tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/nuclear-deterrent-18445/articlesNuclear deterrent – The Conversation2023-08-31T12:35:58Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2122962023-08-31T12:35:58Z2023-08-31T12:35:58ZUkraine war: the implications of Moscow moving tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus<p>Russia is reported to have <a href="https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2023/08/22/poland-says-russias-moving-tactical-nuclear-weapons-to-belarus/">deployed nuclear weapons in Belarus</a>, a step that was <a href="https://fas.org/publication/russian-nuclear-weapons-deployment-plans-in-belarus-is-there-visual-confirmation/">much telegraphed</a> earlier this year and recently confirmed by Poland. This move has caused concern in neighbouring countries and has affected security arrangements in Europe. </p>
<p>Russia reportedly has the <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Nuclearweaponswhohaswhat">world’s biggest nuclear arsenal</a>, with (as of 2023) 5,889 nuclear warheads compared to 5,244 deployed by the US. But size (or, more accurately, numbers of warheads) should not be important. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/2020/04/perspectives-nuclear-deterrence-21st-century-0/human-rationality-and-nuclear-deterrence">Nuclear deterrence theory</a> – with its related notion of mutually assured destruction – should mean no country wants to fire weapons first as it would pretty much guarantee their own destruction (along with much of the rest of the planet).</p>
<p>That said, the rhetoric from the Russian leadership since the invasion of Ukraine has regularly raised the threat of Russia’s nuclear stockpile. Both <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-signs-decree-mobilisation-says-west-wants-destroy-russia-2022-09-21/">Vladimir Putin</a> and the deputy chair of his national security council (and former president), <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/31/europe/medvedev-russia-nuclear-weapons-intl-hnk/index.html">Dmitry Medvedev</a>, have <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-west-condemns-sham-referendums-in-russian-occupied-areas-191432">made threatening comments</a>, including this from Putin in September 2021: “If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will without doubt use all available means to protect Russia and our people – this is not a bluff.”</p>
<h2>Different classes of nuclear weapons</h2>
<p>This idea of mutually assured destruction is linked to <a href="https://www.nato.int/docu/glossary/eng-nuclear/eng-app3.pdf">strategic nuclear weapons</a> – which can be used to strike big targets – such as cities – more than 3,500km away and carry huge payloads. </p>
<p>But the weapons reportedly being stationed in Belarus by Russia are tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs). It’s estimated that Russia has <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/what-are-tactical-nuclear-weapons-what-is-russias-policy-2023-03-25/">2,000 working tactical warheads</a>, and currently it is <a href="https://apnews.com/article/belarus-russia-nuclear-weapons-shoigu-285ff887e8b1c28d20ff68e1d775441e">not clear</a> how many will ultimately end up in Belarus. </p>
<p>There has been a long debate about what the term TNW means. In 2018, then US defense secretary <a href="https://www.defensenews.com/space/2018/02/06/mattis-no-such-thing-as-a-tactical-nuclear-weapon-but-new-cruise-missile-needed/">Jim Mattis, said</a>: “I don’t think there is any such thing as a ‘tactical nuclear weapon.’ Any nuclear weapon used any time is a strategic game-changer”. </p>
<p>The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) defines a TNW as “any weapon that’s not been classified as "strategic” under US-Russian arms control agreements (Salt, Sort, Start).“ According to ICAN, these weapons can have explosive yields of up to 300 kilotons, or 20 times the force of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. </p>
<p>In terms of delivery, they tend to have a <a href="https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/what-are-tactical-nuclear-weapons/">shorter range</a> of around 310 miles and can be delivered by missiles, torpedoes or dropped from aircraft. They are designed to be used on the <a href="https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/what-are-tactical-nuclear-weapons/">battlefield</a>. Russia is thought to have about ten times as many tactical nuclear warheads as Nato. </p>
<h2>Russia’s nuclear policy</h2>
<p>Current Russian <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2020-07/news/russia-releases-nuclear-deterrence-policy">nuclear doctrine</a>, outlines four cases in which it would use its nuclear weapons. The first three cases are currently largely inapplicable given no one is attacking or threatening Russia with ballistic missiles or nuclear weapons. </p>
<p>The last case is rather intriguing though. It <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2020-07/news/russia-releases-nuclear-deterrence-policy">says that</a> Russia would use its nuclear weapons in case of "aggression against the Russian Federation with the use of conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is in jeopardy”. It is worth breaking down this scenario. </p>
<p>First of all, the concept of aggression means different things to Russia than to others. For example, Russia sees <a href="https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/115204.htm">Nato’s enlargement</a> as a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATJJaCaWLZw">hostile act</a>. </p>
<p>Second, Russia has a different interpretation of what Russian territory entails, as the <a href="https://www.state.gov/russias-sham-referenda-in-ukraine/">sham referendums organised by Russia</a> occupied by Russian troops indicate. So retaking parts of Ukraine now seen by Moscow as Russian territory could count as “aggression against the Russian federation” under the guidelines.</p>
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<p>Then there is Russia’s <a href="https://vcdnp.org/russia-clarifies-its-nuclear-deterrence-policy/">often contested policy</a> of “<a href="https://globalsecurityreview.com/nuclear-de-escalation-russias-deterrence-strategy/">escalate to de-escalate</a>”. This essentially means that a key part of Russia’s nuclear doctrine holds that to de-escalate a non-nuclear (conventional) conflict, Russia would have to escalate it first through the threat of a limited or tactical nuclear strike.</p>
<p>This raises the questions of whether, if Russia’s war in Ukraine is in danger of failing altogether, the Kremlin might interpret the prospect of losing as a motivation to invoke this principle. </p>
<p>Medvedev expressed this most clearly in July when <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-medvedev-wed-have-use-nuclear-weapon-if-ukrainian-offensive-was-success-2023-07-30/">he said</a>: “Imagine if the … offensive, which is backed by Nato, was a success and they tore off a part of our land, then we would be forced to use a nuclear weapon according to the rules of a decree from the president of Russia. There would simply be no other option.” </p>
<p>So the Kremlin’s decision to deploy some of its tactical weapons to Belarus gives these concerns an added dimension. Belarus president, Alexander Lukashenko, <a href="https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/nuclear-weapons-deployment-in-belarus-is-in-response-to-eastern-europe-s-militarization-lukashenko/2968423">has warned</a> about what he called “the rapid militarisation of eastern Europe and the increased military activities of the US and Nato”. </p>
<p>On a separate occasion he <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/belarus-russia-nuclear-weapons-war-lukashenko-putin-hiroshima-nagasaki/">commented that</a>: “God forbid I have to make a decision to use those weapons today, but there would be no hesitation if we face an aggression.” But it is generally accepted that any decision regarding the weapons would be <a href="https://time.com/6266418/russia-belarus-nuclear-weapons/">taken in Moscow rather than Minsk</a>.</p>
<p>Russia’s nuclear forces have been on “high alert” since February 2022, days after the invasion began. The country’s leaders have repeatedly warned of the possibility of their use. And now Moscow has deployed warheads in its client-state neighbour. </p>
<p>US president Joe Biden gave a fairly clear indication of his thoughts when he told political donors in California in June: “When I was out here about two years ago saying I worried about the Colorado river drying up, everybody looked at me like I was crazy. They looked at me like when I said I worry about Putin using tactical nuclear weapons. It’s real.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212296/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Veronika Poniscjakova does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>What are tactical nuclear weapons and would Russia resort to using them in Ukraine?Veronika Poniscjakova, Senior Teaching Fellow, Military Education, University of PortsmouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1977442023-02-03T09:38:49Z2023-02-03T09:38:49ZStar Wars: France pledges not to conduct anti-satellite missile tests but leaves other options open<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504970/original/file-20230117-23-xzhvzc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=18%2C49%2C2048%2C1312&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Ariane 6 launcher, show during tests in 2021, will be used to launch satellites for France's "Céleste" and "Iris" surveillance programs.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ariane_6_upper_stage_on_DLR_P5.2_test_stand_01.jpg">DLR/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Driven by concerns over space debris, in late November the French Ministry for the Armed Forces formally committed <a href="https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/french-foreign-policy/security-disarmament-and-non-proliferation/news/2022/article/space-france-s-commitment-not-to-conduct-destructive-direct-ascent-anti">not to conduct anti-satellite missile tests</a>. And yet, France’s <a href="https://www.gouvernement.fr/sites/default/files/locale/piece-jointe/2020/08/france_-_space_defence_strategy_2019.pdf">space strategy of 2019</a> resolved to “toughen” the country’s space capabilities.</p>
<p>Given the short lapse of just three years, how can we make sense of France’s seemingly contradictory space military policy?</p>
<h2>A historic but surprising decision?</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://press.un.org/en/2022/gadis3703.doc.htm">October 2022</a>, the United Nations <a href="https://undocs.org/Home/Mobile?FinalSymbol=A%2FC.1%2F77%2FL.62&Language=E&DeviceType=Desktop&LangRequested=False">voted</a> to work towards putting an end to “destructive direct-ascent antisatellite missile testing” – that is, missiles fired at satellites from Earth’s surface or from the air. France cosponsored the resolution and voted for it, despite possessing the technical expertise required to <a href="https://www.opex360.com/2022/11/30/la-france-sengage-a-ne-pas-effectuer-dessais-de-missiles-antisatellites-destructifs-a-ascension-directe/">develop such a capacity</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.defense.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/ministere-armees/29.11.2022_Spatial%20%E2%80%93%20Engagement%20de%20la%20France%20%C3%A0%20ne%20pas%20conduire%20d%E2%80%99essais%20de%20missiles%20antisatellites%20destructifs%20%C3%A0%20ascension%20directe.pdf">ministry’s statement</a>, published on 9 November 2022, is strongly worded. It dubs anti-satellite testing as “destabilising and irresponsible”, and insists France never conducted such tests. It also voices concerns about the potential impact of space debris on the integrity of in-use satellites, as well as for the space domain. France’s decision follows that of the United States on <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/04/18/remarks-by-vice-president-harris-on-the-ongoing-work-to-establish-norms-in-space/">9 April 2022</a>, which the Elysée Palace <a href="https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/country-files/united-states/events/article/united-states-france-applauds-the-united-states-commitment-to-not-conduct-any">had then applauded</a>. </p>
<p>The French Ministry’s determination is especially historic given that France is one of the few countries to have developed a <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-guerres-mondiales-et-conflits-contemporains-2010-2-page-65.htm">“strategic triad”</a> consisting of intercontinental missiles, nuclear weapons, and aerospace capabilities. </p>
<h2>France’s space and ballistic programme</h2>
<p>The country’s ballistic programme is ongoing and involves the <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-herodote-2018-3-page-17.htm">renewal of nuclear deterrence</a>, the modernization of Ariane Group’s sea-land <a href="https://www.ariane.group/en/defense/m51/">ballistic missile M51</a>, and the development of the fourth-generation <a href="https://www.usinenouvelle.com/article/ou-en-est-la-france-dans-la-bataille-des-armes-hypersoniques-et-des-missiles-de-nouvelle-generation.N1799472">air-land nuclear missile (ASN4G) and the hypersonic glider V-Max</a>. Although this modernization effort does not directly relate to anti-satellite testing, it goes to show the extent to which France has invested in ballistic capabilities. </p>
<p>In parallel, the Syracuse programme is intended to provide the country’s armed forces with <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20211024-france-successfully-launches-cutting-edge-military-communications-satellite">new-generation military satellites</a>, powering high-speed communications from the earth, sky, oceans, and underwater. These satellites are equipped with surveillance systems capable of observing their immediate environment, as well as changing trajectory in the event of an attack. Alongside the CSO and CERES satellites, they represent the French Defence’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/satellites-les-yeux-les-oreilles-et-le-porte-voix-de-la-defense-francaise-dans-lespace-187381">eyes, ears, and voice</a> <em>in</em> and <em>from</em> space. The “Céleste” electromagnetic intelligence (ELINT) and the “Iris” optical observation programmes – whose launch was postponed due to the <a href="https://www.latribune.fr/entreprises-finance/industrie/aeronautique-defense/cso-3-iris-les-futurs-satellites-espions-francais-cloues-au-sol-927346.html">Covid-19 pandemic, Ariane 6 delays, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine</a> – will follow.</p>
<p>Finally, <a href="https://www.elysee.fr/emmanuel-macron/2022/11/09/a-toulon-le-president-de-la-republique-presente-la-revue-nationale-strategique">in November, Emmanuel Macron</a> established outer space as a strategic priority in the wake of ongoing discussions to design the next <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2022/12/12/les-grandes-lignes-de-la-future-loi-de-programmation-militaire-se-dessinent_6154084_823448.html">pluriannual military planning law</a> (<em>Loi de Programmation Militaire</em>), for 2024-2030. </p>
<h2>A traditional show of force</h2>
<p>Given France’s advances in the domain of satellite and missile capabilities, one could have envisaged that the country would at some point develop an anti-satellite missile – for example, a high-altitude version of the <a href="https://www.mbda-systems.com/product/aster-15-30/">Aster 30</a> antiballistic missile. The French Armed Forces could have conducted a live-fire test against a non-functional French satellite – and in an orbit minimizing the impact of space debris – for “demonstration” purposes.</p>
<p>Anti-satellite tests have represented significant markers of military power throughout space history. The <a href="https://swfound.org/news/all-news/2020/06/swf-releases-updated-compilation-of-anti-satellite-testing-in-space/">Secure World Foundation</a> identifies more than <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1e5GtZEzdo6xk41i2_ei3c8jRZDjvP4Xwz3BVsUHwi48/edit">70 since 1959</a>, 20 of which occurred after 2005. The most emblematic include the Chinese test in <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10163270709464125">January 2007</a>, the American response in <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14777620801907913">February 2008</a>, India’s test in <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/754917/summary">March 2019</a>, and Russia’s in <a href="https://spacenews.com/russia-destroys-satellite-in-asat-test/">November 2021</a>. In October 2022, NASA was still forced to manoeuvre International Space Station out of harm’s way to avoid collision with debris created by Russia’s test, according to the <a href="https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/2022/10/24/space-station-maneuvers-to-avoid-orbital-debris/">space agency</a>.</p>
<p>It is also worth noting the US’ steps to prevent the so-called <a href="https://breakingdefense.com/2020/10/us-must-weigh-strategic-impacts-of-arming-the-heavens-aerospace/">“weaponisation”</a> of space <a href="https://theconversation.com/amid-tensions-on-earth-the-united-states-claims-that-conflict-in-space-is-not-inevitable-181993">contrast with previous governments’ policies</a>, including the renewal of <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781503609402-009/html">US space nationalism</a> after the Cold War and the creation of the <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11495">US Space Force</a> in 2020 under Donald Trump.</p>
<p>Although the past decades have seen efforts to define <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/topics/outerspace-sg-report-outer-space-2021/">codes of conduct in space</a> – with the <a href="https://www.cairn-int.info/journal-les-champs-de-mars-2019-1-page-29.htm">active participation of France</a> –, these are not self-evident and should not be taken for granted. Indeed, oscillations between <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=31357">militaristic visions and “strategic self-restraint”</a> have long characterised space history. And the <a href="https://www.cnrseditions.fr/catalogue/physique-et-astrophysique/le-nouvel-age-spatial/">“new Space Age”</a> remains subject to military matters, notwithstanding its increasing integration of <a href="https://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/christian-davenport/the-space-barons/9781610398299/">private actors</a> and <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-strategique-2019-3-page-215.htm">commercial opportunities</a>.</p>
<h2>“Strengthening” France’s space doctrine</h2>
<p>The question of space has become increasingly critical for France. Emmanuel Macron’s first term and Florence Parly’s term as minister for the Armed Forces have jointly led to a <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-defense-nationale-2019-4-page-114.htm">significant leap in the domain of space defence</a>.</p>
<p>In September 2019, the creation of the <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20190713-macron-france-space-force">French Space Command</a> and the elaboration of a <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2019/07/25/la-france-militarise-sa-politique-spatiale_5493327_3210.html">space defence doctrine</a> marked a turning point. Continuing the theme, in September 2020 the French Air Force was renamed <a href="https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2020/09/15/french-air-force-changes-name-as-it-looks-to-the-stars/">“French Air and Space Force”</a>. At the time, several members of Parliament called on the state to adopt a combination of <a href="https://www.latribune.fr/entreprises-finance/industrie/aeronautique-defense/la-france-doit-avoir-des-armes-dans-l-espace-olivier-becht-depute-udi-804106.html">“offensive” and “defensive” means</a>, referring to a long-lasting dichotomy that still <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/001632878290057X">characterises space activities</a>.</p>
<p>While France’s space doctrine is careful to respect international law, its primary goals are to support military operations and to “discourage adversaries from harming [French space assets]”. The doctrine thus considers space as a “force multiplier” alongside other domains and highlights the importance of <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-strategique-2018-3-page-201.htm">space surveillance</a>.</p>
<h2>How to protect French satellites?</h2>
<p>But protecting space assets requires two elements: technical capacity and a sense of how to go about deploying it.</p>
<p>First, from a technical standpoint, like the United States, Russia, or China, France is currently developing weapons capable of “blinding” or “burning” the critical systems of hostile satellites. In <a href="https://www.challenges.fr/entreprise/defense/la-france-travaille-sur-une-arme-laser-anti-satellites_657432">June 2019</a>, the head of the French national aerospace research centre (<em>Office National d'Études et de Recherches Aérospatiales</em>, ONERA) told the magazine <em>Challenges</em> his scientists were currently developing anti-satellite lasers. In a <a href="https://www.onera.fr/en/node/3503">note from May 2019</a>, they specified they had already deployed full-scale tests against deactivated satellites. </p>
<p>Such tests hardly differ from anti-satellite missile testing, except for the quantity of debris they generate. Lasers are part of a range of space capacities that also comprises <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/russia-behind-cyber-attack-with-europe-wide-impact-an-hour-before-ukraine-invasion">cyber-attacks</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/apres-le-gaz-poutine-va-t-il-nous-couper-le-gps-194508">signal jamming</a> against satellites, <a href="https://euobserver.com/world/156370">satellite killers</a>, and <a href="https://www.boeing.com/defense/autonomous-systems/x37b/index.page">space drones</a>.</p>
<p>Second, from a doctrinal standpoint, France’s <a href="https://www.gouvernement.fr/sites/default/files/locale/piece-jointe/2020/08/france_-_space_defence_strategy_2019.pdf">2019 space strategy</a> leans toward a form of “strategic ambiguity”, a <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2022/11/28/war-in-ukraine-strategic-ambiguity-finds-renewed-significance-in-21st-century-nuclear-deterrence_6005911_23.html">notion reactivated with the war in Ukraine</a>. Paradoxically, the country’s renouncement to anti-satellite testing reinforces this ambiguity. The document indeed specifies France “reserves the right” to take “retaliatory” actions against an “unfriendly act in space”, and to exercise its “right to self-defence” in the event of an “armed aggression in space”.</p>
<p>The words allow flexibility in interpretation and maintain a form of ambiguity as to what France will consider as a possible aggression and how it will react. This ambiguity is a tenet of the “strategic vocabulary” that guarantees the efficacy of <a href="https://www.cairn-int.info/journal-politique-etrangere-2020-1-page-147.htm">‘space deterrence’</a>. It also allows the state to respond to an aggression even if it does not pass the threshold of armed conflict.</p>
<p>In this regard, the strategy appears to seek a <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Peace-and-War-A-Theory-of-International-Relations/Aron/p/book/9780765805041">“psycho-technological equilibrium”</a> typical of Raymond Aron’s realism. Willingness and determination – and how they are subjectively perceived – are as important as a country’s technological credibility and its <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14682745.2020.1832472">technical capacity to strike</a>.</p>
<p>In publicly renouncing to anti-satellite missile testing, France keeps other options open without clearly laying them out. As it stands, a <a href="https://www.areion24.news/2021/04/15/cyberespace-une-intersection-redoutable%E2%80%89/">convergence</a> with the <a href="https://warontherocks.com/2019/04/a-close-look-at-frances-new-military-cyber-strategy/">French cyber doctrine</a> is plausible, especially to <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8756904">prevent cyber attacks on satellites</a>. Created in 2017, the <a href="https://www.defense.gouv.fr/ema/commandement-cyberdefense-comcyber">Cyberdefence Command</a> displays a more resolute <a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/frances-new-offensive-cyber-doctrine">offensive posture</a> – something France’s space doctrine could be aiming for as well.</p>
<p>On January 2023, Emmanuel Macron announced that France’s military spending will <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/en/politics/article/2023/01/20/macron-presents-significant-increase-in-military-spending-until-2030_6012339_5.html">increase by a third until 2030</a>. Meanwhile, the French Air and Space Force will be looking at <a href="https://breakingdefense.com/2023/01/france-considering-options-for-unexploited-higher-airspace-region/">options to operate in “higher airspace”</a>, that is, the region above where aircrafts can operate in but below the altitudes of low-orbiting satellites. France’s air and space doctrine is thus likely to evolve once again in the foreseeable future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197744/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas G. Chevalier received a Vice Chancellor’s Research Scholarship from the University of Kent for his research.</span></em></p>While many countries have tested anti-satellite missiles, France has committed itself not to do so. For what reasons, and with what consequences?Thomas G. Chevalier, Doctoral Researcher (Social Theory, Military Affairs, Technology), University of KentLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1911672022-09-28T12:32:01Z2022-09-28T12:32:01ZWhat are tactical nuclear weapons? An international security expert explains and assesses what they mean for the war in Ukraine<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486650/original/file-20220926-22-i4bgaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4546%2C2726&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">This Russian short-range cruise missile, the Iskander-K, can carry nuclear warheads for several hundred miles.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/RussiaUkraine/6671b4bbaa8b47119e6dc89d0a121409/photo">Russian Defense Ministry Press Service photo via AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Tactical nuclear weapons have burst onto the international stage as Russian President Vladimir Putin, facing battlefield losses in eastern Ukraine, has threatened that Russia will “<a href="http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/69390">make use of all weapon systems available to us</a>” if Russia’s territorial integrity is threatened. Putin has characterized the war in Ukraine as an <a href="https://tass.com/politics/1511161">existential battle against the West</a>, which he said wants to weaken, divide and destroy Russia. </p>
<p>U.S. President Joe Biden <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/21/biden-condemns-putins-irresponsible-nuclear-threats/">criticized Putin’s overt nuclear threats against Europe</a>. Meanwhile, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg <a href="https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1572571639774343169">downplayed the threat</a>, saying Putin “knows very well that a nuclear war should never be fought and cannot be won.” This is <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/41fc6e5d-6e39-440d-97f2-cf7c517fc99b">not the first time</a> Putin has invoked nuclear weapons in an attempt to deter NATO.</p>
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<p>I am an international security scholar who has <a href="https://dornsife.usc.edu/cf/faculty-and-staff/faculty.cfm?pid=1022718">worked on</a> and researched <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-90978-3">nuclear restraint</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Behavior-Nuclear-Nonproliferation-Security-International/dp/0820347299">nonproliferation</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818319000328">costly signaling</a> theory applied to international relations for two decades. Russia’s large arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons, which are not governed by international treaties, and Putin’s doctrine of threatening their use have raised tensions, but tactical nuclear weapons are not simply another type of battlefield weapon.</p>
