the reason, the Kremlin never lets out much concerning its real military capabilities, and much cannot be read from the little bits it occasionally says. By contrast, in communicating their nuclear attitude in a language designed to be strategically ambiguous, the Americans tend to leave practically nothing to be said.
So, here come the two caveats. One can speculate that the Kremlin keeps clinging to the No-First-Use principle because, maybe, a). The Kremlin possesses undisclosed military technology with the secretly tested capabilities for neutralizing and turning to its advantage any nuclear-armed short-range and/or intercontinental ballistic missiles directed toward Russia and/or its allies. In such a hypothetical but not inconceivable case, the Kremlin would have no reason to want to be first in bringing on Humanity the Ultimate Reality. Maybe the Russian S-500 Prometheus, in any of its two versions, or the laser anti-missile and/or the anti-satellite Peresvet, are such weapon systems? Could their already tested satellite-busting capabilities divert from its trajectory a nuclear-armed missile, blinding it and turning it into a dub crashing high above Russian airspace?
Let us pray the Russians got us covered.
If not, b). The Kremlin clings to its No-First-Use principle because it presupposes that it will always be facing a nuclear-armed nation that is also a rational enemy, someone who, like the Kremlin itself, would never attempt the destruction of the world and of Humanity altogether, just to gain a less than pyrrhic victory over its enemy. Such an enemy, it would seem to be the thinking at the Kremlin, would in any conceivable circumstances always refrain itself, even at the very last micro-second, from giving the command that would set upon the Ultimate Reality the world.
In other words, the Kremlin still upholds the "Mutually Assured Destruction" nuclear doctrine the Soviet Union shared with the Americans through the Cold War. If it so, the Kremlin overlooks the fact that such an era was one in which, on the one hand, the Americans had not yet convinced themselves that Russia was "weak," but instead feared it. On the other, for the exact reason that it feared the Russians under the Soviet State, the nihilistic irrationality inherent to the American order of things had not yet fully developed to the extent and degree it presently exhibits. The mere fact that there was a Cold War going on, prevented such progression.
Thus, (assuming the caveats above do not apply), in my inexpert understanding these reflections partially answer the question of the Russian imposing upon themselves the restriction, in my opinion unnecessary, that the No-First-Use principle signifies.
As for the second question above, one can again tentatively propose as an answer that the Kremlin adopted No-First-Use as its principle because, incredible as this will sound, the Russians have failed throughout time to grasp what the Americans, and by extension the entire West, is in its essence. Unto itself, that is. The Russians, it is all the worth reemphasizing, are still to grasp the West in its metaphysical essence.
Although the concept is oftentimes misunderstood, here the concept of a “metaphysical essence” expresses what is all-determinant, the most pervasive characteristic which, most self-evident in the society and culture of the Americans, is in many ways discernible in virtually all the acts and manifestations of all other Western nations, in some more decisively than in others. It marks the essential difference between the East and the West generally, and between the Russians and the Americans particularly.
As announced in advance at the beginning of this writing, that essential characteristic of the Americans is called nihilism. Like the concept of metaphysics, the concept of nihilism is also oftentimes quite misunderstood. But herein, as in everywhere that it is employed, nihilism alludes to the destructive instinct, that dark force consciously or unconsciously stored up in some individuals as much as in some organizations, institutions, in some societies, and even in whole civilizations. One must learn to recognize it. The nihilistic dark force instinctively enjoys more destroying than it enjoys building and creating, and, destructive of the Other as it pointedly is, the ultimate target of its thrusts is, in the end, itself. For nihilism is at once an instinctively self-destructive dark force. In its blind attempt to destroy the Other, it becomes oblivious to its own self-destruction. It builds or creates nothing to last too long but just long enough to wait to be destroyed; for as often as no, it builds something with the express purpose of destroying it sometime later.
In short, whatever nihilism builds or creates it does to be short-lived; to that end, it inserts into it a fault line and an expiration date. The name of its guiding principle is "planned obsolescence," which, to leave no doubt about this, is in-built in all American productions and creations, as one can find everywhere in the American society.
It is not mere coincidence if the essential ways in which nihilistic attitudes and dispositions make themselves manifest seem to replicate the fundamental characteristics specific to American capitalism, and that of nations which fall under the American rules. True, if more developed in some cultures than in others, the nihilistic ethos is the birthmark of the American nation and culture, and it is present everywhere there in one way or another, pervading all the acts and positions of the Americans institutions, including of course the Deep or permanent State. Nihilism is immanent to what specialized literature addresses as the "American mind," which is why it predominates in the successive American governments or "administrations."
That nihilistic essence of the Americans is why every new government of theirs makes it a priority to halt, curtail, or outrightly destroy almost everything built, erected or enacted by the previous "administrations." Every new American governing administration leaves only in place what the previous ones have introduced to "deal" with the Other— the nations the Americans denounce as their enemies, or as posing a "threat" to them. That nihilistic ethos of the Americans remains hidden from themselves, and often from the Other; for, the Americans do not think of themselves as having nihilism as the essence of their being. Their “good” manners and their “positive” can-do attitude places a veil under which their nihilism hides from themselves. Therefore, the double-faced hypocrisy exhibited on the everydayness of American life, in any American acts, even by well-meaning Americans.
