Nuclear weapons are containing the Ukraine war. They also helped
cause it.
In 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait in a naked war of territorial
aggression. The next year, the US and an allied coalition intervened under the
auspices of the United Nations Security Council, repulsing the Iraqi invasion. Today, as Russia is engaged in a similar aggressive war against Ukraine,
there is no similar American effort in the
offing — even as Ukrainian leaders have pleaded for Western assistance.
There are many dissimilarities between the situations in 1991
and 2022, but the biggest one is this: Saddam Hussein, rather famously, did not
have nuclear weapons. Vladimir Putin has approximately 6,000 of them.
And that makes all the difference.
Both before the invasion and afterward,
the Biden administration has consistently ruled out the deployment of US
troops. “Let me say it again: Our forces are not — and will not — be engaged in
the conflict with Russia in Ukraine,” the president said in a Thursday address.
Despite the warnings of American involvement from commentators on the Trumpist right and “anti-imperialist” left,
there are no signs of this policy changing. Nuclear weapons are the chief
reason why.
The logic of mutually assured destruction that defined the Cold
War still works to some degree: Russia’s arsenal makes any direct intervention
in Ukraine riskier than any rational American leader could tolerate. In a
sense, then, Russia’s nuclear weapons make it less likely that the conflict
will kick off World War III. But in another sense, Russia’s nuclear arsenal
also helped create the conditions where Putin’s invasion could happen in the
first place.
Political
scientists call this the “stability-instability paradox,” the notion that
nuclear deterrence has had the paradoxical effect of making certain kinds of
conventional warfare more likely. Russia can be relatively confident that the
United States and its allies won’t come to Ukraine’s defense directly, because
such a clash carries the threat of nuclear war. This could make Putin more
confident that his invasion could succeed.
Putin himself has suggested as much. In his speech declaring war on Wednesday night, he warned that “anyone who would
consider interfering from the outside” will “face consequences greater than any
you have faced in history” — a thinly veiled threat to nuke the United States
or its NATO allies if they dare intervene.
“This is about the clearest evidence I have ever seen for the
stability-instability paradox,” Caitlin Talmadge,
a professor at Georgetown University who studies nuclear weapons, writes of
Putin’s speech. “Putin’s behavior suggests that revisionist actors [can] use
their strategic nuclear forces as a shield behind which they can pursue
conventional aggression, knowing their nuclear threats may deter outside
intervention.” The nuclear balance between the United States and Russia, one of
the Cold War’s defining features, is coming back to the forefront of
international politics. We can only hope that things don’t get scarier from
here.
How nuclear weapons make US involvement in Ukraine unthinkable
Nuclear weapons are the only weapons humanity has yet devised
that, deployed at scale, could swiftly wipe out our entire species. The risks
of conflict between two nuclear-armed powers are so great that virtually any
rational leader should, in theory, seek to avoid one.
This is especially true of the United States and Russia, who
together control an estimated 90 percent of the
world’s nuclear warheads.
The issue is not merely the size of their arsenals but also their structure —
both countries have robust “second strike” capabilities, meaning each can
sustain a devastating nuclear first strike from the other side and still
retaliate. The US and Russia maintain second strike capabilities in part
through the so-called “nuclear triad”: bombers armed with nuclear bombs,
submarines equipped with nuclear missiles, and land-based missile launchers.
The result is that neither the US nor Russia can hope to “win” a
nuclear war. Even if one nation struck first, decimating major military bases
and population centers, the other would still be able to launch a devastating
nuclear counterattack on their enemy’s homeland from (for example) submarines
out to sea. The only way to win is not to play. This appears to be the reason
the Biden administration has been so adamant on avoiding any kind of
involvement in Ukraine; the risks of any direct intervention are far too high.
Conventional
warfare between nuclear powers does not necessarily escalate to nuclear
conflict: see the 1999 Kargill conflict between
India and Pakistan, the 2018 battle between US special forces
and Russian mercenaries in Syria,
or the recent border clashes between India and China.
But the risk of such a conflict escalating to nuclear use is always there,
especially if one side believes that vital national interests or its very
survival is at stake.
For Putin, the Ukraine war seems to fit the bill. A significant
US or NATO intervention in the conflict would, by sheer fact of geography, pose
a threat to the territorial integrity of the Russian homeland. Were it to turn
the tide of the war in Ukraine’s favor, Russia could very conceivably use its
nuclear arsenal against its NATO enemies.
“Their nuclear strategy envisions possible first use if they are
losing a conventional conflict or facing an existential threat,” Nick Miller,
an expert on nuclear weapons at Dartmouth University, explains. We have no
guarantee that deploying US troops to Ukraine would, in fact, lead to nuclear
warfare. But the risks would be high, very likely exceeding the most dangerous
moments of the Cold War, like the Cuban missile crisis. There are scenarios
where you could imagine an American leader launching a conflict with a nuclear
power — if it was necessary to protect the US homeland, for example — but
defending Ukraine, which isn’t even a formal US ally, simply isn’t one of them.
How nuclear weapons helped make the Ukraine war possible — and
could make it much worse
Some leading scholars look at the logic of deterrence and
conclude that nuclear weapons are actually a good thing for the world. This “nuclear revolution”
theory, most commonly associated with the late political scientist Kenneth
Waltz, holds that the spread of nuclear weapons will spread peace by expanding
deterrence. The more countries can make aggression unthinkably risky; the less
likely war will become.
The evidence for this theory is spotty. While nuclear deterrence
does seem to have played a role in preventing the Cold War from turning hot,
examining other cases — including smaller nuclear armed states like India,
Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea — leads to a much more complicated picture.
The stability-instability paradox is one of these complications.
In its most classic form, the paradox argues that two countries with nuclear
weapons can be more likely to engage in small-scale conflict.
