Nuclear warfare
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- This article is about nuclear war as a form of actual warfare, including history. For the card game, see Nuclear War (card game).
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Nuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a war is waged in which nuclear weapons are used. In the history of nuclear weapons, only twice were nuclear arms used in war (the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki), and only by one side in the confrontation, the USA. Today the term usually refers to confrontations in which opposing sides are both armed with nuclear arms.
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[edit] Types of nuclear war
The possibility of using nuclear weapons in war is usually divided into two subgroups, each with different effects and potentially fought with different types of nuclear armaments.
The first, a limited nuclear war (sometimes attack or exchange), consists of only the use of a small number of weapons in a tactical exchange aimed primarily at the opposing military forces. Though the effects of the weapons would still potentially affect civilian locations, the primary targets would likely be military. Various nations developed relatively low-yield tactical nuclear weapons during the Cold War for use in such situations, though the explosive power of such weapons still exceed those of conventional (non-nuclear) arms.
The second, a full-scale nuclear war, consists of large numbers of weapons used in an attack aimed at an entire country, including both military and civilian targets. Such an attack would seek to destroy the entire economic, social, and military infrastructure of a nation by means of an overwhelming nuclear attack.
Whether there is a clear distinction between the two forms can be a matter of contention. Even many of the Cold War strategists who argued that a limited nuclear war would be possible between two heavily-armed superpowers (such as the United States and the Soviet Union) predicted that a limited war could easily "escalate" into an all-out war. Additionally, even the targeting of purely-military installations would likely have devastating long-term effects on civilian populations, owing to nuclear fallout being carried by the wind and the close proximity of many cities to military bases.
Even the most optimistic predictions about the effects of a major nuclear exchange predict the death of millions of civilians within a very short amount of time; more pessimistic predictions argue that a full-scale nuclear war could bring about the extinction of the human race and cause permanent damage to most complex life on the planet, Earth's ecosystems, and the global climate. It is in this latter mode that nuclear warfare is usually alluded to as a doomsday scenario.
[edit] History
[edit] Hiroshima to Semipalatinsk
The United States is the only nation to have ever used nuclear weapons during war, having used two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. For more information, see Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
After the bombings of Japan, it was unclear exactly what status the atomic bomb would have for international relations or military actions. It was believed that atomic weapons could offset the superior forces that the Soviet Union had in Eastern Europe, and possibly be used to pressure Stalin into concessions. But though Stalin feared the bomb, and was pursuing his own atomic capabilities at full speed, they were not as strong a bargaining chip as was hoped by the Americans, as the Russians felt that the Americans were unlikely to begin another world war with their limited nuclear arsenal, and the Americans were not confident that they could prevent the Soviet Union from taking over Europe even if they did use nuclear weapons.
Within the United States the authority to produce and develop nuclear weapons was removed from the military control of the Manhattan Project and put instead under the civilian control of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, a unique move which attempted to recognize that nuclear weapons represented a special category of weapons separate from other military technology.
For several years after World War II, the US developed and maintained a strategic force based on the Convair B-36 bomber that would be able to attack any potential aggressor from bomber bases in the US. It deployed atomic bombs around the world for potential use in conflicts. Over a period of a few years, many in the US defense community became increasingly convinced of the invincibility of the United States to a nuclear attack. Indeed, it became generally believed that the threat of nuclear war would deter any strike against the United States.
Many proposals were suggested to put all US nuclear weapons under international control—for example, by the newly-formed United Nations—as an effort to deter both their usage and an arms race. However no terms could be arrived at that made either the United States or the USSR feel secure—the US was not willing to give up its atomic monopoly, and the USSR did not trust UN inspections on its soil.
On August 29, 1949 the USSR tested its first nuclear weapon at Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan (see also Soviet atomic bomb project). Scientists in the United States from the Manhattan Project had warned that in time, the Soviet Union would certainly develop nuclear capabilities of its own. Nevertheless, the effect upon military thinking and planning in the US was dramatic, primarily due to the fact that American military strategists had not anticipated the Soviets would 'catch up' this soon. However, at this time, they had not discovered that the Russians had conducted significant espionage of the project from spies at Los Alamos, the most significant of which was done by the theoretical physicist Klaus Fuchs. The first Soviet bomb was more or less a deliberate copy of the Fat Man device.
