Are we closer than ever to nuclear war?
Thursday 17 September 2015 10:38AMAntony Funnell and Rosanna Ryan
With some nuclear arsenals getting bigger and non-proliferation talks foundering, complacency about the threat of nuclear war could be misplaced. Future Tense hears from three experts about which geopolitical hotspots run the risk of turning into nuclear trouble zones.
Until the very end of the Cold War, the threat of nuclear Armageddon was always just below the surface. Then, as the iron curtain fell, there was a collective sigh of relief, with citizens of the world finding comfort in the thought that world leaders no longer had their fingers poised near any red buttons.
That comfort, though, could be ill placed. While many countries are reluctant to reveal the extent of their arsenals, making any figures an estimate, by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)’s latest count, there are currently around 15,850 nuclear weapons in the world, with approximately 1,800 of them kept in a state of ‘high operational alert’.
We are used to thinking about a bipolar world where there were only two nuclear powers that we worried about to any extent, but now we have more than half a dozen.
According to SIPRI, all nine nations with nuclear capabilities are either upgrading their existing nuclear weapons systems or working to develop new ones. As for non-proliferation efforts, earlier this year, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty’s latest round of talks all but collapsed, with analysts warning a new form of international agreement is needed to keep developments in check.
‘Everyone, including myself, heaved an enormous sigh of relief when the Cold War ended, and we sat down and said thank God, that’s it, and Russia and America would get rid of the nuclear weapons,’ says Helen Caldicott, a long-time anti-nuclear campaigner.
‘Currently Russia and America own 94 per cent of the H-bombs in the world … both countries are ready to launch if necessary. That situation has not changed.’
Could the world be at greater risk than ever from the use of nuclear weapons? If so, experts argue the three big areas of concern are in north-east Asia, on the subcontinent, and on Russia’s border with eastern Europe.
‘A couple of arsenals are actually growing larger,’ says Andrew Davies from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
‘China is building its nuclear arsenal, Pakistan is as well, and I suspect the Indians are probably tracking along with Pakistan. So there are places where nuclear weapons are increasing rather than decreasing.’
‘We are used to thinking about a bipolar world where there were only two nuclear powers that we worried about to any extent, but now we have more than half a dozen, and I think that’s a more dangerous world.’
China as ‘the real fulcrum of potential conflict’
Elbridge Colby, a senior fellow with the Center for American Security who’s written extensively on future nuclear hotspots, sees north-east Asia as the most worrying potential nuclear trouble zone.
‘In some sense, particularly over the medium to longer term, this is the real fulcrum of potential conflict,’ he says.
‘The issue is not that the Chinese in particular are raring to use nuclear weapons, but more that there are couple of factors pushing in that direction. One is as the military balance between the United States and its allies becomes more competitive with China. That makes what people sometimes call inadvertent escalation more plausible.
‘There’s also North Korea, which is sort of a wildcard … which is going after nuclear weapons, going after increasingly long range and sophisticated delivery systems.’
In the past few weeks alone China has staged one of its largest ever military parades, and Japan’s defence ministry has asked its government for yet another substantial increase in military spending, its fourth in as many years. If granted, the 2016 Japanese defence budget will be its biggest ever.
Colby says China is increasingly ‘feeling its oats’, leaving neighbours like South Korea and Japan—and even Australia—with the choice of whether to balance against China to keep their own interests protected.
‘If China is able to obtain conventional military dominance in the region, which means that it can fight and win a conventional war against the United States and its allies in the Western Pacific, or over interests that these countries care about … basically you are in a situation where China has what you might call escalation advantage.
‘They basically could say, “hey, if you don’t do what we want, we go to war, we win”. And in that case Japan might say or other countries might say, “hey, Washington, we expect you, as you did in the Cold War, to live up to your alliance commitment by relying more on nuclear weapons”. In that case Washington can say “yes, we’ll do that”, or Washington might say “we’re not really so interested”.’
If that happens, he says middle powers may decide it’s no longer sensible to ally with the United States to protect their own security and own interests.
