For over six decades, a blend of careful administration and fortunate circumstances has prevented the use of nuclear weaponry. However, depending on the past to predict the future could be a dangerous game. This perspective was voiced by Margaret Beckett, the former Foreign Secretary of the Labour Party, in an impactful dialogue at an international nuclear summit in Washington DC in June 2007.
We remember this profound historical background as global citizens observe the annihilation of two Japanese metropolises, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, caused by atomic bombings. An unimaginable facet of our history, where approximately 200,000 lives were instantaneously erased with an incandescence that will forever be etched in memories. Even as we commemorate this somber event, the echoes of nuclear threat reverberate again.
Amid recent exchanges of nuclear threats, President Trump dramatically declared that two US nuclear submarines had been strategically repositioned. This reaction corresponded to a noticeable increase in nuclear-themed posturing from Dmitry Medvedev, the erstwhile President of Russia. His rhetoric was, in turn, a response to the advance deployment of new nuclear-equipped fighter aircraft at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk, Europe’s US Strategic Air Command base.
On August 5, the Kremlin disclosed its counter-move in this nuclear chess game. It announced plans to forward-deploy medium-range nuclear arms in Belarus, its ally, as well as the Russian region of Kaliningrad, its westernmost outpost. This move is a conspicuous violation of the terms set out in the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty.
This game of nuclear tug-of-war continues with the Labour government’s resolute endorsement of nuclear weapons for the UK’s national defense strategy. Both Keir Starmer and the Defence Secretary, John Healey, consider the Trident submarine-launched missile system and a new generation of free-fall nuclear bombs, earmarked for deployment on F-35 jets, unfalteringly crucial.
Contrarily, critics argue that such resolute commitment to nuclear weaponry, often seen as tools of mass destruction (WMDs), is fundamentally flawed. These critics see this approach as more likely to destabilize than to enhance national security, fabricating circumstances ripe for potentially catastrophic mishaps.
One of the most illustrative instances of the sheer lethal potential of nuclear deterrence can be derived from the story of Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov. Often revered as ‘the man who saved the world,’ Petrov’s tale uncovers the palpable reality of our world teetering on the brink of nuclear warfare.
Petrov, a lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Air Defence Forces, was on duty at the USSR’s early warning center, when the station’s computers erroneously signaled an incoming missile attack from the United States in September 1983. The information’s urgency was underscored by the glaring red letters spelling the word: START. It was a signal indicating a high confidence of an ongoing missile attack.
Petrov was faced with the most crucial decision of his life. Whether to inform the Kremlin of a possible US attack that could ignite World War III. Or, to declare the early warning system as faulty. Given that a genuine US attack would likely involve hundreds of missiles, Petrov made the calculated decision to categorize the alert as a system malfunction.
Subsequent internal analysis determined that the false alarm was triggered by a confusion of sunlight reflecting off clouds as rocket engines. The implications of the incident were sobering. Had Petrov chosen to escalate the alarm, he could have triggered the Soviet Union’s policy of Mutually Assured Destruction, a policy that would have entailed an immediate, full-scale retaliatory strike.
In-depth examinations of similar incidents, termed ‘Broken Arrows’ within the nuclear risk lexicon, have been compiled in a chilling report by the venerable London think tank, Chatham House. The report highlights the precarious balance the world has often found itself in relation to nuclear weaponry.
An equally harrowing exploration is found in Annie Jacobsen’s book ‘Nuclear War: A Scenario.’ Based on intricate interviews with influential nuclear WMD decision-makers, Jacobsen presents a terrifyingly feasible narrative of a geopolitical crisis spiralling into a cataclysmic nuclear exchange.
The discussion on nuclear disarmament and policy adherence is further complicated by depositary states like the UK, the US, and Russia, who’ve made significant strides in nuclear arms control yet seemingly flout their obligations. These nations hold the responsibility of upholding the interests of member states who signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), making their commitment to nuclear disarmament all the more crucial.
The post Revisiting Nuclear Threats: An In-Depth Look at Our Past and Future appeared first on Real News Now.
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