Patricia Lewis
Dr., Research Director
International Security, Chatham House
UK
@PatriciaMary
Anyone who might be coming in fresh to the issue of nuclear weapons would likely struggle to understand how the world has arrived in the situation it finds itself today. In a post-cold war environment, Russia – a founding member of the UN, a permanent member of the UN security council and depositary state of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) – is threatening to use nuclear weapons in a war that is entirely of its own making. In the meantime, Iran seems to have all but given up on any confidence-building restraints through the JCPOA. North Korea is fast increasing its nuclear weapons capability with long-range, solid-fuel ballistic missiles and the claim of miniaturised nuclear warheads for short-range use. China too, is steadily expanding its nuclear capability and France, the US and UK are all modernizing their nuclear forces with no prospect of further, multilateral nuclear negotiations on the cards.
To understand how we got here and work out where we might be going, we need to know where we came from. But where to start? As far back as 1945 and the horrendous first use of nuclear weapons by the US in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Or in the Cuban missile crisis where the US and the USSR so nearly tipped the world into a nuclear exchange? Or the subsequent push for nuclear arms control, non-proliferation and disarmament that formed the equation for the concept of a so-called strategic stability? Or the beginning of the end (1999-2003) of the arms control period, during which the US Senate failed to ratify the nuclear Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), India and Pakistan came out of the nuclear closet, as did North Korea (no surprises there of course), the US and the UK broke with Allies and the UN Security Council to invade Iraq ostensibly over the issue of missing weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and the US withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missiles (ABM) Treaty.
Let’s start with the weapons themselves. Nuclear weapons are militarily not particularly useful. Even so-called small nuclear weapons – short-range battlefield types for example – create massive explosions with huge blasts, fires, prompt radiation, mass deaths and casualties, and long-term radioactive debris that spreads to neighbouring countries in the atmosphere via weather systems and deposits on territories hampering any would-be occupying forces. Nuclear weapons are the opposite of modern-day conventional weapons, where the trend has been towards increased accuracy, lower yield, and lower risks to civilians – this is why the concept of ‘humanitarian disarmament’ has found so much traction and has led to the Chemical Weapons Convention, Mine Ban Convention, Cluster Munitions Convention, Arms Trade Treaty and the Small Arms and Light Weapons Programme of Action. Nuclear weapons are by any definition inhumane and indiscriminate. There are no small mistakes with nuclear weapons, and their use would create impossible situations for militaries, humanitarian organizations and civilian populations alike. Only authoritarian leaders seem crazy enough to threaten to use nuclear weapons. Democratic leaders who put human rights and human security at the centre of their decision-making cannot use – or credibly threaten to use – such inhumane, horrific weapons even in retaliation.
The theory behind nuclear deterrence is rooted in the belief that because nuclear weapons use would be so devastating and could unleash catastrophic global effects of radioactive debris and climate disaster, resulting in famine and destruction of species, including our own, then the threat of use would stay the hand of war between nuclear weapons possessors and their allies. However, human behaviour is not always so rational as we are now witnessing in Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Nuclear arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation have formed a framework to help create a degree of ‘strategic stability’ by providing a significant amount of transparency and predictability. A somewhat stable nuclear ‘order’, in which the concepts of mutually understood deterrence signalling and a gradual build-down of nuclear weapons via a managed arms control, verification and confidence-building process was created throughout and post the cold war. All well and good in theory. But, over the long-term, these situations and relationships form a highly dynamic, complex system set in an unstable environment. Managing such a system is more like managing the response to the weather: easy to do when conditions are calm but preparing for extreme weather events – such as war between nuclear armed states – is where we need to focus. And this is where we have gone wrong; in good times, leaders reduced the urgency and forgot the need for arms control and disarmament measures. And now we have reached a stage with very few well-functioning arms control treaties – we have lost the ABM Treaty, INF Treaty, CFE Treaty and the CTBT still has not entered into force and fissile material negotiations remain paralysed in Geneva. Russia has suspended it participation in New START and the treaty has an expiry date of early 2026. The NPT is in increasing distress and the only new attempt to address the problem – the 2017 TPNW – is dismissed by the nuclear weapons possessors.
The US decision to publish the information required under New START for all the world to see, despite Russia suspending its cooperation is smart and similar transparency and predictability measures could be given a boost by others such as the UK, France and China. This would help keep some stability in the system and could help set the scene for future initiatives in better times.
Most important is the focus on preventing the use of nuclear weapons now and in the long term. A new dialogue is beginning under the auspices of the NPT that address the risks of nuclear weapons and, since 2014, the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons conferences have developed a body of material that explores nuclear risk reduction and catastrophe prevention. UK Secretary of Defence, Ben Wallace, said at the 2023 Munich Security Conference that the use of a nuclear weapon would be totally unacceptable, would elicit a strong response and maintaining the taboo against nuclear weapons use is paramount. The next phase of nuclear disarmament should focus on how to prevent use, either by accident or design.
Indeed, it is important to stress that nuclear compellence has not worked for Russia; Ukraine has not caved in, and European populations have not fearfully demanded that their governments stop their support for Ukraine. To stave off another wave of authoritarian leaders seeking to proliferate, Russia’s nuclear threats must lead to a renewed emphasis on arms control and disarmament.
Bilateral and multilateral nuclear disarmament for the future needs to be embedded in an integrated approach to security, one that addresses conventional forces, space security and cyber security and places emphasis on preventing nuclear war.