Front Burner - As war in Ukraine rages, assessing the nuclear risk

Episode Date: March 28, 2022

A nuclear war cannot be won and should never be fought,” warned NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg last Wednesday. It’s a prospect that many in Canada haven’t had to consider since the end of the Cold War, but experts say the risk hasn't disappeared. A few weeks ago, Front Burner did an episode about no-fly zones, and how some experts argue that the U.S. shouldn’t enforce one in Ukraine because it could lead to an escalation that could put Russia and the United States, two nuclear powers, in direct conflict. Today, guest host Jason D’Souza speaks with nuclear weapons expert Tom Collina about the state of these major powers’ nuclear arsenals and the destruction they could cause. Collina, the director of policy at the Ploughshares Fund, says nuclear weapons are enabling Russia to “take Ukraine hostage and keep other nations out.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jason D'Souza, in for Jamie Poisson, and this is a cartoon from the 1950s about a turtle named Bert. And what to do if there's a nuclear attack. He's got shh and cover. Got shh and cover.

So a couple weeks back, we did this episode about no-fly zones and how a lot of experts argued that the U.S. shouldn't enforce one in Ukraine because it could lead to an escalation, one that could put Russia and the United States in direct conflict. Two nuclear powers at war. to nuclear powers at war. It's a prospect that a lot of us here in Canada, born after the Cold War, haven't really had to think about all that much. I didn't grow up learning in school how to duck and cover. That signal means to stop whatever you are doing and get to the nearest safe place fast. Always remember,

a flash of an atomic bomb can come at any time, no matter where you may be. But just because this threat doesn't loom large now, doesn't mean it's just totally gone away. Today, I'm going to be talking to Tom Kalina. Today, I'm going to be talking to Tom Kalina. He's the policy director at the Plowshares Fund, an organization that aims to reduce the risks from nuclear weapons, about the state of these major powers' nuclear arsenals, the destruction they could cause, and why they still exist now at all. Hi there, Tom. Thanks so much for joining us. Thanks. Great to be here. I have to confess, the possibility of nuclear war has always felt pretty remote to me, thankfully. So I was hoping you could start by just telling us a bit about Russia's and the United States' nuclear arsenals. What do these countries actually have?

Well, it's a great question. And it's an issue that a lot of people are thinking about in ways that they haven't thought about in a long time. You know, of course, the Cold War ended 30 years ago. You know, both the United States and Russia, which are the two largest nuclear powers in the world today, have roughly 5,000 to 6,000 nuclear weapons. That's a lot. And even though those numbers have come down dramatically since the end of the Cold War, they've come down about 80 percent through arms control treaties and other efforts. And that's great. But the fact that the United States and Russia still have thousands means that we can still destroy humanity and end civilization as we know it. So we haven't gone far enough. And those residual weapons are what is making the crisis in Ukraine today so dangerous or well, it's already dangerous.

But the potential for it to become much, much more dangerous. Well, let's talk exactly about that, because in the context of Russia's war in Ukraine right now, we've been hearing more and more of this idea of tactical nuclear weapons, these smaller weapons. And I just want to quote a recent New York Times article about this, which said their use could be, quote, perhaps less frightening and more thinkable. What are these smaller tactical nuclear weapons? You know, there's a lot of misunderstanding about tactical nuclear weapons. They're not necessarily any smaller in their devastating power than other nuclear weapons. It's just that they're shorter range weapons. In other words, they're on delivery systems like airplanes or missiles that fly a shorter distance.

The misperception is that because these weapons are, quote, tactical and short range, that they're somehow smaller and safer. And that's simply not the case. I mean, if you look at the weapons, for example, that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which is what most people think about when they think about nuclear weapons and their destructive potential, those weapons were about the same size as the average tactical nuclear weapon that you would find in Europe. I don't think anyone would look at Hiroshima and Nagasaki to say that that would be small. And the problem with thinking that they are is, to get to the second part of your question, if people think that they're smaller and safer, they may think they're more usable and that they're more akin to conventional weapons, which we're seeing are quite horrific. But nuclear weapons are orders of magnitude more destructive than those. So I think people need to stop thinking about these tactical nuclear weapons as smaller and safer, and really think about all

nuclear weapons as just tremendously horrific weapons of war that should not be used under any circumstances. So if that is the case, then why are these tactical nuclear weapons being given the spotlight that they are? Why are some experts worried that we could see them used as part of this war? Well, because these are the weapons that Russia might use in Ukraine, right? They're probably not going to use some of the longer range weapons that are aimed at the United States, they're going to use some shorter range weapons that they can use in a battlefield context. And so Russia has these weapons, thousands of them. The United States and NATO have hundreds of these weapons. And so they're right there in close proximity. So if the Ukraine war were to go nuclear, as we say, and hopefully it won't, these are the kind of weapons that would be used.