‘This is one of the reasons why I think it’s important for the US and its allies to really try to maintain the conventional military edge … I do think that [the US] having the advantage in a Pacific militarily is actually a stabilising force for countries like Australia, Japan, South Korea, et cetera. I also think there’s a message in there for Beijing which is: be careful what you wish for.’
What Colby means is that if China starts throwing its military weight around, it shouldn’t be surprised if others begin beefing up their arsenals against it.
Trouble brews on India-Pakistan border
In recent weeks India and Pakistan have again been exchanging artillery fire across their border. It got very little media coverage—but that’s because it happens so often. According to Ramesh Thakur from the Australian National University’s Centre for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, it’s that simmering tension that makes the region potentially explosive.
‘There is not one example since 1945 of any country that wanted to attack and invade another country but was stopped from doing so primarily or only because that other country had nuclear weapons,’ Thakur says.
‘There’s not a single example of that, nor is there any example, not one, of a country succeeding in coercing another country with the threat of using nuclear weapons. What it does do is add an extra element of caution.
‘Yes, if there is a military style attack in India that India believes has come from Pakistan, the fact that Pakistan has nuclear weapons complicates the Indian response, but it doesn’t guarantee no military response, and it does add to the dangers of terrorists getting their hands on weapons, of someone deciding we are going to authorise the use of this or we are going to use it, whether or not the government gives us permission.
‘It requires Pakistan to develop battlefield nuclear weapons, which means pre-delegated authority to low-level military commanders, when these weapons are so destructive they should only be decided on by the president and the military chiefs. So there are all these different risks and uncertainties and dangers which today are much more significant.’
Davies also sees Pakistan as a potential hotspot—and a far greater worry than Iran, whose efforts to establish a viable nuclear energy programme has been much debated in the US of late.
‘Pakistan is an established nuclear power and there are certain elements within the Pakistani state apparatus who have more sympathy for extremist groups than perhaps the rest of us would be comfortable with,’ he says.
‘The security of nuclear weapons in any state where governance is an issue is something we certainly should be worrying about. I’d put Pakistan at the head of the list. As long as Pakistani nuclear weapons stay under the command and control the military, I think we are relatively safe. But if Pakistan state apparatus becomes even less functional than it is at the moment and there is a significant breakdown of the arrangements to secure nuclear weapons in Pakistan, I think that would be a really alarming development.’
Russia brandishing weapons ‘to spook the West’
The other geopolitical situation causing concern to both Davies and Colby has emerged from Russia’s increased sabre-rattling in Europe.
‘The worry there is that Russia is a state that’s declining in many ways, and declining states are often more dangerous than states that are on the upswing,’ Davies says.
‘We’ve seen a lot of Russian aggressiveness and assertiveness in the Ukraine, and there’s a worry that that could spread to the Baltic States. And coupled with that is the fact that Russian military doctrine has always involved a fairly rapid escalation to tactical level in nuclear weapons. That was certainly Russian doctrine throughout the Cold War when the two sides faced off against the border in Germany.’
Davies worries that people have taken the wrong lessons from the Cold War, leading to a sense of complacency.
‘The Cold War was one experiment in nuclear balance, and the fact that we happened to weather it safely perhaps gives a false sense of confidence that that will always be the case—the Cold War seemed pretty grim but it all turned out OK.
‘It’s not obvious to me at least that the reluctance to use nuclear weapons that characterised much of the Cold War actually pertains to the modern world.’
Colby, too, says looking back to the 20th century for lessons on how to avoid nuclear
war may not be as helpful as one might expect, as state rivalries are no longer so tied to ideological disputes.
‘The Cold War and the Second World War were actually in some sense aberrations,’ he says.
‘[We’re] probably entering a period that’s obviously different from the 19th or 18th centuries, but in some sense has some similarities, in that there’s likely to be state rivalry that isn’t highly ideological, necessarily.
‘I think nuclear weapons are likely to play more and more into that as the geopolitical environment becomes more competitive and as the military environment becomes more competitive.
‘You can see the good, if sobering, indication of that in Russia’s behaviour in the last year, where they’ve been brandishing nuclear weapons as a way to compensate for their own feelings of a general conventional inferiority and as a way to spook the West.’
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