<h2>Tactical by the numbers</h2>
<p>Tactical nuclear weapons, sometimes called battlefield or nonstrategic nuclear weapons, were designed to be used on the battlefield – for example, to counter overwhelming conventional forces like large formations of infantry and armor. They are smaller than strategic nuclear weapons like the warheads carried on intercontinental ballistic missiles.</p>
<p>While experts <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00963402.2019.1654273">disagree about precise definitions</a> of tactical nuclear weapons, lower explosive yields, measured in kilotons, and shorter-range delivery vehicles are commonly identified characteristics. Tactical nuclear weapons vary in yields from fractions of 1 kiloton to about 50 kilotons, compared with strategic nuclear weapons, which have yields that range from about 100 kilotons to over a megaton, though much more powerful warheads were developed during the Cold War. </p>
<p>For reference, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima was 15 kilotons, so some tactical nuclear weapons are capable of causing widespread destruction. The <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/04/13/politics/afghanistan-isis-moab-bomb">largest conventional bomb</a>, the Mother of All Bombs or MOAB, that the U.S. has dropped has a 0.011-kiloton yield.</p>
<p>Delivery systems for tactical nuclear weapons also tend to have shorter ranges, typically under 310 miles (500 kilometers) compared with strategic nuclear weapons, which are typically designed to cross continents. </p>
<p>Because low-yield nuclear weapons’ explosive force is not much greater than that of increasingly powerful conventional weapons, the U.S. military has reduced its reliance on them. Most of its remaining stockpile, about 150 <a href="https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/19263/get-to-know-americas-long-serving-b61-family-of-nuclear-bombs">B61 gravity bombs</a>, is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00963402.2019.1654273">deployed in Europe</a>. The U.K. and France have completely eliminated their tactical stockpiles. Pakistan, China, India, Israel and North Korea all have several types of tactical nuclear weaponry. </p>
<p>Russia has retained more tactical nuclear weapons, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00963402.2019.1654273">estimated to be around 2,000</a>, and relied more heavily on them in its nuclear strategy than the U.S. has, mostly due to Russia’s less advanced conventional weaponry and capabilities. </p>
<p>Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons can be deployed by ships, planes and ground forces. Most are deployed on air-to-surface missiles, short-range ballistic missiles, gravity bombs and depth charges delivered by medium-range and tactical bombers, or naval anti-ship and anti-submarine torpedoes. These missiles are mostly held in reserve in central depots in Russia. </p>
<p>Russia has updated its delivery systems to be able to carry either nuclear or conventional bombs. There is heightened concern over these dual capability delivery systems because Russia has used many of these short-range missile systems, particularly the Iskander-M, to bombard Ukraine.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Russia’s Iskander-M mobile short-range ballistic missile can carry conventional or nuclear warheads. Russia has used the missile with conventional warheads in the war in Ukraine.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Tactical nuclear weapons are substantially more destructive than their conventional counterparts even at the same explosive energy. Nuclear explosions are <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Nuclear-Arms-Race-Technology-Society/dp/0070133476">more powerful by factors of 10 million to 100 million</a> than chemical explosions, and leave deadly radiation fallout that would contaminate air, soil, water and food supplies, similar to the disastrous Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown in 1986. The interactive simulation site <a href="https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/">NUKEMAP</a> by Alex Wellerstein depicts the multiple effects of nuclear explosions at various yields. </p>
<h2>Can any nuke be tactical?</h2>
<p>Unlike strategic nuclear weapons, tactical weapons are not focused on mutually assured destruction through overwhelming retaliation or nuclear umbrella deterrence to protect allies. While tactical nuclear weapons have not been included in arms control agreements, medium-range weapons were included in the now-defunct <a href="https://2009-2017.state.gov/t/avc/trty/102360.htm">Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty</a> (1987-2018), which reduced nuclear weapons in Europe. </p>
<p>Both the U.S. and Russia reduced their total nuclear arsenals from about <a href="https://doi.org/10.2968/066004008">19,000 and 35,000 respectively</a> at the end of the Cold War to about <a href="https://sipri.org/sites/default/files/YB22%2010%20World%20Nuclear%20Forces.pdf">3,700 and 4,480 as of January 2022</a>. Russia’s reluctance to negotiate over its nonstrategic nuclear weapons has stymied further nuclear arms control efforts.</p>
<p>The fundamental question is whether tactical nuclear weapons are more “useable” and therefore could potentially trigger a full-scale nuclear war. Their development was part of an effort to overcome concerns that because large-scale nuclear attacks were widely seen as unthinkable, strategic nuclear weapons were losing their value as a deterrent to war between the superpowers. The nuclear powers would be more likely to use tactical nuclear weapons, in theory, and so the weapons would bolster a nation’s nuclear deterrence. </p>
<p>Yet, any use of tactical nuclear weapons would invoke defensive nuclear strategies. In fact, then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis notably <a href="https://docs.house.gov/meetings/AS/AS00/20180206/106833/HHRG-115-AS00-Wstate-MattisJ-20180206.pdf">stated in 2018</a>: “I do not think there is any such thing as a tactical nuclear weapon. Any nuclear weapon use any time is a strategic game changer.” </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">This documentary explores how the risk of nuclear war has changed – and possibly increased – since the end of the Cold War.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The U.S. has criticized Russia’s nuclear strategy of <a href="https://globalsecurityreview.com/nuclear-de-escalation-russias-deterrence-strategy/">escalate to de-escalate</a>, in which tactical nuclear weapons could be used to deter a widening of the war to include NATO. </p>
<p>While there is disagreement among experts, Russian and U.S. nuclear strategies focus on deterrence, and so involve large-scale retaliatory nuclear attacks in the face of any first-nuclear weapon use. This means that Russia’s threat to use nuclear weapons as a deterrent to conventional war is threatening an action that would, under nuclear warfare doctrine, invite a retaliatory nuclear strike if aimed at the U.S. or NATO.</p>
<h2>Nukes and Ukraine</h2>
<p>I believe Russian use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine would not achieve any military goal. It would contaminate the territory that Russia claims as part of its historic empire and possibly drift into Russia itself. It would increase the likelihood of direct NATO intervention and destroy Russia’s image in the world. </p>
<p>Putin aims to deter Ukraine’s continued successes in regaining territory by preemptively <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/27/russia-ukraine-war-referendum/">annexing regions in the east of the country</a> after holding staged referendums. He could then declare that Russia would use nuclear weapons to defend the new territory as though the existence of the Russian state were threatened. But I believe this claim stretches Russia’s nuclear strategy beyond belief.</p>
<p>Putin has explicitly claimed that his threat to use tactical nuclear weapons <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/340dacce-10c8-45bc-a157-5aeb0a443b5e">is not a bluff</a> precisely because, from a strategic standpoint, <a href="https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/russias-nonstrategic-nuclear-weapons-and-its-views-limited-nuclear-war">using them is not credible</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191167/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nina Srinivasan Rathbun does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Tactical nuclear weapons were designed to be used on the battlefield rather than for strategic defense, but that doesn’t mean there’s a plausible case for using them.Nina Srinivasan Rathbun, Professor of International Relations, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1878352022-08-05T12:13:18Z2022-08-05T12:13:18ZWhy are nuclear weapons so hard to get rid of? Because they’re tied up in nuclear countries’ sense of right and wrong<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477238/original/file-20220802-19-qrajme.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1%2C4%2C1020%2C674&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">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.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/secretary-of-state-antony-blinken-speaks-during-the-2022-news-photo/1242248550?adppopup=true">Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every five years, the nearly 200 member states of the <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/npt/">Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons</a> meet to review their progress – or lack thereof. After being postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the monthlong conference <a href="https://www.un.org/en/conferences/npt2020">is now meeting in New York</a> and opened with a stark warning.</p>
<p>The world is “just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/01/world/europe/nuclear-war-un-guterres.html">United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Aug. 1, 2022</a>, citing growing conflicts and weakening “guardrails” against escalation.</p>
<p>The treaty has three core missions: preventing the spread of nuclear weapons to states that do not have them, ensuring civil nuclear energy programs do not turn into weapons programs, and facilitating nuclear disarmament. The last review conference, <a href="https://www.un.org/en/conf/npt/2015/">held in 2015</a>, was widely regarded as a nonproliferation success but a <a href="https://cpr.unu.edu/publications/articles/why-the-2015-npt-review-conference-fell-apart.html">disarmament failure</a>, with the five members that possess nuclear weapons failing to make progress toward eliminating their nuclear arsenals, as promised in <a href="https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/issues_development-enjeux_developpement/peace_security-paix_securite/action_plan-2010-plan_d_action.aspx?lang=eng">previous conferences</a>.</p>
<p>At the heart of this dispute are states’ <a href="https://doi.org/10.3402/egp.v2i2.1916">motivations for keeping nuclear weapons</a> – often perceived as rooted in hard-nosed security strategy, by which morality is irrelevant or even self-defeating.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.polisci.txst.edu/people/faculty-bios/doyle.html">a nuclear ethicist</a>, though, I see these explanations as incomplete. To understand <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538164136/Nuclear-Ethics-in-the-Twenty-First-Century-Survival-Order-and-Justice">leaders’ motives</a> – and therefore effectively negotiate the elimination of nuclear weapons – other scholars and I argue we must acknowledge that policymakers express underlying moral concerns as strategic concerns. History shows that such moral concerns often form the foundations of nuclear strategy, even if they’re deeply buried. </p>
<h2>National values</h2>
<p>It is easier for many people to see how the <a href="https://www.icrc.org/en/document/treaty-nuclear-weapons-prohibition">nuclear abolitionist argument</a> is fundamentally based in morality. The fear of <a href="https://theconversation.com/nuclear-war-could-be-devastating-for-the-us-even-if-no-one-shoots-back-131809">nuclear winter</a> – or even a less severe “nuclear autumn” – is rooted in the immorality of killing millions of innocent people and devastating the environment in long-lasting ways.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black and white photo shows a man standing in a sea of rubble, with the ruins of one building in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477239/original/file-20220802-10020-gr7br8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477239/original/file-20220802-10020-gr7br8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477239/original/file-20220802-10020-gr7br8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477239/original/file-20220802-10020-gr7br8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477239/original/file-20220802-10020-gr7br8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477239/original/file-20220802-10020-gr7br8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477239/original/file-20220802-10020-gr7br8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hiroshima, Japan, after the atomic bomb was dropped in August 1945.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/world-war-ii-after-the-explosion-of-the-atom-bomb-in-august-news-photo/566461861?adppopup=true">Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>By contrast, a realistic and strategic approach to the value of nuclear weapons has dominated <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538164136/Nuclear-Ethics-in-the-Twenty-First-Century-Survival-Order-and-Justice">security discourse</a> since the early Cold War era. This approach argues that the primary purpose of nuclear weapons is to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511491573">deter adversaries</a> from attacking vital national security interests. If an attack does occur, then nuclear weapons can be used to <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=21511">punish aggression</a> in a proportional way and caution other adversaries, restoring nuclear deterrence. </p>
<p>Even so, according to <a href="https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty/joseph-nye">political scientist Joseph Nye</a>, the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs under President Bill Clinton, a strategist <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Nuclear-Ethics/Joseph-S-Nye/9780029230916">may pose as a moral skeptic</a> but “tends to smuggle his preferred values into foreign policy, often in the form of narrow nationalism.”</p>
<p>Nationalism asserts the moral priority of one’s own nation over others. Communities’ deep-held beliefs are intimately woven into <a href="https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/michael-walzer/just-and-unjust-wars/9780465052707/">ideas about nationhood, security and prestige</a>.</p>
<p>In the United States, for example, the moral underpinnings of American identity are deeply rooted in the idea of being “<a href="https://www.neh.gov/article/how-america-became-city-upon-hill">a city on a hill</a>”: an example the rest of the world is watching. Americans are anxious about losing their way, and many feel that their country was once a <a href="https://www.mic.com/articles/5505/is-america-the-greatest-force-for-good-in-the-world">force for good</a> in the world, but no longer. Thus, national survival is embraced as a moral value, and deterring or defending against aggression has strategic, political and moral overtones.</p>
<p>Regardless of whether someone thinks these concerns are justified, it is important to recognize that, in their defenders’ view, they go beyond strategy or sheer survival. They reflect societies’ foundational ideas about what is wrong and right – their sense of morality.</p>
<h2>Early motives</h2>
<p>So how are these moral concerns applied to the questions of nuclear weapons and their role in security strategy?</p>
<p>It is worth remembering what motivated President Franklin D. Roosevelt to authorize the <a href="https://www.routledge.com/A-Perpetual-Menace-Nuclear-Weapons-and-International-Order/Walker/p/book/9780415421065">development of the atomic bomb</a>: the genocidal evil of Nazi German aggression in World War II and the knowledge that Adolf Hitler had begun an atomic bomb program. </p>
<p>And when Nazi Germany had been defeated, the U.S. justifications for <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250070050/hiroshimanagasaki">using atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki</a> centered on two kinds of moral concerns. The most frequently invoked was utilitarian: <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1995/07/was-it-right/376364/">preventing a greater number of deaths</a> in a land invasion of Japan. The second, not expressed as explicitly, viewed the atomic bombing as a kind of moral <a href="https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/atomic-bombings-ian-w-toll">punishment</a> for the Japanese invasion of Pearl Harbor and the brutal treatment of Allied prisoners of war.</p>
<p>In short, the motivations for the original atomic bomb program and its uses could not be described in solely “hard-nosed” strategic terms. As political philosopher <a href="https://www.ias.edu/scholars/walzer">Michael Walzer</a> <a href="https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/michael-walzer/just-and-unjust-wars/9780465052707/">has argued</a>, both morality and strategy are about justification: Both tell us what we should do or should not do, based on some set of values. And strategy is often used for decision-makers’ moral aims, such as their goal to defeat a genocidal regime.</p>
<h2>Morally excusable?</h2>
<p>Along with other scholars, I have argued that moral concerns also motivated the central role of <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.1081/E-EPAP3-120052995/defense-military-policy-nuclear-war-deterrence-policy-thomas-doyle">nuclear deterrence policy</a> during the Cold War. American policymakers portrayed Soviet communism, like Nazism, as a politics of brute force that had no regard for law or morals. Once the Soviet Union and China had acquired nuclear weapons, American analysts came to believe that communism represented <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674005426">an existential threat</a> not only to U.S. security, but to liberal democracy in general.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A black and white photograph shows newspaper headlines about Russia's atomic weapon testing." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477240/original/file-20220802-12171-qiicwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477240/original/file-20220802-12171-qiicwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477240/original/file-20220802-12171-qiicwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477240/original/file-20220802-12171-qiicwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477240/original/file-20220802-12171-qiicwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1027&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477240/original/file-20220802-12171-qiicwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1027&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477240/original/file-20220802-12171-qiicwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1027&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A selection of U.S. newspaper headlines about President Truman’s announcement that Soviet Union had conducted its first nuclear weapon test, in 1949.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/selection-of-us-newspaper-headlines-on-president-trumans-news-photo/85274999?adppopup=true">Keystone/Hulton Archive via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p><a href="https://www.ias.edu/scholars/walzer">Walzer described</a> such situations as “supreme emergency conditions,” in which ordinary moral prohibitions against mass destruction are suspended to ensure what political leaders see as <a href="https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/michael-walzer/just-and-unjust-wars/9780465052707/">the highest value: national survival</a>. </p>
<p>This is self-preservation – but people often think about that, too, as a moral concern. Social norms against suicide, for example, imply that people have a moral duty to preserve their lives except under certain conditions, reflecting a belief that human life has intrinsic moral value.</p>
<p>Walzer did not claim that using nuclear weapons, or even threatening their use, was morally justified. However, he suggested they might be necessary for national security, and therefore become morally excusable in supreme emergency situations. His argument has been <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/conspiring-with-the-enemy/9780231182454">very influential</a> in government and academic circles.</p>
<p>Many critics claim that it is always <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/morality-prudence-and-nuclear-weapons/B9969D41EC15E37CA7F506CDD2A578C9">immoral to use nuclear weapons</a>, since they cannot discriminate between soldiers and innocent civilians, including children, the elderly and the infirm. Moreover, the use of nuclear weapons cannot but bring social and environmental catastrophe, the kind that our <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/21/books/review/review-the-road-by-cormac-mccarthy.html">darkest dystopian novels</a> and films depict. And if it is immoral to use nuclear weapons, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/05568649109506350">it is immoral to threaten to use them</a>.</p>
<p>But it is unsurprising that the leaders of the nuclear-weapon states are ultimately committed to the survival of their countries and peoples, even if others must pay an ultimate price. To fully appreciate nuclear motivations, we must understand the role of this kind of moral concern in their decision-making.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187835/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas E. Doyle II does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Policymakers often think of their decisions about nuclear weapons as moral, a nuclear ethicist explains – which is key to understanding their motives.Thomas E. Doyle II, Associate Professor of Political Science, Texas State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1876892022-07-28T20:05:33Z2022-07-28T20:05:33ZAre Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats a bluff? In a word – probably<p>Russian President Vladimir Putin habitually rattles his nuclear sabres when things start looking grim for Moscow, and has done so long before his ill-advised invasion of Ukraine.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/feb/13/russia.putin">February 2008</a>, he promised to target Ukraine with nuclear weapons if the United States stationed missile defences there. In August the same year, he threatened a nuclear war if <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/aug/15/russia.poland.nuclear.missiles.threat">Poland</a> hosted the same system. In 2014, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned that Russia would <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2014/07/russia-threatens-nuclear-strikes-over-crimea/">consider nuclear strikes</a> if Ukraine tried to retake Crimea.</p>
<p>A year later, the Kremlin said it would <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-denmark-russia-idUSKBN0MI0ML20150322">target Danish warships</a> with nuclear missiles if they participated in NATO defence systems. And within the space of a few months – in December 2018 and February 2019 – Putin warned the US that <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/20/putin-warns-the-threat-of-nuclear-war-should-not-be-underestimated-.html">nuclear war</a> was possible, and then promised to <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/putin-russia-parliament-economy/29779491.html">target</a> the American mainland if it deployed nuclear weapons in Europe.</p>
<p>Since the invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has waggled its nuclear arsenal so many times it’s starting to become tedious. Even the most peripheral slight is apparently fair game, like former President Dmitry Medvedev’s <a href="https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/07/06/russia-ex-president-invokes-nuclear-war-if-moscow-punished-by-icc-a78219">invocation of nuclear retaliation</a> if the International Criminal Court (ICC) pursued war crimes investigations against Russian soldiers.</p>
<h2>Deterrence</h2>
<p>One explanation for Russia’s behaviour is that it’s attempting to deter NATO from attacking it. For nuclear deterrence to be effective, states possessing such weapons require three things, commonly referred to as the “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26326457#metadata_info_tab_contents">Three Cs</a>”: capability, communication and credibility.</p>
<p>Russia certainly has the first of these. With <a href="https://fas.org/issues/nuclear-weapons/status-world-nuclear-forces/">nearly 6,000 nuclear warheads</a> it’s the world’s most heavily armed nuclear state. It also communicates – loudly and with regularity – those capabilities.</p>
<p>But the question of credibility remains an open one, reliant on the perceptions of others. Put simply, the US and other nuclear states must believe Russia will use nuclear weapons under a certain set of conditions, usually in retaliation for a similar attack or when it faces a threat to its survival.</p>
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<h2>But will it really use them?</h2>
<p>Russia’s declared <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2020/06/whats-in-russias-new-nuclear-deterrence-basic-principles/">nuclear doctrine</a> identifies the circumstances under which it would employ nuclear weapons in a fairly rational and sensible manner.</p>
<p>Its 2020 <a href="https://archive.mid.ru/en/web/guest/foreign_policy/international_safety/disarmament/-/asset_publisher/rp0fiUBmANaH/content/id/4152094">Basic Principles on Nuclear Deterrence</a> stresses that Russia will reserve the right to use nuclear weapons “in response to the use of nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction against it and/or its allies”. Or, if Russia comes under such severe conventional attack that “the very existence of the state is in jeopardy”.</p>
<p>Putin’s spokesman <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/kremlin-spokesman-russia-would-use-nuclear-weapons-only-case-threat-existence-2022-03-28/">Dmitry Peskov</a> addressed this directly on March 28, stating “any outcome of the operation [in Ukraine] of course isn’t a reason for usage of a nuclear weapon”.</p>
<p>Yet this has not prevented widespread acceptance of the view that Russia would use nuclear weapons in order to seize the advantage in escalation control. This idea, commonly referred to as “escalate to de-escalate” is even embedded in the US 2018 <a href="https://media.defense.gov/2018/Feb/02/2001872877/-1/-1/1/EXECUTIVE-SUMMARY.PDF">Nuclear Posture Review’s</a> assessment of Russian intentions.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/weapons-of-mass-destruction-what-are-the-chances-russia-will-use-a-nuclear-or-chemical-attack-on-ukraine-179098">Weapons of mass destruction: what are the chances Russia will use a nuclear or chemical attack on Ukraine?</a>
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<p>But the Kremlin’s perpetual nuclear signalling has much more to do with its attempts to intimidate and attain <a href="https://nipp.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/IS-525.pdf">reflexive control</a> over the West. In other words, it’s seeking to get the US and other NATO members to so fear the prospect of nuclear war that they will accede to Russian demands. That makes it a coercive strategy, but crucially one that relies on never actually being tested.</p>
