War on Ukraine: Nuclear threats and realities

Dr Beyza Unal

Hello, everybody. My name is Beyza Unal. I’m the Deputy Director in the International Security Programme at Chatham House. You’re joining our event on War on Ukraine: Nuclear Threats and Realities. I am with three speakers today, virtually. Before we start the discussion, I would like to inform you about a few things about the housekeeping. The event is on the record, and you can tweet this event by using the #ChathamHouseCHEvents, and throughout the event you can use the Q&A function to put your question directly to the speakers. I’ll go through them as much as possible. I might also ask you to unmute yourself if you would like to speak directly as well.

We’re hoping to keep the remarks very short, so that we can come up to the questions directly, so please put those questions as you think of them. We are into the 28th day of the Russian war in – on Ukraine, I believe, and from the start of the war we had seen a number of threats emerging, elements of conventional warfare, urban warfare, disinformation campaigns, small-scale cyberattacks, I will say, but also nuclear threats.

There are a number of issues to speak when it comes to nuclear threats. I think the initial one has been the Russian nuclear signalling on the nuclear weapons policy side, Putin’s signals, threats of use of nuclear weapons at the very start, and then recently, we had seen the use of the notion of existential threat. We will all come to that – those points. So, there are questions around potential use of nuclear weapons, but also, I believe, on the nuclear scale, again Belarus changing its constitution on February 28th, the recent referendum in Belarus approved a new constitution of the union state between Russia and Belarus, and one of the provisions allowed Russia to place nuclear weapons in Belarus. That causes, of course, questions around European security and where we are going to take the arms control forward in the long run.

And then I think a third point is really about the future of nuclear non-proliferation. The war in Ukraine gives false hopes and considerations, I believe, to some countries in the developing world especially, having nuclear weapons or being in the nuclear umbrella as being the safe bet to prevent any type of attack in their country, so, where would that take us in the future?

A fourth point that I’m seeing also is related to Russia-engineered disinformation campaigns around Ukraine developing nuclear weapons. A fifth point really is about safety and security of civil nuclear powerplants, which we’re going to talk about again. And I guess the sixth point, which is a general one that I’m seeing, is Russia’s extreme risk-taking and recklessness in war and including against nuclear targets, civil nuclear powerplants and so on.

To discuss all of these issues and many more, I believe, in detail, we have three fantastic speakers. We have Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman, Emeritus Professor of War Studies at King College, London. We have Dr Pavel Podvig, Senior Researcher at Russian Nuclear Forces Project, and Dr Patricia Lewis, Research Director in the International Security Programme at Chatham House.

Without further ado, I think I would like to first turn to Pavel, if I may. Pavel, you have been studying Russian nuclear forces for a very long time. Can you talk us a little bit about the nuclear forces in general, and also how close are we for a nuclear use scenario, what is Putin’s nuclear strategy? Please, go ahead.

Dr Pavel Podvig

Okay. Well, thanks for inviting me to speak here. Thanks, everyone, for coming. It is indeed quite unusual that the nuclear weapons were, kind of, brought in, into this conflict in a very explicit manner. In the very beginning, in the address that announced the beginning of that Special Operation, the war, President Putin specifically mentioned the “Consequences that you’ve never seen in your history,” to those who would try to intervene, and that was a direct reference to nuclear weapons. And again that was, kind of, confirmed, as if to make sure that the message got through, a few days later with this announcement of the special mode of combat duty, which was interpreted as a higher state of alert, which is not exactly the case. But it is important to remember that Russia has around 1,000 weapons that are constantly in a high state of alert. These are warheads on intercontinental ballistic missiles and those submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Those are ready to go in minutes, so that’s the – that’s always with us.

What this special mode meant was not entirely clear, but it appears that Russia, kind of, prepared, made its command and control system more – less vulnerable and more survivable and, in a way, sending a signal that, “You don’t even try to attack us.”