With the monopoly over nuclear technology broken, world-wide nuclear proliferation accelerated. The United Kingdom tested its first independent atomic bomb in 1952, followed by France in 1960 and then the People's Republic of China in 1964. While much smaller than the arsenals of the USA and the USSR, Western Europe's nuclear reserves were nevertheless a significant factor in strategic planning during the Cold War. A top-secret white paper produced for the British Government in 1959, compiled by the Royal Air Force, estimated that British atomic bombers were capable of destroying key cities and military targets in the Soviet Union, with an estimated 16 million deaths in the USSR (half of whom were estimated to be killed on impact and the rest fatally injured) before bomber aircraft from the United States' Strategic Air Command reached their targets.
[edit] The Cold War
Though the USSR had nuclear weapon capabilities in the beginning of the Cold War, the US still had a massive advantage in terms of bombers and weapons. In any exchange of hostilities, the US would be easily capable of bombing the USSR, while the USSR would have some difficulty arranging the reverse.
[edit] The 1950s
The widespread introduction of jet-powered interceptor aircraft upset this balance somewhat by reducing the effectiveness of the US bomber fleet. In 1949 Curtis LeMay was placed in command of the Strategic Air Command and instituted a program to update the bomber fleet to one that was all-jet. During the early 1950s the B-47 and B-52 were introduced, providing the ability to bomb the USSR more easily.
Before the development of a capable strategic missile force in the Soviet Union, much of the war-fighting doctrine held by western nations revolved around using a large number of smaller nuclear weapons used in a tactical role. It is arguable if such use could be considered "limited" however, because it was believed that the US would use their own strategic weapons (mainly bombers at the time) should the USSR deploy any kind of nuclear weapon against civilian targets. Douglas MacArthur, an American general, was fired by President Harry Truman, partially because he persistently demanded to conduct a nuclear attack on the People's Republic of China in 1951 (as the Korean War was raging).[1]
Several scares about the increasing ability of the USSR's strategic bomber forces surfaced during the 1950s. The defensive response by the US was to deploy a fairly strong layered defense consisting of interceptor aircraft and anti-aircraft missiles, like the Nike, and guns, like the Skysweeper, near larger cities. However this was a small response compared to the construction of a huge fleet of nuclear bombers. The principal nuclear strategy was to massively penetrate the USSR. Because such a large area could not be defended against this overwhelming attack in any credible way, the USSR would "lose" any exchange.
This logic became ingrained in US nuclear doctrine and persisted for the duration of the Cold War. As long as the strategic US nuclear forces could overwhelm their USSR counterparts, a Soviet preemptive strike could be averted. Moreover, the USSR could not afford to build any reasonable counterforce as the economic output of the United States was far larger than that the Soviets, and they would be unable to achieve nuclear parity.
A revolution in nuclear strategic thought occurred with the introduction of the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which the USSR first successfully tested in May 1957. In order to deliver a warhead to a target, a missile was more cost-effective than a bomber, and enjoyed a higher survivability due to the enormous difficulty (perhaps impossibility) of interception of the ICBMs due to their high altitude and speed. The USSR could now afford to achieve nuclear parity with the US in terms of raw numbers, although for a time they appeared to have chosen not to.
Photos of Soviet missile sites set off a wave of panic in the US military, something the launch of Sputnik would do for the public a few months later. Politicians, notably then-US Senator John Kennedy suggested a "missile gap" between the Soviets and the US. The US military gave missile development programs the highest national priority, and several spy aircraft and reconnaissance satellites were designed and deployed to check on Soviet progress.
[edit] The 1960s
Issues came to a head during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. By placing medium-range nuclear missiles ninety miles from the US--a move considered by many as a direct response to American Jupiter missiles placed in Turkey--the USSR created a scenario that could have easily sparked a full-blown nuclear exchange between the two powers. After intense negotiation, the Soviets ended up removing the missiles from Cuba and decided to institute a massive building program of their own. In exchange, the US dismantled its launch sites in Turkey. By the late 1960s the number of ICBMs and warheads was so high on both sides that either the USA or USSR was capable of completely destroying the other country's infrastructure. Thus a balance of power system known as mutually assured destruction (MAD) came into being. It was thought that any full-scale exchange between the powers could not produce a victorious side and thus neither would risk initiating one.
One drawback of this doctrine was the possibility of a nuclear war occurring without either side intentionally striking first. Early warning systems are notoriously error-prone. On 78 occasions in 1979, for example, a "missile display conference" was called to evaluate detections potentially threatening to the North American continent. Some of these were trivial errors, spotted quickly. But several went to more serious levels. For example, on 26 September 1983, Stanislav Petrov received convincing indications of a US first strike launch against the USSR - but had the instinct that it was a computer error and, contrary to his orders, sat on his hands. Similar incidents happened many times in the US, due to failed computer chips, flights of geese, test programs, bureaucratic failures to notify early warning military men of legitimate launches of test or weather missiles. And for many years, US strategic bombers were kept airborne on a rotating basis round the clock until the sheer number and gravity of accidents persuaded policymakers it was not worth it.