<p>There are plenty of signs this is working. In April 2022, Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz based his decision not to supply heavy weapons to Ukraine with the <a href="https://ecfr.eu/article/shadow-of-the-bomb-russias-nuclear-threats/">justification</a> that “there must not be a nuclear war”.</p>
<p>A number of Western commentators have also begun reconsidering the “<a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/07/01/nuclear-war-taboo-arms-control-russia-ukraine-deterrence/">nuclear taboo</a>”, worrying Putin might <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-why-moscow-could-go-nuclear-over-kyivs-threats-to-crimea-187188">resort to nuclear weapons</a> in Ukraine if he feels backed into a corner, or to <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/06/russia-ukraine-nuclear-weapon-us-response/661315/">turn the tide</a> of the war. One <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/27/opinion/ukraine-russia-us-diplomacy.html">particularly agitated opinion piece</a> in the New York Times called for immediate talks before major power war became inevitable.</p>
<h2>It makes little sense for Russia to go nuclear in Ukraine</h2>
<p>But what if the Kremlin’s recent nuclear threats are aimed less at NATO and more at Kyiv? Under those conditions, the logic of nuclear deterrence (threatening a non-nuclear country) do not apply.</p>
<p>There are several reasons Putin might seek to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine: a decapitating strike, to destroy a large portion of Ukraine’s armed forces, to cripple Ukrainian infrastructure and communications, or as a warning. </p>
<p>This also generally means <a href="https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/tactical-nuclear-weapons-modern-nuclear-era">using different types</a> of nuclear weapons. Rather than large city-busting bombs, Russia would employ smaller non-strategic nuclear warheads. It certainly has plenty of them: about <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-60664169">2,000 warheads</a> in Russia’s stockpile are tactical nuclear weapons.</p>
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<p>But none of these scenarios make sense for Russia. While Moscow has returned to <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/russia-seeks-regime-change-in-ukraine-says-kremlin-s-top-diplomat-20220726-p5b4i5.html">regime change</a> in Ukraine as a war aim, using a nuclear weapon to take out Volodymyr Zelenskyy would be difficult and risky. It presupposes ironclad intelligence about his location, entails significant loss of civilian life, and requires Moscow to accept significant destruction wherever Zelenskyy might be. It would hardly look good for victorious Russian forces to be unable to enter an irradiated Kyiv, for instance. </p>
<p>Punching nuclear holes in Ukrainian lines is equally risky. Ukraine’s army has deliberately decentralised so it can operate with maximum mobility (often referred to as “<a href="https://www.forces.net/ukraine/news/ukraine-what-are-shoot-and-scoot-tactics-being-used-ukrainian-forces">shoot and scoot</a>”). Putin would have to order numerous nuclear attacks for such a tactic to be effective. And he would be unable to prevent <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/16/scenarios-putin-nukes-00032505">radioactive fallout</a> from potentially blowing over “liberated” portions of Donbas under Russian control, not to mention Western Russia itself. </p>
<p>Another possibility is a high-altitude detonation over a city, doing no damage but causing a massive electromagnetic pulse (EMP). An <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/18_1009_EMP_GMD_Strategy-Non-Embargoed.pdf">EMP attack</a> would fry electrical systems and electronics, bringing critical infrastructure to a standstill. But again, it would be difficult to limit EMP burst effects to Ukraine alone, and it would leave Moscow with very little remaining usable industry.</p>
<p>Finally, the Kremlin might seek a <a href="https://www.heritage.org/defense/report/the-us-should-address-the-threat-russias-non-strategic-nuclear-weapons">demonstration effect</a> by detonating a nuclear device away from populated areas, or even over the Black Sea. This would certainly attract attention, but would ultimately be of psychological value, without any practical battlefield utility. And Russia would join the US as the only countries to have used such weapons in anger.</p>
<h2>Is Russia rational?</h2>
<p>In all this, there’s naturally a big caveat: the assumption Russia’s regime is <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2010465">rational</a>.</p>
<p>Having accrued vast personal fortunes and a taste for luxury, Russia’s rulers are likely in no hurry to commit suicide in a major nuclear cascade.</p>
<p>However, since there’s no way of being certain, the West must continue to take Russian nuclear posturing seriously – but also with healthy scepticism. Indeed, if the West capitulates to Russian demands due to fears of nuclear war, it will further embolden Putin and show other nations nuclear brinkmanship is appealing. </p>
<p>But Russia arguably faces the bigger risk here. If Putin uses nuclear weapons against Ukraine or a NATO member it would also make it very difficult for states that have quietly supported it (such as China) or sought to benefit from its pariah status through trade (like India) to continue to do so. It would also likely engender a broader war that he has tried hard to avoid.</p>
<p>Let’s continue to hope Moscow, although often misguided, remains rational.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187689/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Sussex has previously received funding from the Australian Research Council, the Carnegie Foundation, the Lowy Institute, and various Australian government agencies.</span></em></p>Using nuclear weapons in Ukraine would be difficult and risky for Russia.Matthew Sussex, Fellow, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1799012022-03-30T11:42:15Z2022-03-30T11:42:15ZUkraine: Russia’s 2020 policy allows for ‘defensive’ use of nuclear weapons<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455234/original/file-20220330-5575-1xmr2gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C20%2C6883%2C3813&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Serhii Milekhin via Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Even before the Russian military machine entered Ukrainian territory on February 24, the potential <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-what-are-the-risks-that-russia-will-turn-to-its-nuclear-arsenal-178139">threat of escalation to a nuclear conflict</a> had been raised. In the days before the invasion, Russia conducted a <a href="https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/13752607">large-scale exercise</a> involving simulated long-range conventional and nuclear strikes in response to a nuclear attack. Then, as his troops poured across the border into Ukraine, Vladimir Putin issued a chilling threat to Nato and the west, saying they would face “consequences greater than any you have faced in history” if they interfered.</p>
<p>Just days later, on February 27, the Russian president declared that he had ordered his country’s nuclear forces <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/27/us/politics/putin-nuclear-alert-biden-deescalation.html?searchResultPosition=1">into a state of “special combat readiness”</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-what-are-the-risks-that-russia-will-turn-to-its-nuclear-arsenal-178139">Ukraine war: what are the risks that Russia will turn to its nuclear arsenal?</a>
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<p>But Russia’s threat to escalate to the use of nuclear weapons lacks credibility. While the use of nuclear weapons could wreak terrible destruction in Ukraine, it would not necessarily win the war for Russia. On the other hand, the risk that it could provoke a nuclear response from the west is high.</p>
<h2>New policy</h2>
<p>In recent years, Russia has reviewed its policy on the use of its nuclear arsenal. In June 2020, the the Office of the President of the Russian Federation <a href="https://archive.mid.ru/en/web/guest/foreign_policy/international_safety/disarmament/-/asset_publisher/rp0fiUBmANaH/content/id/4152094">published an executive order</a>: Basic Principles of State Policy of the Russian Federation on Nuclear Deterrence. The order has <a href="https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2020/06/02/new-russian-policy-allows-use-of-atomic-weapons-against-non-nuclear-strike/">generated considerable debate</a> about whether it is an indication that Russia might be more ready to use nuclear weapons than before. </p>
<p>The order noted that Russia considered nuclear weapons “exclusively as a means of deterrence”. Russia’s strategy, it said:</p>
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<p>…is defensive by nature, it is aimed at maintaining the nuclear forces’ potential at the level sufficient for nuclear deterrence, and guarantees protection of national sovereignty and territorial integrity of the state, and deterrence of a potential adversary from aggression against the Russian Federation and/or its allies. </p>
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<p>But the document does suggest that Russia might escalate to the use of nuclear weaponry if it faces losing a conventional conflict: “in the event of a military conflict, this policy provides for the <a href="https://archive.mid.ru/en/web/guest/foreign_policy/international_safety/disarmament/-/asset_publisher/rp0fiUBmANaH/content/id/4152094">prevention of an escalation</a> of military actions and their termination on conditions that are acceptable for the Russian Federation and/or its allies”. This has been widely described by US analysts as a policy of “<a href="https://thebulletin.org/2014/03/why-russia-calls-a-limited-nuclear-strike-de-escalation/">escalate to deescalate</a>”, although this characterisation <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00396338.2021.1930410?journalCode=tsur20">has been denied by</a> Russian military experts.</p>
<p>It is hard to see how this would apply in the case of the current conflict, because Ukraine is defending itself against Russian aggression and not – at the moment, in any case – threatening Russia’s “national sovereignty” or “territorial integrity”. Russia is entirely in control of escalation and can end the war at any time. Not only that, but it is hard to see how even a smaller, tactical nuclear weapon could be used in the context of Ukraine as there are not big enough concentrations of Ukrainian troops to make it effective.</p>
<p>The contingencies that could result in the use of Russian nuclear weapons discussed in the document on the Basic Principles of 2020 referred to above include the launch of ballistic missiles “attacking the territory of the Russian Federation and/or its allies” or other uses of weapons of mass destruction against Russia and its allies. </p>
<p>They also include “attack by adversary against critical governmental or military sites of the Russian Federation, disruption of which would undermine nuclear forces’ response actions” as well as “aggression against the Russian Federation with the use of conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is in jeopardy”.</p>
<h2>Mixed signals</h2>
<p>Any nuclear strikes against targets inside Ukraine would also cause major operational problems because Russian forces are on the ground in pretty much every part of Ukraine. A nuclear strike anywhere in Ukraine before Russian forces have substantially retreated would not only kill a large number of civilians, but destroy large numbers of Russian troops and equipment, too. Moreover, it would create insuperable challenges for integrating the country into the Russian Federation after the conflict – if that was the intention. </p>
<p>The recent statements in the 2020 document on Russia’s nuclear doctrine again confirmed that the main purpose of Russian nuclear forces is deterrence and not fighting an offensive war. But as the progress of the Russian army in Ukraine has stalled and Russia is sending signals that it might pull back from western Ukraine and focus on Luhansk, Donbas and Crimea, there have been renewed assertions by senior Russian figures of Russia’s right to use nuclear weapons. </p>
<p>The former president, Dmitriy Medvedev – one of Putin’s key advisors – <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/26/russia-reasserts-right-to-use-nuclear-weapons-in-ukraine-putin">said on March 26</a> that there was a “determination to defend the independence, sovereignty of our country, not to give anyone a reason to doubt even the slightest that we are ready to give a worthy response to any infringement on our country, on its independence”. </p>
<p>This was clearly directed at the west and apparently aimed at deterring Nato intervention. It appears that the more desperate Russia is to discourage western involvement, the more strident the tone has become regarding the possible use of nuclear weapons. In this respect, Russia’s use of its nuclear arsenal as a deterrent has <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-putin-exploits-americas-fear-of-nuclear-war-nato-ukraine-invasion-attack-russia-11647982092?mod=opinion_lead_pos6">so far been successful</a>.</p>
<p>But the Russian leaders also know that there are three nuclear powers in Nato and a nuclear conflict risks the complete destruction of Russia. There has been <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2309806-would-vladimir-putin-really-use-nuclear-weapons-in-ukraine/">considerable speculation</a> that Putin might become so desperate that he would be capable of anything to salvage his situation including “pressing the button”. But there is no plausible scenario in which the use of nuclear weapons would save the day for Putin.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179901/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christoph Bluth received funding from the Volkswagen Stiftung. </span></em></p>The policy introduced the chilling concept of ‘escalate to de-escalate’.Christoph Bluth, Professor of International Relations and Security, University of BradfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1440092020-08-06T10:25:48Z2020-08-06T10:25:48ZLessons from two pan-African giants on how to achieve genuine nuclear disarmament<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351524/original/file-20200806-22-119nyyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hiroshima after the US military dropped the atomic bomb on 6 August 1945. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Peace Memorial Museum</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This year marks the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the US <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/04/world/gallery/hiroshima-nagasaki-atomic-bomb/index.html">in 1945</a>, the only time in history that nuclear bombs have been used. </p>
<p>The atomic bombs killed tens of thousands of people instantly, with many others succumbing to horrific wounds or radiation sickness days, weeks, months and years afterwards. Subsequent generations, born to the survivors, suffered birth defects. The two cities were just about <a href="https://www.history.com/news/hiroshima-nagasaki-atomic-bomb-photos-before-after">flattened</a>.</p>
<p>For some, nuclear weapons represent a necessary evil that brought an end to World War II and have since kept major powers from repeating the <a href="https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/waltz1.htm">slaughter of such wars</a>. For others, nuclear weapons represent a moral low point in human history, falling into the same category as slavery. For this group, the only solution is to <a href="https://www.wagingpeace.org/the-challenge-of-abolishing-nuclear-weapons-2/">abolish them</a>. </p>
<p>There are at least two traditions of African thought on nuclear weapons, traceable to their most vocal exponents: <a href="https://theconversation.com/making-sense-of-decades-of-debate-about-nkrumahs-pan-african-ideas-132684">Kwame Nkrumah</a>, the scholarly first president of independent Ghana, and <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/africa-in-focus/2014/10/15/in-memoriam-intellectual-ali-mazrui-1933-2014/">Ali Mazrui</a>, the renowned Kenyan scholar. </p>
<p>Both Nkrumah and Mazrui associated nuclear weapons with imperialism and racism, but proposed different approaches to address the problem they present. Nkrumah’s was an abolitionist non-violent approach. He argued for nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament and saw nuclear imperialism as the exploitation of smaller states and indigenous people and territory for nuclear tests and uranium mining. </p>
<p>Mazrui, on the other hand, argued for nuclear proliferation before nuclear disarmament could take place. His view was that the dominant policy towards nuclear weapons afforded some states the political privilege of having them, while denying this right to others. What <em>he</em> called nuclear imperialism. </p>
<p>Nkrumah’s approach arguably became <em>the</em> African approach to nuclear weapons. As a leading member of the Non Aligned Movement, Africa’s participation in the global nuclear order was directed through the organisation in the pursuit of nuclear disarmament. Closer to home, the achievement of an <a href="https://au.int/en/treaties/african-nuclear-weapon-free-zone-treaty-pelindaba-treaty">Africa Nuclear Free Zone</a> treaty in 2009 was a direct outflow of Nkrumah’s approach. </p>
<p>Mazrui’s approach never had much official traction.</p>
<p>I argue that to end nuclear imperialism, African states have to reconcile Nkrumah’s and Mazrui’s approaches to nuclear weapons. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-efforts-to-secure-a-deal-on-banning-all-nuclear-weapons-are-so-important-75484">Why efforts to secure a deal on banning all nuclear weapons are so important</a>
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<h2>Reconciling the two approaches</h2>
<p>Tackling nuclear imperialism would require African countries to sign up to the <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/tpnw/">Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons</a>, or the Ban Treaty, of 2017. This treaty is a first step toward eliminating the weapons themselves and the systems of control and exploitation they make possible. African states participated in the treaty process. More than 20 have signed the treaty and five have so far ratified it.</p>
<p>It would also require African states to withdraw from the <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/npt/">Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty</a>. All African states are currently members of this treaty. But, after 50 years in existence, there is little hope that it will deliver <a href="https://www.indepthnews.net/index.php/armaments/nuclear-weapons/3345-uncertainty-haunts-the-future-of-non-proliferation-treaty-and-disarmament">genuine nuclear disarmament</a>. </p>
<p>Reconciling Nkrumah’s idealism and Mazrui’s realism helps us see these treaties for what they are: the Ban Treaty is based on humanitarian concerns and the equality of states; the Non Proliferation Treaty legalises a few states’ nuclear hegemony indefinitely. </p>
<p>It is time for African states to lead in creating a new non-nuclear order.</p>
<h2>Where both of them stood</h2>
<p>An internationalist and pan-Africanist, Nkrumah saw abolition as the answer to nuclear weapons. He saw them as the “sword of Damocles” hanging over humanity. Embedded in the global peace movement of the time, he advocated for “positive action” – an outflow of Gandhiist non-violence. He attended and hosted several conferences with an anti-nuclear agenda, including an assembly in 1962 on the theme <a href="https://history.wustl.edu/files/history/imce/allman_nuclear_imperialism.pdf">“A world without the bomb”</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351533/original/file-20200806-20-1v0u78r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351533/original/file-20200806-20-1v0u78r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351533/original/file-20200806-20-1v0u78r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351533/original/file-20200806-20-1v0u78r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351533/original/file-20200806-20-1v0u78r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351533/original/file-20200806-20-1v0u78r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351533/original/file-20200806-20-1v0u78r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kwame Nkrumah, first president of independent Ghana. Undated.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although many Africans lost faith in the value of non-violence and preferred a military solution to imperialism, Nkrumah’s approach to nuclear weapons did not fade. It was enmeshed with the position espoused by the Non Aligned Movement, and was the <a href="http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/jspui/bitstream/10539/14761/1/Monyae%20M%20M%20D%201999-001.pdf">position</a> adopted by the African National Congress in South Africa in 1994.</p>
<p>For his part, Mazrui believed African states should not pursue a nuclear weapon free zone and should leave the <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/npt/">1970 Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty</a>.</p>
<p>The treaty was considered a landmark arms control agreement between the five states that had tested nuclear weapons by 1967 (the US, UK, France, Russia and China) and non-nuclear weapon states. States without nuclear weapons agreed not to acquire them in exchange for access to peaceful nuclear technology, while the nuclear weapon states agreed to give them up at some unspecified date in the future. </p>
<p>Mazrui saw the Non Proliferation Treaty as a trap that smacked of racism, where major powers got to say <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00gq1wn">“such and such a weapon is not for Africans and children under 16”</a>.</p>
<p>Mazrui was thus “advocating nuclear proliferation as the <em>only</em> realistic path to nuclear disarmament. This was a <a href="https://richardfalk.wordpress.com/category/ali-mazrui/%22">total inversion of the Western consensus</a>.” </p>
<h2>Wasted opportunities</h2>
<p>The five nuclear powers have wasted many opportunities to negotiate the nuclear disarmament that the 50-year-old Non Proliferation Treaty binds them to. Instead, key nuclear arms control treaties have been discarded and all the nuclear weapon states are <a href="https://thebulletin.org/2019/09/is-it-time-to-ditch-the-npt/">modernising their arsenals</a>. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VeZGBXSYCmo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The global nuclear arsenal in 2020/Nuclear knowledges.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The treaty has also not stopped proliferation: four other states have since acquired nuclear weapons – Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea. </p>
<p>Mazrui was right. In practice, the treaty is at most a status quo treaty that has come to legalise a small club being able to wield nuclear weapons – what India calls <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/asia/1998-09-01/against-nuclear-apartheid">nuclear apartheid</a>. </p>
<p>The treaty is not just about separating states into haves and have nots; it is also a stick to beat the have nots into submission. </p>
<p>In the Iraq War of 2003 the US used stopping nuclear proliferation as a false premise to justify making war on that country and is today doing the same <a href="https://thebulletin.org/2019/09/is-it-time-to-ditch-the-npt/">to sanction Iran</a>. States without nuclear weapons accepted the Non Proliferation Treaty in the hope that it would deliver a world without nuclear weapons, but that hasn’t happened and their <a href="https://thebulletin.org/2019/11/taking-erdogans-critique-of-the-nuclear-non-proliferation-treaty-seriously/">patience is running out</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351534/original/file-20200806-16-verhj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351534/original/file-20200806-16-verhj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351534/original/file-20200806-16-verhj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351534/original/file-20200806-16-verhj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351534/original/file-20200806-16-verhj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=616&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351534/original/file-20200806-16-verhj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=616&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351534/original/file-20200806-16-verhj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=616&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kenyan scholar Professor Ali Mazrui.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Photo by John Patriquin/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The efforts of the majority of states that went outside the Non Proliferation Treaty forum to negotiate the <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/tpnw/">Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons</a> three years ago, to make nuclear weapons illegal for all, without exception, need to succeed. The Ban Treaty will enter into force when 50 states have ratified it. The number currently stands at 40.</p>
<p>The Ban Treaty was only possible because of a broad international coalition emphasising the unacceptable humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons. </p>
<p>To end nuclear imperialism, African states have to reconcile Nkrumah and Mazrui’s approaches by not only joining the Ban Treaty, but also withdrawing from the Non Proliferation Treaty. This will signal that African states will only take part as equals in global nuclear governance where these weapons are illegal for all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144009/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joelien Pretorius has in the past received funding from the National Research Foundation in South Africa. She is affiliated with Pugwash (South Africa chapter). </span></em></p>Kwame Nkrumah and Ali Mazrui associated nuclear weapons with imperialism and racism, but proposed different approaches to address the problem they present.Joelien Pretorius, Associate Professor in Political Studies, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1128922019-03-06T14:00:51Z2019-03-06T14:00:51ZNuclear war between India and Pakistan? An expert assesses the risk<p>Of the numerous areas of global tension, arguably the most perilous is that between India and Pakistan. And <a href="https://theconversation.com/kashmir-india-and-pakistans-escalating-conflict-will-benefit-narendra-modi-ahead-of-elections-112570">recent events in Kashmir</a> have made the situation even more dangerous. The reason is straightforward: India and Pakistan are in a long-running and incendiary dispute, they are both nuclear powers, and crossing a confrontational threshold could ignite a nuclear war between them. Indeed, arms control investigators have long identified the subcontinent as one of the world’s likeliest nuclear flashpoints.</p>
<p>India and Pakistan share a long and complicated history, and they have been in conflict over the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10537286">disputed territory of Kashmir</a> since 1947. The Himalayan region is one of the most militarised regions on Earth – former US president Bill Clinton has called Kashmir “<a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/the-worlds-most-dangerous-place-is-already-at-war-282458.html">the most dangerous place in the world</a>”. </p>