In terms of physical actions, though, it appears that there was nothing there, in the sense that steps that would indicate the really heightened state of alert were not taken, and even with the strategic forces, those ICBMs and SLBMs, and Russia also has a fairly large arsenal of non-strategic weapons. Those are bombs or cruise missiles or short-range ballistic missiles, and those are normally not deployed, in the sense that there are no Iskander missiles, kind of, roaming around with the nuclear warheads on them, and there are no aircraft sitting on tarmac ready to take off, so that’s the – it’s – they are removed from – weapons are removed from the delivery system. So, it would take – they could be deployed, of course, but it would take certain steps and visible steps to approve that matter. And, as I understand, that’s – that hasn’t been done, nobody has seen any action there. So there is no – strictly speaking, there is no, like, button on the table that someone could push and order a launch, so, that does – so, the messaging was largely political.

The question that many people are asking, especially in – more recently, is, “Could Russia – would Russia use its weapons to whatever purpose in this conflict?” And the purpose is actually is a very important question, because we should keep in mind that there is no such thing as a non-strategic weapon, and that any use of a strategic weapon – and I think it was Defense Secretary Mattis who said that so explicitly: “Any use of a nuclear weapon would be strategic, that would be – the intent would be to change the strategic course of the conflict,” whatever that means. And also, we should keep in mind that nuclear weapons are not really good military – for military missions. They are virtually no military missions that could be addressed with nuclear weapons. They – what they are good at is – put it bluntly, killing people, and – or, at the very least showing, demonstrating the willingness to kill a lot of people, and that’s the – again, this is the strategy.

So, from that standpoint, it is important to, again, to see that any talk about use of nuclear weapons in this conflict, for whatever purpose, should be considered as exactly – as a signal, an attempt to actually kill a lot of civilians, and that should, kind of, shape our understanding of the nuclear weapons’ role in this conflict. Thanks.

Dr Beyza Unal

Amazing, thank you very much, Pavel. I would like to turn to Lawrie to hear a bit of your assessment on the issue. What does the whole situation tell us about escalation dynamics, risks, dangers, and how does Russia, do you think, see all of this, and what does existential threat means? Thanks.

Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman

I’ll – and I think Pavel’s set the scene very well, I wouldn’t want to add anything to what he’s said or – let alone contradict it. Look, the purpose of nuclear threats is, and hopefully will remain, deterrent. The aim was to say to the West, “Stay away, don’t get involved. Don’t get directly involved,” because obviously the West is very involved now as a supplier of the Ukraine, but it’s not directly involved with its own forces. So, they – Putin said, when he launched the invasion, “Foreigners, don’t interfere,” and that was the point of the statement on the 27th. He referred to “Deterrent forces,” and they worked, NATO was deterred.

President Biden has made it – excuse me – President Biden has already made it clear that there wasn’t going to be a no-fly zone. There were a lot of arguments about how useful one would have been anyway, but whether one would have been useful or not, Russ – the NATO forces have been clear, they’re not going to get into direct fights with Russian forces, and that’s because of the risk of escalation.

I think, given the way the war has developed and the way that Russia has acted against civilian targets, I think, in other circumstances, NATO would have got involved, and you can already see, in the US and elsewhere, the argument being put that, you know, “We shouldn’t let this concern about nuclear escalation stop us helping people in need, which is democracy versus autocracy, and we should be on the side of the Democrats.” So, I think that those arguments would have been even more powerful, without the nuclear threats. I mean, that’s leading aside the fact that, you know, a lot of this whole – or the background to this issue, part of it, is the question of membership of NATO, and the whole thing also demonstrates the difference between being part of an alliance and not being part of an alliance, and Ukraine, as we know, isn’t part of an alliance. So, to that extent, Putin achieved his objective, which I think probably, even if he hadn’t said very much, that would have been the view of Western decision-makers.

