A frightening conclusion... The New York Times: The risk of a nuclear conflict is increasing

An atomic bomb test over the ocean (Getty)

The New York Times published a lengthy article by the writer specializing in national security affairs, W.J. Hennigan, as part of its investigations into the growing threat of a nuclear war in the world.

The writer warned that despite the small size of many of the new generation weapons - compared to the two nuclear bombs that the United States dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of the World War in 1945 - their destructive power is more deadly than conventional weapons, which constitutes a threat whose outcome is difficult to predict.

He said that new weapons loom over the battlefields in Ukraine, and other places where the next war may break out, such as the Persian Gulf, the Taiwan Strait and the Korean Peninsula.

He pointed out that he based his article on research, studies, and hundreds of hours of interviews with people who lived the experience of detonating an atomic bomb, and devoted their lives to studying the possibilities of a nuclear war or planning for the aftermath of the disaster.

If the prediction of the horror of the catastrophe caused by a nuclear attack seems frightening - as the article confirms - the governments of the United States and Ukraine have been planning for this scenario for at least more than two years.

Preparations in Ukraine

US intelligence services issued an assessment in 2022 in which they concluded that the chances of Russia launching a nuclear attack to stop the advance of Ukrainian forces if they violated its defenses in the Crimean Peninsula were equal.

In preparation for the worst case scenario, American officials rushed to transfer supplies to Europe, according to the article, which did not reveal their nature.

The writer stated that Ukraine has installed hundreds of radiation detection devices around cities and power stations, as well as more than a thousand small portable monitoring devices sent to it by the United States.

Ukraine has identified nearly 200 hospitals in the country for its citizens to go to in the event of a nuclear attack, and has subjected thousands of doctors and nursing staff to training on how to respond to and treat cases of radiation exposure.

It also stored millions of potassium iodide tablets throughout the country, which are drugs that protect the thyroid gland from picking up radioactive materials related to cancer.

But long before that - and specifically only 4 days after Russia's invasion of Ukraine - the administration of US President Joe Biden directed a small group of experts and strategists, dubbed the "Tiger Team", which was assigned the task of drafting new nuclear "guidelines" related to contingency plans and responses.

With the help of experts working in the fields of intelligence, military, and policy-making, the team studied emergency preparedness plans that have been in place for years, models of exposure to the effects of weapons, and escalation scenarios, and worked to dust off materials that were long believed to have faded and were no longer relevant in the era of combating terrorism and war. Cyber, and prepare it for use again.

Heneghan revealed that the aforementioned instruction booklet - which was coordinated by the US National Security Council - is located in Eisenhower's executive office next to the West Wing of the White House.

The booklet contains an updated and detailed list of diplomatic and military options for President Biden and any future US president to implement in the event of a nuclear attack in Ukraine.

The writer says that the most important part of this booklet includes a “frightening” conclusion, which is that a nuclear attack is now more likely than at any time since the Cold War era, which was unthinkable in any modern conflict.

A senior administration official and member of the Tiger Team - who he did not name - was quoted as saying: “We spent 30 years during which we were completely successful in keeping the genie in the bottle.”

Although America and Russia have greatly reduced their nuclear arsenals since the height of the Cold War, the Biden administration official said that “the nuclear threat is now at the forefront.”

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin drew the world's attention to this existential threat when he publicly warned of nuclear war if NATO increased its involvement in Ukraine.

In his article, the writer provided details - which he said were revealed for the first time - about the danger of nuclear escalation in Ukraine, which remained a concern for the Biden administration throughout the escalation of the conflict in that country.

Although this danger may worry officials in Washington and Kiev, most countries in the world have barely given the impression of understanding this threat.

Perhaps this is because - in Heneghan's opinion - an entire generation came of age in the post-Cold War world, when the prevailing belief was that a nuclear war was firmly behind us.

Despite the nuclear threat that Putin made last week, few people believe that the Russian president will wake up one day and decide to launch nuclear warheads weighing millions of tons at Washington and European capitals "in retaliation for their support for Ukraine."

The US nuclear strike on Hiroshima left 120,000 dead and caused massive destruction (Getty Images)

Western allies believe that the most likely possibility is that Russia will use what is called a "tactical nuclear weapon" with less destructive power and designed to strike targets at short distances that eliminate military units on the battlefield.

The strategic hypothesis - according to the New York Times article - is that these weapons cause much less damage than hydrogen bombs that destroy cities, and are therefore more usable in wars.

The United States estimates that Russia has a stockpile of up to 2,000 tactical nuclear warheads, some of which are so small that they can be installed in an artillery shell.

Deterrence doctrine

However, the detonation of any tactical nuclear weapon would be an unprecedented test of the doctrine of deterrence, which the writer says is a theory that American military policy has been adopting over the past 70 years.

This doctrine provides for preventing adversaries from launching a nuclear attack against the United States - or against more than 30 of its allies - because they would risk being subjected to an overwhelming counterattack.

The writer goes on to quote paragraphs from that doctrine, which holds that possessing nuclear weapons has nothing to do with winning a nuclear war, but rather with preventing its outbreak, as the matter depends on a “studied balance of terror” between nuclear states.

The accumulation of dangerous and expensive weapons pushed Washington and Moscow to the brink of confrontation, before the gradual return of warmth in relations between the two countries led to a mutual reduction of their arsenals.

Two questions

What if Putin dropped a nuclear weapon on Ukraine?

How can we reduce the risk of an attack of this type turning into a global catastrophe if the deterrence policy fails?

Heneghan says the answer to both questions may be found in the fall of 2022, when fears of Russia using its nuclear weapons in Ukraine were clear and tangible.

At that time, Ukraine in a lightning attack regained territory from the Russians in the northeastern Kharkiv region.

The Ukrainians were on the verge of breaching Russian defenses in the southern city of Kherson, which could lead to another Russian withdrawal that could herald an impending military collapse on a broader scale.

Hennigan: The United States is in the process of manufacturing new nuclear warheads for the first time since 1991, as part of a decades-long program to reform its nuclear force at a cost estimated at about two trillion dollars.

The author of the article attributes to senior officials in the Biden administration that the US intelligence assessment is based on the fact that if the Ukrainian army was able to penetrate the Russian defenses, and was on its way to the Crimean Peninsula, where the Russian Black Sea Fleet is based, the matter would turn into speculation as to whether Russia would launch... Tactical nuclear bomb or not.

The New York Times article revealed that Biden's aides spent sleepless nights for nearly a week coordinating high-level talks and planning for the worst-case scenario, which was the detonation of a small nuclear device inside Ukrainian territory with a force weighing a few thousand tons or less.

The writer explained that the diplomatic efforts made by the US administration with the leaders of several countries - including China, India, and Turkey - to explain to Putin the high cost that he would incur if he launched a nuclear attack.

The article concluded that a nuclear explosion in Ukraine or the Gaza Strip would exacerbate the conflict and cause significant human losses.

If nuclear deterrence - however flawed the concept - is to succeed, transparency regarding states' capabilities becomes critical, and without better communication the risk of rapid escalation and miscalculation will increase.

Heneghan pointed out that the United States is in the process of manufacturing new nuclear warheads for the first time since 1991, as part of a decades-long program to reform its nuclear force at a cost estimated at about two trillion dollars.

Source: New York Times