<p>Under the partition plan provided by the <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1947/30/pdfs/ukpga_19470030_en.pdf">Indian Independence Act of 1947</a>, Kashmir with its Muslim majority was free to accede to either India or Pakistan. But the local ruler, Hari Singh, decided against giving the population a choice, leaving the region in a geopolitical limbo and with a disputed border. A two-year war erupted between India and Pakistan in 1947 and another broke out in 1965. In 1999, <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/south_asia/2002/india_pakistan/timeline/1999.stm">the Kargil crisis</a>, when the two countries again came to blows, may have been the closest the world has come to nuclear war since the end of World War II.</p>
<p>Diplomatic interventions have previously helped to defuse the military tensions, but an enduring peace has remained elusive. Both sides have dug in along the disputed border and <a href="https://www.trtworld.com/video/the-newsmakers/why-kashmir-is-a-potential-nuclear-flashpoint-between-india-and-pakistan/5c78e172273f86695b6b13f3">military skirmishes are commonplace</a>.</p>
<h2>The nuclear question</h2>
<p>It has long been argued in international security circles that having nuclear weapons deters countries from using them in warfare. Indeed, in the post-World War II era, no state has used them – despite there still being around <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-42873633">15,000 nuclear weapons in the world</a>. But horizontal nuclear proliferation has made the world a dangerous place; the more countries that have them, the more likely <a href="https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/waltz1.htm">they are to be used at some stage</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262379/original/file-20190306-48450-ke7o8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262379/original/file-20190306-48450-ke7o8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262379/original/file-20190306-48450-ke7o8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262379/original/file-20190306-48450-ke7o8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262379/original/file-20190306-48450-ke7o8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262379/original/file-20190306-48450-ke7o8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262379/original/file-20190306-48450-ke7o8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Street level flashpoints can quickly escalate in Kashmir.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/success?u=http%3A%2F%2Fdownload.shutterstock.com%2Fgatekeeper%2FW3siZSI6MTU1MTg5NzEwMCwiYyI6Il9waG90b19zZXNzaW9uX2lkIiwiZGMiOiJpZGxfMTI0MzI1NTI2NyIsImsiOiJwaG90by8xMjQzMjU1MjY3L21lZGl1bS5qcGciLCJtIjoxLCJkIjoic2h1dHRlcnN0b2NrLW1lZGlhIn0sImdvRWYvaTJZOXBkdmlKY0FLY3BnUzh6NkhrbyJd%2Fshutterstock_1243255267.jpg&pi=33421636&m=1243255267">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And while the presence of nuclear weapons may forestall a nuclear exchange, they don’t discourage nuclear states from using conventional military power against one another. And, as conventional conflicts can quickly escalate, the possibility of a nuclear exchange remains a real, if remote, possibility.</p>
<p>So what are the chances of India and Pakistan (<a href="https://www.sipri.org/publications/2017/sipri-fact-sheets/trends-world-nuclear-forces-2017">which both have between 130 and 150 warheads</a>) engaging in a nuclear war? </p>
<p>The most <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/05/kashmir-fog-of-war-how-conflicting-accounts-benefit-india-pakistan">recent escalation</a> is just another example of the ongoing tensions between these nuclear neighbours. It was triggered by a Kashmiri militant suicide bombing of an Indian paramilitary convoy in mid February. In that attack, more than 40 people were killed, mostly Indian military personnel – and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-47249982">Jaish-e-Mohammed</a>, an Islamist terrorist group situated in Pakistan, <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/37-crpf-personnel-killed-in-suicide-attack-in-kashmir-jaish-e-mohammed-claims-responsibility/articleshow/67993130.cms">claimed responsibility for the attack</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/kashmir-india-and-pakistans-escalating-conflict-will-benefit-narendra-modi-ahead-of-elections-112570">Kashmir: India and Pakistan's escalating conflict will benefit Narendra Modi ahead of elections</a>
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<p>Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, currently caught up in election fever, warned of a “crushing response”, and launched air strikes on targets in <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-92123/Tension-grows-India-Pakistan.html">the Pakistan-controlled Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province</a>. It was not long before both sides were exchanging artillery fire across the line of control and the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/01/india-pakistan-conflict-timeline.html">conflict quickly escalated</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, in a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/27/pakistan-pm-imran-khan-appeals-talks-india-war-kashmir">national televised speech</a>, Pakistan’s prime minister, Imran Khan, stated that any further escalation between the nations would be beyond the leaders’ control, warning:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>With the weapons you have and the weapons we have, can we afford miscalculation? Shouldn’t we think that if this escalates, what will it lead to?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The ball is now in India’s court. Modi has the choice of escalating the conflict by deploying more jets into Pakistani territory, which could lead to a flurry of “tit-for-tat” retaliations. So what could be next? </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262380/original/file-20190306-48417-vvbfpe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262380/original/file-20190306-48417-vvbfpe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262380/original/file-20190306-48417-vvbfpe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262380/original/file-20190306-48417-vvbfpe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262380/original/file-20190306-48417-vvbfpe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262380/original/file-20190306-48417-vvbfpe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262380/original/file-20190306-48417-vvbfpe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Modi faces a general election this year.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/success?u=http%3A%2F%2Fdownload.shutterstock.com%2Fgatekeeper%2FW3siZSI6MTU1MTg5NzIxMSwiYyI6Il9waG90b19zZXNzaW9uX2lkIiwiZGMiOiJpZGxfMTE1MDI3NzQ4OSIsImsiOiJwaG90by8xMTUwMjc3NDg5L21lZGl1bS5qcGciLCJtIjoxLCJkIjoic2h1dHRlcnN0b2NrLW1lZGlhIn0sInp3b3dyMXVBeUhlWWI1NFUwR2VMbWI5VlByWSJd%2Fshutterstock_1150277489.jpg&ir=true&pi=33421636&m=1150277489">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Since 1974, when India stunned the world with its unexpected atomic trial of the <a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/gk-current-affairs/story/pokharan-i-first-nuclear-atomic-bomb-test-of-india-324141-2016-05-18">“Smiling Buddha” weapon</a>, South Asia has been viewed as a global nuclear problem. Nevertheless, to date, India, like China, has maintained a “No First Use” doctrine. This advocates that India will only use its nuclear weapons in response to a nuclear attack. The policy was proclaimed in 1999, a year after Pakistan effectively exploded five of its own nuclear weapons. But Pakistan has so far refused to issue any clear doctrine governing <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/12/pakistan-reaffirms-commitment-nuclear-deterrence-171222075832470.html">its own use of nuclear weapons</a>.</p>
<h2>The stakes are high</h2>
<p>The combined arsenals of Pakistan and India are small compared to those of the US, Russia or China. Nevertheless, they are more powerful <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki">than those dropped on Japan in 1945</a> and could unleash staggering destruction if deployed on civilian targets. Indeed, even a constrained exchange of warheads between the two nations would, in a split second, be among the most calamitous ever, notwithstanding the risk of the radioactive aftermath and the long-term impact on the environment. </p>
<p>India’s nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine, <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/ins-arihant-a-warship-which-can-dive-to-300-metres-remain-under-water-for-months/articleshow/66516888.cms">INS Arihant</a>, became operational in 2018, giving the country a “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/nuclear-triad">nuclear triad</a>” – the ability to launch nuclear strikes by land, air and sea. Its other ground-based ballistic missile, the <a href="https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/india-successfully-test-fires-agni-iii-missile-61091">Agni III</a>, has a range of approximately 3,000km.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262399/original/file-20190306-100805-1r09qnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262399/original/file-20190306-100805-1r09qnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262399/original/file-20190306-100805-1r09qnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262399/original/file-20190306-100805-1r09qnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262399/original/file-20190306-100805-1r09qnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262399/original/file-20190306-100805-1r09qnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262399/original/file-20190306-100805-1r09qnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Both countries have between 130 and 150 nuclear weapons.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While Pakistan has a slightly larger nuclear arsenal – <a href="https://www.sipri.org/yearbook/2018/06">estimated to be 140-150 warheads in 2017</a> – it is less capable of delivering them to targets. Although Pakistan is developing new ballistic missiles, its <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-kashmir-pakistan-nuclear-factbo/factbox-india-and-pakistan-nuclear-arsenals-and-strategies-idUSKCN1QI4O5">current ballistic missile range is 2,000km</a> and the country has no nuclear-armed submarines. Either way, it currently would take less than four minutes for a nuclear missile launched from Pakistan to reach India, and vice versa. </p>
<p>The worst case scenario is that, either through mishap or error, what began with a terrorist attack grows into a nuclear exchange aimed at one another’s civilian populations. Technological advances might also exacerbate the already incendiary situation. India’s arsenal now includes <a href="https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/meet-brahmos-ii-super-hypersonic-missile-russia-and-india-may-never-build-46007">the BrahMos</a>, a cruise missile developed jointly with Russia, which can be fired from land, sea or air and used as a counterforce weapon. Counterforce doctrine, in nuclear strategy, means the targeting of an opponent’s military infrastructure with a nuclear strike. </p>
<p>Discontent in the Kashmir valley could also intensify and lead to further crises. No Indian government has thus far shown the political will to solve the Kashmir crisis, to demilitarise it, or to apply the diplomatic deftness needed to negotiate a solution with Pakistan. Nor has Modi been able to control and prevent hardline Hindus from forming vigilante squads in the region and threatening and killing those they think are defiling their religious convictions. And so, on a day-to-day basis, <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1399992/A-brief-history-of-the-Kashmir-conflict.html">ordinary people continue to suffer</a>.</p>
<p>In the past, during episodes of global tension, the US has taken the lead in crisis management. But it seems unlikely that Islamabad or New Delhi would now turn to the Trump administration for assistance in deescalating the conflict. Indeed, leaders from both countries must also consider the reaction of Asia’s third nuclear power, China, which has always been the <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/southern-asias-nuclear-powers">primary focus of India’s nuclear program</a>.</p>
<p>For now, India and Pakistan are showing some vital restraint. But they must also work towards a long-term fix. The last thing either government, or the world, needs is a mushroom cloud.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112892/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Annie Waqar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A nuclear exchange, which would unleash untold destruction on both countries’ civilian populations, remains a possibility.Annie Waqar, Lecturer, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of WestminsterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/995502018-07-12T10:48:24Z2018-07-12T10:48:24ZNuclear disarmament is crucial for global security – it shouldn’t have to wait<p>A network of global institutions were created in 1945 to try and avert another global conflict. They have been gradually undermined over the last 20 years, and now we see them being trashed wholesale. The world leaders responsible are perhaps best described by General Jack D. Ripper in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove: “They have neither the time nor inclination for strategic thought.” The latest round of top-level summits and meetings have duly been coloured by a very real fear of war – but it doesn’t have to be this way.</p>
<p>This year’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-nato-summit-could-deal-a-major-blow-to-the-international-order-99340">NATO Summit</a> and the upcoming Trump-Putin Summit in Helsinki present the best opportunities in years for today’s leaders to emulate their more distinguished predecessors, who understood that disarmament and arms control were prerequisites for the enhancement of national security and international stability.</p>
<p>At the height of the Cold War in the 1980s, NATO Summit declarations were full of debate on arms control and disarmament. And back in 1986, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/thirty-years-on-as-new-cold-war-looms-us-and-russia-should-remember-the-reykjavik-summit-67084">Reagan-Gorbachev summit in Reykjavik</a> resulted in one of the greatest disarmament achievements of the last century: the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), which helped dramatically reduce US-Soviet tensions in Europe. But this year’s NATO summit began with an openly acrimonious exchange over the allies’ relative defence spending, and the US and Russia have both <a href="https://carnegie.ru/commentary/75708">threatened to withdraw</a> from the INF altogether.</p>
<p>Outside of the North Korea-US talks, disarmament and nuclear arms control are all but left out of today’s high-level summits. All the while, the global arms control architecture is falling apart, global military expenditure is at <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/sipri-global-military-spending-rose-to-17-trillion-in-2017/a-43610647">its highest since the fall of the Berlin Wall</a>, and the potential nuclear flashpoints in Europe, the Middle East and the South China Sea are multiplying. In a climate like this, what hope is there for eliminating the nuclear threat altogether?</p>
<h2>Another way</h2>
<p>The challenge has been taken up by the UN secretary general, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=bvdyPoEBKTk">Antonio Guterres</a>, who recently issued a document entitled <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/sg-agenda/%22%22">Securing Our Common Future</a>. This is an inspiring, visionary document produced after extensive consultations with governments and civil society. For those with no prior knowledge but now seeking less military solutions to global and regional problems, it’s an introduction and a handbook to the hows and whys of disarmament – a rough guide to world peace, if you will.</p>
<p>In clear terms, Guterres surveys the potential for world disarmament, everything from “hand grenades to hydrogen bombs”. He argues that the instability and dangers in international affairs should provide an impetus for disarmament – a direct challenge to the five nuclear-armed members of the UN Security Council, who typically argue that peace should be established before disarmament can be seriously entertained.</p>
<p>To tackle this line of thinking, Guterres poses a simple question: do the leaders of the nuclear powers agree with Reagan and Gorbachev that nuclear war by definition cannot be won, and therefore must not be fought?</p>
<p>Guterres’ agenda could not be more timely, and never has the UN secretariat produced such a substantive document on disarmament. If the whole of the UN infrastructure integrated disarmament into its work with the support of its member states, that could change the game profoundly. But will the member states heed Guterres’s call? Will civil and political society rally to his banner, or simply remain on the sidelines and wring their hands while nothing is done?</p>
<h2>A rusty toolbox</h2>
<p>Some critics point to the Guterres plan’s lack of detailed technical action points, and many will hesitate to accept its ambition to be truly comprehensive. But it should be understood as a rallying cry, an attempt to bring together different constituencies which don’t usually work together.</p>
<p>Missing this opportunity will further reinforce the status quo – and that in turn might have dire consequences. It’s hard to think of a scenario where the militarisation of international relations contributes to stablity and security rather than making the world less safe.</p>
<p>Guterres’s agenda is a handbook for those who want to find a way out of the gathering chaos. Disarmament progress in tense geopolitical times is not impossible. In previous times of crisis, rival superpowers have taken steps to reduce arsenals, increase transparency, lower alert levels and mitigate risks. If today’s major players wait indefinitely for security conditions to be “ripe” before pursuing disarmament and arms control, the resulting lack of dialogue will only make the climate worse.</p>
<p>Disarmament talks need not start from scratch. Many of the tools are tried and tested, and have simply fallen out of use, with past agreements long overdue for implementation and negotiations on strategic arms stalled. If nations fail to honour their existing commitments, they will not only put the entire disarmament and arms control regime at risk, but also damage the mechanisms designed to defuse tensions and foster dialogue on sensitive security issues.</p>
<p>It’s time to return to the common ground on which we stood in the past, the ground where world-changing multilateral and bilateral treaties were struck. Notwithstanding the events leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the UN-sanctioned inspection regimes provide a sound technical blueprint for verified elimination of weapons of mass destruction. The OSCE’s various agreements, confidence- and security-building measures, and “<a href="https://www.osce.org/library/14127">open skies</a>” regime provide an institutional platform for the exchange of information, verification and regulation of conventional weaponry.</p>
<p>While they certainly need updating, the precision tools needed for disarmament and conventional arms control are readily available. What’s needed now is the political impetus to use them. The Guterres agenda offers an optimistic way forward at a deeply pessimistic moment; it must be taken seriously.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/99550/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dan Plesch receives funding from the Joseph Rowntree Trust for the <a href="http://www.scrapweapons.com">www.scrapweapons.com</a> project </span></em></p>A new strategy from the UN secretary general challenges the world to explain why it’s not doing more to defuse the nuclear threat.Dan Plesch, Director of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy, SOAS, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/834132017-09-04T04:54:25Z2017-09-04T04:54:25ZNorth Korea panics the world, but ‘H-bomb’ test changes little<p>North Korea has conducted its sixth nuclear device test, and based on what we know so far it looks like by far the biggest yet. Pyongyang’s own news agency, KCNA, described the test as a “perfect success”, and claimed the device was an advanced hydrogen bomb small enough to fit atop a long-range missile. </p>
<p>Though it’s still too soon to confirm whether that’s true, whatever the north tested was clearly much larger than its previous devices. Seismic readings detected the blast via a 6.3 magnitude earthquake, and Norway’s <a href="https://www.norsar.no/press/latest-press-release/archive/large-nuclear-test-in-north-korea-on-3-september-2017-article1534-984.html">NORSAR seismological observatory</a> suggested the explosive yield would translate to a massive 120 kilotons.</p>
<p>After an extremely tense few months of tough rhetoric, missile launches, military exercises and troop movements, it seems North Korea has come very close to achieving what it’s always said it was after: a viable missile-borne thermonuclear deterrent. So has the time finally come to run for the bomb shelters?</p>
<p>Before answering that, it pays to take stock of what the north has been up to of late – and why.</p>
<h2>The best-laid plans</h2>
<p>As of September 4, North Korea had tested more than 20 missiles in 2017. Some were short-range, some medium-range; many of them were targeted to land into the East China Sea. Some launches failed, but one flew over northern Japan. None of these launches took place in a vacuum. They are part of a delicate, almost choreographed interplay between East Asia’s most important actors, a dance of military moves, domestic political shuffling and international aspirations. </p>
<p>The Korean peninsula’s problems always come down to the unresolved issues of Korean partition, the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/10165796">post-Korean War armistice</a>, and the thousands of US troops permanently stationed in the region for the sake of Japan and South Korea’s reconstruction and protection. The American military presence is a direct threat to the security of the Pygonyang power elite, and provides a pretext for the Kim government to claim it needs a massive military and a nuclear deterrent. </p>
<p>In the last year, the north has been especially concerned with the US’s deployment of the the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system, a Lockheed Martin-manufactured ballistic missile interceptor. THAAD is <a href="http://thediplomat.com/2016/02/what-is-thaad-what-does-it-do-and-why-is-china-mad-about-it/">controversial in China and South Korea</a> too, but it had arrived on the peninsula by March. By then, North Korea had already tested a new <a href="http://www.38north.org/2017/02/jschilling021317/">Pukguksong-2 missile</a>, apparently assassinated Kim Jong Un’s stepbrother, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global/video/2017/feb/20/kim-jong-nam-killing-cctv-footage-appears-to-show-attack-on-north-korean">Kim Jong-nam</a>, and <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-39175704">launched four intermediate-range ballistic missiles</a> into the East China Sea on March 6. </p>
<p>With THAAD partially deployed and operational by early May, and with a <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-koreas-president-is-getting-his-north-korea-policy-badly-wrong-81047">new South Korean president</a> assuming office, North Korea fired off various other missiles of other ranges in the ensuing weeks. The US, meanwhile, conducted its <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/25/asia/north-korea-fires-projectile/index.html">usual joint missile drills</a> with South Korea and <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/uss-nimitz-pacific-deployment-north-korea-2017-6?r=US&IR=T">dispatched military ships</a> to waters near the Korean peninsula. </p>
<p>The international community also condemned, as is customary, all of the launches with the standard volley of castigations: unacceptable, deplorable, beyond the pale. It all culminated on August 5 with <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2017/sc12945.doc.htm">United Nations Security Council Resolution 2371</a>, which further targets North Korean exports and imports and its foreign workers. </p>
<p>Clearly that resolution hasn’t deterred the north from its plans. But though this test looks like a giant step, technologically and politically speaking, it’s only a small one. </p>
<h2>Business as usual?</h2>
<p>While the world’s attention was mostly focused on the diplomatic tit-for-tat – and especially with what Donald Trump would do when forced to take an actual decision on North Korea – a number of sources, including the site 38 North, were <a href="https://www.38north.org/2017/04/punggyeri041217/">already reporting</a> that the established Punggye-ri test site was prime and ready for a new nuclear test, and had been as early as April. That in itself was hardly surprising; a bigger, more mobile bomb is just latest step in the nuclear programme, and has always been on the agenda. </p>
<p>Yet Pyongyang still hasn’t made it all the way. Even if it might (and only might) be able to fit a hydrogen bomb onto a missile, it still has to solve other stubborn technical problems, particularly how to design long-range missiles that can re-enter the atmosphere without burning up. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, in the absence of ill-advised and highly unpredictable military action, the international community seems to have little up its sleeve other than sanctions and tough rhetoric. So far, both have failed – and they could be starting to backfire.</p>
<p>When Donald Trump threatened the north with “fire and fury” in retaliation for its long-range missile tests, I <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-threat-of-fire-and-fury-is-a-gift-to-north-koreas-propaganda-machine-82275">suggested</a> it was likely that his inflammatory rhetoric would only spur Pyongyang to test yet more missiles. It seems this will continue. As soon as he woke up to the news of the latest nuclear test, Trump not only suggested that North Korea was a rogue nation, unsurprising, but that it was an embarrassment to China. </p>
<p>This is a fundamental misunderstanding. Yes, Chinese trade is vital to the North Korean economy, but Pyongyang is responsible for its own behaviour. This crisis draws its energy not from China’s supposed enabling, but from the way North Korea understands its own security and protection – and as mentioned above, that worldview dates all the way back to the Korean armistice and its unresolved problems.</p>
<p>As things stand, it’s clear that the north has developed enough technology to claim the title of “nuclear power”, and whether or not other nations think it has the right to be regarded as such is irrelevant. Equally, any military incursion on northern territory would very likely meet with retaliation from what’s now a nuclear-armed state, meaning any discussion of conventional military intervention is effectively moot.</p>
<p>All the parties involved are fully aware of this. And as such the only way forward in this crisis is through some sort of dialogue about how to control the north’s nuclear arsenal. When the safety of millions is at stake, talking with an opponent is no sign of weakness.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83413/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Virginie Grzelczyk does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Pyongyang’s latest test isn’t the great leap forward it purports to be.Virginie Grzelczyk, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, Aston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/823402017-08-14T14:04:29Z2017-08-14T14:04:29ZIf Trump is bluffing on North Korea, the results could be catastrophic<p>According to a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/north-korea-now-making-missile-ready-nuclear-weapons-us-analysts-say/2017/08/08/e14b882a-7b6b-11e7-9d08-b79f191668ed_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_usnkorea-1212p%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.e3c36a743575">US Defense Intelligence Agency</a> report, Pyongyang’s nuclear capabilities and conventional long range missile programmes are gathering momentum at a rapid clip. The report indicated that North Korea has successfully manufactured a miniaturised nuclear warhead that can fit onto its ballistic missiles, including intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). The report added that the reclusive state has as many as 60 nuclear weapons, well surpassing previous <a href="http://www.38north.org/2017/07/jschilling071017/">estimates</a>. </p>