Nihilistic self-destruction: that is what is being attested to when, presumably in order to deter Russia, the Americans and the submissive countries of the European Union decided to launch an economic and financial war on Russia. Because nihilism goes often unrecognized by those most deeply afflicted by it, it has prevented the collective West to consider the harms that would come to themselves from blindly attempting to sink Russia. So that, we are reliving a classical historical instance of the nihilism which has, cumulatively throughout history, been molding the Western mind since the fall of Rome. For, for reasons I will not even touch herein, Rome fell only after it became nihilistic through the official adoption of Christianity and the repulsion of its own naturally grown religion and systems of belief.
All that is the antipode of what, in an essential way, defines being Russian.
In stark opposition to all the above, rather than causing destruction for its own sake, the Russians are more adept at building and creating, at producing and reproducing, and at preserving and conserving. Russia has been this way throughout its history, and this trait in the Russian character is what gets reflected in their behavior in the ongoing war in Ukraine. There, unlike the Americans in any wars you would name, the Russians have consistently gone out of their way literally at every turn, willingly slowing down their warring pace to avoid unnecessary destruction of human lives and material existence. And their anti-nihilism is also reflected in the priority the Russians have given to rebuilding and putting back together whole cities and institutions which inevitably, rationally that is, had to be demolished to get to the Neo-fascist-terrorist Ukrainian army. The re-emerging city of Mariupol is a stellar example here.
It is consistent with the defining anti-nihilistic Russian nature that the Kremlin would have adopted the No-First-Use as a principle concerning their use of nukes, I already said. There remains to be asked, and of course answered, where does such anti-nihilistic essence of the Russians come from. But this is not the time and space to engage…
Proving itself their quintessential virtue, the anti-nihilism of the Russians that makes them avoid being destructive just for fun and because they can, as is the wont of the Americans, and which has led the West to misread weakness into Russian anti-nihilist piety, is also what has guided the Russian Federation to wage an attrition war against Ukraine, instead of a war of territorial conquest. (Territorial conquest is what the Americans usually go to war for, and this mental pattern has prevented them from understanding the behavior of the Russians in the battlefield). Hence, the Americans have consistently failed in making the correct assessment of how deeply devastating the proxy American loss in Ukraine is.
In attriting the Ukrainian military, the Russians are thereby attriting the collective West. Well then. As it continues to send more of its most "invincible" weapons, more of its camouflaged military personnel, and more moneys, to burn in the furnace the "weak" Russians have set up for the Americans and their submissive allies, the day and the moment might any time be upon us when the Americans will fall prey to their own despair, and resort to attacking the world with their nukes. That prospect is almost certain, unless the Russians learn in time what their nuclear weapons are for.
But what are that kind of weapons for? Please, allow an inexpert like myself to further elaborate on this, as to make some suggestions.
II
In my inexpert understanding, it seems logical that what nuclear weapons are for, can as a general rule more readily be decided in relation to, on the one hand, the quantity, diversity, capability, reliability, and overall technological advancements of the conventional weaponry of a nation that is also in possession of nuclear weaponry systems, which, besides being superior in quantity, are also technologically superior to that of another nation's it might enter or be in conflict with.
On the other hand, what its nuclear weapons are for should be decided by a particular nation on the basis of its own advantage in both conventional and non-conventional weapon systems, in relation with those of another nation's it finds itself in conflict with. These two precepts must be carried out to their logical conclusions. It goes like this. Since it is universally recognized that Russia has a relatively larger, and a more advanced nuclear arsenal than the Americans and its subservient allies all together; and since it has already been demonstrated on the Ukrainian battlefield that the later have no conventional weapon systems that the military of the Russian Federation cannot shoot down, bypass, or burn, then in Russia's particular case, its nuclear weapons ought to be to conventionally escalate the conflict with the West, even beyond Ukraine.
Russia would want to use its nuclear arsenal to gift itself an unconventional Roman victory over Neo-Nazism.
Vladimir Putin keeps reminding the world that Ukrainians and Russians "are the same people.” But that is only partially true: although united by ties of blood, the Russians and Ukrainians are separate peoples divided by language and cultural differentials, and by fundamental different existential experiences. That makes their “sameness” dependent on which of these three factors is accorded more importance. Thus, such a “sameness” is derived by Putin from an unwitting biased truth in favor of the West; that is because both sides, the Ukrainian and the Russian, do not feel the same way toward each other. As it seems, the Russian over-preoccupation thereof, although it is another expression of the quintessential Russian anti-nihilism, has been counted on by the West and by Ukrainians themselves to continue on killing Russians.
