2025/01/02 by Norman Cigar · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Nuclear Issues and Defense
paper · doi:10.1080/10736700.2025.2524636
openalex publication_date 2025/01/02 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/15
Vladimir Putin and other influential Russian figures portrayed Libyan strongman Muammar Qaddafi’s relinquishment of his nuclear program as a strategic error: they often declared that the decision facilitated NATO’s intervention in support of local dissidents, which eventually proved key to Qaddafi’s overthrow in 2011. This study examines how the unfolding of these events laid the basis for the development of a new paradigm for strategic culture for Putin—a model or filter for evaluating and explaining the importance of nuclear weapons in deterring foreign interventions intended to effect regime change. This new paradigm has helped shape Russian foreign-policy views and initiatives in recent years, furnishing the intellectual rationale for providing non-nuclear states—especially those hostile to the West—with material aid, encouragement, and legitimization for the pursuit of nuclear programs of their own, thus hindering nonproliferation efforts by the international community.