And if they are used, we're talking about a complete paradigm shift, are we not? We are. I mean, it would be a tragic, tragic turn of events if this conflict went into the nuclear dimension. events if this conflict went into the nuclear dimension. You know, nuclear weapons, surprisingly, luckily, thankfully, have not been used since World War II. They have not been used for almost 77 years. And the reason for that is because the United States, which is the only country that used nuclear weapons in war, saw how devastating they were and really tried to never use them again. And so far, that has worked. There have been a number of constraints put on nuclear weapons. That doesn't mean there hasn't been a huge production of nuclear weapons. Again, during the Cold War, there were many tens of thousands. And today, there's still about 13,000 nuclear weapons worldwide. Way too many,

but they haven't been used since World War II. And if they are used in this context, the question becomes, what does that do? How far does that use go? I mean, I think the thing that people don't realize is that we've never been in a situation where a country just used one or two nuclear weapons and then stopped. There's this concept called escalation. And the concern is that if one side uses nukes, the other does as well. You get in a fog of war, tit for tat, and no one knows where that will end. If, for example, Russia does use nuclear

weapons in Ukraine, some have suggested, well, the United States could respond with a nuclear weapon as a symbol in an unpopulated area. The problem is that when you start sending symbols or messages with nuclear weapons, that can quickly get muddled. The other side doesn't really know what message you're sending. So if the other side gets paranoid and thinks this is really part of a much larger attack, then their incentive is to strike back with everything they have, and you could quickly escalate into widespread, large-scale nuclear war. So the safest bet is to not start that process at all, that both sides say we're not going to use nuclear weapons in this crisis.

Unfortunately, neither side is saying that. The Russians are saying we may use nuclear weapons if the West gets further involved. Therefore, I'm ordering the Minister of Defence and the Chief of the General Staff to put the strategic nuclear forces on special alert. The United States and NATO are not saying that they wouldn't respond to that with nuclear weapons, which I think they should be saying much more clearly, that they will not use nuclear weapons in this situation. NATO is there to protect and defend all allies.

And we convey a very clear message to Russia that the nuclear war cannot be won and should never be fought. So we don't have the kind of restraint that we'd like to see, which opens the door to possible nuclear escalation. It's a morbid conversation, but I suppose in many ways that is exactly the point of having it. And so I know it's not pretty, but can you can you paint us a picture of what that kind of escalation could look like in terms of the consequences? Well, again, I think, you know, most people in their minds have a picture of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. picture of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, those bombs were, you know, an average size of the weapons that we have in Europe today, and small compared to the much larger weapons that are on strategic systems in the US and Russia. And again, those are only two bombs, and both the United States

and Russia have many thousands. So just imagine, you know, Hiroshima and Nagasaki multiplied, and you can get a sense of how tragic and horrific this would be. More than 200,000 people died, and many more had to live with the effects of that attack for the rest of their lives. So we could be talking many millions of people that could die or be injured in a nuclear attack. And what we don't know, again, is how widespread that attack becomes. It's either a tragic situation within Europe, or it could spread beyond Europe, and then the radiation flowing from there would mean that

it wouldn't be limited to just the country's attack, but would affect the entire world. So again, this is a potentially civilization-ending situation. And again, because most people haven't thought about this for so many years since the Cold War ended so long ago, I think most people are not thinking about how serious those consequences could be. It outstrips anything you could think of. I mean, climate change, of course, would be devastating to the world, but it wouldn't happen in a day in the way that nuclear war could. So we need to take this possibility. And again, I don't think it's likely, but it's possible. And the consequences are so catastrophic that we have to focus on this, take it seriously and do everything we can to

prevent it. And that would be why for nearly 77 years, the international community has agreed that using these weapons is beyond the pale. So then what happened with those post-Cold War reductions? Why are there still thousands and thousands of these weapons in the arsenals of the U.S. and Russia? It's a great question. I think many of us thought when the Cold War ended 30 years ago that we would gradually move towards the elimination of nuclear weapons. And we made good progress for a while. But I think what happened is that over the years, people started thinking that as the weapons were being dismantled, that the danger went away. And unfortunately, the weapons, as we've said, are still there, both in the U.S. and in Russia. As far as I know, there's nothing in the agreement that prevents either side from improving their weapons. The United States has resisted and still resists a ban on nuclear weapons tests, which is the way you develop new nuclear weapons.