It is then hereby made obvious that the one-sided, counterintuitive result of conferring on the quasi-common Russian-Ukrainian DNA more weight than on the factors of language, cultural, and experiential differential, has worked as a sort of “Russian self-blackmailing.” And worse, since the counterproductive result from proceeding in such way has been that civilians Ukrainians are put at risk of dying in greater numbers on a longer war than they would in shorter war, Putin’s DNA biased truth should be abandoned. At least, until the Ukrainians themselves say so, the Russians and the Ukrainians are, essentially, two different peoples.
So that, the Russians should behave accordingly. For that is what their nuclear weapons are for. That is another way of saying that the Russia's pious Humanism has proven to be counterproductive for them. To insist on this point, shared DNA without shared existential life experience, and community of language and cultures, has never accounted for much in the histories of peoples. That is the main reason that for example Zelensky, a Russian-speaking Jew, has not hesitated and has shown no compulsion or remorse at the many ethnic Russians killed by his side, innocent as they would have been. So, Zelensky gets something that Putin not yet has a grab of: shared DNA did not prevent Cain murdering Abel. In addition, Zelensky also gets that the history of Christianity, which begins with the people and among the people of Zelensky’s ethnicity, is full of replications and reiterations of collective fratricides, under different guises.
III
If the Russians knew what their nuclear weapons are for, they would by that same token know these three important things:
Russia should drop its much-cherished No-First-Use principle, which, it must acknowledge, the Americans do not take seriously and do not care about. And rightly so. That is because, once a nuclear war gets started, from the perspective of History, it would not have mattered who dropped the First Bomb and who dropped the second. Rather, if it certainly does, Russia should publicly acknowledge that it possesses the technology and the weapon systems to defeat a nuclear attack by the Americans against Russian territories and beyond.
Russia should use NATO Article 5 against itself. Any NATO nation that would be First in invoking NATO Article Five, after becoming a target for a provoked Russian attack with conventional weapons, will thereof be First in becoming a target of an annihilating nuclear payload. That should be Russian First Principle. In this connection, Russia should, as matter of policy, that any NATO member taking any time any credible steps to attack Russia or any of its allies thereof ipso facto becomes a target or either a retaliation with either conventional or nuclear weapons, contingent to decisions taking at the Kremlin.
Russia must gift itself a Peloponnesian victory in Ukraine. That would in a definitive way sober the minds of those in the West fantasizing, vociferating, and planning an eventual NATO invasion of Russia. That can only be prevented by escalating the fighting to the very brink from the Ultimate Reality. The more totalizing the victory that Russia would gift itself in Ukraine, the less likely the Americans and their NATO lackey States will have an appetite for an even larger military confrontation. Alas, presently they have neither the soldiers, the ammunition, nor the shells for that. And cannot expedite production thereof.
Should the Russians come short of that, and gift themselves only an average victory over Ukraine and the West, then the latter will conclude, probably wrong again, that the Russians are lesser soldiers, in which case they will keep regrouping, and trying again…
Until, the Americans will resort to nukes, after any of their attempts fail. Then it would have been time for a tactic nuclear surprise to end it all in the classical pragmatic style of the Americans. Nagasaki and Hiroshima all over again. That is, they would have then arrived at the conclusion that if the Russian Federation does not have the gumption to prevail over the West, gifting itself a Roman Victory over its enemies in a conventional war, it will surely lack Resoluteness for a nuclear resolution— for the Ultimate Reality, that is.
Since their behavior in the Ukrainian war vis-a-vis Russia, and in Taiwan vis-à-vis China, suggests the Americans will not rid themselves of their irrationality any time soon, the chances are high that they will most likely opt for the nuclear solution over Russian troops in Ukraine, and over Russian territory itself. Well, Putin should be of the thought that, if that is how it ought to be, better if that happens against the background of a Russian Carthage victory, over the West, in Ukraine.
Coming to the end of answering the question What is Russian nuclear arsenal for?... Assuming as we must that there is no technological system in the Russian military that can shoot down, divert, or negate nuclear-headed missiles coming at them, there are then two simple options for the Russian Federation to choose one from. a), the Kremlin abandons or suspend its No-First-Use principle; or b), the Kremlin acknowledges that Russia does, indeed, possess the technological capability to negate a nuclear attack from the Americans on them.
If b) Then the world would then breathe a profound relieve. That alone could make the Americans re-evaluate their options, and suit for peace in Ukraine, to begin with. But, if a) The Americans might just return to the negotiating table. For, it should have eventually become transparent to the Kremlin, neither the Americans, not for that matter, any other country, is in a rush to reach agreements with a State which has of its own accord renounced its right to be First in using nuclear weapons.
If only the Kremlin understood what its nuclear arsenal is for, in accordance with the precepts put forth herein, then the Russians would be saving the world a second time. Only, this time around Russia would not be saving Humanity from a fascist Germany that, despite all its evils, did not seek to destroy it and had not the means to do so. In such case, the Russians would be saving Humanity from a nihilistic America that, despite its goodness, would irredeemably destroy the world if it comes to it. For, this is a nihilistic American which possess the technological means to ashen all of us.