Nuclear warfare

This article is about nuclear war as a form of actual warfare, including history. For the card game, see Nuclear War (card game).

Nuclear war, or atomic war, is war 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. Today the term usually refers to confrontations in which opposing sides are both armed with nuclear arms.

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 dwarf 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.

History

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Hiroshima to Semipalatinsk

The United States is the only nation to have ever used nuclear power offensively, having used two atomic weapons on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. For more information, see Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

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. The possibility of an actual nuclear attack on the US was considered somewhat remote because of the nuclear disparity between itself and other nations. Instead, many strategists were fearful that a rogue general would launch an unauthorized attack on the Soviet Union as suggested in the novels Fail-Safe and Red Alert. To assuage this fear, the US placed its nuclear weapons under the control of a new, separate agency named The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). In the event of a war, the Strategic Air Command (or SAC) bombers would be moved to AEC bases to be loaded with bombs in a process that would likely have taken several days.

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. Simultaneously, there was some discussion about placing the AEC's arsenal under international control or placing limits on its development.

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 were Theodore Hall and 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 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. Throughout the Cold War, the European Community relied heavily on French nuclear forces to defend Western Europe in the event of a ground invasion by Soviet forces. A crucial difference between American and Western European policy, though, was that European states were far more reluctant to deploy their nuclear forces in the event of war^{[citation needed]}. In Britain, government policy throughout the Cold War was dictated by the maxim "Better Red Than Dead"^{[citation needed]}; that an invasion and occupation by the Soviet Union was preferable to nuclear annihilation^{[citation needed]}. Even though the United Kingdom and France each possessed several hundred thermonuclear bombs by the mid 1960s, and despite the fact that conventional European armies would be swamped by Soviet tank forces, and despite the popular assumption that the USSR would fire nuclear missiles at London and Paris the moment that war was declared^{[citation needed]}, public opinion and government policy determined that in the event of war with the USSR, nuclear devices were only to be used as the ultimate last resort, and that a surrender to the USSR was far preferable to full-scale nuclear war in Europe^{[citation needed]}.

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.

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 the Soviet 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.

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.

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.

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 counter-city 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 a clearly stated 'non first-use policy', never to strike first with nuclear weapons, 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. Even though investigations after the Soviet collapse by historians and military analysts revealed that the efficiency of Warsaw Pact forces had been significantly overstated, 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.

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 would not destroy 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, as nuclear powers with their capitals are 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' and this resulted 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), 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.

In 1984, Soviet official Stanislav Petrov single-handedly prevented nuclear war between the United States and Soviet Union.

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).

Information as of 2006: North Korea has expressed its intent to acquire nuclear capability, which has resulted in highly strained relations between it and much of the rest of the world, especially the United States, which has labelled it a "rogue state".

Information as of 2006: Iran also has designs on nuclear technology, but maintains that its projects are aimed at civilian applications such as nuclear electricity generation.

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 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.

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 (although this has never been officially confirmed by Israel). 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.

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. 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 a more acceptable part of a country's arsenal.

Nuclear terrorism

Some have conjectured on the possibility that US-labeled "rogue states" such as Iran, Iraq or North Korea may acquire or manufacture nuclear weapons and use them to attack a foe indirectly through terrorism.

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.

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
DeVolpi, Alexander, Vladimir E. Minkov, Vadim A. Simonenko, and George S. Stanford. 2004. Nuclear Shadowboxng: Contemporary Threats from Cold War Weaponry, Vols. 1 and 2. Fidlar Doubleday.