We should not congratulate ourselves, if we have not yet wiped ourselves out yet in a nuclear holocaust. The nuclear deterrence theory will not save the world, much less nuclear weapons.
If congratulations are not in order, we can at least thank our lucky stars for the breaths we get to take if only just for today and maybe tomorrow. Considering the unprecedented deterioration of the balance of global power and high-stakes geopolitics, it is worth celebrating that those with the power to push the MAD button have not done so yet.
While this is comforting for the time being, history is not as reassuring. The duration of ‘nuclear peace’, from the Second World War to the end of the Cold War, lasted less than five decades. More than 20 years separated the First and Second World Wars; before that, there had been more than 40 years of relative peace between the end of the Franco-Prussian War and the First World War, and 55 years between the Franco-Prussian War and Napoleon’s defeat by a British-led coalition at Waterloo.
Up until the Second World War, Europe was basically a monument to war and bloodletting. Never had there been such a long lull when there was no major war involving at least one European power. Each time, when peace ended and the next war began, the war involved weapons available at the time – which, for the next big one, would likely include nuclear weapons. This is really simple–the only way to make sure that nuclear weapons are not used is to make sure that there are no nuclear weapons, not relying on the celebrated Mutually-assured Destruction (MAD). In contrast to what has been the pitch for 80 years, the MAD emperor has no clothes on.
It is increasingly becoming clear that the mere presence of nuclear weapons will not exactly prevent their use. The first step to ensuring that humans do not unleash nuclear holocaust might be to show that the emperor is indeed naked and that would then open the possibility of replacing the illusion with something more substantive. It is possible that the post-1945 US-Soviet peace came ‘through strength’, but that need not imply nuclear perpetual deterrence. It is also undeniable that the presence of nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert capable of reaching each other’s homeland in minutes has made both sides edgy.
The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when by all accounts, the world came closer to nuclear war than at any other time was no testimony to the effectiveness of deterrence: the crisis occurred because of nuclear weapons. It is more likely that we have been spared nuclear war not because of deterrence but in spite of it.
Even when possessed by just one side, nuclear weapons have not deterred other forms of war. We see that in the flare-up between Iran and Israel. The Chinese, Cuban, Iranian and Nicaraguan revolutions all took place even though a nuclear-armed US backed the overthrown governments.
Similarly, the US lost the Vietnam War, just as the Soviet Union lost in Afghanistan, despite both countries not only possessing nuclear weapons, but also more and better conventional arms than their adversaries. Nor did nuclear weapons aid Russia in its unsuccessful war against Chechen rebels in 1994-96, or in 1999-2000, when Russia’s conventional weapons devastated the suffering Chechen Republic.
But none of those instances come anywhere near the disturbing potential of the Iran/Israel macabre dance and that is the point. While in the cases mentioned, it was always the nuclear armed belligerent initiating direct hostilities. In just the space of a few months, Iran has launched about 500 drones and cruise missiles against nuclear-armed Israel.
While Israel will certainly not nuke Gaza or Lebanon for one very obvious reason–that being that no one will detonate a nuclear device in their own backyard because if they did, the radiation fallout will probably kill at least half the lives it claims in Gaza or Southern Lebanon. Israel is not so constrained with Iran.
Nuclear weapons did not help the US achieve its goals in Iraq or Afghanistan, which have become expensive catastrophic failures for the country with the world’s most advanced nuclear weapons. Moreover, despite its nuclear arsenal, the US remains fearful of domestic terrorist attacks, which are more likely to be made with nuclear weapons than be deterred by them.
In short, it is not prudent to argue that nuclear weapons have by themselves alone, deterred any sort of war, or that they will do so in the future. During the Cold War, each side engaged in conventional warfare: the Soviets, for example, in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Afghanistan; the Russians in Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine, as well as Syria; and the US in Korea, Vietnam, Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, the Persian Gulf, the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq, to mention just a few cases.
Besides the Iran/Israel conflict, there are other instances when something similar happened even if not exactly acutely similar. In 1950, China stood 14 years from developing and deploying its own nuclear weapons, whereas the US had a well-developed atomic arsenal.
Nonetheless, as the Korean War’s tide was shifting dramatically against the North, that US nuclear arsenal did not inhibit China from sending more than 300,000 soldiers across the Yalu River, resulting in the stalemate on the Korean peninsula that divides it to this day, and has resulted in one of the world’s most dangerous unresolved stand-offs.
In 1956, the nuclear-armed United Kingdom tried to arm-twist non-nuclear Egypt into abandoning the idea of nationalising the Suez Canal to no avail. The UK, France and Israel ended up invading Sinai with conventional forces. In 1982, Argentina attacked the British-held Falkland Islands, even though the UK had nuclear weapons and Argentina did not.
With the re-emergence of the multipolar geopolitical order, this is suddenly a problem that should give our political leaders sleepless nights. The Ukraine War and the Israel/Palestine open-wound have brought the two top military superpowers on earth (USA and Russia) to the brink of war. Yes, a war no one will win.
These two conflicts should represent the turning point of the global geostrategic consciousness… the last time such a shift was afoot, human beings were not held back by their experiences from the first industrialised war, which was a very scary thought to the men who make the decision to go to war or not go to war.
War helps only those who don’t fight it. If it was just that bad it would have been tolerable… but it turns out that war interests those who fight it even though it will not help them. That is alarming… as alarming as looking at a naked HRH.
