WASHINGTON.- The war in Ukraine has a Resurgence of fears about the use of nuclear weapons.
Russia is armed to the teeth with nuclear weaponswhich some analysts fear would escalate the conflict if he felt he was losing, and Ukraine’s western allies are also armed with nuclear weaponsmeaning that should the conflict escalate beyond Ukraine, it would pit the nuclear powers against one another.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said last week that Russia should stop its “dangerous irresponsible nuclear rhetoric” and warned that it “could never win a nuclear war”.
More recently, Russia has made efforts to allay concerns: Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told PBS Monday that “no one is thinking about using nuclear weapons.” But even if the peace talks inspire optimism, Confidence in Russian rhetoric remains low after Moscow repeatedly claimed it would not invade Ukraine.
A photo released by a Russian state news agency shows an Iskander-M launcher loaded with a ballistic missile during military exercises at a Russian firing range in Ussuriysk in 2016. Getty
Despite echoes of the Cold War past, The strategic landscape has changed. Equations of war about the risk of using nuclear action, which are never easy, have been complicated as a result the “tactical” warheads that Russia has stored. These smaller nuclear weapons, far less powerful than those dropped by the United States on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II, They are designed for use on the battlefield.
Its smaller size, some experts fear, could break the nuclear taboo. Russia is believed to have more than 1,500 of them.
Sarah Bidgood, director of the Eurasia program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, said it did The risk that Russia would use a tactical nuclear bomb in Ukraine is difficult to assess, but it is clear that Russia has confidence in its nuclear weaponsincluding tactical weapons to give you flexibility in managing escalation risk.
“This means that Russia can introduce nuclear weapons into a conflict when it feels it has run out of conventional options and faces an existential threat.said Bidgood. “It’s hard to say because we don’t have a good idea of what all of Putin’s red lines are here or what he sees as an existential threat.”
“Strategic” warheads have huge yields and could level a city. Then there is the “non-strategic” or “tactical” warhead. These are smaller, although they can still cause significant death and destruction.
Except for its size and performance The main difference is how they are intended to be used. A strategic weapon is designed to attack with devastating force as part of a grand strategy in war. That was the traditional nuclear scare in Washington and Moscow: the nuclear doomsday scenario in the style of Stanley Kubrick’s Doctor Unusual film.
But tactical nuclear weapons are designed for use on a battlefield. Some types have a power variable that can be used to calibrate their explosive power for a specific attack. others, called “neutron bombs,” were designed to spread radiation with only a minimal blast.
Many countries, including the United States and the Soviet Union, invested heavily in tactical weapons during the Cold War. Both Washington and Moscow unilaterally scaled back their nuclear programs after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
An arms control treaty called New START, negotiated by President Barack Obama and then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in 2010, limited the two countries to deploying 1,550 nuclear warheads on ballistic missiles and bombers. But, smaller tactical weapons are not covered by this treaty or any other international treaty.
Obama and Medvedev AFP
A report released last month by the Federation of American Scientists found this out Russia had a total stockpile of about 4,477 nuclear warheads.. About that number 1588 were strategic warheadss that had been deployed while 977 were in storage but operational. Russia had approx. 1912 non-strategic warheads also in a central stockpile, although the SAF notes that these stockpiles may be close to operational bases (another 1,500 warheads were considered retired but still “virtually intact”).
For its part, the United States has deployed 1,644 strategic nuclear weapons and 100 tactical weapons deployed in Europe. It stocks another 1,984 warheads, 130 of which are tactical.
In the late 1990s, faced with economic problems that left its traditional army in tatters and a humiliating military standoff with separatist leaders in Chechnya, The Russian leadership appears to have refocused on nuclear technology.
In 1999, Putin, then chairman of the Kremlin Security Council, said this after a meeting with the then-president Boris Yeltsinthe Russian leader had approved “a plan for the development and use of non-strategic nuclear weapons,” according to reports at the time.
Putin and Yeltsin
Western analysts argue that in recent years Putin has created what has come to be known as the a doctrine of “escalation to de-escalation”., although Russian documents do not use this expression. In a report released in early March, the Congressional Research Service outlined this alleged doctrine.
“The Russian statements, combined with military exercises that appeared to simulate the use of nuclear weapons against NATO members, led many to believe that Russia could threaten to use its non-strategic nuclear weapons to coerce or intimidate its neighbors,” he said CRS report given.
Adam Mount, director of the Defense Project at the Federation of American Scientists, said so Weaknesses in Russia’s conventional weapons systems could explain its potential reliance on nuclear threats.
“In general, if a country can achieve its goals without nuclear weapons, it will,” Mount said. “Nuclear weapons are tools of the weak.”
No country has used nuclear weapons in a war since the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan in 1945. Russian officials have repeatedly commented on nuclear weapons. Putin announced on February 27, just days after the invasion, that he had put Russia’s nuclear deterrent forces on alert.
At a great distance, Vladimir Putin (right) talks with his Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu (second from left) on Sunday, March 27 and Chief of General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces and First Deputy Defense Minister Valery Gerasimov on Sunday, February 27, 2022
Russia also showed up a new rocket technology during its invasion of Ukraine, including an air-launched ballistic missile capable of traveling at supersonic speeds called the Kinzhal, and a long-range cruise missile called the Kalibr.
Both missiles are considered dual-capable, Mount said, That is, they could carry a conventional weapon or a nuclear warheada big problem for western military as they may not know it is a nuclear attack until it goes off. So far, however, there is no sign that Russia has decommissioned its tactical warheads.Added mount.
Bidgood said he said the risk of non-strategic weapons in Ukraine was low but rising.
“Putin seems confident that he can use threats and veiled signals to escalate and de-escalate to meet his needs,” Bidgood said. “But this is a very dangerous game that can easily lead to misunderstandings and misunderstandings.”
Mount said public concern about the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine “far outweighed the actual risk,” at least so far. “The risk increases as Putin becomes more desperate, but the fact of the matter is that nuclear energy would not help him win the war or make Washington give up Kyiv,” Mount said.
It is unclear how the US would react if Russia detonated a tactical nuclear weapon.. Ukraine is not a NATO ally and is not bound by any treaty protecting it. But US officials have spoken of how seriously they would take such a case.
In 2017, then Air Force General John E. Hyten contradicted the idea that tactical nuclear weapons were really anything but a strategic nuclear weapon. Hyten, who at the time was the head of Strategic Command overseeing US nuclear weapons, described how the United States would react if another country used them.
“It’s not a tactical effect, and if someone uses a tactical or non-strategic nuclear weapon, The United States will respond strategically, not tactically, because it has now crossed a linea limit not crossed since 1945,” said Hyten.
By Adam Taylor and William Neff