By Kelechi Deca
Three days ago, I was discussing the Ukraine crisis with my second son, and he raised some pertinent questions, one of which is why Ukraine has not made any effort to attack Russia either by air or with missiles.
But first, I tried to educate him on the dangers of unbridled nuclear war. A very limited exchange of 100 nuclear bombs of the kind in the arsenals of the world’s nuclear armed states would lead to millions of deaths globally, moreso, there is the possibility of the nuclear fire that may result from such action leading to a nuclear winter that would block out the sun and cause all humans to go extinct.
So irrespective of which side you think you are on, you will definitely be a victim if things are allowed to go overboard.
So in providing answers to my son’s questions, I took him on a journey into history by reminding him that before now, Ukraine inherited a substantial nuclear arsenal after the breakup of the Soviet Union including the arsenals and expertise needed to launch them. But the ghost of Chernobyl (1986) traumatized the leaders and people of the new Ukrainian state that they were paranoid with anything nuclear. Even though they knew nuclear weapons provide security and deterrence at the highest level.
Chernobyl is still the worst nuclear disaster in human history. People watched in slow motion as humans disappeared in broad daylight by melting due to excess exposure to radiation.
With such huge assemblage of strategic nuclear warheads, intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and strategic bombers in Ukraine, the United States was worried because the ICBMs and bombers carried warheads of monstrous size — all designed, built, and deployed to attack America with a press of the button.
The warheads atop the SS-19 and SS-24 ICBMs in Ukraine had explosive yields of 400-550 kilotons each — that is, 27 to 37 times the size of the atomic bomb that devastated Hiroshima. The 1,900 strategic nuclear warheads — more than six times the number of nuclear warheads that China currently possesses — could have destroyed every U.S. city with a population of more than 50,000 three times over, with warheads left to spare. Scary.
The United States and Britain worked with Russia to have an agreement for voluntary relinquishing of such humongous weaponry and destruction of many. That meeting led to the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which the United States, Russia, and Britain committed “to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine” and “to refrain from the threat or use of force” against Ukraine and its people.
It was the strength of the wordings in the MEMORANDUM that gave the much needed assurance that persuaded Ukraine to give up what amounted to the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal, consisting of some 1,900 strategic nuclear warheads.
The last batches were returned to Moscow in 1996 and Ukraine followed it up by destroying all of their Bombers capable of delivering the Kh-55 medium-range, air-launched cruise missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
The United States footed the bill for the transfer of most of those weapons to Moscow while it sent experts to Ukraine to assist and supervise the destruction of some of the nuclear warheads.
Moreso, Ukraine became part of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), an informal export control arrangement designed to stem the spread of ballistic and cruise missiles capable of delivering a 500-kilogram payload to a range of 300 kilometers or more.
And even if it has the medium range missiles, it will think twice before firing into Russian soil because Russia’s Nuclear Policy rejected the “No First Use” clause. And like most young people, my son immediately interjected by asking for the meaning of No First Use (NFU).
No first use (NFU) is a pledge among nuclear armed states not to use nuclear weapons as a means of warfare unless first attacked by an adversary using nuclear weapons. This concept is also applied to chemical and biological warfare in the case of the NFU policy of India.
Nuclear powers respect this policy and they relate to one another even in a state of war based on this policy. As of today, the only country with the most benign nuclear policy is China.
When China first gained nuclear capabilities in 1964, it became the first country to adopt NFU stating that “not to be the first to use nuclear weapons at any time or under any circumstances” and it ensured the size of its nuclear weapons stock remained small even though it was the height of international arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Over the years, China has been working hard to reach an NFU agreement bilaterally with the United States, and to conclude an NFU agreement among the five nuclear weapon states.
America’s restraint on the escalation of the ongoing war in Ukraine is basically informed by efforts not to antagonize Russia to a level it will invoke its NFU.
Russia used to have a No First Use policy during the Soviet era. It could be recalled that Leonid Brezhnev in 1982 pledged that the USSR will not be the first to deploy nuclear weapons unless attacked first.