[edit] The 1970s
By the late 1970s, citizens in the US and USSR (and indeed the entire world) had been living with MAD for about a decade. It became deeply ingrained into the popular culture. Such an exchange would have killed many millions of individuals directly and possibly induced a nuclear winter which could have led to the death of a large portion of humanity and certainly the collapse of global civilization.
In May 18, 1974, India conducted its first nuclear test in the Pokhran test range. The name of the operation was Operation Smiling Buddha and termed the test as a "peaceful nuclear explosion".
According to the 1980 United Nations report General and Complete Disarmament: Comprehensive Study on Nuclear Weapons: Report of the Secretary-General, it was estimated that in total there were approximately 40,000 nuclear warheads in existence at that time with a total yield of approximately 13,000 megatons of TNT. By comparison, when the volcano Tambora erupted in 1815 it exploded with a force of roughly 1000 megatons of TNT. Many people believed that a full-scale nuclear war could result in the extinction of the human species, though not all analysts agreed on the assumptions required for these models.
The idea that any nuclear conflict would eventually escalate into MAD was a challenge for military strategists. This challenge was particularly severe for the United States and its NATO allies because it was believed until the 1970s that a Soviet tank invasion of Western Europe would quickly overwhelm NATO conventional forces, leading to the necessity of escalating to theater nuclear weapons.
A number of interesting concepts were developed. Early ICBMs were inaccurate which led to the concept of countervalue strikes -- attacks directly on the enemy population leading to a collapse of the enemy's will to fight. However, it appears that this was the American interpretation of the Soviet stance while the Soviet strategy was never clearly anti-population. During the Cold War the USSR invested in extensive protected civilian infrastructure such as large nuclear proof bunkers and non-perishable food stores. In the US, by comparison, little to no preparations were made for civilians at all, except for the occasional backyard fallout shelter built by private individuals. This was part of a deliberate strategy on the Americans' part that stressed the difference between first and second strike strategies. By leaving their population largely exposed, this gave the impression that the US had no intention of launching a first strike nuclear war, as their cities would clearly be obliterated in the retaliation.
The US also made a point during this period of targeting their missiles on Russian population centers rather than military targets. This was intended to reinforce the second strike pose. If the Soviets attacked first, then there would be no point in destroying empty missile silos that had already launched; the only thing left to hit would be cities. By contrast, if America had gone to great lengths to protect their citizens and targeted the enemy's silos, that might have led the Russians to believe the US was planning a first strike, where they would eliminate Soviet missiles while still in their silos and be able to survive a weakened counter attack in their reinforced bunkers. In this way, both sides were (theoretically) assured that the other would not strike first, and a war without a first strike will not occur.
This strategy had one major and possibly critical flaw, soon realised by military analysts but highly underplayed by the US military: Conventional NATO forces in the European theatre of war were considered to be outnumbered by similar Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces, and while the western countries invested heavily in high-tech conventional weapons to counter this (partly perceived) imbalance, it was assumed that in case of a major Soviet attack (commonly perceived as the 'red tanks rolling towards the North Sea' scenario) that NATO, in the face of conventional defeat, would soon have no other choice but to resort to tactical nuclear strikes. Most analysts agreed that once the first nuclear exchange had occurred, escalation to global nuclear war would become almost inevitable.
So, while official US policy was that nuclear weapons were "weapons of last resort", the reality was that the lack of strength of conventional NATO forces would force the US to either abandon Western Europe or use nuclear weapons in its defense. Official NATO doctrine had been critically flawed from the outset and nuclear war would have been a very real possibility had actual conflict occurred.
This major flaw, although largely ignored by the military community, quickly gathered public interest and many movies and books were based upon this and several other weaknesses in the policy of mutually assured destruction.
As missile technology improved, the emphasis moved to counter-force strikes: ones that directly attacked the enemy's means of waging war. This was the predominant doctrine from the late 1960s onwards. Additionally the development of warheads (at least in the US) moved towards delivering a small explosive force more accurately and with a "cleaner" blast (with fewer long-lasting radioactive isotopes). In any conflict therefore, damage would have been initially limited to military targets, there may well have been 'withholds' for targets near civilian areas. The argument was that the destruction of a city would be a military advantage to the attacked. The enemy had used up weapons and a threat in the destruction while the attacked was relieved of the need to defend the city and still had their entire military potential untouched.
