what has to.comhappen for the us to use nukes
What to know about the threat of nuclear war 47:25 Copy the lawmaking below to embed the WBUR audio histrion on your site
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On Jan tertiary of this twelvemonth, the earth's five largest nuclear powers, including Russia, issued the following joint statement:
"A nuclear state of war cannot exist won and must never be fought."
Merely, one calendar month subsequently, Russian troops invaded Ukraine.
Information technology's a move that alarmed the earth, and seems to fly in the face of that statement, which also says:
"Nuclear weapons — for as long equally they continue to exist — should serve defensive purposes, deter aggression, and forestall war."
Today, On Point: Russia, and the U.S.'s nuclear arsenal. Where are the weapons, how are they controlled and what could trigger a launch?
Guests
Matthew Bunn, professor of the practice of energy, national security and strange policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Målfrid Braut-Hegghammer, director of the Oslo Nuclear Projection at the University of Oslo. (@Malfrid_BH)
Dr. Ira Helfand, former president of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. Author of the article Ukraine and the Threat of Nuclear War. Why do nosotros fail to consider the danger?
As well Featured
Pavel Podvig, senior researcher in the Weapons of Mass Destruction Program at United Nations Found for Disarmament Research. (@russianforces)
Sharon K. Weiner, visiting researcher at Princeton'due south Science and Global Security Lab. (@SharonKWeiner)
Transcript: Highlights From The Show's Open
MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI: On Feb 21st, just days before Russian President Vladimir Putin began his attack on Ukraine, Putin gave a spoken language, warning NATO against interfering.
VLADIMIR PUTIN [Tape]: Whoever would endeavour to stop us and farther create threats to our land, to our people, should know that Russia's response will be firsthand and lead y'all to such consequences that you have never faced in your history. Nosotros are set for whatsoever outcome.
CHAKRABARTI: Putin was talking most nuclear weapons. Three days after, he invaded Ukraine, and then on February 27th, he made his threat explicit.
PUTIN [Tape]: Top officials of leading NATO'southward countries are making aggressive statements about our country. Therefore, I'm ordering the Minister of Defence and the master of the General Staff to put the strategic nuclear forces on special alarm.
CHAKRABARTI: Special alert is the Russian war machine's highest level of alarm. Then Putin'due south argument is serious. But it should too exist noted that Russia, France, the United Kingdom and of course, the U.s.a. maintain nigh 2,000 nuclear warheads on various states of high warning. They could all be launched on short find, according to estimates from the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists.
Still, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy chosen Putin'south threat a 'bluff.' In an interview with the German newspaper Die Zeit, Zelenskyy said: 'It's one thing to be a murderer, it's another to commit suicide.' And White Firm Printing Secretary Jen Psaki said on ABC News:
JEN PSAKI [Tape]: This is really a pattern that nosotros've seen from President Putin through the form of this conflict, which is manufacturing threats that don't exist in order to justify further aggression. And the global community and the American people should look at it through that prism.
CHAKRABARTI: This is On Point. I'm Meghna Chakrabarti. On the i hand, it is reasonable for political leaders to ask the world to keep a level caput. Only on the other hand, I question Psaki's insistence on 'manufactured threats that don't exist.' Because nuclear weapons do exist. The threat has existed since the United states bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Then Putin posturing, that's the prism that Jen Psaki says we should use now. But of form, prisms refract. They actually show u.s. more than than the regular eye can run into. They intermission up one vivid beam and reveal many component parts. So when someone like Pavel Podvig looks through that prism, what does he encounter?
PAVEL PODVIG: I see paths that would really trap Russia or the Usa and its allies into situations in which they would experience that nuclear weapons could exist used or should be used, or how they would feel that that'south the only way out of this. Normally, I would trust the people to make reasonable decisions. Just then over again, I mean, looking back, what, two weeks at present, I was definitely convinced that an invasion of Ukraine makes absolutely no sense. I nevertheless believe that that'due south the case. But nevertheless, information technology happened, and it sort of forced quite a few people to recalibrate their assumptions of what is reasonable, and rational and what is not.
CHAKRABARTI: Podvig is a senior researcher in the Weapons of Mass Destruction program at the United Nations Plant for Disarmament Research. And he offers what I think is a more powerful prism through which to view this moment. Things that make no sense but still happen.
So should we recalibrate our assumptions of what'due south irrational and what is not? Well, Podvig says strategic nuclear missiles could be launched in minutes. Merely he says Russia's non-strategic weapons, which he says are more probable to exist deployed in an initial attack, take much longer to prepare.
PODVIG: You would need to have weapons out of storage, bring them to a certain location, install them on missiles or load missiles on their launchers, and only subsequently that, the bodily attack would be possible. And again, we're talking about a serial of steps and a fairly large number of people involved, and that would probably involve a degree of planning, too.
CHAKRABARTI: Fifty-fifty if there are a large number of people involved, does Putin have the atypical authorization to order a launch?
PODVIG: There is, of course, quite a bit of uncertainty well-nigh how exactly the system is prepare. So the honest answer is nosotros don't really know whether the president can launch a nuclear attack on his own. Information technology appears that in some circumstances that might exist possible. And at the aforementioned time, it would probably take a number of steps, and information technology would involve a number of people in the conclusion, and so it would exist the issue of certain deliberation in the peak leadership.
CHAKRABARTI: However, Pavel Podvig says given Putin's authoritarian control in Russia, would anyone stand up in his way?
