Why Nuclear Weapons Risks Are Increasing
Dr. Patricia Lewis, Research Director: International Security Chatham House, UK
A reversal in progress on arms control and disarmament as well as a volatile international scene have renewed fears that nuclear weapons may be used. The risks are significant and should be taken seriously. Risk is defined as the product of the probability and the consequence of an event occurring. The high risks associated with nuclear weapons have always been dominated by the ‘consequences’ component of the risk equation. When impacts are overwhelming, risks are high, no matter how small the likelihood of an event as long as it is not zero. During the Cold War, there were several near-accidents and near-deliberate detonations of nuclear weapons. Thanks primarily to good luck and the good judgment of some key individuals, we avoided the worst dangers of the nuclear stand-off between the USA and the Soviet Union. Could such good luck and judgment still hold today?
Amidst growing concerns about nuclear weapons, Ireland introduced a UN General Assembly resolution that resulted in the 1968 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The NPT was a grand bargain in which the states that did not possess nuclear weapons promised never to develop or acquire them, to only develop peaceful forms of nuclear energy, and to subject themselves to safeguarding inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). In return, states that possessed nuclear weapons promised to negotiate nuclear disarmament in good faith, along with disarmament in other weapons categories, and not to transfer or assist with nuclear weapons technologies. All states party to the NPT could then share in safeguarded nuclear technologies for peaceful uses.
The NPT was originally given a lifespan of 25 years. In retrospect, this decision betrays a touching faith in commitments to disarmament. In 1995, the treaty was extended indefinitely as part of a suite of commitments to: a) completely eliminate nuclear weapons; b) strengthen the NPT review process; and c) progress towards a Middle East zone free of weapons of mass destruction. Nearly 25 years later, there has been no substantial advancement on any of those commitments. In the run-up to its 50th anniversary in 2020,1 the NPT is in trouble again.
In part, nuclear proliferation in states both outside and inside the NPT has caused this turbulence. Outside, following their nuclear tests in 1998, both India and Pakistan have cemented their nuclear-armed status, with India having been granted special status for peaceful-use technologies through the Nuclear Suppliers Group and Section 123 of the USA Atomic Energy Act. Israel’s nuclear weapons capability is unspoken and rarely challenged by other states that possess nuclear weapons, although this capability is of considerable concern in the Middle East. None of these countries is likely to ever join the NPT. Although more intrusive IAEA inspections has made it far harder for states inside the treaty to use a peaceful nuclear program to hide the development of a clandestine military capability, that has not stopped proliferation: North Korea announced its withdrawal from the NPT in 2003, while concerns about Iran’s program led to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Lack of progress in the step-by-step process of multilateral and bilateral nuclear arms control and disarmament also destabilizes the NPT. Since the USA Senate rejected the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1999,2 things have gone badly for multilateral processes, except in the humanitarian domain. Efforts to control landmines, small arms and light weapons, cluster munitions, and the arms trade have been the only progress on conventional forces. These humanitarian efforts, rather than traditional disarmament, have led to more than 120 countries negotiating the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons;3 they have done so with a sense of purpose and urgency not seen since the NPT days of the 1960s. In contrast, since the USA withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002, bilateral nuclear controls and regional conventional arms control involving Russia and the USA — including the latter’s withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty announced in February of 2019 — have all but halted. This is despite the USA and Russia agreeing New START, a new nuclear arms reduction treaty, in 2010. It is now uncertain whether they will extend it when it expires in early 2021.
This sorry state has formed the backdrop to nuclear weapons being prominent in military doctrines in Russia and the USA. Both countries have started to develop new nuclear weapons programs. This increases the chances of proliferation and even of nuclear weapons’ use. Throughout the Cold War, nuclear weapons were the ‘weapons that could not be used’ — they were for deterrence only. Their innate terrifying effects were the foundation of this view. In recent years, this consensus against use has weakened. More than 70 years having passed since the USA used nuclear weapons on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, so decision-makers may not be as aware of the devastating immediate and long-term effects of nuclear weapons. For example, during the 2016 presidential election campaign in the USA, Donald Trump asked why a president would not consider the use of nuclear weapons; in the same year, former UK prime minister Theresa May stated her resolve to use nuclear weapons; and Russian President Vladimir Putin has frequently made clear his readiness to use them.
In 2018, threats from the leaders of both North Korea (Kim Jong-un) and the USA (Donald Trump) made the possible use of nuclear weapons all too real. Hawaii reinstated missile alert drills, while authorities even broadcast a ‘real’ alert by mistake in January 2019, leading to 40 minutes of panic and uncertainty.4 People readily believed that mistaken alert because of the increasingly hostile way that the USA and North Korea are talking. Although the Trump–Kim Summits introduced some optimism into the situation, it is hard to gauge their chances of success. Since the 2019 Hanoi Summit, their chances seem low. With leaders using social and broadcast media to trade insults and threats, military exercises could be misinterpreted and rhetoric could escalate to missile attack. Similar tensions in the Middle East also raise the stakes. Unless Europe and Iran find a way through, the USA’s withdrawal from the JCPOA could renew the risk of Iran developing a nuclear capability, and thus of an Israeli or Saudi pre-emptive military response.
In this multipolar and increasingly turbulent world, the ‘probability’ component of the nuclear risk equation has grown in significance. Although there were near-accidents and near-misses throughout the Cold War, military planners and politicians shared beliefs in deterrence, assuming that nuclear weapons would not be used, however fraught a situation might be. With new players in the mix; increased regional instabilities; command, control, and communication technologies subject to daily cyberthreats; and leaders preferring to use social media rather than quiet diplomacy, we can no longer assume non-use. Nuclear war may only be “one tiny tantrum away”, as Beatrice Fihn, director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, warned when she received the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize.
This article was originally published in ‘Chatham House Expert Perspectives 2018: Risks and Opportunities in International Affairs’.
Endnotes
1 The NPT came into force in 1970, two years after it was agreed
2 Craig Cerniello, “Senate Rejects Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; Clinton Vows to Continue Moratorium”, Arms Control Today 29, September/October 1999, armscontrol.org/act/1999_09–10/ctbso99
3 Aria Bendix, “122 Nations Approve ’22 Nations Approve nning Nuclear Weapons”, The Atlantic, 8 July 2017, theatlantic.com/news/archive/2017/07/122-nations-approve-historic-treaty-to-ban-nuclear-weapons/533046/
4 Associated Press, “Hawaii worker who sent missile alert was ‘awaii worker who sent miss”, The Guardian, 3 February 2018, theguardian.com/us-news/2018/feb/03/hawaii-worker-sent-missile-alert-100-percent-sure-attack-real