<p>Despite the missile tests, there’s plenty of <a href="https://www.38north.org/2017/07/melleman073117/">scepticism</a> over whether or not North Korea has developed the re-entry vehicle technology needed to land a warhead. Still, the country’s nuclear strike capability has probably crossed a point of no return: it has developed the ability to deliver a nuclear warhead to continental US.</p>
<p>Donald Trump famously <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/816057920223846400?lang=en">asserted</a> that he would not allow Pyongyang to develop nuclear weapons capable of reaching US soil; in this he and his predecessors have clearly failed. The exchange of threats and provocative sabre rattling on both sides suggests that the possibility of miscalculation, miscommunication, deterrence failure, and state of crisis in East Asia has become an increasingly dangerous geostrategic reality – neither side appears prepared to back down from their diplomatic one-upmanship.</p>
<p>Over the past few weeks, the incendiary and escalatory barbs from Washington and Pyongyang have escalated. Trump <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/08/donald-trump-north-korea-missile-threats-fire-fury">thundered</a> that Pyongyang’s threats “will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen”; Pyongyang said it was planning an attack on US bases at <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/10/world/asia/north-korea-guam-missiles-kim-trump.html">Guam</a>. Trump then upped the ante, telling reporters that his “fire and fury” comments were not tough enough and that Kim Jong-un would “truly regret” any threats to the US or its allies. He also <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-warns-north-korea-military-solutions-are-in-place-locked-and-loaded-1502453110">said</a> that US military capabilities were “locked and loaded” in case North Korea “acted unwisely”. </p>
<p>This all implies that the US could countenance a nuclear first strike. But Trump hasn’t clarified precisely what would constitute an “unwise” action, nor what Kim Jong-un would have to do to prevent an American attack. This bellicose but vague rhetoric has caused <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/08/11/japans-missile-defences-not-able-intercept-north-korean-icbms/">anxiety in the Asia-Pacific</a>, with some governments (especially <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/north-korea-trumps-fire-and-fury-leave-beijing-with-few-options-1502382552">China</a>) urging restraint.</p>
<p>The bottom line, however is clear: Washington has very few viable options, and the potential for a serious nuclear crisis could be just a few words (or tweets) away. So how likely is war, and can it be stopped?</p>
<h2>Polarised and tense</h2>
<p>The short answer is that in the best case scenario, the US should brace itself for a permanent state of crisis or Cold War. Inadvertently or otherwise, Trump has painted himself into a strategic corner.</p>
<p>The North Korean problem is highly complex. All parties involved – the US, Japan, South Korea, China, and Russia – will have to be part of any solution, and Washington is pressuring Beijing in particular to <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-china-could-use-trade-to-force-north-korea-to-play-nice-with-the-west-80609">lean harder</a> on Kim. But ultimately, Pyongyang’s top security objectives (achieve international recognition as a nuclear armed state) are diametrically opposed to Washington’s (denuclearise the Korean Peninsula), leaving almost no space for compromise or non-military solutions.</p>
<p>Much of this was true before the latest war of words, but thanks to Trump, the whole deterrence calculus has changed. Pyongyang has long understood that it would only incur the US’s nuclear “fire and fury” by itself using nuclear weapons first. But Trump’s recent statements suggest that if the Kim government threatens the US or its allies, he might actually contemplate a preventative nuclear strike.</p>
<p>History has shown that brinkmanship can rapidly escalate. States’ attempts to signal <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/world/us-flies-bombers-over-korean-peninsula/2017/07/30/ee031662-7500-11e7-8c17-533c52b2f014_video.html?utm_term=.a13d645e80f8">resolve and strength</a> can lead to <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09512748.2016.1239129">misperception</a> and miscalculation, and any minor incident (for example, a naval skirmish or aircraft collision) on the Korean peninsula could rapidly escalate to a nuclear strike. If this were to happen, the chain of events would likely be beyond the control of either Trump or Kim.</p>
<h2>Is Trump bluffing?</h2>
<p>Worryingly, there is <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/08/lindsey-graham-north-korea/535578/">no shortage of hawks</a> in Washington urging the administration to launch a preventive attack. Analysts have drawn parallels with Trump’s rhetoric and the “rain of ruin speech” that then prresident Truman delivered in 1945 after ordering the use of a nuclear bomb on <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-warns-north-korea-not-to-make-further-threats-1502221218">Hiroshima</a>. To be sure, Trump’s rhetoric has eclipsed even the harshest language previous US administrations have used to warn Pyongyang off any further provocations.</p>
<p>In international relations, words matter, especially when nuclear weapons are involved. And whether or not Trump is prepared to back up what he says with action, when US presidents speak, other leaders listen. If he has no intention of carrying out his threat in the face of Pyongyang’s provocations, the strategic consequences could be huge.</p>
<p>A bluff exposed would gravely undermine the nuclear deterrence the US offers to its allies, and in turn embolden Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme and strengthen Kim’s hand as he tries to <a href="http://thediplomat.com/2017/05/under-trump-a-looming-north-korean-icbm-threat-brings-alliance-decoupling-fears-back-to-east-asia/">disrupt South Korea and Japan’s relationship</a> with the US’s security architecture. Those two countries might also explore ways to substitute America’s extended nuclear deterrence with their <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/08/world/asia/north-korea-japan-missile-south.html">own nuclear weapons</a> – guaranteeing permanent enmity from China and Russia.</p>
<p>Whether Trump’s shoot-from-the-hip loose words are merely a negotiating ploy or part of a carefully calibrated stratagem to deter Kim, they are unlikely to work. Trump’s erratic style has drawn comparisons with Nixon’s so-called <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/ACT/2015_12/Book-Reviews/Nuclear-Weapons-and-Nixons-Madman-Theory">madman theory</a>: coercing an adversary into negotiations by signalling the US president is sufficiently unhinged to carry out a catastrophic attack. </p>
<p>But whereas Nixon relied on clear messages and military signals, the Trump administration’s <a href="http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/press/think-leicester/politics-and-international-relations/2017/the-shadow-of-an-unrestrainable-military-technological-security-dilemma-u-s-china-relations-at-a-dangerous-crossroads">unpredictability and mixed messages</a> suggest impulsiveness, not strategic coherence. This tactic risks fuelling Pyongyang’s fear for the survival of the regime to the point where it might contemplate a desperate and suicidal last stand, nuclear or otherwise.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that regardless of how seriously threats are intended, rhetorical escalation is dangerous. You don’t bluff – and you certainly don’t bluff and then back down.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82340/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Johnson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In international relations, words matter – and so does the credibility of the speaker.James Johnson, Honorary Fellow, University of LeicesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/788692017-06-07T08:45:08Z2017-06-07T08:45:08ZCorbyn’s defence pitch is fully in the mainstream, not a 1980s throwback<p>Once written off as an electoral force even by much of the left, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour has defied expectations to mount a late surge in the 2017 election polls. The New Statesman’s recent <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2017/03/stench-decay-and-failure-coming-labour-party-now-overwhelming">lament</a> that the “stench of decay and failure coming from the Labour Party is now overwhelming” seems a distant memory.</p>
<p>The turnaround isn’t just a matter of style; it also has a lot to do with policy. And for a measure of how far Labour’s image has come, there are few better issues to look at than defence.</p>
<p>For the first nine months of her premiership, Theresa May confidently asserted her superiority as a steward of national security while Labour almost tore itself apart on what stance to take, with front bench colleagues sometimes even <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-is-helping-the-tories-by-fighting-trident-renewal-shadow-defence-secretary-claims-a7331596.html">clashing in public</a>. And when May called a snap election, Labour looked set to commit itself to unilateral nuclear disarmament and a re-run of its left-wing <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8550425.stm">1983 manifesto</a>, still remembered as “the longest suicide note in history”.</p>
<p>But then Labour’s <a href="http://www.labour.org.uk/page/-/Images/manifesto-2017/Labour%20Manifesto%202017.pdf">2017 manifesto</a> arrived – with a blunt commitment to renewing Trident. Corbyn, who only in 2016 addressed a Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) rally in Trafalgar Square on the theme of “NHS not Trident”, signed off on a manifesto featuring one vital phrase: “Labour supports the renewal of the nuclear deterrent.” So how did a left-wing pacifist like Corbyn reconcile himself to this policy position? </p>
<p>The simplest answer is that he still hasn’t. In several interviews and a BBC Question Time special, he was visibly cagey about his personal views on the nuclear issue and the all-important dilemma of “pushing the button”. But there’s another way to read this: by his party’s standards, Corbyn’s behaviour simply isn’t that anomalous.</p>
<h2>Pressing on</h2>
<p>For the last 70 years, Labour leaders have generally returned to Labour’s default position on the nuclear deterrent, as they have on defence more generally. And while this year’s manifesto pledge to renew Trident aims to unify a divided party, the nuclear deterrent has divided Labour ever since Britain’s first thermonuclear bomb was tested in 1957. </p>
<p>Many figures on Labour left of old were active in CND, and at the party conferences in 1960 and 1961, they came close to forcing the party to back unilateral disarmament. These moves were passionately opposed by the Labour right, with then-leader Hugh Gaitskell, <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2010/02/gaitskell-speech-fight-again">vowing</a> to “fight, and fight again” to resist the left’s efforts. </p>
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<p>When Harold Wilson won the 1964 general election, he immediately committed the Labour government to pressing ahead with Trident’s predecessor, <a href="http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/cabinetpapers/themes/skybolt-polaris-missiles.htm">Polaris</a>, which was only a year into its construction. He did so by lying to the party, claiming that the Royal Navy informed him that Polaris was “past the point of no return”. Party unity was Wilson’s primary concern in his 13 years as Labour leader, and the nuclear question was too divisive to be left open.</p>
<p>Corbyn’s Labour has a similar cohesion problem, but there are other reasons besides that he would commit it to renewing the deterrent. After all, defence is not only a matter of keeping the country safe, especially during a general election.</p>
<p>If Labour is to keep May’s overall majority in the single figures, it must hold on to or pick up various marginal constituencies. Trident matters to two in particular: the Labour-held seat of <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/02/inside-barrow-shipyard-eye-political-storm-labour-and-beyond">Barrow-in-Furness</a>, where the Trident successor system will be built; and <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-40137011">Plymouth Sutton and Devonport</a>, a Conservative-held seat with a strong naval tradition. Their respective MPs enjoy majorities of only about 800 and 500 votes, and the impact of Labour’s nuclear commitments could be crucial. </p>
<p>The deterrent also happens to have a very considerable economic impact in the west of Scotland, where Labour surely wants to claw back some of the seats it lost in 2015.</p>
<h2>Staying strong</h2>
<p>The Trident debate has overshadowed Labour’s commitment to the other aspects of defence, such as conventional weapons and the defence industry. As a left-winger, Corbyn may be more comfortable arguing that defence funding should be diverted to cyber warfare, intelligence and policing, while <a href="https://twitter.com/_youhadonejob1/status/871913009324707842">criticising</a> the Conservative government for scrapping HMS Ark Royal and the Harrier jump-jet, which was commissioned by Labour in the 1970s. </p>
<p>Indeed, the defence industry figures strongly in Labour’s manifesto, which declines to indulge any of Michael Foot’s ideas about “converting” defence production for commercial use. The manifesto also proposes a defence industrial strategy white paper, with a plan to “provide good jobs down the supply chain”.</p>
<p>Historically, Labour was responsible for initiating Britain’s first atomic bomb, and committing ground forces in Korean War and the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. It devoted enormous sums of public expenditure to the military, especially in the Cold War. And while many of its rank and file are passionately devoted to disarmament, a good many Labour voters <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/03/15/uk-should-commit-nato-2-defence-spending-target-pu/">believe in a strong defence policy</a> – as do the public as a whole.</p>
<p>Understandable then that for all of the chatter about its leader’s supposedly radical beliefs, Corbyn’s Labour has gone to the electorate with a plan concerned much more with continuity than change.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78869/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Mc Loughlin is Associate Lecturer in History at the University of Exeter</span></em></p>The way Corbyn’s Labour has handled Trident and defence is perfectly in line with Labour’s history since the 1960s.Keith Mc Loughlin, Associate Lecturer in History, University of ExeterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/781952017-05-31T06:42:14Z2017-05-31T06:42:14ZWhat game theory says about dealing with North Korea<p><a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/28/asia/north-korea-fires-unidentified-projectile/">North Korea fired its third missile in three weeks</a> on May 29, once again drawing protests from South Korea and Japan. Tensions have been rising in the region since the start of the year when Kim Jong-Un’s regime started a series of tests, of which <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/28/world/asia/north-korea-missile-test.html?emc=edit_mbae_20170529&nl=&nlid=64524812&te=1&_r=0">this is the ninth</a>. </p>
<p>National leaders attending the recent G7 meeting in Italy agreed that deterring North Korea should be a top priority, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/28/world/asia/north-korea-missile-test.html?emc=edit_mbae_20170529&nl=&nlid=64524812&te=1&_r=0">according to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe</a>, but given the reclusive nation’s belligerence, options are scarce.</p>
<p>One way to try to choose the best way forward is by applying game theory to the situation on the Korean peninsula. </p>
<h2>Roll of the dice</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gametheory.asp">Game theory</a> applies to conflict and cooperation within competitive situations. It posits that a cooperative outcome is possible when the game is repeated infinitely, the number of players is small and information about the game is known to all the players. </p>
<p>A positive outcome is when there’s reciprocalism; when there’s the option of retaliating against cheating behaviour because the game repeats infinitely. Players have little incentive to cheat if retaliation is an option and the result is cooperation. </p>
<p>But if the game is one-off or repeated a finite number of times, has a large number of players, and each player doesn’t know the other players’ strategy, then each will choose a “self-oriented” outcome. In this scenario, each player chooses the best solution individually rather than cooperating. The result is second-best for all.</p>
<p>What’s happening on the Korean peninsula is more like the latter scenario. Dealing with North Korea’s missile development and nuclear program with a pre-emptive attack would be neither easy nor desirable, and the main players will likely pursue their own self-interest.</p>
<p>At the heart of the issue is the fact that <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/the-times/kim-north-korea-will-retaliate-with-nuclear-weapons-if-attacked/news-story/fc60ca34c7dc106312ec51a29e16b409">North Korea has announced</a> that it intends to retaliate against any military action. </p>
<p>This could result in a humanitarian catastrophe as South Korea’s capital Seoul is only 60 kilometres from the border. And the <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-wp-skorea-comment-9846215e-2115-11e7-a0a7-8b2a45e3dc84-20170414-story.html">28,500 US troops based in South Korea</a> might also bear the brunt of the North’s retaliation. </p>
<p>Any counter-attack by North Korea would invoke retaliation from the South, in turn, and could result in war on the Korean peninsula. Or humiliation for both the US and South Korea if they don’t react. The exact locations of North Korea’s missiles are largely unknown anyway. </p>
<p>A better option for constraining North Korea’s development of nuclear missiles may be to tighten <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2016/sc12603.doc.htm">current economic sanctions</a> and impose new ones if necessary. </p>
<p>For this, China is pivotal. <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/china-north-korea-relationship">The country is North Korea’s number one trading partner</a>. China supplies it with petroleum and imports coal, which allows North Korea to obtain foreign currency. <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-oil-idUSKBN17U1I1">More than 90% of the petroleum</a> consumed in North Korea is imported from China. </p>
<p>North Korea’s dependence on China has increased since the <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2016/sc12603.doc.htm">UN imposed economic sanctions</a> on the former in 2016; Japan terminated its trade relationship with the reclusive regime in 2006; and <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-korea-north-drills-idUSBREA2U05520140331">South Korea did the same</a> on May 24 2010. </p>
<p>But China has been hesitant about enforcing economic sanctions and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/03/31/is-chinas-policy-toward-north-korea-changing/expect-some-change-in-chinas-policy-toward-north-korea-but-not-a-lot">has done so half-heartedly</a>. </p>
<p>China is conflicted because it <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/01/don-expect-china-ice-north-korea-160128061357218.html">doesn’t want North Korea to have nuclear weapons</a> as the country could then become a direct threat and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/03/china-north-korea-kim-jong-un-nuclear-beijing-pyongyang-thaad/519348/">provide an excuse for Japan and South Korea</a> to develop nuclear weapons. </p>
<p>But it also doesn’t want the North Korean regime to collapse. This would <a href="http://blog.victimsofcommunism.org/why-china-still-backs-north-korea/">create a refugee crisis at its border</a> and a unified Korean <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/01/don-expect-china-ice-north-korea-160128061357218.html">peninsula would likely fall under US influence</a>. North Korea also <a href="http://www.keia.org/sites/default/files/publications/dealing_with_north_korean_provocations_a_chinese_perspective.pdf">provides the perfect buffer for avoiding direct confrontation</a> with the US.</p>
<h2>Shrinking range of options</h2>
<p>Thus far, Kim Jong-Un is the only winner in this game. Apart from ongoing missile tests, his regime <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-11813699">successfully completed its fifth nuclear test</a> in September 2016, following others in 2006, 2009, 2013 and January 2016. This situation illustrates one of the major tensions in strategic settings: the clash between individual and group interests.</p>
<p>To avoid war and foster cooperation, China will need to share responsibility for a diplomatic campaign seeking a peaceful solution. Currently, it is <a href="http://www.css.ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/gess/cis/center-for-securities-studies/resources/docs/SIPRI-China's-engagement-North-Korea.pdf">effectively providing an umbrella</a> for North Korea to develop nuclear weapons.</p>
<p>Stepping up requires China to join the US, South Korea, Japan and the United Nations to deliver a credible and strengthened deterrence to North Korea against any further nuclear development.</p>
<p>But this option is only becoming more complex for all involved except North Korea. As its nuclear development advances, North Korea will have less and less incentive to give it up, which, in turns, limits the range of action for the other side.</p>
<p>What game theory tells us is that self-interested individuals derive a greater payoff for opportunism. China may not want to lose its strategic partnership with North Korea or the economic benefits it derives from trade with it; under its new liberal president, South Korea may want to continue the rapprochement policy of former president Kim Dae-Jung; and the US may opt for the easy path of military action.</p>
<p>But it’s important to remember that these are all second-best results for the players. The better choice is cooperation among the players including China. A collectively applied and consistent non-military strategy is the best option to alleviate the tension engendered by North Korea’s nuclear and missile development programs.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78195/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Byung-Seong Min does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Game theory applies to conflict and cooperation within competitive situations.Byung-Seong Min, Senior Lecturer, Department of International Business and Asian Studies, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/765922017-04-27T06:38:31Z2017-04-27T06:38:31ZWhy North Korea’s nuclear threat must be taken more seriously than ever<p>During what was the 2017 Easter weekend for most of the world, North Koreans celebrated the “Day of the Sun”. It was the <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2017/04/north-korea-marks-late-leader-105th-birthday-170415141923126.html">105th birthday</a> of the country’s late founding leader and “eternal president” <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/kim-il-sung-9364759">Kim Il-sung (1912-1994)</a>. </p>
<p>Thousands of soldiers, military vehicles and, most notably, various ballistic missiles were paraded for the inspection of current supreme leader Kim Jong-Un (Kim Il-sung’s grandson). </p>
<p>But it wasn’t the parade that signalled North Korea’s belligerence; numerous other countries hold military parades to mark some significant occasion or another. </p>
<p>Instead, what was clearly aggressive was the presentation of a <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/19/north-korea-unveils-mock-up-video-missiles-blowing-us-city-bizarre/">mock-up video</a> of the country’s ballistic missiles destroying an American city during a national musical performance. </p>
<p>This video is the most visceral expression yet of Pyongyang’s intentions. Its telecast was likely timed to coincide with the expected arrival of the US Navy’s aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, and its accompanying fleet of warships in Korean waters.</p>
<h2>Inching closer</h2>
<p>On April 8, US President Donald Trump and other American officials told the media that the Carl Vinson had been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/09/world/asia/korean-peninsula-us-aircraft-carrier-north-korea.html">ordered to make its way towards the Korean peninsula</a>. The likely plan was to demonstrate American resolve in managing the crisis that North Korea’s nuclear weapons program has created. </p>
<p>Subsequent revelations that the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/18/world/asia/aircraft-carrier-north-korea-carl-vinson.html">warship was actually heading south</a> for exercises with the Australian Navy at the time showed a series of blunders in internal communication. But the fact that the Carl Vinson has arrived off Korean waters two weeks later does not change the prospect of a military conflict between North Korea and the United States.</p>
<p>The key question is whether North Korea does have nuclear weapons that it can readily use against the United States and its regional allies, South Korea and Japan. It’s still unlikely North Korea has the current capability to launch a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile that can destroy an American city. </p>
<p>North Korea’s scientists <a href="https://www.wired.com/2017/04/north-korea-probably-cant-strike-us-yet-still-plenty-scary/">have yet to master the technology</a> to build missiles that can traverse this distance and to construct warheads that can survive re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere after space flight.</p>
<p>But <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/24/world/asia/north-korea-nuclear-missile-program.html">years of testing</a> has allowed North Korea to inch closer to getting right the extremely demanding science of building and launching viable intercontinental nuclear weapons. And this is why the United States is against further testing, to the point that the <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/24/nikki-haley-north-korea-military-action-237519">Trump administration seems serious</a> about justifying pre-emptive strikes on the basis of further nuclear and missile tests. </p>
<p>What is of immediate concern is that <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-04-16/north-korea-missile-launches-nuclear-detonations-timeline">previous tests</a> have led to North Korea being able to achieve the relatively easier requirements of building workable medium-range ballistic missiles, with small enough warheads, to strike American bases in South Korea and Japan. These have about 80,000 US military personnel in total.</p>
<h2>Approaching catastrophe</h2>