Only if a nuclear conflict were extended into a number of 'spasm' strikes would direct strikes against civilians occur as the more accurate weapons would be expended early; if one side was 'losing', the potential for using less accurate submarine-launched missiles would occur.
[edit] The 1980s
Another major shift in nuclear doctrine was the development of the submarine-based nuclear missile, the SLBM. It was hailed by military theorists as a weapon that would assure a surprise attack, destroying the capability to retaliate, and therefore would make nuclear war less likely.
However, it was soon realised that submarines could 'sneak up' close to enemy coastlines and decrease the 'warning time'- the time between detection of the launch and impact of the missile - from as much as half an hour to under three minutes. This effect was especially significant to the United States, Britain, and China, with their capitals all within 100 miles of their coasts. Moscow was more secure from this type of threat. This greatly increased the credibility of a 'surprise first strike' by one of the factions and theoretically made it possible to knock out or disrupt the chain of command before a counterstrike could be ordered. It strengthened the notion that a nuclear war could be 'won', resulting not only in greatly increased tension but also in a dramatic increase in military spending. The submarines and their missile systems were very expensive (one fully equipped nuclear powered nuclear missile submarine could easily cost more than the entire GNP of a third world nation[citation needed]), but the greatest cost came in the development of both sea- and land-based anti-submarine defenses and in improving and strengthening the chain of command. As a result, military spending skyrocketed.
[edit] The 1990's
Although the collapse of the Soviet Union ended the Cold War and greatly reduced tensions between the United States and Russia, both nations remained in a "nuclear stand-off" due to the continuing presence of a significant number of warheads in both nations. Additionally, the end of the Cold War led the United States to become increasingly concerned with the development of nuclear technology by other nations outside of the former Soviet Union. In 1995, a branch of the U.S. Strategic Command produced an outline of forward-thinking strategies in the document "Essentials of Post-Cold War Deterrence".
[edit] The 2000s
The former chair of the United Nations disarmament committee states there are more than 16,000 strategic and tactical nuclear weapons ready for deployment and another 14,000 in storage. The U.S. has nearly 7,000 ready for action and 3,000 in storage and Russia has about 8,500 on hand and 11,000 in storage, he said. China has 400 nuclear weapons, France 350, Britain 200, Israel 200, India 95 and Pakistan 50. NATO has stationed 480 U.S. nuclear weapons in Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany and Turkey, with several other countries in pursuit of an arsenal of their own (1). It should be noted that while Israel has never confirmed or denied having nuclear weapons, they are widely believed to have the bomb.
A key development in nuclear warfare in the 2000s has been the proliferation of nuclear weapons to the developing world, with Pakistan and India both publicly testing nuclear devices and North Korea conducting an underground nuclear test on October 9, 2006. The U.S. Geological Survery measured a 4.2 magnitude earthquake in the area where the test occured. Iran, meanwhile, has embarked on a nuclear program which, while officially for civilian purposes, has come under scrutiny by the United Nations and individual states.
[edit] Current concerns
With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, conflict between the United States and Russia appears much less likely. Stockpiles of nuclear warheads are being reduced on both sides, and tensions between the two countries have been greatly reduced. The concerns of political strategists have now shifted to other areas of the world.
Current fears of nuclear war are mainly centred around India and Pakistan. The two nations whose majority religions and histories, as well as a territorial dispute in Kashmir and mutual possession of substantial (though probably numbered in dozens rather than thousands) nuclear arsenals makes the situation and subsequently the region extremely volatile and dangerous. Both have fought several wars over the conflict in Kashmir and the region as a whole is considered highly volatile, with conflicts in Afghanistan and the Middle East considerably influencing policy.
Recent studies undertaken by the CIA cite the enduring Indo-Pak conflict as the most likely to escalate into nuclear war. During the Kargil War in 1999, Pakistan came close to using their nuclear weapons in case of further deterioration. (BBC) In fact, Pakistan's foreign minister had even warned that they would "use any weapon in our arsenal," hinting at a nuclear strike against India; the statement was condemned by the international community with Pakistan denying it later on. It remains the only war between two declared nuclear powers - waged atop the highest battlefield on earth.
The 2001-2002 India-Pakistan standoff again stoked fears of nuclear war between the two countries.
There are fears of threat of extremists seizing power and thus controlling the nuclear arsenal of Pakistan. The Pakistani government has disputed these claims, saying that absolute proper measures ensure nuclear safety.
Despite these very serious threats, relations between India and Pakistan have been improving somewhat over the last few years. A bus line directly linking Indian and Pakistani administered Kashmir has recently been established.
