Once again there is a lot of loose talk about the possibility, and practicality of nuclear war — in northern Europe, the Middle East, and maybe even the United States. “There is serious concern now that the old theories of deterrence are failing, and nuclear war is now a viable concept,’ a senior Whitehall official confided to me this week.
Dimitri Medvedev, deputy chair of the Russian Security Council, has warned that if a Nato power, meaning Britain, America or France, permitted the use of its weapons for Ukraine to strike deep into Russia, then Russia would feel entitled to reply with nuclear weaponry. This is a change in Russia’s “nuclear doctrine” against striking first with nukes — a central plank nuclear deterrence back in the Cold War of 1946 to 1989.
The Nato alliance, with France, Britain and the USA as the three nuclear powers, the Warsaw Pact led by the Russian Soviet Union worked on the theory of MAD — Mutually Assured Destruction. Both sides believed that if they launched a nuclear strike, the reply would come in a nuclear attack of such devastation that would amount to a total wipe out of the state and large parts of the community. The drift of fall-out particles would condemn much of the planet to a nuclear winter.
In the spirit of MAD Britain maintains, and is updating at huge cost, its Trident Missile submarine fleet, led by HMS Vanguard. Each of the four boats takes take turns to undertake long stealth patrols for months, undetected and ready to strike. This is known as CASD, the continuous at sea deterrent. America and France have a triad of weapons, submarine — launched inter-continental ballistic missiles, aerial bombs and missiles, and ground artillery with nuclear shells and rockets.
There is growing fear that Russia, along with China and North Korea, is about to add a fourth element to the triad of weaponry — in space. All three are known to have discussed putting a nuclear weapon into space. Already the creeping weaponisation of space is under way — with China, Russia and possibly Iran experimenting with attack satellites. Russia and Iran have had linked satellite porgramems for decades, and this year Iran put more military satellites into orbit — communicating through Musk’s Starlink.
Russia could be about to withdraw from the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which affirms space is for all nations and for peaceful purposes, and should not be militarised. Vladimir Putin has withdrawn Russia from the two principal arms control treaties of the Cold War, the Intermediate Nuclear and European Conventional Forces Treaties. Russia has been slow to resume a new Strategic Arms Treaty, restricting long range weaponry. Two weeks ago in London I asked General Stephen Whiting, Head of US Space Command, if the US thought Putin would scrap the Outer Space Treaty: “I’m afraid we do,” he replied.
Dr Strangelove — the musical — is coming to the London stage next month... a message for our time
The US and Soviet Russia came close to nuclear war a dozen times through the Cold War, most notably in the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962. That summer the CIA detected preparations for Russian missiles to be deployed on Cuba, and aimed at the heart of the United States. The twelve day standoff took place as ships carrying missiles from Russia approached Cuban waters. President Jack Kennedy, with astonishingly adroit diplomacy, managed to talk Nikita Kruschev down into withdrawing the missiles — America agreeing to pull back its own missiles form Turkey at the same time.
One of the hairiest moments came on 26 September 1983 when the Russian early warning system Oko reported the launch of an American intercontinental missile, with four behind it. Stanislav Petrov, an engineer on duty in the early warning command centre, immediately suspected a false alarm, and wisely awaited corroboration before informing the authorities. He was later praised, and then blamed for not filing correct paperwork.
Today there are nine officially declared nuclear military powers to the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty, but it is the growing number of undeclared that worries senior officials in Whitehall and the Pentagon. “We have the undeclared like Israel, and threshold nations like Iran, and quite a few more,” says one of the most senior civil servants involved.
The most celebrated satire on what happens when the logical madness of MAD and nuclear deterrence goes wrong is Dr Strangelove — Or How I learned to Give up Worrying and Love the Bomb. The nightmare of a nuclear strike was brilliantly concocted by Stanley Kubrick and Peter Sellers, who plays three parts, and Peter George who based the lunacy of mistaken commands on his experience in World War II fighters.
This year Annie Jacobsen’s new book, Nuclear War — how the Strangelove scenario could happen for real today — topped the best seller lists. “For decades, people were under the assumption that the nuclear threat ended when the Berlin wall went down,” she says. It didn’t.
And Dr Strangelove — the musical — is coming to the London stage next month, with Steve Coogan reviving the Peter Sellers role. A message for our time, maybe, as Israel contemplates bombing Iran’s nuclear sites before they can build bigger, better and more usable, nukes.