<p>North Korea may already have as many <a href="https://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2015/04/23/just-how-many-nuclear-weapons-does-north-korea-have-a-look-at-the-numbers/">20 nuclear warheads</a> that are small enough to be carried on its <a href="http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/how-north-korea-could-kill-millions-people-20232">Nodong (or Rodong-1) medium-range missiles</a> that can reach these bases. And the Trump administration seems to not want to risk the lives of American soldiers by assuming that North Korea doesn’t already have this nuclear capability. </p>
<p>The cost of that mistake would be the lives of not just 80,000 American military personnel but also countless South Korean and Japanese lives as well. In fact, a North Korean nuclear attack, which will <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/2017/05/05/what-war-north-korea-looks-588861.html">likely develop into war</a>, can be expected to create a humanitarian, environmental and economic <a href="http://nationalinterest.org/feature/why-the-north-korea-problem-far-worse-you-think-20295">catastrophe</a> that will set back the international community. </p>
<p>This is what’s immediately at stake for everyone. And it explains why the <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/video/news/2017/04/china-faces-pressure-isolate-north-korea-170410105329806.html">United States is putting pressure on China</a>, as an ally of North Korea, to influence it to stop its nuclear weapons program. </p>
<p>But if China and other countries fail to stop North Korea building nuclear weapons, the United States will feel <a href="https://www.stratfor.com/analysis/what-us-would-use-strike-north-korea">pressured to use military force</a> to destroy whatever nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles sites it can locate by satellite surveillance. </p>
<p>The decision to divert the Carl Vinson to waters near the Korean peninsula may also be driven by <a href="https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/04/24/world/asia/north-korea-nuclear-missile-program.html?_r=0&referer=">new intelligence</a> on North Korea’s nuclear threat. The challenge is that sending an American naval armada towards North Korea risks triggering the very nuclear attack against US bases that the Trump administration is trying to avoid in the first place.</p>
<p>This could explain why the administration said it was sending its naval vessels two weeks ago when it really did so later. It may have been to test North Korea’s attitude without escalating the situation by the actual presence of American naval forces that could trigger military action by Kim Jong-Un’s regime. </p>
<h2>A worrying stand-off</h2>
<p>Why would North Korea want to use nuclear weapons against American bases in Northeast Asia in the first place? It is helpful to remember that, technically, North and South Korea <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/05/24/armstrong.north.korea/">have been at war</a> since 1950 (the Korean War ended in 1953 with an armistice rather than peace). And that the <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/u-s-rok-the-forgotten-alliance/">United States has chosen</a> to provide military assistance to the South to help protect it from any aggression by the North. </p>
<p>North Korea may have a very large army of about one million soldiers. South Korea effectively has half that number. Although the majority of South Korea’s able-bodied male citizens may contribute to a military reserve of a few million soldiers, mobilising them in time to respond to a conflict is another question and their role is <a href="http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/can-south-korea-fight-north-korea-without-america-14837">often excluded from analyses</a>. </p>
<p>As such, the American military personnel and the superior equipment, aircraft and ships that they operate provide the South with a better chance of avoiding defeat should war break out. </p>
<p>Pyongyang’s intention in using nuclear weapons would be to destroy these American bases to remove the advantage they give to South Korea’s national defence. This is why the threat of nuclear use, especially by a more brazen regime under Kim Jong-Un, needs to be taken very seriously. </p>
<p>Such is the current quagmire as the world waits to see how the geopolitics of the Korean peninsula will unfold over the next few months. And as strategists and policymakers scramble to find <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/preventing_north_koreas_nuclear_breakout.pdf">other approaches</a> for halting North Korea’s growing nuclear threat.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76592/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Graham Ong-Webb does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The key question is whether North Korea does have nuclear weapons that it can readily use against the United States and its regional allies, South Korea and Japan.Graham Ong-Webb, Research Fellow, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/708832017-02-07T16:51:45Z2017-02-07T16:51:45ZChina’s nuclear weapons policy could be about to radically change<p>There has long been a gap between China’s nuclear weapons capabilities and the aspirations of its defence strategists, some of whom are keen to align Beijing’s nuclear posture with the offensive, dominant stance of its <a href="http://origin.www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Annual_Report/Chapters/Chapter%202,%20Section%203%20-%20China's%20Offensive%20Missile%20Forces.pdf">conventional military forces</a>. They may be getting their way: there are signs that China could start to move towards a “war-fighting” nuclear stance and dramatically change the way it uses its nuclear weapons for strategic purposes.</p>
<p>This would be a huge change. For the last two decades, outside observers have often talked about China’s “official” nuclear posture as more passive than assertive. What Western coverage China’s nuclear capabilities get tends towards stability and non-belligerence, pointing to Beijing’s longstanding policies of <a href="http://calhoun.nps.edu/bitstream/handle/10945/11470/Chinese_Nuclear_Policy.pdf?sequence=1">minimum deterrence</a>, and “<a href="http://www.chinausfocus.com/peace-security/new-consideration-of-chinas-no-first-use-of-nuclear-weapons-is-needed">no first use</a>”.</p>
<p>But things have moved on; Chinese nuclear thinking is not static, passive or isolated, and the different elements of its nuclear position are flexible and well-integrated. This means Beijing could radically change its nuclear weapons strategy with relative ease. And that in turn could spell serious trouble for the geopolitical and nuclear balance of the whole Asia-Pacific region.</p>
<p>It’s easy to see how this risk could be overlooked by other powers. The Pentagon mostly assesses the Chinese nuclear arsenal by measuring its size, meaning it struggles to factor in other changes. Among these upgraded and more flexible equipment: China now possesses road-mobile nuclear weapons equipped with <a href="http://freebeacon.com/national-security/china-flight-tests-multiple-warhead-missile/">multiple warheads</a> and a new generation of nuclear-powered <a href="http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/1993754/south-china-sea-air-strips-main-role-defend-hainan">submarines</a>. It’s also deployed long-range bombers on <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-bomber-flight-send-message-donald-trump-taiwan-a7468021.html">deterrence missions</a>.</p>
<p>In short, Beijing’s newly flexible options give it the ability to use its nuclear weapons to much broader and more assertive ends than it ever has before. </p>
<h2>On alert</h2>
<p>Only a few Chinese strategists have publicly advocated a shift from minimal nuclear deterrence to something like a war-fighting stance. But even if their views are in the minority, they nonetheless indicate that some in the defence establishment intend to assimilate Western nuclear strategies into <a href="http://carnegieendowment.org/2016/10/28/understanding-chinese-nuclear-thinking-pub-64975">traditional Chinese ones</a>.</p>
<p>There are plenty of ways China could modify its existing forces to do this. It could deploy “tactical” nuclear weapons in large numbers, bolster its missile defence capabilities, or adopt a launch-on-warning posture, meaning that its weapons would be launched automatically or by default if an enemy attack were detected.</p>
<p>Washington would probably view any of these moves as a sign of a major shift in China’s supposedly stable nuclear stance, and potentially as an existential challenge to both the US’s overall geopolitical strategy and the East Asian balance of power. </p>
<p>If American defence planners detected a fundamental shift in China’s approach to nuclear deterrence, it could have huge implications for the way the US positions its own nuclear weapons in the Pacific. And the US would be particularly alarmed if it thought Beijing was starting to use its nuclear weapons to beef up its aggressive <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-at-stake-in-chinas-claims-to-the-south-china-sea-62472">assertions of sovereignty</a> in the region, particularly in the East and South China seas and the Taiwan Strait.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155898/original/image-20170207-30915-bcnwni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155898/original/image-20170207-30915-bcnwni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155898/original/image-20170207-30915-bcnwni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155898/original/image-20170207-30915-bcnwni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155898/original/image-20170207-30915-bcnwni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155898/original/image-20170207-30915-bcnwni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155898/original/image-20170207-30915-bcnwni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A nuclear-capable Xian H-6M bomber over Changzhou.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PLAAF_Xian_H-6M_Over_Changzhou.jpg">Kevin McGill/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is all complicated by China’s propensity for strategic ambiguity and opacity, which will surely reinforce the Pentagon’s reliance on <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09512748.2016.1239129">capacity-based assessments</a> – the worst-case scenarios that it uses to infer Chinese intentions. If China formally adopts a war-fighting nuclear posture, it could create a self-fulfilling prophecy in which the US responds by taking a more assertive stance of its own. This in turn could send already fragile US-China relations into an intense and intractable <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2009958?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">security dilemma</a>.</p>
<p>And so China presents the West’s nuclear policy wonks with a set of fiendish puzzles. Why might Beijing be fundamentally rethinking things, and if so, when and why did it start? Who might be leading the rethink? Many of China’s “new” nuclear capabilities in fact date back two decades or so, and it’s hard to distinguish which are newly developed and which are simply being deployed in new ways. And above all, it’s still unclear how having these “new” capabilities might affect Beijing’s thinking about how to use its nuclear options in some future conflict.</p>
<p>The world over, the line between war and peace is getting ever more blurred, as are the distinctions between conventional military and nuclear capabilities and doctrines. Many states will continue to accumulate progressively advanced war-fighting tools at a relatively low cost; interstate security dilemmas are set to become more frequent, more intense, more intractable and more destabilising. For China to take on a more aggressive nuclear posture in a world like this would be an alarming step indeed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70883/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Johnson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Beijing has traditionally retained its nuclear weapons on a no-first-use basis, but it’s ready to deploy them more assertively.James Johnson, Postdoctoral honorary visiting fellow, University of LeicesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/718552017-02-06T11:08:45Z2017-02-06T11:08:45ZShould we really be so afraid of a nuclear North Korea?<p>The common thinking is that North Korea’s nuclear programme poses a threat to global peace and diverts economic resources from an impoverished population. North Korean leaders are depicted in the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09512748.2015.1022588">Western media</a> as a cabal of madmen who won’t be satisfied until <a href="http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/northkorea/2016/02/25/93/0401000000AEN20160225006151315F.html">Washington</a>, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/10466908/North-Korea-threatens-sea-of-fire-for-South-Korea-presidential-office.html">Seoul</a>, or some other enemy city is turned into a “sea of fire”. </p>
<p>Successive US governments have used a range of carrots and sticks to entice or pressure the North Korean leadership to give up its nuclear programme. The North’s missile launches and nuclear tests in 2016 make plain that these efforts have failed; in short, the West has to accept that it is now a nuclear power and focus instead on limiting the risks a nuclear North Korea presents. </p>
<p>But it also pays to consider what sounds like a perverse question: could a North Korean bomb actually benefit both the country’s people and the world at large? </p>
<p>First, a reality check: the North Korean nuclear programme is less a madcap scheme than a clear and deliberate strategy. Its leaders have closely watched what’s happened to other countries that have backed away from nuclear arsenals, and two in particular: Ukraine and Libya.</p>
<p>Ukraine gave up its massive Soviet-era nuclear arsenal in 1994 when it signed the <a href="http://www.cfr.org/nonproliferation-arms-control-and-disarmament/budapest-memorandums-security-assurances-1994/p32484">Budapest Memorandum</a> with Russia, the US and the UK, on whose terms it traded nuclear weapons for a formal reassurance to respect its sovereignty; 20 years later, Moscow <a href="http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/ukraine-example-nuclear-disarmament-doesn%E2%80%99t-pay">invaded and annexed the Crimean peninsula</a>, and a pro-Russian insurgency in the east is <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2017/02/ukraine-map-170205081953296.html">still rumbling</a>. As for Libya, Muammar Gaddafi renounced his weapons of mass destruction programme as part of an opening to the West only to be forcibly removed from power by the same countries some eight years later. </p>
<p>Along with the Iraq War, these spectacles <a href="http://thediplomat.com/2016/03/lessons-of-libya-why-sanctions-wont-stop-north-korea/">taught</a> the North Korean regime that it’s hard for a relatively small, isolated country to survive without the military hardware to guarantee it. Pyongyang has duly shown great diplomatic skill in drawing out nuclear negotiations, buying itself both time and financial aid as its programme moves forward. </p>
<p>In 2016 alone, it <a href="https://theconversation.com/real-or-not-north-koreas-h-bomb-is-part-of-a-well-planned-agenda-52830">tested</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/06/north-korea-nuclear-weapons-development-timeline">two</a> nuclear weapons, sent a satellite into orbit, and made advances in both submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) and intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) technology. In his <a href="http://www.rodong.rep.kp/en/index.php?strPageID=SF01_02_01&newsID=2017-01-02-0001">New Year’s address</a> at the start of 2017, Kim Jong-un emphasised that the country’s nuclear forces are central to its self-defence capability: “We will defend peace and security of our state at all costs and by our own efforts, and make a positive contribution to safeguarding global peace and stability.”</p>
<h2>The long view</h2>
<p>A nuclear North Korea obviously worries the international community for several reasons. Kim might in theory actually use nuclear weapons on his enemies, a threat he <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2016/08/22/politics/north-korea-south-korea-us-military-exercise/">periodically makes</a>. His country’s admission into the “nuclear club” might spark a regional <a href="http://nationalinterest.org/feature/looming-arms-race-east-asia-10461">arms race</a>. It could share or sell technologies of mass destruction to <a href="https://rusi.org/event/whitehall-paper-launch-target-markets-north-korea%E2%80%99s-military-customers-sanctions-era">hostile states</a>. And then there’s the danger of a full-blown nuclear accident with all the attendant regional repercussions.</p>
<p>These risks aren’t trivial, but they should be viewed with some perspective. For starters, a nuclear attack from Pyongyang appears highly unlikely. The government is fully aware that it would incur an overwhelmingly destructive military response from the US and South Korea. It’s also worth remembering that while the programme has been underway for 25 years, there is still no sign of a regional nuclear arms race.</p>
<p>As for proliferation or accidents, these demand not isolation but co-operation and communication. Keeping Pyongyang cut off from the world will not help; if its nuclear facilities are to be kept safe and their products not used to bring in illicit foreign revenue, they must be properly monitored rather than kept hidden. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, a nuclear North Korea might well see fit to downsize its enormous and costly conventional military forces, which are <a href="http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/armies.htm">among the world’s largest</a>. As it transitions away from what it calls a “<a href="https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/north-koreas-military-first-policy-a-curse-or-a-blessing/">Military First</a>” policy to something more deterrent-centric, it makes sense to encourage it to reduce its conventional military forces. (Better still, if it did, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/11603665/North-Korea-v-South-Korea-How-the-countries-armed-forces-compare.html">heavily-armed</a> South Korea might follow suit.)</p>
<p>With a smaller conventional military to maintain, Pyongyang might be able to channel scarce state funds away from defence and towards raising the standard of living for ordinary North Koreans. This point is in line with its stated strategy of growing the economy and developing the nuclear deterrent in parallel, a policy known as the <a href="http://sinonk.com/2013/06/03/treasured-swords-environment-under-the-byungjin-line-part-1/">Byungjin line</a>, and with Kim’s mooted <a href="http://www.rodong.rep.kp/en/index.php?strPageID=SF01_02_01&newsID=2017-01-02-0001">five-year economic plan</a>. His plans demand dramatic shifts in North Korean state policy, which could destabilise the regime. The calculation is that the security provided by nuclear capabilities would offset the shock of sudden domestic change. </p>
<p>Most paradoxically of all, North Korea’s nuclear “arrival” might make for a positive turn in inter-Korean relations. International efforts to eliminate North Korea’s nuclear programme isolated the country, in turn greatly undermining the chances of a rapprochement with the South, whose efforts to defrost relations have lately come to nothing. The pace of the North’s nuclear development meant that the now-impeached President Park’s policy of reconciliation – “<a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/northeast-asia/2011-09-01/new-kind-korea">Trustpolitik</a>” – was doomed before it began. </p>
<p>As far as Pyongyang is concerned, its militaristic strategy has worked: It has kept the Kim government internally stable, the population dependent on the government, and the country’s enemies at bay. Accepting the country’s nuclear status, rather than trying to head it off with sanctions and threats, could bring it back to the diplomatic bargaining table.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71855/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>One of the world’s worst nightmares could in fact be an unexpected opportunity.Markus Bell, Anthropologist and Lecturer in Korean and Japanese studies, University of SheffieldMarco Milani, Postdoctoral Scholar, Korean Studies Institute, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/718232017-01-24T16:08:22Z2017-01-24T16:08:22ZThe real reason why Trident’s missile fiasco is so scary for politicians<p>In March 2012 HMS Vengeance, one of the UK’s four Vanguard-class submarines that carry Trident II nuclear missiles, entered the Devonport naval base in Plymouth for a major overhaul. Before doing so, its nuclear warheads were removed at the Coulport naval base on the Clyde. The submarine made its way across the Atlantic to the US Strategic Weapons Facility at King’s Bay, Georgia, on America’s east coast. There, its arsenal of US-designed and built Trident missiles were removed. The missiles were processed into a much larger pool of missiles that equip the US’ Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines.</p>
<p>More than three years later, in December 2015, HMS Vengeance was recommissioned and journeyed back across the Atlantic to King’s Bay to be reloaded with missiles. In January 2016 an extensive series of sea trials began to test and certify the crew and equipment for its return to active service. This culminated in a live test fire of a Trident missile in June 2016 at the US missile test range at Port Canaveral, off the coast of Florida. This is known as a demonstration and shakedown operation (DASO).</p>
<p>We now know the test went wrong. The missile trajectory was supposed to follow the US Navy’s Eastern Test Range, which extends to the southern Atlantic, off the west coast of Africa. This range is made up of a series of shore and sea-based tracking facilities.</p>
<p>However, as was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jan/22/mod-cannot-fall-back-on-usual-excuses-to-explain-trident-misfire">reported</a>, the problem seems to have involved the communication of data between the missile and one or more of these facilities – rather than a problem with the missile or the launch system. It is unclear what, if anything, malfunctioned with the UK submarine and its fire control system and what malfunctioned with the missile, its guidance systems, or the systems comprising the test range.</p>
<p>Tests of certified and operationally deployed missiles happen quite often and sometimes, they fail. On July 27 2011, for example, a routine flight test of a US <a href="http://www.nti.org/gsn/article/new-details-emerge-about-us-nuclear-missile-test-failure/">Minuteman III</a> inter-continental ballistic missile failed and the missile was deliberately destroyed mid-flight.</p>
<p>The Trident missile actually has an exceptional record. The US Navy has conducted over 160 successful flight tests since missile design was completed in 1989, making it the world’s most reliable large ballistic missile – until last June.</p>
<p>But why the cover up? There are two reasons. The first, which is speculative, is that the US government regards the details of the failure of its missile (to which Britain purchased a right to deploy but do not “own”) or the failure of its test-flight communication systems and software, as proprietary information that it has not authorised the UK to disclose at any level of detail, perhaps because of <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4150190/PM-Theresa-did-know-Trident-failure.html">wider concerns</a> about what went wrong.</p>
<p>The second, and probable core reason, is the intense political sensitivity that surrounds Trident in the UK. The test failure came just as the British parliament was about to debate and vote on whether to continue with the Trident replacement programme. This would enable the UK to deploy nuclear weapons in the coming decades.</p>
<h2>What makes a deterrent?</h2>
<p>The central issue in all this is the political need for certainty when it comes to nuclear weapons. The UK’s political leaders routinely insist that the country needs its own nuclear weapons in order to protect the state from a major armed attack by another state. The Whitehall narrative insists that nuclear deterrence – the threat of a nuclear attack to prevent the escalation of armed conflict to the point of all-out war, including nuclear war – works without problem. In fact, it is so reliable, it effectively guarantees protection against attack. This is how it is sold to the public: nuclear weapons assure safety and protection; no nuclear weapons means weakness and vulnerability.</p>
<p>This is why Trident is so often referred to as “the deterrent”, as if it successfully deters simply by existing. Means and ends are one and the same. This narrative of “nuclear absolutism” (UK nuclear weapons are absolutely necessary and nuclear deterrence works absolutely) is part of the marketing strategy for maintaining an independent UK nuclear weapons capability.</p>
<p>And a vital part of this narrative is the absolute reliability of the weapon system. Politicians, the public, and whoever the UK is targeting need to know, need to believe, that if the order to fire is given, then the UK’s missiles will be launched and massive nuclear violence will follow.</p>
<p>The problem is that the practice of nuclear deterrence is not perfect. It involves people, weapon technologies, systems, bureaucracies and cultures. Sometimes things do go wrong and when they do, the illusion of certainty is compromised, and this creates problems. It raises questions about the nature of the risk and whether it is worth taking, questions that Theresa May, for one, doesn’t want asking.</p>
<h2>Accidents happen</h2>
<p>We know that organisations can struggle to deliver <a href="http://www.unidir.org/files/publications/pdfs/a-limit-to-safety-en-618.pdf">persistently safe outcomes</a> with complex systems. This can result in disasters like the Challenger space shuttle explosion in 1986, the Deep Water horizon oil rig disaster in 2010 and the Fukushima Daiichi reactor meltdown in 2011. </p>
<p>This is the wider lesson from the Trident test failure: accidents happen with nuclear weapon systems, just as they do with any complex socio-technological system. But the consequences of things going wrong with nuclear weapons and the practice of nuclear deterrence in which they are embedded are enormous. This is particularly so in crises that can induce risk taking, misperception, and extreme stress.</p>
<p>The consequences could be the detonation of tens, hundreds, or even thousands of nuclear warheads, causing <a href="http://www.unidir.org/files/publications/pdfs/an-illusion-of-safety-en-611.pdf">catastrophic harm</a>.</p>
<p>Proponents of nuclear deterrence might accept this risk by arguing that it is very small. Yet <a href="http://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/research/docs/goodby_shultz_-_the_war_that_must_never_be_fought_-_scribd.pdf">we cannot know that</a> and we should not deceive ourselves by thinking nuclear weapons are intrinsically safe and nuclear deterrence is foolproof. They are not and, given the consequences of failure, it is why a majority of states voted at the UN General Assembly in October 2016 to begin a formal process to <a href="http://www.icanw.org/campaign-news/draft-un-resolution-to-ban-nuclear-weapons-in-2017/">ban nuclear weapons</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71823/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nick Ritchie has previously received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council and the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. He is a member of the British Pugwash Group, the British International Studies Association, and the Royal United Services Institute's Project on Nuclear Issues.</span></em></p>The entire concept of nuclear deterrence depends on the assumption that everything will always work perfectly.Nick Ritchie, Senior Lecturer (International Security), University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/717442017-01-23T16:31:04Z2017-01-23T16:31:04ZTrident missile failure: just how safe is the UK’s nuclear deterrent?<p>The Sunday Times has caused a furore by <a href="https://modmedia.blog.gov.uk/2017/01/22/defence-in-the-media-22-january-2017/">reporting</a> that a 2016 test of the UK’s submarine-borne strategic nuclear deterrent ended in failure. After the submarine HMS Vengeance returned to sea following a £350M refit, it <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4438392.stm">tested a Trident-II D-5 missile</a> off the coast of Florida. Immediately after launch, the unarmed missile reportedly veered off course and flew towards the US mainland rather than following its planned trajectory towards a sea target near West Africa. </p>