And the political pressure to kind of go the last mile and really eliminate them has dissipated. What is the most recent treaty between Russia and the U.S.? So the most recent treaty was under the Obama administration. It's called the New START treaty. It was negotiated in 2010. When you have uncertainty in the area of nuclear weapons, that's a much more dangerous world to live in. And that treaty affects the long range, the strategic nuclear weapons between just the

United States and Russia. And that treaty brought those numbers down significantly, a very successful treaty. And just at the beginning of the Biden administration, President Biden extended that treaty for five years with Russia, which was very important. But it'll expire in four years. And now before Ukraine, there were discussions between the United States and Russia to replace that treaty with another agreement. Those negotiations or those talks have now fallen apart for obvious reasons, because there's very little contact now between the United States and Russia. So that treaty could expire in four years and then there would be no more caps on the long-range weapons, which would be tremendously destabilizing, because then you could see countries start ratcheting up their

arsenals again. Tom, explain this to us, though, because despite treaties like that that have been put in place, I understand there's still massive reinvestments into nuclear weaponry that's been ongoing. So just explain how that really works. Yeah, I mean, even though the United States is in the process of reducing its forces, it's still planning to invest over a trillion dollars, and that's it with a T, a trillion dollars, over the next few decades in replacing and rebuilding its nuclear arsenal. And this is surprising to many, but essentially what's going on is that as we have fewer and fewer nuclear weapons, the political compromise was, okay, we can have fewer, but the ones that are left should be top-notch, should be as in good shape

as they need to be. And that makes sense to an extent, but we simply don't need the variety and the diversity of nuclear forces that we had in the past. And some of the weapons that might have made sense during the Cold War simply don't make sense today. And I would point to land-based ballistic missiles, otherwise known as ICBMs. The United States is planning to spend about $100 billion to replace its 400 land-based ballistic missiles. These weapons are vulnerable. They're very dangerous because they encourage a first strike against those systems from Russia because they're vulnerable. We would be safer without them. So there are a number of systems in the planning process now that are tremendously expensive. They're leftovers from the Cold War.

And because we haven't rethought our nuclear strategy since the Cold War, we're investing in these systems again, even when today they just don't make sense. And in terms of the politics of all of this within the United States, is this a bipartisan thing? We know Trump pulled out of one nuclear treaty with Russia. I hated to do it, but I rebuilt our nuclear capability like nobody has ever thought even possible. Now we have brand new stuff that's immensely powerful and hope to God you never have to use it. He put billions towards nuclear expansion. Just last week, he was bragging on Fox News about how if he was still

president, he'd send nuclear submarines to threaten Russia. We have the greatest submarines in the world. And you should say, look, if you mention that word one more time, we're going to send them over and we'll be coasting back and forth up and down your coast. Did Biden reverse Trump's nuclear weapons spending or at least scale it back in any way? You know, he did not, which was a disappointment to many of us. We would like to see President Biden reducing spending on nuclear forces. There's there's a new nuclear policy from the Biden administration that will be coming out soon that we're hearing sort of cuts back on Trump spending a little bit, but not as much as we would like. I mean, look, I think what's happening is that there used to be widespread bipartisan support for arms control. In fact, the first treaties that date back to the 1970s always had

bipartisan support and were often led by Republicans, in fact, President Nixon, President Reagan, and others. But more recently, this process, like everything else, has become overly politicized. And as you rightly point out, President Trump was opposed to arms control, pulled out of a number of treaties, and in fact, didn't do what he needed to do to extend the New START treaty, which is why President Biden had to come in and in his first weeks in office, extend that treaty because President Trump hadn't done it. You touched on it briefly, but what do we know about what Russia has been doing to its arsenal over the last number of years? Well, they've been doing the same thing we've been doing, which is modernizing, building new forces, keeping its weapons up to date and spending a fair amount of money to do that.

We're sort of now back into an arms race dynamic where we spend a lot of money to build up our weapons. They spend a lot of money on their forces. And then we look at that and say, oh, well, that's a threat we need to build up too. So that's an arms race dynamic. Both sides are doing it. It's very destabilizing and dangerous. And we need to ratchet it back. How easily can a nuke be deployed?