Because each side knows that the other doesn’t want to risk a wider war given
nuclear risks, they can feel more confident engaging in smaller provocations
and assaults. What looks like nuclear stability actually breeds conventional
instability.
Ukraine is not a nuclear state, but the NATO alliance has three
of them (the US, Britain, and France). Because NATO states don’t want a wider
war with Russia, one that carries a risk of a nuclear exchange, they’re less
likely to intervene in a conflict they might otherwise join. Putin knows this;
his public threat to use nukes against any intervening country suggests he’s
counting on it.
So, what we’re seeing is a kind of twist on the classic paradox:
Putin is relying on nuclear fear to allow him to get away with invading a
country (Ukraine) that a nuclear-armed third party (NATO) might otherwise want
to defend. This dynamic is familiar from the Cold War; it’s in part why the
Soviets could send troops to Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 to
suppress popular anti-communist uprisings without real fear of Western
intervention.
To be clear, the stability-instability paradox is not an
ironclad law of international relations; scholars disagree about exactly how frequently it actually
causes conflict. But neither is
nuclear deterrence: There are several near-miss examples where a nuclear
exchange was just barely avoided.
In 1983, for example, Soviet Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov was
alerted by an early warning system that a US nuclear strike was likely
incoming. Had Petrov informed his superiors of that message, it’s very likely they would have launched
missiles in response. Yet Petrov and his
staff correctly concluded this was a false alarm and chose to say nothing —
potentially saving hundreds of millions, if not billions, of lives.
Nuclear deterrence depends on both sides having good information
and making rational decisions. But in a conflict like the one we’re seeing in
Ukraine, taking place near the borders of NATO members, the risks of accidents,
misperceptions, and miscalculations inches incrementally higher. For example,
says Miller, “you can imagine a Russian jet straying into NATO airspace
accidentally” and sparking a wider conflict.
Without a NATO presence inside Ukraine, the risks of such a
disaster remain extremely low; Miller cautions that “both sides have a strong
incentive to avoid direct conflict and avoid minor incidents escalating.” But
the fact that we’re even talking about it illustrates how nuclear weapons, by
their very nature, make the world a riskier place. While they likely are
playing a major role in keeping the US out of the Ukraine conflict directly,
they helped create the conditions where Russia could launch the war in the
first place — and, in the very worst case, could escalate to complete disaster.
Why
the US won’t send troops to Ukraine - Vox
Commentary:
"...Today's Russia remains one of the most powerful nuclear states. Moreover, it has a certain advantage in several cutting-edge weapons. In this context, there should be no doubt for anyone that any potential aggressor will face defeat and ominous consequences never seen in history" - Vladimir Putin.
Recently, Putin stated this implied threat of a nuclear war if NATO, especially America, becomes involved militarily in his invasion of Ukraine. Those of us who lived through the Cold War remember the fear of megaton nuclear bombs. Nuclear deterrence depends upon a leader's rational perceptions and decisions that the use of nuclear weapons would ensure mutual destruction of our planet, and that both America and Russia have not only first strike capabilities but also second-strike capabilities for massive nuclear retaliation posthumously. Putin's irrational invasion of Ukraine and his threat to NATO not only exacerbate our continuing ideological and political differences, but they also present us with Putin's state of mind after two years of isolation: an erratic and dangerous paranoia, extremism and resentment.
-Glen Brown
P.S.And Let Us Also Not Forget:
"This is the greatest thing
in history"-Harry Truman, after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.
"We used the Japanese as an
experiment for two atomic bombs"-Brigadier General Carter Clarke; "It
always appeared to us that, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were
already on the verge of collapse"-General Henry Arnold; "The first
atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment"-Admiral William
"Bull" Halsey. Generals MacArthur, Eisenhower and Arnold and Admirals
Leahy, King and Nimitz also rejected the idea that the atomic bombs were needed
to end the war.
What do we also know about
Truman's decision to drop the bomb: Besides testing the bomb on thousands of
innocent civilians, Truman and a few others wanted to deny the Soviet Union
their "promised territorial and economic concessions" and
"subdue the Russians."
A study conducted by the US War
Department in January 1946 came to the conclusion that it was a certainty the
Japanese would have capitulated once the Soviet Union entered the war against
Japan. Japan was blockaded and most of its cities were already incinerated.
Invading Japan wasn't necessary. The Japanese were ready to surrender, but
Truman's peace conditions threatened the removal of the Emperor of Japan.
Truman could have guaranteed the emperor would not be threaten or removed, but
he didn't. Truman was a bigot, and he wanted to use the atomic bomb.
"Admiral Chester Nimitz,
commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet, told a gathering at the Washington
Monument shortly after the war, 'The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for
peace before the atomic age was announced to the world with the destruction of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki and before the Russian entry into the war.'"
(Alperovitz, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, 331). Testifying before
Congress in 1949, Halsey said, "I believe that bombing--especially atomic
bombing--of civilians, is morally indefensible" (Alperovitz... 720, note
52.).
No doubt, history is filled with
inexplicable horror. I suppose up to 1945, the war atrocities of the Japanese
prison camps, German concentration camps, Nazi and American incendiary
obliteration bombings, and the dropping of “a uranium bomb that yielded an
estimated 16 kilotons of TNT (reaching temperatures of 5,400 degrees) on a
civilian population in Hiroshima and the dropping of an implosive plutonium
bomb on Nagasaki” by America were nonpareil historical terrorism.
"I will have such revenges on
you both, / That all the world shall--I will do such things, -- / What they
are, yet I know not: but they shall be/ The terrors of the earth"
King Lear (II.iv.274-77).
Stone, Oliver and Peter Kuznick. The
Untold History of the United States. New York: Gallery Books, 2012.
160-178.
"Damn you, masters of war..." -Dylan