<p>Details of the <a href="http://bit.ly/2jgLMf5">technical aspects of the failure</a> have not been released for reasons of national security, and aren’t likely to be. But the political fallout has already begun. </p>
<p>Confronted with the revelations on live television, the UK’s prime minister, Theresa May, initially <a href="https://twitter.com/MarrShow/status/823109940554264576">refused to confirm</a> whether she was made aware of the incident before a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/18/mps-vote-in-favour-of-trident-renewal-nuclear-deterrent">crucial House of Commons vote</a> a month later which confirmed the renewal of the submarines that carry the deterrent. However, Downing Street <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38714047">later confirmed</a> that she was indeed informed before the vote was held. </p>
<p>As May and her government try to take control of the story, the crucial question for the British people is whether they should continue to share Theresa May’s “<a href="http://bit.ly/2jgKGQB">absolute faith</a>” in the Trident-II missile following this event.</p>
<h2>The UK’s strategic deterrent</h2>
<p>Under the banner of Operation Relentless, the UK has maintained a posture of <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/successor-submarine-programme-factsheet/successor-submarine-programme-factsheet">“continuous at sea deterrence”</a> (CASD) since 1969. In practice, this means that for the last 48 years, at least one British submarine carrying nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles has been on patrol in the Atlantic Ocean at all times. The posture is meant to <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/successor-submarine-programme-factsheet/successor-submarine-programme-factsheet">deter</a> “the most extreme threats to our national security and way of life” by ensuring that any nuclear attack on the UK can be met with a credible retaliatory nuclear strike.</p>
<p>The UK has had two classes of nuclear-powered submarine capable of carrying nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles (SSBNs): four <a href="http://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/blog/hms-resolution-britains-first-maritime-nuclear-deterrent/">Resolution</a> class SSBNs, which patrolled from 1969 until 1996, and their successors, the four <a href="http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/the-equipment/submarines/ballistic-submarines/vanguard-ballistic">Vanguard class SSBNs</a>, which have patrolled since 1993. </p>
<p>At any one time, one SSBN is on patrol providing the strategic deterrent, one is recovering from the previous patrol, one is preparing to depart for patrol, and one is in refit. This amounts to a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/555607/2015_Strategic_Defence_and_Security_Review.pdf">minimum nuclear deterrent posture</a>, putatively providing a credible nuclear deterrent with the smallest possible number of submarines and warheads, and therefore at the lowest practicable expense.</p>
<p>The Vanguard class SSBNs are equipped with 16 missile tubes that carry the Trident-II D-5 missile, built to deliver British-produced warheads with an explosive yield the equivalent of eight Hiroshima bombs. These missiles carry Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicle (<a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/MIRV">MIRV</a>) payloads, and each missile is believed to be capable of delivering three warheads, each with around a 100-kiloton yield. In 2010, the British government decided to <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/62482/strategic-defence-security-review.pdf">limit the number of missiles</a> to eight, with a maximum of 40 warheads carried on each SSBN.</p>
<p>While devastating compared with conventional weapons, the Trident-II missiles carry nuclear warheads that are <a href="http://www.boeing.com/history/products/lgm-30-minuteman.page">significantly less powerful</a> than those of other nuclear weapons deployed in the past. As a result, today’s nuclear weapons are designed with <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/inventing-accuracy">high-precision guidance systems</a>, unlike their forebears.</p>
<h2>Should we be concerned?</h2>
<p>When the test failed in June 2016, HMS Vengeance was engaged in a <a href="http://www.lockheedmartin.co.uk/us/news/press-releases/2016/september/ssc-space-trdent.html">Demonstration and Shakedown Operation</a>, a requirement for returning to service following an extensive 40-month refit that culminates in the launch of an unarmed Trident-II D-5 missile. These operations are tests of the submarine and its crew, but are also meant to demonstrate to the UK’s allies and adversaries that its strategic deterrent is credible. </p>
<p>While a government spokesperson reported that Vengeance’s crew <a href="https://modmedia.blog.gov.uk/2017/01/22/defence-in-the-media-22-january-2017/">were themselves tested successfully</a>, the missile’s failure is a serious problem for the demonstration of credibility aspect of the test. Because of the <a href="http://bbc.in/2joFQOF">high cost of launch</a>, the UK doesn’t get many chances to mount these demonstrations; what’s more, the last successful demonstration, conducted by HMS Vigilant in 2012, was <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/183977/the-silent-deep/">closely observed by both allies and adversaries</a>, particularly because it was expected to be the last such test before the UK government’s “<a href="https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/research/key-issues-parliament-2015/defence-and-security/trident/">Main Gate</a>” decision to renew the deterrent. </p>
<p>The success of that test and the huge parliamentary majority at the 2016 vote were meant to set a smooth path to renewing the deterrent. Now it’s been established that not just the government but the Prime Minister herself were aware that the Vengeance test had failed, the issue of renewal is suddenly live again.</p>
<p>This isn’t just a domestic matter. While the UK does produce its own warheads, it does not manufacture its own missiles. Under contract from the US Government, defence company Lockheed Martin <a href="http://www.lockheedmartin.co.uk/us/products/trident-ii-d5-fleet-ballistic-missile--fbm-.html">produces the Trident-II D-5 missiles</a>, which are placed into a “common pool” shared by both the UK and US. A missile failure therefore has serious implications for the credibility of the US’s submarine-borne deterrent as well as the UK’s.</p>
<p>Ultimately, though, this is the <a href="http://www.astronautix.com/t/tridentd-5.html">first publicly recorded failure</a> of a Trident-II D-5 missile since 1989, as opposed to the more than 160 successful launches carried out since then. So while <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/5301.html">academics</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/25/command-control-eric-schlosser-review">journalists</a> have rightly drawn attention to safety and security concerns about nuclear weapons, our worries should be taken alongside all the information we have. </p>
<p>Missiles are highly complicated pieces of technology, and we still don’t know why or how this one failed. Without more information, no one should jump to conclusions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71744/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert J Downes receives funding from the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. The views expressed here are his alone.</span></em></p>Reports of a failed Trident missile launch have all sorts of political and security implications – but they don’t necessarily spell catastrophe.Robert J Downes, MacArthur Fellow in Nuclear Security, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/670902016-12-13T03:55:56Z2016-12-13T03:55:56ZCybersecurity’s next phase: Cyber-deterrence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149483/original/image-20161209-31385-l5279y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Can we reduce the likelihood of digital attacks?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/pic-519713296/">Digital defense via shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Cyberattackers pose many threats to a wide range of targets. Russia, for example, was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-government-officially-accuses-russia-of-hacking-campaign-to-influence-elections/2016/10/07/4e0b9654-8cbf-11e6-875e-2c1bfe943b66_story.html">accused of hacking</a> Democratic Party computers throughout the year, interfering with the U.S. presidential election. Then there was the unknown attacker who, on a single October day, used thousands of internet-connected devices, such as digital video recorders and cameras compromised by <a href="https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/10/source-code-for-iot-botnet-mirai-released/">Mirai malware</a>, to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/26/ddos-attack-dyn-mirai-botnet">take down several high-profile websites</a>, including Twitter.</p>
<p>From 2005 to 2015, federal agencies reported a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/09/22/federal-cyber-incidents-jump-1300-in-10-years/">1,300 percent jump in cybersecurity incidents</a>. Clearly, we need better ways of addressing this broad category of threats. Some of us in the cybersecurity field are asking whether <a href="http://ndupress.ndu.edu/Portals/68/Documents/jfq/jfq-77/jfq-77_8-15_Denning.pdf">cyber deterrence</a> might help.</p>
<p>Deterrence focuses on making potential adversaries think twice about attacking, forcing them to consider the costs of doing so, as well as the consequences that might come from a counterattack. There are two main <a href="http://www.nato.int/docu/review/2015/also-in-2015/deterrence-russia-military/EN/index.htm">principles of deterrence</a>. The first, denial, involves convincing would-be attackers that they won’t succeed, at least without enormous effort and cost beyond what they are willing to invest. The second is punishment: Making sure the adversaries know there will be a strong response that might inflict more harm than they are willing to bear.</p>
<p>For decades, deterrence has effectively countered the threat of nuclear weapons. Can we achieve similar results against cyber weapons?</p>
<h2>Why cyber deterrence is hard</h2>
<p>Nuclear deterrence works because few countries have nuclear weapons or the significant resources needed to invest in them. Those that do have them recognize that <a href="http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?pubid=585">launching a first strike risks a devastating nuclear response</a>. Further, the international community has established institutions, such as the <a href="https://www.iaea.org/">International Atomic Energy Agency</a>, and agreements, such as the <a href="http://disarmament.un.org/treaties/t/npt">Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons</a>, to counter the catastrophic threat nuclear weapons pose.</p>
<p>Cyber weapons are nothing like nuclear ones. They are readily developed and deployed by individuals and small groups as well as states. They are easily replicated and distributed across networks, <a href="http://faculty.nps.edu/dedennin/publications/Berlin.pdf">rendering impossible</a> the hope of anything that might be called “cyber nonproliferation.” Cyber weapons are often deployed under a cloak of anonymity, making it difficult to figure out who is really responsible. And cyberattacks can achieve a broad range of effects, most of which are disruptive and costly, but not catastrophic.</p>
<p>This does not mean cyber deterrence is doomed to failure. The sheer scale of cyberattacks demands that we do better to defend against them.</p>
<p>There are three things we can do to strengthen cyber deterrence: Improve cybersecurity, employ active defenses and establish international norms for cyberspace. The first two of these measures will significantly improve our cyber defenses so that even if an attack is not deterred, it will not succeed.</p>
<h2>Stepping up protection</h2>
<p>Cybersecurity aids deterrence primarily through the principle of denial. It stops attacks before they can achieve their goals. This includes beefing up login security, encrypting data and communications, fighting viruses and other malware, and keeping software updated to patch weaknesses when they’re found. </p>
<p>But even more important is developing products that have few if any security vulnerabilities when they are shipped and installed. The Mirai botnet, capable of <a href="https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/10/hacked-cameras-dvrs-powered-todays-massive-internet-outage/">generating massive data floods that overload internet servers</a>, takes over devices that have gaping security holes, including <a href="https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/10/iot-device-maker-vows-product-recall-legal-action-against-western-accusers/">default passwords hardcoded into firmware</a> that users can’t change. While some companies such as <a href="https://blogs.microsoft.com/microsoftsecure/author/stevelipner/">Microsoft invest heavily in product security</a>, others, including many Internet-of-Things vendors, do not.</p>
<p>Cybersecurity guru <a href="http://www.schneier.com">Bruce Schneier</a> aptly characterizes the prevalence of insecure Internet-of-Things devices as a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/11/03/your-wifi-connected-thermostat-can-take-down-the-whole-internet-we-need-new-regulations/">market failure akin to pollution</a>. Simply put, the market favors cheap insecure devices over ones that are more costly but secure. His solution? Regulation, either by imposing basic security standards on manufacturers, or by holding them liable when their products are used in attacks.</p>
<h2>Active defenses</h2>
<p>When it comes to taking action against attackers, there are many ways to monitor, identify and counter adversary cyberattacks. These active cyber defenses are <a href="http://faculty.nps.edu/dedennin/publications/Active%20Cyber%20Defense%20-%20Cyber%20Analogies.pdf">similar to air defense systems</a> that monitor the sky for hostile aircraft and shoot down incoming missiles. Network monitors that watch for and block (“shoot down”) hostile packets are one example, as are <a href="https://www.sans.org/security-resources/idfaq/what-is-a-honeypot/1/9">honeypots</a> that attract or deflect adversary packets into safe areas. There, they do not harm the targeted network, and can even be studied to reveal attackers’ techniques. </p>
<p>Another set of active defenses involves collecting, analyzing and sharing information about potential threats so that network operators can respond to the latest developments. For example, operators could <a href="https://www.arbornetworks.com/blog/asert/mirai-iot-botnet-description-ddos-attack-mitigation/">regularly scan their systems</a> looking for devices vulnerable to or compromised by the Mirai botnet or other malware. If they found some, they could disconnect the devices from the network and alert the devices’ owners to the danger.</p>
<p>Active cyber defense does more than just deny attackers opportunities. It can often unmask the people behind them, leading to punishment. Nongovernment attackers can be <a href="https://www.scmagazine.com/avalanche-cyber-crime-platform-dismantled-eu-security-forces-praised/article/576573/">shut down, arrested and prosecuted</a>; countries conducting or supporting cyberwarfare can be sanctioned by the international community. </p>
<p>Currently, however, the private sector is <a href="https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/criminal-ccips/legacy/2015/05/18/CSIS%20Roundtable%205-18-15.pdf">reluctant to employ</a> many active defenses because of legal uncertainties. The Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at George Washington University <a href="https://cchs.gwu.edu/sites/cchs.gwu.edu/files/downloads/CCHS-ActiveDefenseReportFINAL.pdf">recommends several actions</a> that the government and the private sector could take to enable more widespread use of active defenses, including clarifying regulations.</p>
<h2>Setting international norms</h2>
<p>Finally, international norms for cyberspace can aid deterrence if national governments believe they would be named and shamed within the international community for conducting a cyberattack. The U.S. brought charges in 2014 <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-charges-five-chinese-military-hackers-cyber-espionage-against-us-corporations-and-labor">against five Chinese military hackers</a> for targeting American companies. A year later, the U.S. and China <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2016/06/15/inside-the-slow-workings-of-the-u-s-china-cybersecurity-agreement/">agreed to not steal and exploit each other’s corporate secrets</a> for commercial advantage. In the wake of those events, <a href="https://www.fireeye.com/content/dam/fireeye-www/current-threats/pdfs/rpt-china-espionage.pdf">cyber espionage from China plummeted</a>.</p>
<p>Also in 2015, a U.N. group of experts recommended <a href="http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/70/174">banning cyberattacks against critical infrastructure</a>, including a country’s computer emergency response teams. And later that year, the G20 issued a <a href="http://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/052516_Painter_Testimony.pdf">statement opposing the theft of intellectual property</a> to benefit commercial entities. These norms might deter governments from conducting such attacks.</p>
<p>Cyberspace will never be immune to attack – no more than our streets will be immune to crime. But with stronger cybersecurity, increased use of active cyber defenses, and international cyber norms, we can hope to at least keep a lid on the problem.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67090/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dorothy Denning is Distinguished Professor of Defense Analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Department of Defense or the U.S. federal government.</span></em></p>For decades, deterrence has effectively countered the threat of nuclear weapons. Can we achieve similar results against cyber weapons?Dorothy Denning, Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Defense Analysis, Naval Postgraduate SchoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/675662016-10-27T07:57:06Z2016-10-27T07:57:06ZObama’s Nobel-winning vision of ‘world without nuclear weapons’ is still distant<p>Even now, Barack Obama is being <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-j-rosendall/barack-obama-transformer_b_10206262.html">hailed</a> as a transformer for <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-barack-obama-prague-delivered">the vision</a> of a “world without nuclear weapons” he articulated during his first year in office. The 44th US president has left an indelible mark on the nuclear debate, but his policies have failed to live up to the hope he has inspired. </p>
<p>Obama established nuclear disarmament as a key foreign policy objective in April 2009. Speaking at Hradčany Square in Prague, he <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-barack-obama-prague-delivered">rejected</a> the logic of deterrence as a form of fatalism and committed the US to seeking the “peace and security of a world” where nuclear weapons were obsolete.</p>
<p>It was a watershed moment. As has <a href="https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=DXkqAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA19&lpg=PA19&dq=obsolete+relic+of+the+past+obama&source=bl&ots=W9b9px1zyR&sig=S-uvOznoyh7p8oCpluXrYOZz8Dg&hl=ja&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwipprzEqfjPAhVQOrwKHYcnD_EQ6AEIIjAB#v=snippet&q=an%20obsolete%20relic&f=false">been noted</a> elsewhere, Obama’s predecessors had spoken of pursuing nuclear disarmament, but none had made “global zero” a strategic objective.</p>
<p>The contrast with the George W Bush years was particularly stark. Seeing arms-control treaties as a constraint on US foreign policy and difficult to enforce in practice, Obama’s predecessor <a href="https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=_RKpAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA156&lpg=PA156&dq=bush+proposes+bunker+buster+missile&source=bl&ots=0uKgAlmgb8&sig=ms2y9kjnr7ENabdrG1K0k199IQQ&hl=ja&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjGv-m7wPjPAhWBfLwKHakoC78Q6AEIMzAD#v=onepage&q=bush%20proposes%20bunker%20buster%20missile&f=false">did little</a> to promote disarmament. Indeed, his administration explored expanding the role of nuclear warfare in US foreign policy: <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2002_07-08/abmjul_aug02">pulling out</a> of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty to pursue a missile defence system and <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v428/n6982/full/428455a.html">proposing</a> a nuclear bunker-buster weapon.</p>
<p>In this context, the Prague address was radical. Global zero would “not be reached quickly – perhaps not even in my lifetime,” <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-barack-obama-prague-delivered">he conceded</a>, but it could be achieved through international cooperation. The first step was to “ignore the voices who tell us the world cannot change” and insist “Yes, we can”. Ten months later, Obama was <a href="http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2009/press.html">awarded</a> the Nobel Peace Prize.</p>
<h2>Visions and policy gaps</h2>
<p>Since that first speech, Obama has sought to keep his vision alive. In September 2009 <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?289121-1/secretary-clinton-remarks-nucleartest-ban-treaty-conference">he sent</a> Hillary Clinton to the UN’s Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) conference. It was both the first time the US had participated in ten years and the first time it had sent a secretary of state as its delegate. Ten months later, the US established a new forum for international discussion, <a href="http://www.state.gov/t/isn/nuclearsecuritysummit/2010/">hosting</a> the first Nuclear Security Summit. Acts like these were largely symbolic but underlined the depth of Obama’s conviction.</p>
<p>Obama made his most memorable gesture of all on May 27 of this year when he became the first serving US president to visit Hiroshima. Despite <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/05/27/sarah-palin-assails-obama-for-hiroshima-visit/">domestic</a> and <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/b3657836-20b7-11e6-aa98-db1e01fabc0c">international</a> opposition, he reaffirmed his commitment to disarmament in <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/barack-obama-calls-for-world-to-reduce-nuclear-weapons-stockpiles-during-historic-visit-to-hiroshima-a7051561.html">a speech</a> at the city’s <a href="http://visithiroshima.net/world_heritage/a-bomb_dome.html">Peace Memorial Park</a> and reflected on the horror of nuclear war. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Why do we come to this place, to Hiroshima? We come to ponder a terrible force unleashed in the not-so-distant past. </p>
<p>We come to mourn the dead … their souls speak to us, they ask us to look inward, take stock of who we are and what we might become.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yet for all this rhetoric, the president has struggled to implement change. His longstanding plan to <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/news/world_grows_impatient_for_senate_to_ratify_test_ban_treaty-245729-1.html">persuade the Senate</a> to ratify the CTBT and a more recent <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/06/science/obama-unlikely-to-vow-no-first-use-of-nuclear-weapons.html">initiative</a> to commit the US to a “no first use” policy, to name but two examples, were ultimately abandoned in the face of opposition. </p>
<p>This is not to claim that Obama has had no success. He <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/blog/ArmsControlNow/2016-01-17/The-Nonproliferation-Impact-of-Iran-Nuclear-Deal-Implementation-Day">closed</a> a controversial non-proliferation deal with Iran and signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2016/02/04/new-start-turns-five/">with Russia</a>, which committed both nations to a limit of 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear weapons. </p>
<p>Since signing the New START treaty in 2010, the US <a href="https://fas.org/issues/nuclear-weapons/status-world-nuclear-forces/">has also</a> reduced its total stockpile of operational warheads from 5,066 to 4,571: down roughly 10%. This is a worthy achievement but does not amount to setting a new political trajectory. The US nuclear arsenal has grown smaller under every president since Nixon (see graphic). And US stockpiles have shrunk less under Obama than any other administration since the end of the Cold War. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142905/original/image-20161024-28380-cwl0zx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142905/original/image-20161024-28380-cwl0zx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142905/original/image-20161024-28380-cwl0zx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=634&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142905/original/image-20161024-28380-cwl0zx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=634&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142905/original/image-20161024-28380-cwl0zx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=634&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142905/original/image-20161024-28380-cwl0zx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142905/original/image-20161024-28380-cwl0zx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142905/original/image-20161024-28380-cwl0zx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Such modest progress has also been bought at great cost. The political price of ratifying New START was a <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/14bcff98-f753-11e5-96db-fc683b5e52db">commitment</a> to renovating existing warheads and modernising the “nuclear triad” of delivery systems: planes, submarines, and inter-continental missiles. This will likely <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/USNuclearModernization">require</a> an investment of $1 trillion (£817 billion) over the next 30 years. In an era of budgetary constraints, this <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/americas/2016-08-01/rethinking-nuclear-policy">could mean</a> cuts to conventional forces.</p>
<p>Policy advocates argue this is necessary to ensure the reliability and safety of the arsenal. But the former secretary and assistant secretary of defence, William J Perry and Andy Weber, have <a href="http://www.wjperryproject.org/notes-from-the-brink/kill-the-cruise-missile">countered that</a> the investment exceeds the US’s deterrence needs and may increase the likelihood of nuclear conflict. This is a return to “Cold War thinking, and it is dangerous”, they argue.</p>
<p>Their concern is shared by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/01/bulletin-atomic-scientists-moves-doomsday-clock-2-minutes-closer-midnight">who last year moved</a> the hands of the Doomsday Clock two minutes closer to midnight. It is now 11:57, meaning the world is judged closer to catastrophe than at any point since 1983, when Cold War relations “were at their iciest”. In justifying the assessment, the Bulletin cited the “extraordinary and undeniable” threat posed by “the nuclear arms race resulting from the modernisation of huge arsenals”.</p>