PODVIG: The president is the commander in chief. And if necessary, he could probably force that determination through the chain of control.
CHAKRABARTI: And then today we desire to recalibrate those assumptions, get a level-headed but realistic look at what could happen intentionally or unintentionally that might lead to the launch of a nuclear weapon. And we also definitely want to talk about what the globe could practise now, to be certain that never happens. So nosotros'll begin today with Målfrid Braut-Hegghammer. She joins usa from Oslo, Norway. She's the manager of the Oslo nuclear programme at the University of Oslo. Målfrid, welcome to On Point.
MÅLFRID BRAUT-HEGGHAMMER: Thanks and so much. It's a pleasance to exist with you lot.
CHAKRABARTI: I wonder if you could start with what might exist a articulate indication virtually how seriously Norway is taking this threat. I sympathise yous got a find from your children'due south school pertaining to the increased nuclear threat. Can you tell united states about that?
BRAUT-HEGGHAMMER: Aye. I think this is a manner in which a lot of people in my state and in my neighborhood are really beginning to feel the seriousness of the state of affairs, and how this is shut to home in many ways. And then we received requests from schools and kindergarten to accept that our children could take iodine tablets in the event of an incident. And and so I think that really hit home in a lot of ways.
CHAKRABARTI: And so are schools telling parents in Norway that iodine pills may be given to children? Also, I understand that there are reports of more people in Norway edifice bomb shelters, et cetera.
BRAUT-HEGGHAMMER: People are certainly starting to ask questions where the nearest shelter is. In that location is increased focus and attending to these kinds of facilities that were very familiar during the Cold State of war. But honestly, for the past couple of decades, people haven't actually idea much about. And then on the subway, I hear people talking about nuclear war, which really is not an everyday conversation in Oslo. So it is certainly something that is actually outset to concern a lot of people, and for good reason. We are, after all, neighbors with the largest nuclear weapons armory in the earth. And so this is part of our neighborhood, even if we haven't thought much about it in a long fourth dimension.
CHAKRABARTI: And then practice yous retrieve the concern is warranted? Because y'all heard me quote what even President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said, what Jen Psaki from the White House was maxim about Putin bluffing and manufacturing threats that don't be.
BRAUT-HEGGHAMMER: I think that information technology is very of import that we're not panicking and that we're non intimidated in a way that maybe President Putin is hoping that we might be. At the aforementioned time, these are real weapons. They're non abstract constructs. In that location are many of them. And in whatever scenario where there was a conventional war in Europe and a nuclear weapon states' president is speaking of nuclear weapons in this way. Certainly, I am concerned. I think we all should be.
CHAKRABARTI: So what we'd like to try to reach this 60 minutes is to become a much deeper understanding beyond headlines about what is essentially the decision tree or the possible scenarios that could lead to the unthinkable. Then could you lay out what y'all practice come across every bit a possible scenario that might lead to the intentional or unintentional launch of a nuclear weapon?
BRAUT-HEGGHAMMER: Well, I think that this kind of practice is something that a lot of states have washed, especially after 2014 and the annexation of Crimea. And so these are thought exercises that many have engaged in. Some of them involve a potential demonstration of a nuclear weapon near Kingdom of norway. So, these are scenarios and prospects that also sort of feel quite close to home. As yous pointed to, there are two different kinds of pathways. 1 intended escalation, the other unintended. To start with the unintended one, that could be a situation where in a conflict, the situation could speedily develop to a point where one party decides to use nuclear weapons. But that this occurs as the issue of possibly confusion, misinterpretation, rather than as a strategic conclusion intended to achieve a certain effect.
The other scenario would exist unintended escalation. And this is a kind of scenario that observers of nuclear weapons and of Russian nuclear doctrine, that they have talked virtually and debated for a long time. Many years ago, there were discussions within Russian nuclear doctrine about the possibility of using a nuclear weapon adequately early in the conflict to cease the situation from escalating farther. But this was a very different kind of scenario than what we accept in the Ukraine. These were deliberations relating to a conventional war on Russia. So I think it'southward important that we separate the situation today from those kinds of scenarios.
CHAKRABARTI: That's really important. And Målfrid Braut-Hegghammer, I take more than questions to ask you when we come back. We just have to accept a quick one minute suspension. So when nosotros render, we're going to talk a niggling bit about what Norway and Sweden and some neighboring countries, even changes, that they're making right now to avoid the unthinkable.
Related Reading
New York Times: "Putin Is Brandishing the Nuclear Option. How Serious Is the Threat?" — "Over the weekend, equally his military laid siege to Ukraine for the fourth day, President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian federation's nuclear forces into a higher state of alarm, the first fourth dimension the Kremlin has done so since the Russian federation was established in 1991."
The Nation: "Ukraine and the Threat of Nuclear War" — "As the crisis in Ukraine deepens, it is appropriate to consider what the bodily consequences of war at that place might be. An armed conventional conflict in Ukraine would be a terrible humanitarian disaster."
Chatham Business firm: "How likely is the utilise of nuclear weapons by Russian federation?" — "On 21 February, as part of his televised speech that heralded the Russian invasion of Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin issued what was interpreted as a threat to use nuclear weapons against NATO countries should they interfere in Ukraine."
Source: https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2022/03/14/understanding-the-strategic-moves-necessary-to-avoid-nuclear-war
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