As the unrelenting war in Ukraine grinds continuously and more deeply into the proxy war it has been from the start, another danger lurks: nuclear war. Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered his country’s nuclear forces put on “special alert.” U.S. President Joseph Biden has since declared the world is “faced with the prospect of Armageddon.” UN Secretary General António Guterres recently said we are “just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation.”
The West’s efforts to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine have neither stopped the fighting nor compelled Moscow to reconsider the ongoing war.
Russia’s assault on Ukraine has increased the risk of a wider war between nuclear powers, and the possible deployment of nuclear weapons. The world has not been so publicly reminded of the possibility of nuclear confrontation since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. In October, Politico, a respected voice in politics, policy and power, noted, “the probability of the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine has risen from 1-5 percent at the start of the war to 20-25 percent today.”
There are those who would suggest we’re caught in an epic WWIII-like undertaking. Just before Politico’s dire forecast, New Yorker staffer Susan Glasser posted a piece arguing that Putin’s continued and escalated actions in Ukraine were forcing Washington’s hand. In the article, Fiona Hill, a one-time official at the UN Security Council who specializes in European and Russian affairs, expressed her concern that the U.S. is already fighting in the Third World War, punctuating the contention, “We’ve been in this for a long time, and we’ve failed to recognize it.” American political scientist and international relations scholar John Mearsheimer might not disagree. Depending on the pathway to escalation – escalate to win, escalate to not lose, inadvertently escalate – he says each “holds the potential to bring the United States into the fighting or lead Russia to use nuclear weapons, and possibly both.”The U.S. and Russia possess enough thermonuclear weaponry to reduce much of the world to smoldering, glutinous rubble. The U.S. is, however, fighting a proxy war with Russia in Ukraine that could drag on, similar to the Vietnam and Afghanistan wars. The difference, in this case, is the possibility of nuclear warfare. One Washington insider has stated that Putin would approve the use of nuclear weapons “if he perceived an existential threat to the Russian state or regime.” Putin, in turn, has told a national TV audience, “[O]ur independence and freedom will be defended… by all the systems available to us. Those who are using nuclear blackmail against us should know that the wind rose can turn around.”
Nuclear Deterrence: Escalate to De-escalate
Scott Ritter, a former U.S. Marine intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union, notes that only the U.S. has a nuclear doctrine of “escalate to de-escalate” – the U.S. might escalate the conflict in Ukraine to force the Russians to de-escalate. What if the Russians were to adopt the same doctrine? Ritter says it could lead to catastrophe. If both powers are mirroring the strategy, he says, “I think you can figure out that this could lead to a rapid misunderstanding and the release of nuclear weapons.”
The escalation of Western involvement in Ukraine further expands the possibility of calamity and misunderstanding, which could trigger military exchanges that could lead to catastrophe of historic proportions. Martial missteps and nuclear close calls are real and have nearly led to an unholy nuclear mess. History has taught us that even though the warring factions may be rational actors, unexpected miscalculations can lead to catastrophic outcomes.
In a nuclear world, is it possible Putin and/or Biden can control the outcome of events they set in motion? Are we willing to take the chance and find out?There is no such thing as a limited nuclear war. The first country to push the button will destroy human civilization. U.S. Peace Prize winner Noam Chomsky fears such a fate is not being taken seriously enough: “[T]he means for reducing the threat of terminal war are being cast out the window.”
Diplomacy and Political Settlement
The idea of introducing nuclear weaponry into the Ukrainian conflict is not lost on the U.S. Aside from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki airdrops that ended World War II, nuclear responses to perceived national security threats have been on this country’s table since the start of the Korean War in 1950. At the time, President Harry Truman warned, “There has always been active consideration” of using nuclear weapons in Korea.” General George McArthur encouraged the president to turn such “consideration” into action.
When pilot Rudolph Anderson Jr. was shot down while snapping photographs of a Soviet-built nuclear missile site over Cuba in 1962, the U.S. reacted. With the Cuban sites just 90 miles from the Key West shoreline, U.S. nuclear warheads were readied for possible use. Intense brinkmanship resulted in the removal of the missiles. However, the world was so close to a nuclear war that the-U.S. Secretary of State Robert McNamara remarked, “We were eyeball-to-eyeball and the other fellow just blinked.”
Over 10 days in 1983, the U.S. and the Soviet Union nearly started a war of mutual destruction – six months after Soviet General Secretary Yuri Andropov had cautioned the U.S. that both countries “may be moving toward a red line.” That line was the possibility of a nuclear contest, and it was nearly crossed during a NATO military exercise ,“Able Archer 83.” Upon its own simulated, not-for-real release of warheads against the Soviet Union, NATO – as part of the exercise – maxed its readiness level to DEFCON 1. The Soviets interpreted the move as a feint to hide a first strike; they readied their nukes.
There are similarities between the Cuban Missile Crisis of 60 years ago and the invasion of Ukraine. “On the surface the root cause of both confrontations,” says former director of the Carnegie Moscow Center Dmitri Trenin, “has been acute feelings of insecurity.” Such uncertain feelings haven’t changed from one conflict to the other, he says. The expansion of one rival power’s political influence and military presence over another’s – “right to the doorstep of one’s own country – can be the straw that breaks the proverbial camel’s back. Today, Putin is convinced territorial subterfuge is afoot. NATO’s eastward expansion plans have put him in a sour mood, a fighting posture.
Conclusion
In a deeply polarized world, the debate surrounding the Ukraine conflict reflects a nuclear-charged tug-of-war. On one side, a Western bloc of U.S.-influenced NATO and EU alliances favors growing military and open-ended support for Ukraine. Across the divide, there are as many as 66 countries encouraging a political settlement or a diplomatic solution to the crisis.
A military solution in Ukraine must give way to a political-diplomatic settlement that addresses the base premise of the conflict: What to do with Ukraine? Not of its own design, the small country lying on Russia’s southwestern boundary finds itself being pulled from different directions. Will it become a member of NATO? Will it find itself in the grip of the Russian bear? Will it become Ground Zero for a nuclear conflict?
Insistence on a military solution in Ukraine increases the chances of a nuclear Armageddon. Such a polarizing mindset moves the Doomsday Clock perilously closer to the pitch-black darkness of midnight. Now is the time to seek a diplomatic way to avoid the nightmare of a nuclear war possessing the destructive power to create global famine and to kill billions of people.
The question remains – as it has for too many decades – what’ll it be: settlement or nuclear Armageddon. One holds hope. The other devastation.
About the Author
Christopher Zambakari holds a Doctor of Law and Policy degree from Northeastern University and is chief executive officer of The Zambakari Advisory. He is a Hartley B. and Ruth B. Barker Endowed Rotary Peace Fellow, and the assistant editor of The Bulletin of the Sudan Studies Association. His area of research and expertise is international law and security, political reform and economic development, governance and democracy, conflict management and prevention, and nation- and state-building processes in Africa and in the Middle East. His work has been published in leading law, economic, and public policy journals.
Dr. Christopher Zambakari, MBA, MIS, LP.D.
Founder & CEO, The Zambakari Advisory
Hartley B. and Ruth B. Barker Endowed Rotary Peace Fellow
Assistant Editor, Bulletin of The Sudan Studies Association
Excellent. Timely. terrifying. Whatever happened to detente? Or has it been assigned to the attic of the old world when wars were not fought by proxy?