<h2>Legacy</h2>
<p>The true consequences of nuclear modernisation remain to be seen. It seems clear, however, that Obama has not radically altered the US’s nuclear posture. At best, investing in a smaller, more modern nuclear arsenal will preserve the status quo. At worst, it could spark a costly new arms race. Neither outcome fulfils Obama’s <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-barack-obama-prague-delivered">promise</a> to “reduce the role of nuclear weapons” in US foreign policy. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/05/25/obama-in-hiroshima-a-case-study-in-hypocrisy/">Claims of hypocrisy</a>, however, are largely spurious. Obama was <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-barack-obama-prague-delivered">always clear</a> that progress would be slow. And Russian aggression, Chinese sabre-rattling and North Korean nuclear ambitions have raised new concerns about global security, galvanising resistance to his plans in both the Senate and the international community. </p>
<p>Regardless, the president is running out of time to realise his rhetoric. The gap between hope and political change remains noticeably wide. For all his great ambition, Obama’s legacy on nuclear weapons may amount to little more than symbolism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67566/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Makoto Takahashi receives funding from the ESRC. </span></em></p>With a $1 trillion modernisation programme signed off and atomic scientists deeply worried about the future, American policy on nuclear weapons is pretty much business as usual.Makoto Takahashi, Pre-doctoral researcher, University of CambridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/641632016-08-26T03:59:11Z2016-08-26T03:59:11ZAustralia’s stance on nuclear deterrence leaves it on the wrong side of history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134887/original/image-20160822-30366-si96zn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">For Australia, the US election should provide an opportunity to rethink defence relationships, especially as they relate to nuclear weapons. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Issei Kato/Reuters</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There has been much hand-wringing at the thought of Donald Trump becoming US president. If, by some miracle, Trump succeeds in November, he will have his hand on the nuclear trigger. </p>
<p>But this concern, while great political fodder, is dangerously simplistic. It presupposes there are “safe hands” when it comes to nuclear weapons. There are not.</p>
<p>The US has around <a href="https://www.sipri.org/publications/2016/sipri-fact-sheets/trends-world-nuclear-forces-2016">7,000 nuclear weapons</a>. Hundreds of these can be launched within minutes. While the global community has outlawed other indiscriminate weapons of mass destruction, nuclear weapons are yet to be banned. </p>
<p>The Cold War’s MAD (<a href="http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclear-weapons/history/cold-war/strategy/strategy-mutual-assured-destruction.htm">Mutually Assured Destruction</a>) doctrine has morphed over the years into a framework of nuclear deterrence. Many governments globally have played a double game: supporting nuclear disarmament on the one hand, while relying on a nuclear defence on the other.</p>
<p>One such government is Australia’s. Despite consecutive governments insisting they support nuclear disarmament, Australia’s reliance on Extended Nuclear Deterrence (END) means it is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/21/australia-attempts-to-derail-un-plan-to-ban-nuclear-weapons">frustrating attempts at a total ban</a>. </p>
<h2>When defence conflicts with deterrence</h2>
<p>END is based on the assumption the US would offer a nuclear response to Australia as a select protégé ally in the event of a nuclear threat or attack. These arrangements are <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/06_nuclear_deterrence.pdf">publicly documented</a> between the US and NATO states, Japan and South Korea.</p>
<p>The first official articulation of the position in Australia is in its <a href="http://www.defence.gov.au/Publications/wpaper1994.pdf">1994 Defence White Paper</a>. This professes a reliance on, and support for, a US nuclear capability to “deter any nuclear threat or attack on Australia”. </p>
<p>Importantly, the paper also noted that reliance on END was an “interim” measure until a total ban on nuclear weapons could be achieved. Each subsequent defence white paper has continued to assert this reliance on US nuclear weapons.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.defence.gov.au/whitepaper/Docs/2016-Defence-White-Paper.pdf">2016 Defence White Paper</a> created more ambiguity about the END arrangement. It claimed:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Only the nuclear and conventional military capabilities of the United States can offer effective deterrence against the possibility of nuclear threats against Australia. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>After 22 years of white paper reliance on END, it is no longer a temporary aberration. The risk is we normalise both the need for and use of nuclear weapons.</p>
<p>Australian defence white papers offer no clarification on the conditions under which nuclear weapons would be used on our behalf. Given the known humanitarian, environmental and cultural <a href="https://www.icrc.org/en/international-review/human-cost-nuclear-weapons">devastation</a> caused by their use, significant questions remain – including under what circumstances policymakers and defence experts would consider justifying the deployment of nuclear weapons in Australia’s name.</p>
<h2>The global trend of nuclear renewal</h2>
<p>Anyone watching US President Barack Obama’s speech in Hiroshima in March 2016 might be mistaken for thinking his pledges to end the nuclear weapon threat were sincere. <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/05/27/remarks-president-obama-and-prime-minister-abe-japan-hiroshima-peace">He said</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Among those nations like my own that hold nuclear stockpiles, we must have the courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a world without them. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This would seem to undermine the utility of nuclear deterrence, but the reality is different.</p>
<p>The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute <a href="https://www.sipri.org/media/press-release/2016/global-nuclear-weapons-downsizing-modernizing">(SIPRI)</a> has claimed the US:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… plans to spend US$348 billion during 2015–24 on maintaining and comprehensively updating its nuclear forces. Some estimates suggest that the USA’s nuclear weapon modernisation program may cost up to $1 trillion over the next 30 years.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Despite Trump’s assertion that countries under the US END umbrella should be <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-japan-south-korea-might-need-nuclear-weapons/">developing their own nuclear capacity</a>, neither Trump nor his Democratic presidential rival, Hillary Clinton, are likely to discontinue the nuclear renewal programs.</p>
<p>For Australia, the change in the US presidency provides an opportunity to rethink defence relationships, especially those relating to nuclear weapons. </p>
<h2>An opportunity to re-evaluate our stance</h2>
<p>With some arguing a Trump presidency would <a href="http://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australian_outlook/a-trump-victory-and-the-us-australia-alliance/">undermine alliance relationships</a>, Australia has a chance to strike a new path. The uncomfortable presumption of END in our defence policies is one area we should be actively challenging.</p>
<p>While Australia is a highly militarised middle power in the region, it has few, if any, discernible nuclear threats of its own to counter. It has forsworn such weapons through <a href="http://dfat.gov.au/international-relations/security/non-proliferation-disarmament-arms-control/nuclear-weapons/Pages/nuclear-disarmament.aspx">international law agreements</a> and has at times been a strong voice on efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons. </p>
<p>The revival of concern about the <a href="http://www.icanw.org/the-facts/catastrophic-harm/">humanitarian impacts of these weapons</a> is shifting old assumptions. Growing impatience with the slow pace of change and continual delays in meeting even the most basic of expectations in relation to nuclear disarmament have meant <a href="http://www.icanw.org/campaign-news/majority-of-un-members-declare-intention-to-negotiate-ban-on-nuclear-weapons-in-2017/">support for a ban on such weapons</a> has grown internationally to include the majority of UN member countries.</p>
<p>Australia’s reliance on END keeps us on the wrong side of history. And it has led <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/diplomats-ducked-push-for-nuclear-ban-in-favour-of-defence-20131001-2uqs2.html">previous</a> governments and the <a href="http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2016/08/23/Australia-writes-itself-out-of-nuclear-disarmament-diplomacy.aspx">current government</a> to <a href="http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/disarmament-fora/oewg/2016/august/reports/11122-oewg-report-vol-2-no-19">actively oppose</a> the growing calls for a ban on nuclear weapons.</p>
<p>Instead of blindly following US nuclear policies into whatever a future president might envisage, Australia should carefully consider its non-nuclear defence and challenge all claims, surrogate or otherwise, to nuclear weapons.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64163/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dimity Hawkins has been involved in activism and advocacy around nuclear disarmament for many years, including as a Board Member of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) Australia.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julie Kimber does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Is Australia’s reliance on nuclear defence agreements keeping us on the wrong side of history?Dimity Hawkins, PhD Candidate, Swinburne University of TechnologyJulie Kimber, Senior Lecturer in Politics and History, Swinburne University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/533432016-01-19T14:21:54Z2016-01-19T14:21:54ZExplainer: why Jeremy Corbyn’s ‘third way’ for Trident actually makes sense<p>Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn recently floated the possibility of a “third way” for Britian’s nuclear weapons policy: instead of either complete nuclear disarmament or replacing Trident with a like-for-like system, he has <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jan/17/labours-defence-policy-review-given-third-option-for-trident-stance">suggested</a> building replacement submarines that “don’t have to have nuclear warheads on them”. He has been <a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/politics/6868102/Labour-leader-Jeremy-Corbyn-destroys-final-trace-of-credibility.html">ridiculed</a> in the press – but the idea deserves serious thought.</p>
<p>The practice of nuclear deterrence in the UK has long been associated with having one or more nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines at sea at all times, invulnerable to attack and ready to fire tens of thermonuclear warheads at short notice, each capable of inflicting massive and indiscriminate nuclear devastation. </p>
<p>But this isn’t the only way to think about nuclear deterrence, or the only way the UK can use Trident submarines. Rather than thinking of nuclear deterrence as an all-or-nothing proposition – you either do it this way or you don’t do it all – it’s more accurate to think of it as a spectrum of possible postures. </p>
<p>At one end lies the “maximum deterrence” practiced by the United States during the Cold War. This was based on nuclear superiority over the Soviet Union, and tens of thousands of weapons, ranging from nuclear shells for front-line troops to vast fields of inter-continental ballistic missiles. Then comes what the UK, France and <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-china-joined-the-nuclear-weapons-club-43500">China</a> currently practice, which is often called “<a href="https://rusi.org/sites/default/files/201112_whr_small_nuclear_forces_0.pdf">minimum deterrence</a>” based on smaller numbers and more limited roles. </p>
<p>But there are also strategies of just the sort Corbyn is suggesting. </p>
<h2>Just in case…</h2>
<p>The first of these is the “recessed” or “<a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Nuclear_Weapons_in_A_Transformed_World.html?id=WcgZ00ILrKEC&redir_esc=y">virtual</a>” deterrence, the sort practiced by India through the 1980s and 1990s, which is based on the non-weaponisation of a nascent nuclear weapons capability – a “bomb in the basement” model, where everything is in place to deploy within several weeks or months but not permanently ready to launch. This was seen as enough to deter Pakistan at the time. </p>
<p>The next move along the spectrum goes from non-deployment to non-production of nuclear weapons. This is often used to describe the position of <a href="http://carnegieendowment.org/1996/07/01/japan-s-nuclear-future-plutonium-debate-and-east-asian-security">Japan</a>, sometimes <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-brazil-and-argentina-defused-their-nuclear-rivalry-44163">Brazil</a>, and perhaps in the future <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-irans-hardliners-still-threaten-the-nuclear-deal-53236">Iran</a>. This has been called “<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Earth-Abolition-Stanford-Nuclear-Series/dp/0804737029">weaponless deterrence</a>”, meaning a state has no nuclear weapons or components but has the necessary fissile materials and industrial base to produce nuclear weapons within a year or two.</p>
<p>Taking such a step <a href="http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/bdrc/nuclear/trident/Trident_Options.pdf">“down the nuclear ladder”</a> rests on a judgement that UK security no longer requires a permanent and assured capability to inflict nuclear violence upon other countries at short notice. The Cabinet Office investigated some of these different ways of thinking about nuclear deterrence in its 2013 <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/212745/20130716_Trident_Alternatives_Study.pdf">Trident Alternatives Review</a> at the behest of the Liberal Democrats in the coalition government, who never accepted the case for a like-for-like replacement of the Trident system.</p>
<p>The idea of reducing the readiness of nuclear forces, or “de-alerting”, is also part of a package of measures long advocated by non-nuclear-weapon states to diminish the role of nuclear weapons. This includes removing nuclear warheads from delivery vehicles, as Corbyn has suggested. </p>
<p>There is precedent here. In the 1990s, former CIA Director Admiral Stansfield Turner advocated a policy of “<a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Caging_the_Nuclear_Genie.html?id=GInbAAAAMAAJ">strategic escrow</a>” – de-alerting US and Russian nuclear weapons by removing warheads from their delivery vehicles and securely storing them some distance away in facilities open to external inspection, so that eventually there would be no nuclear weapons immediately ready to fire. </p>
<p>The US did exactly this with its nuclear-armed <a href="http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/bdrc/nuclear/trident/Trident_Options.pdf">Tomahawk cruise missile</a> arsenal for nearly two decades. In 1992 the missiles were withdrawn from operational status, but plans were put in place to enable their redeployment in a crisis. This included periodic certification of a number of submarines in the US’s Pacific and Atlantic fleets to ensure they could deploy and fire the missiles within 30 days of a redeployment decision. The missiles were eventually retired in 2010.</p>
<p>The UK could also do other things with its ballistic missile submarines. Rather than remaining single-purpose, inflexible and enormously expensive nuclear delivery machines, they could be adapted for a host of other military missions. The US did this in the 2000s when it withdrew four of its Trident missile-carrying submarines and <a href="http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj02/fal02/kennedy.html">converted</a> them for conventional war-fighting roles. Most of the Trident missile tubes were converted to accommodate seven Tomahawk cruise missiles each, a huge increase in conventional fire power. The remaining missile tubes were adapted to carry equipment and supplies for special operations forces or to deploy unmanned aerial and undersea vehicles for intelligence gathering. </p>
<p>It would be difficult to quickly and easily re-role UK submarines, but it could be done over a period of time should the government decide that the UK faces a permanent existential nuclear threat (the government accepts it doesn’t now and hasn’t since the early 1990s).</p>
<h2>Not so fast</h2>
<p>So Corbyn’s idea of a third way is hardly without merit. Alternative nuclear postures and conventional roles for Trident’s planned “successor” submarines are certainly possible, ones that reduce the role of nuclear weapons and open up the possibility of further scale-backs. </p>
<p>The real problem is that Corybn has floated the idea mostly to placate the powerful Unite and GMB unions, which represent the manufacturing and engineering jobs at Barrow where the submarines are built, and at Faslane and Devonport where they are maintained. And it hasn’t even achieved that: the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/12105507/GMB-to-oppose-Jeremy-Corbyns-proposal-for-Trident-submarines-without-nuclear-missiles.html">GMB</a> has already said it won’t support it.</p>
<p>More importantly, the fact that Corbyn’s commitment to nuclear disarmament has been ridiculed as retro hard-left fantasy demonstrates just what a powerful cultural grip nuclear weapons have over our politics – this at a time when the vast majority of countries in the world support precisely Corbyn’s nuclear politics. </p>
<p>In fact, 121 countries have recently acceded to the “<a href="http://www.icanw.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/HINW14vienna_Pledge_Document.pdf">humanitarian pledge</a>” pioneered by the Austrian government in December 2014 to “fill the legal gap for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons” and “stigmatise, prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons in light of their unacceptable humanitarian consequences”. </p>
<p>So there’s actually a perfectly good rationale for Corbyn to stick to his nuclear principles, as Green MP <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/18/trident-weapon-free-jeremy-corbyn-renewing-fleet-warheads-disarmament">Caroline Lucas</a> has urged. He could, instead, propose the UK order more nuclear-powered but not nuclear-armed Astute-class attack submarines, thereby <a href="http://www.centreforum.org/assets/pubs/retiring-trident.pdf">maintaining the much-prized submarine industry</a>. </p>
<p>Of course, such conventional capabilities are designed for just the sort of military interventions to which Corbyn is steadfastly opposed – and that’s another argument altogether.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53343/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nick Ritchie has received funding from the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and the Economic and Social Research Council. He serves on the executive committee of the British Pugwash Group and the Royal United Services Institute's Project on Nuclear Issues (PONI) UK and he co-convenes the British International Studies Association's working group on Global Nuclear Order.</span></em></p>Laugh at Jeremy Corbyn all you like, but he’s right: nuclear deterrence isn’t a zero-sum game.Nick Ritchie, Lecturer (International Security), University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/441022015-07-06T05:14:16Z2015-07-06T05:14:16ZWhy the military is divided over Britain’s nuclear deterrent<p>One thing was very striking at the recent Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) <a href="https://www.rusi.org/landwarfare">Land Warfare Conference</a>, where current British Army personnel including top brass and Ministry of Defence officials were heavily present. The issue of replacing Trident, the UK’s sea-based nuclear deterrent, was not discussed at all. </p>
<p>This conference was taking place a few months ahead of Conservative plans to renew the deterrent like for like. This was <a href="https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/manifesto2015/ConservativeManifesto2015.pdf">guaranteed by</a> the party’s victory at the general election in May, and has since <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmhansrd/cm150608/debtext/150608-0001.htm">been reaffirmed</a> by Michael Fallon, the defence secretary.</p>
<p>Yet when it comes to Trident, the British military are “split on this issue as never before”. That was the conclusion of a <a href="http://www.nuclearinfo.org/sites/default/files/Military%20attitudes%20to%20nuclear%20weapons%20-%20full%20report.pdf">report</a> by the Nuclear Education Trust and Nuclear Information Service that was published at the end of June. So why the difference in views?</p>
<h2>The need for UK nuclear weapons</h2>
<p>Admittedly the report tends to emphasise the minority views in the data, coming from one organisation whose fundamental goal is to “make nuclear issues accessible to all regardless of age and ability” (Nuclear Education Trust) and another that is dedicated to disarmament (Nuclear Information Service). It also represents a mere snapshot of the views of mainly ex-military personnel based on 35 in-depth interviews. That said, it undoubtedly offers an insight into the variety of views on Trident that exist within UK defence circles. </p>
<p>It will be no surprise that most interviewees favoured UK nuclear weapons and replacing Trident. And those who demonstrated concerns were not opposed per se, but raised issues of costs and effectiveness. What was interesting, and may shed light on the silence at the RUSI conference, is that the majority of military personnel interviewed had “little interest in Trident” at all. </p>
<p>The report noted that army personnel are the “least supportive” as they have the “least to gain” in contrast to the Royal Navy, which feels Trident justifies its claim as the senior service responsible for the strategic defence of the United Kingdom. These grievances (some may call it tribalism) should presumably be understood in terms of materials and priorities as the cost of Trident limits investment in the conventional capabilities of the army and RAF. </p>
<p>No single weapons system can protect against all threats, of course. Even with the continuous at-sea deterrent provided by Trident, the UK would still remain vulnerable to threats below the nuclear threshold <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/9850192/Trident-is-no-longer-key-to-Britains-security.html">such as</a> climate change, cyber war and nuclear terrorism. Yet there may be greater threats above the nuclear threshold if the UK were to <a href="https://www.rusi.org/publications/journal/ref:A536CF6E4B14D9/#.VZROWu1Viko">unilaterally</a> reduce its nuclear capability. Russia’s recent <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/25/us-usa-nuclear-arms-idUSKBN0P52FC20150625">nuclear sabre-rattling</a> is a case in point. </p>
<p>Deterrence can fail, of course. It is also ill-suited to many of today’s security threats, and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/apr/27/nuclear-waste-scotland">accidents</a> can happen – as one <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-32908665">whistleblower</a> recently augured. Yet most realists will still tell you that the very destructiveness of nuclear weapons helps to decrease the probability for war between great powers.</p>
<h2>Costs and strategy</h2>
<p>A related issue is the balance of costs between nuclear and conventional defences. Although most interviewees in the report favoured “high-priority” government spending on the nuclear deterrent, they didn’t want this to undermine conventional capabilities and said the cost of replacing Trident should fall outside the Ministry of Defence budget. Yet this logic assumes that savings from either abandoning nuclear weapons or reducing our current deterrent would be reinvested in conventional forces. There is no guarantee of this.</p>
<p>The report demonstrated an increasingly common argument: <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7a3592c2-e1c9-11e4-8d5b-00144feab7de.html?siteedition=uk#axzz3ekp5YvYH">Trident is</a> useless as a military tool and frivolously wastes billions on a symbol of strength. The fact that it is arguably more of a political tool used to be reflected in the fact that the Treasury met the cost of the deterrent. In 2010, however, it was <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10812825">moved over to</a> the defence budget. </p>
<p>It is <a href="https://www.rusi.org/publications/journal/ref:A536CF6E4B14D9/#.VZepCu1Vikp">estimated</a> that the cost of replacing the four Trident-equipped Vanguard-class submarines will consume 10%-12% of the defence budget during the procurement stage but will be reduced to 5%-6% once the next generation of submarines comes online in the late 2030s. <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-scotland-32236184">According to</a> the ministry, it will cost £17.5bn to £23.4bn at 2013-2014 prices to procure the replacement system. (Though it has been claimed by the likes of the Scottish Nationalists that the total costs of procurement and the running costs of the replacement deterrent “over its lifetime” <a href="https://theconversation.com/fact-check-will-renewing-trident-cost-100-billion-39002">will reach</a> £100bn.)</p>
<p>Later this year, the government <a href="http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/policy-budget/policy/2015/06/08/uk-fallon-strategic-defense-and-security-review-2015/28691491/">will conduct</a> its strategic defence and security review. We are told it will be a full-scale review of all the threats and the capabilities facing the UK. But given the commitment to like-for-like replacement that I mentioned earlier, it is unlikely that this review will see Trident as no longer key to Britain’s security. </p>
<p>This is at a time when the UK’s defence budget <a href="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/defence/article4454545.ece">is facing</a> another 5% or £1bn cut. Couple that with the sizeable cost of Trident renewal and it can only have an effect on the UK’s conventional forces. </p>
<p>As one young army officer so eloquently put it at the RUSI conference, we may have the manpower and the equipment but will we have the money left to do anything with them? A pan-military conference might feel understandably awkward about airing its divisions in public, but the rest of us must not. How much faith we put in nuclear weapons as a traditional deterrent in an age of fluctuating threats is a public debate that needs to take place.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/44102/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon J Smith receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council for research on the Drivers of Military Strategic Reform.</span></em></p>Splits over Trident can create stalemate between the UK’s forces, but the public needs to debate renewing the deterrent before time runs out.Simon J Smith, Research Associate, Department of Politics, Languages & International Studies, University of BathLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.