But in 1993, Russia dropped the No First Use (NFU) and in 2000, came up with a Russian military doctrine that stated that Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons “in response to a large-scale conventional aggression”.
So when Putin warned that any country that intervened directly with the war in Ukraine will face dire consequences, that is what it has in mind, and those who understand the game got the message because if NATO embarks on a “large scale conventional aggression”, Russia will invoke the right to use nuclear weapons, even if the aggressor did not use nuclear weapons.
A similar sentiment was expressed yesterday by the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov who told CNN International that “We have a concept of domestic security, and it’s public. You can read all the reasons for nuclear arms to be used, so if it is an existential threat for our country, then it can be used in accordance with our concept.” This reminds me of Wole Soyinka’s admonition that a Tiger should not proclaim its tigritude.
Keen observers are worried that Russia may likely deploy unconventional weapons to force events to align to its plans. I strongly believe that Russia’s claims that the war is going according to plans is a lie its own people have started questioning. Like Chechnya, Georgia, and Syria, Russia will try to destroy as it can by turning it into rubble, even though it won’t resurrect the ruble.
Russia is the reason NATO has repeatedly rejected calls for adopting NFU policy. NATO has always been of the opinion that pre-emptive nuclear strike is a key option, in order to have a credible deterrent that could compensate for the overwhelming conventional weapon superiority enjoyed by the Soviet Army in the Eurasian land mass.
Another country with a very stringent nuclear policy is Pakistan. It has refused to adopt a No First Use doctrine and indicates that it would launch nuclear weapons even if the other side did not use such weapons first.
This asymmetric posture is basically because of India’s ability to retaliate. That was why when in 2001 and 2008, Pakistani influenced non state actors carried out deadly attacks on India, the world was shocked that instead of an all out war, India responded in a subdued manner because India is well aware of Pakistan’s belligerent nuclear policy.
On its own part, India asserts that nuclear weapons are solely for deterrence and that India will pursue a policy of “retaliation only”. The document also maintains that India “will not be the first to initiate a nuclear first strike, but will respond with punitive retaliation should deterrence fail”.
Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and France all insist that they will use nuclear weapons against either nuclear or non-nuclear states only in the case of invasion or other attack against their territory or against one of their allies.
However, Russia and China do maintain a mutual agreement to have a no first use policy which was developed under the Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation.
The United States has refused to adopt a no first use policy and says that it “reserves the right to use” nuclear weapons first in the case of conflict. The US doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons was revised most recently in the Nuclear Posture Review, released April 6, 2010.
The review notes that “The United States will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states that are party to the NPT and in compliance with their nuclear non-proliferation obligations.”
For states eligible for the assurance, the United States would not use nuclear weapons in response to a chemical or biological attack but states that those responsible for such an attack would be held accountable and would face the prospect of a devastating conventional military response.
In his book, The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy, Seymour Hersh detailed the history of Israel’s nuclear weapons program and its effects on Israel-American relations.
Israel’s nuclear policy (even though it is the only nuclear power that has refused to acknowledge that it has such an arsenal), is influenced by its unique history, and also geography. The Samson Option which its leaders say is its last option was inspired by the Biblical narrative of Samson, the superman who died when he grasped two pillars of the Temple of Dagon, and “bowed himself with all his might” (Judges 16:30, KJV), pulling down the Philistine temple, killing himself and thousands of Philistines who had captured him, crying out “Let me die with the Philistines!”
This means that Israel may be ready to destroy itself by destroying the country that sought its own destruction. Though experts suggest that this extreme posture of “Samson Option,” would be a “last resort” deterrence strategy of massive retaliation with nuclear weapons, should the State of Israel be substantially damaged and/or near destruction.
In conclusion, I told my son that things are not necessarily as they appear. Like Thucydides succinctly opined. “The strong will continue to do what they can, and the weak will continue to suffer what they must”. As Brahma Chellany wrote yesterday in Project Syndicate, “International law may be powerful against the powerless, but it is powerless against the powerful”.