With heightened superpower tensions, war in Europe and new military alliances forming, New Zealand’s defence review must set the right course in a dangerous world.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks during the 2022 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons at the United Nations on Aug. 1, 2022.
Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images
Using nuclear weapons in Ukraine would be difficult and risky for Russia.
A cascade of gas centrifuges at a U.S. enrichment plant in Piketon, Ohio, in 1984. Iran is using similar technology to enrich uranium.
U.S. Department of Energy
Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons centers on producing weapons-grade uranium. Here’s what reports about Iran enriching uranium indicate about its progress toward the bomb.
A Russian military intercontinental ballistic missile launcher rolls by during the 2019 Victory Day military parade celebrating the end of the Second World War in Red Square in Moscow in May 2019.
(AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
The sort of scenarios that might lead to the use of nuclear weapons in the Ukraine war would require a significant deterioration in Russian fortunes — and greater western involvement in the conflict.
MAD: launch of the Sarmat, or ‘Satan 2’ ICBM on April 20, 2022.
Russian Defence Ministry/ZUMA Wire
Despite decades of progress on nonproliferation, Russia’s new threats of nuclear strikes bring to mind that convincing countries to reduce their nuclear weapons has long been very difficult.
A U.S. Air Force jet performs a test drop of a B61-12 bomb in December 2021. That bomb can contain a nuclear warhead for use in wartime.
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Both the Russian and US arsenals boast thousands of nuclear weapons, located in various places around their own countries and, for the US, in Europe as well.
While chemical weapons are likely a greater threat than nuclear weapons, use of the latter is also not impossible.
This intercontinental ballistic missile was launched as part of Russia’s test of its strategic forces in 2020.
Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats have the world on edge, but so far, long-standing arms control measures have helped keep the situation from getting out of control.
As Russia threatens to invade Ukraine, Ukrainians wonder about the worth of a 1994 agreement signed by Russia, the US and the UK, who promised to protect the newly independent state’s sovereignty.