I think there's this picture that a lot of us have that there's a big red button sitting on a desk somewhere that can just be pushed. But just walk us through what we know in terms of how easily a nuke can actually be deployed. that are out there right now, ready to go. They're in silos in the ground, they're on submarines at sea, and they're on long-range bombers on the ground. But particularly the long-range missiles in their silos, they could be launched within minutes by both the United States and Russia. And no, there is no big red button. But the president of the United States has an attache that follows him all the time with a briefcase called the football. And within that is a communications device where the president just has to call to the Pentagon and say, I want this kind of attack. And it will happen literally within minutes. And that's just up to the president. There's no one in the chain of command that can stop the president from giving those orders. So nuclear war could start at any minute at any time. Now, in terms of bringing nuclear weapons into the conflict in Ukraine, that's really a question of whether Russia wanted to move some of its shorter range forces in there and these are mobile forces so it could be done

quite easily that that russia could move some of its short-range missile forces mobile missiles into ukraine and those weapons could be loaded with nuclear warheads it's actually quite concerning because a lot of these systems are dual use and by that i mean the same missile system could have a nuclear warhead or it could have a conventional warhead. And some of the same systems that are being used right now in a conventional way could be rearmed with nuclear. So I think if Russia wanted to, they could move nuclear forces into the Ukraine theater in a pretty short period of time. Thankfully, we've seen no sign that they've done that yet. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem.

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To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. So despite all the scary prospects we've been talking about today, I've heard the argument made that nuclear weapons actually create a kind of peace because these countries have the power to basically wipe each other off the map and it prevents tensions from escalating. What do you make of that argument, particularly in the present context with the war in Ukraine? I've heard those same arguments myself. I think we're seeing the limitations of those arguments and that in a large part, it's a myth because nuclear weapons did not stop the conflict in Ukraine, pure and simple. And in fact, what they're doing is they're sort of enabling President Putin to conduct his war and keep other nations from intervening by saying,

if any other nation intervenes, I'll use my nuclear weapons on you. So we're seeing a very different story about nuclear weapons that many have been led to believe. In the current context, they are not keeping the peace. And I would say they're actually enabling President Putin to take Ukraine hostage and keep other nations out. And if that's sort of the new way nuclear weapons are going to be used by dictators and autocrats going forward, we need to do more to restrain, to stigmatize, to limit nuclear weapons going forward so the dictators don't have a free reign like Putin has right now. Perhaps it's worth noting here as well that for a moment there, Ukraine was the third largest nuclear power in the world. Thousands of nukes had been left there by Moscow after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But Ukraine made the decision to completely

denuclearize in exchange for security guarantees from the US, UK, and Russia. That's right. And so a lot of people learned the lesson from that, that if Ukraine had just held on to its nuclear weapons, then maybe it wouldn't be in the situation it is right now. And it's a bit of a complicated story because the weapons that were in Ukraine were left there by the Soviet Union as the Soviet Union fell apart. But those weapons weren't built by Ukraine. They weren't controlled by Ukraine. And to hold on to them, they would have had to give up a lot of uh aid from the west uh which ukraine needed uh to stabilize itself its economy and whatnot and become an independent nation uh but but i think it's it's dangerous to draw the lesson that well if every country had

nuclear weapons then they would be more secure because i think you could see the the you know if you play that out to a logical extreme where does that go do we really want every country in the world having its own nuclear weapons because every independent actor uh that has nuclear weapons increases the risk that they will be used uh and i would fact i would argue that no leader in the world today is trustworthy uh when it comes to nuclear weapons. They're simply too dangerous. So we don't want a vast proliferation in the number of countries that have nuclear weapons. And in fact, it's been an effort ever since the Cold War, ever since the nuclear age began, to keep reducing the number of states that have nuclear weapons.

And we've actually done a pretty good job at keeping that number at nine. There are nine nations in the world today that have nuclear weapons. And we've actually done a pretty good job at keeping that number at nine. There are nine nations in the world today that have nuclear weapons. It could have been a lot worse. It could be a lot better. We want to keep that number going down, not up. You mentioned earlier the new START treaty, the bilateral treaty between the hope do you have that there might be a renewal of interest in controlling these weapons or even disarming, given the state of the world right now? I think it's possible. You know, it doesn't look very hopeful right now, given the, you know, terrible relations between the United States and Russia.

But a year from now, two years from now, things can change. And I think back to the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, which a lot of people don't remember, but that was the last time we came this close to nuclear war. Within the past week, unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island. The purpose of these bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability

against the Western Hemisphere. And strangely enough, after that scare, we had kind of a renaissance of arms control. Both the United States and Russia realized that they came too close to catastrophe. And they decided, well, we need to, you know, really work at this to try to prevent that from happening again. That could happen here too. We could have, you know, cooler heads coming into office, particularly hopefully on the Russian side, and say that was too dangerous. Ukraine, we got too close to nuclear war. We need to step back and start talking again. I hope that happens. It could happen. It's too soon to say whether it will. Tom, it is a terrifying conversation, but it is an important one. Thank you so much

for taking us through it. My pleasure. Thank you so much. That's all for today. Thank you for listening to FrontBurner. I'm Jason D'Souza, in for Jamie Poisson, and I'll talk to you again tomorrow.