A little over a quarter century ago when the book Third Millennium Equipoise came out with its final blueprint for ridding the world of nuclear weapons linked to UN Security Council reforms, there were only five countries that possessed nuclear weapons. They were also the five permanent members of the Security Council. Today there are nine countries possessing nuclear weapons. In the 78 years since the nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki no leader of consequence had threatened use of nuclear strikes in the manner of the threat given by the Russian leader Vladimir Putin in the Ukraine war.
He has threatened to use these in the event of serious Russian losses due to the supply of advanced weapons to Ukraine. It has to be noted that he appears to be deliberately over reacting since there is no threat in the war to loss of territory in Russia. He will use nuclear weapons if he loses Crimea and his enclaves in Donbas. Putin may not actually be intending to carry out the nuclear threat but his adversaries in the West cannot take these threats casually. Automatically certain states of readiness to meet the threats take place. What is more, based on the Russian threat, nuclear powers have started refining and in some cases augmenting their nuclear arsenals making the world a more dangerous place to live in. While Russia may have the capability to invade parts of Europe, the West has neither the capacity nor the desire to invade Russia.
Therefore the nuclear sabre rattling by Putin makes no sense. Carrying the argument further in case of Russian setbacks, where exactly would he carry out a nuclear strike? Certainly not in Europe which would invite retaliatory nuclear strikes on Russia with consequences too horrible to contemplate. That limits the choice to strikes in Ukraine. But where? Wherever he strikes there is a strong possibility that the largest nuclear reactor in Europe at Zaporizzzhia will also go up in flames, again with far reaching consequences in the whole of Ukraine and large parts of Europe and Russia. The discussion above brings home to every human being with terrifying clarity that among eight billion or so people who share the planet, the potential inheres in just one person or leader to endanger the fragility of the beautiful Pale Blue Dot that we inhabit.
That being the case and having lived through the nuclear menace for over seven decades through Cold War doctrines like MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) and the like, the world cannot continue to skate on thin ice for its future and safety both of which are amenable to annihilation on the calculations, whims or fancy of a single human being. Today the capacity for largescale country or global destruction inheres in two nations, the United States and the Russian Federation with nuclear arsenals comprising 5044 and 5580 weapons respectively sufficient for second, third and fourth strike capability. No other nuclear state has the weapons numbers to cause damage nearing that of the two world powers. Having said that, all of them continue to increase their nuclear weapon holdings. Taking the case of the two superpowers, should they decide to wage war on each other they can devastate each other’s countries to the extent of reducing them to gigantic Chernobyls.
That is to say they will cease to exist as viable states for up to fifty or even hundred years. To do so they would hardly have used more than twenty per cent of their megaton range weapons stockpile. To what effect would this near total mutual assured destruction take place? There would be no victory, only mutual annihilation. Therefore where is the rationale in the first instance of holding such large stockpiles and refining them? Surely they have no plans, or possibly have no plans to use them on other nations in similar numbers. Most importantly why would Russia want to destroy America or the US Russia? Russian people admire America and given a chance half of them would like to migrate there. Likewise Americans do not dislike Russian people.
They admire them. Therefore the question arises in a MAD type of scenario – who is destroying whom and on whose behalf? The same applies to a possible exchange between China and the US. Would their nationals want the destruction of their opposite numbers? Once these aspects are discussed in open forums and universities around the world, the absurdity of holding nuclear weapons globally would automatically lead to their abandonment. The fifty year blueprint once outlined for ridding the world of nuclear weapons keeping in mind mutual and equal security for lead nuclear states during phased reduction will have to be scaled down to a quarter century or so.
Prior to that aspects of monitoring under UN auspices will need to be streamlined. The elimination of nuclear weapons has to be the foremost global priority with immediate effect. The first step would have to be the passage of this resolution in the UN General Assembly followed by a similar resolution in the UN Security Council.
(The writer, a retired Major General of the Indian Army, is the author of Third Millenium Equipoise.)