Another flashpoint which has analysts worried is a possible conflict between the United States and the People's Republic of China over Taiwan. Although economic forces have decreased the possibility of military conflict, there remains the worry that increasing military buildup and a move toward Taiwan independence could spin out of control.
A third potential flashpoint lies in the Middle East, where Israel is thought to possess between one and four hundred nuclear warheads (this has never been officially confirmed by Israel; however, Mordechai Vanunu, the former nuclear technician on whose 1986 revelations much of the above is based, was kidnapped by Mossad agents from Italy, spent 18 years in detentions on charges of "grave espionage", and is still forbidden to leave Israel and is subject to severe restricitions - which tend to lend credence to what he told the British "Sunday Times".) Further, persistent rumors in the international press (likewise never confirmed by Israel) assert that the submarines which Israel received from Germany have been adapted to carry missiles with nuclear warheads,so as to give Israel a Second strike capacity. Israel has been involved in wars with its neighbours on numerous occasions, and its small geographic size would mean that in the event of future wars the Israeli military might have very little time to react to a future invasion or other major threat; the situation could escalate to nuclear warfare very quickly in some scenarios. In addition, the fact that Iran appears to many observers to be in the process of developing a nuclear weapon has heightened fears of a nuclear conflict in the Middle East, either with Israel or with Iran's Sunni neighbours.
[edit] Sub-strategic use
The above examples envisage nuclear warfare at a strategic level, i.e. total war. The United Kingdom has a declared policy of sub-strategic nuclear strikes, in which case a limited strike would be carried out. British missile submarines now carry a number of missiles with only one variable-yield warhead, allowing a strike as low as 1 kiloton against a single target. Former Defence Secretary Malcolm Rifkind described this as a deterrence against harm to the UK's vital interests. Rifkind argued that following the end of the Cold War aggressors may believe the threat of a strategic nuclear attack to be bluff, and that a policy of a more limited strike would ensure that the nuclear deterrent had credibility.
This sub-strategic policy, and the related potential for a new generation of limited yield battlefield nuclear weapons from the United States alarms anti-nuclear groups who believe it will make the use of nuclear weapons more acceptable.
[edit] Nuclear terrorism
Some have conjectured on the possibility that rogue states such as Iran or North Korea may acquire or manufacture nuclear weapons and use them to attack a foe indirectly through terrorism. The recent testing of a nuclear explosive device by North Korea makes this scenario possible.
Nuclear terrorism by non-state organizations may be more likely, as states possessing nuclear weapons are susceptible to retaliation in kind. Geographically-dispersed and mobile terrorist organizations are not so easy to discourage by the threat of retaliation. Furthermore, while the collapse of the Soviet Union ended the Cold War, it greatly increased the risk that former Soviet nuclear weapons might become available on the black market. Indeed, it has been alleged that several suitcase size bombs might have become available. Using such a weapon as a foundation, a terrorist might even create a salted bomb capable of dispersing radioactive contamination over a large area, killing a greater number of people than the explosion itself. A similar threat exists with so-called dirty bombs.
Taking a different tack, South Africa declared after its transition from an apartheid regime that it had in fact produced about six crude nuclear weapons as a 'last-resort' weapon against an envisioned race war, but that they have now been destroyed. In fact, the development laboratories and storage facilities have now become a sight-seeing tour.
[edit] See also
- Essentials of Post-Cold War Deterrence
- Deterrence theory
- World War III
- Nuclear weapons in popular culture
- Weapons of mass destruction
- Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice concerning legality of nuclear weapons
- Square Leg — a British study on the effects of nuclear war from 1980
- Nuclear War (card game)
- No first use policy
- Doomsday clock
- Hawthorn, Wiltshire — an immense nuclear bunker in the UK
- List of songs about nuclear war
- Survival Under Atomic Attack
[edit] External links and references
- The Effects of Nuclear War (1979) — handbook produced by the United States Office of Technology Assessment (hosted by the Federation of American Scientists)
- Nuclear War Survival Skills (1979/1987) — handbook produced by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (use menu at left to navigate)
- Nuclear News at HavenWorks.com
- 20 Mishaps That Might Have Started Accidental Nuclear War by Alan F. Philips, M.D.
- US Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations
- Nuclear Files.org Interactive Timeline of the Nuclear Age
- Iranian Nuclear Timeline
- DeVolpi, Alexander, Vladimir E. Minkov, Vadim A. Simonenko, and George S. Stanford. 2004. Nuclear Shadowboxing: Contemporary Threats from Cold War Weaponry, Vols. 1 and 2. Fidlar Doubleday.
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