DANGEROUS BUTTON

Tensions between the nuclear powers remain at their highest since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. The war in Ukraine urged many to renew their views on the role nuclear weapons play in the existing system of international relations. Is the Cold War military doctrine of mutually assured destruction obsolete? If so, why?

Unprecedented consequences

With the outbreak of war in Ukraine, there have been many statements from the Russian side that the West has interpreted as a direct nuclear threat. First, Vladimir Putin warned NATO of ‘consequences’ that it has ‘never seen before’. Secondly, Moscow constantly mentions the potential of its RS-28 Sarmat hypersonic missiles. It is noted that these 208-tonne missiles speeding up to 25,500kph can strike Britain in just 200 seconds. According to the Russian TV host Dmitry Kiselev from Rossiya-1, "the UK is so small that one Russian Sarmat missile is enough to drown the island once and for all".

Thirdly, President Putin ordered the Russian nuclear forces on high alert. Fourthly, the war is now taking place on the territory of the country, which has relatively recently experienced the biggest nuclear catastrophe in history. Therefore, many have reacted to the news about flying missiles near Ukrainian nuclear power plants, especially a fire at the Zaporozhye NPP, which is the biggest nuclear power plant in Europe, very nervously. Although experts assured that it was not easy to breach the protection line of the nuclear power plant, even by military means.

Fifthly, Russia constantly says that the statements by the Ukrainian authorities made in February about the possible withdrawal from the Budapest Memorandum actually meant Ukraine’s intention to acquire own nuclear weapons. Sixthly, in several European countries, there are a number of US warheads targeting Russia and powerful missile defence systems, which according to Moscow violate parity.

NATO Assistant Secretary General Camille Grand recently said in his interview with the Swiss RTS that NATO could not guarantee that it would not deploy nuclear weapons in Finland and Sweden if those countries joined the alliance. In other words, NATO does not openly threaten Russia with nuclear weapons, but this scenario is not ruled out. According to the conservative American Thinker, in the event of a direct clash between NATO and Russia in Eastern Europe, the balance of power in this theatre of war would not be in favor of the former. Therefore, it is possible that the White House would decide to compensate for failures with the use of nuclear weapons. But the majority of the Western media outlets claim just the opposite: Russia is less powerful in terms of the arsenal of conventional weapons, hence it threatens to be the first to use nuclear weapons if it faces a threat of defeat on the battlefield.

Who’s right?

What does all this mean? The non-use of nuclear weapons is based on the principle of assured mutual destruction. This has always been thought to render the first-strike doctrine meaningless. According to the Stockholm Peace Research Institute, the US now has the largest arsenal of deployed nuclear warheads in the world, with 1,800 warheads. Russia has 1,625 warheads deployed on delivery vehicles. In terms of the total number of warheads, Moscow is ahead of Washington (6,255 and 5,550 warheads, respectively).

It would seem that everything is indeed in balance and under control. But is it really worth relying on the principle of mutual destruction? After all, however pointless the idea of sacrificing oneself to defeat the enemy may sound, we know many such examples in different wars on different sides. Where is the guarantee that the same cannot happen on the scale of entire countries? Everyone remembers the Russian president's statement in the Peace and Order 2018 on nuclear confrontation: "Why do we need a world without Russia?" Thus, Moscow has clearly stated its right to use nuclear weapons in response to non-nuclear ‘existential threats’.

However, Russia and the West have a very different understanding of these threats. What if the West at some point considers that it is facing a critical threat to its interests from Russia? In principle, no one really knows how to control the situation in such a case. After all, most of the terms and concepts of international relations and international law have double or even triple interpretations (that is how they were intended to be by default), while the interests of the parties are too confusing and intertwined.

Besides, there is another rather frightening aspect of the existing situation. Whatever the end of the war in Ukraine, it may have already opened a Pandora's box. For example, according to a poll published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists by Loren Sukin (Stanford University) and Alexander Lanozk (University of Waterloo), the national nuclear weapons programme was supported by 66% of respondents in Poland, 51% in Estonia, 45% in Romania, 40% in Latvia and 38% in Lithuania. Although the respondents are aware of the huge asymmetry between Russia's massive nuclear arsenal and their own armed forces, if the situation continues to get worse, support for the idea of having own nuclear weapons will grow. Can this lead to the emergence of new nuclear states in Europe? How would that change the EU and these countries? Until recently, the West has been focused on preventing nuclear weapons from falling into the wrong hands. But who can now say whose hands are the right or wrong, if even the world powers cannot guarantee anything?

Pros and Cons

Unfortunately, the war in Ukraine has once again demonstrated all the advantages that the holders of nuclear weapons have. The Western media reports that despite strong support for Kiev, NATO nevertheless does not send troops to Ukraine and carefully avoids any action that could lead to a clash between Russia and the alliance. How would events unfold if Ukraine had, or rather retained, its nuclear status? How would the crisis around Iran's nuclear programme develop in the light of ongoing events? What will be their impact on the actions of North Korea, on the Taiwan crisis, the conflict between India and Pakistan? Apparently, there are more questions than answers.

Fortunately, despite the growing public support for national nuclear programmes, the majority of citizens are against their use. In the Sukin and Lanozk poll, 85% of respondents said that there were no situations in which the use of nuclear weapons would be morally justified. This is understandable. Numerous expert assessments from various countries have repeatedly described all the possible risks and consequences of a global nuclear conflict. In 2016, the US Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA, Washington) published a report in which the authors described the scenarios leading to conflict or the threat of conflict using nuclear weapons. In 2019, scientists from the University of Colorado and the US National Center for Atmospheric Research analysed the global impact of a possible US-Russian nuclear conflict and concluded that it would cause a nuclear winter spanning a full decade. What will happen to mankind, the animals and plants during these years without heat and light? No comment.

Also, the nuclear apocalypse has been discussed many times in various works of popular culture, including in books, films, songs, and computer games. Thus, we have kind of experienced the catastrophe more than once, but at the same time it seems we are not afraid of or believe in such an outcome at all. As pointed out in The Atlantic, amid the victory in the Cold War, Americans have become unjustifiably complacent about the threat of a nuclear war. But it's not just Americans—we all forget that an anticipation of nuclear parity is already a possible reason for escalation.

Another possible reason may be the rapid transformation of the modern warfare. The conflicts of recent decades in Syria, Libya, Ukraine and so on show that world powers no longer need a major war to settle their relations—a local, mediated, proxy war is sufficient. Such smaller scale wars do not affect the main population of the warring countries, because the conflict usually does not take place on their own territory. As a result, people live their normal lives and take for granted the news about wars, as regular reports on weather forecast or currency exchange rates.

However, such a cynical position poses a great threat, because amid all the indirect battles, even the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons no longer seems shocking. If we add to this the threat of cyber attacks on nuclear or related systems, which, unfortunately, is not often mentioned in the world's media, the picture is quite frightening, isn’t it?