You then get to the question of – this is – despite all of this, this is a war that’s going badly for Russia. Whatever happens now, you know, the two-day campaign that many were anticipating hasn’t happened. They haven’t even seized major cities yet. Their logistics is in a mess, and command and control’s in a mess, morale’s low. There are some signs of Ukrainian counter-offensives and so on. If this get – turns from being, you know, merely embarrassing to humiliating, what are the Russians going to do to – what is Putin going to authorise to try to reverse the situation? And, you know, he doesn’t have that many options. We’ve had the, sort of, gimmicky use of hypersonic weapons, which is weapons that go very fast, but this kind doesn’t go very fast, I mean, it’s not a – they’re not a gamechanger.

Belarusians coming in, Chechens coming in: these are not going to make a big difference. I mean, if Russia wants to turn this round, they’ve got to sort out their logistics, and their tactics, and their command, and their air power and so on, and that may be difficult. So, that’s why, as Pavel mentioned, the issue of tactical nuclear weapons, or something else like chemical or biological or so on, has been raised. But these are very difficult iss – weapons to use on the battlefield. I mean, the Russians didn’t use them in Syria, the Syrians used them in Syria against civilian populations, but – and almost – you know, might have brought the Americans into the war by doing so. But there were plenty of ways other than that that they had for killing and terrorising civilians, and they don’t – I don’t think they can make much of a difference on the battlefield, not least because it’s hard to contain their effects when you’ve got forces close to each other.

So, I don’t see it as being a likely development, but we always, in every discussion of this, will keep on coming back to President Putin’s state of mind, and his grasp of the situation that he’s put his country into, and how determined he would be to avoid that humiliation. So, I mean, that’s an issue – I don’t really see nuclear weapons as getting him out of the problem he’s created, but we spend a lot of time puzzling about what’s going on in Putin’s head.

Dr Beyza Unal

Thank you very much, Lawrie. It’s really hard to estimate Putin’s thinking, and I think uncertainty always prevails at the end on these issues, unfortunately. Patricia, I’ll turn to you next. Perhaps you can bring some nuance between the attacks to civilian nuclear powerplants versus nuclear weapons use type of scenario, and to please add in any discussion that you think that is important. Thanks.

Dr Patricia Lewis

Thanks, Beyza, and it’s great to see everybody on this call, and it’s such an important thing. I thought I’d just start by talking about the difference between an attack on a civil nuclear installation, like a reactor or a spent fuel pond, versus a nuclear weapons explosion, and they’re two very different things. I think that’s the important thing to get across, they’re not equivalent.

If a missile were to breach the coverings, and it’s not clear that they would, they are reinforced against, for example, an aeroplane crash, but, say, a missile were to breach the coverings of a spent fuel facility or a reactor, you would get a release of radioactive material and debris into the atmosphere, which would spread and would result in increased cancer risk over decades for people in Europe, for example.

A nuclear weapons explosion, depending where it was detonated, would, you know, instantaneously kill the people in quite a wide radius of the explosion, plus a lot of prompt radiation, a lot of fires, enormous winds, huge damage to people and buildings, sort of, flatten the city. You’ve all seen pictures of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and it would be probably worse, depending on the size of the explosion and, of course, how many people were in the area. And then there would be long-term radiation of a different type, a, sort of, fallout radiation that would also spread around Europe, so you – the long-term effects from both would be an increased risk in cancers throughout Europe, but the explosion itself, a nuclear weapons explosion is far worse than a reactor ex – being hit.

So, I just wanted to say that I think one of the things that might be going on in talk of chemical, biological weapons, and we’ve also heard talk about dirty bombs and taking of radioactive materials from Chernobyl, for example, is the possibility of there being a so-called false flag. You know, “Ukraine has this, Ukraine did this, therefore we need to retaliate in some way.” That’s one of the scenarios we can think of, and I think that’s really important to think about. And then I’d like to, you know, take up where Lawrie was going about what has worked here, in terms of nuclear deterrence.

It’s quite clear that Russia has not been deterred by NATO’s nuclear weapons in invading Ukraine. We don’t know yet whether there would be any deterrent effect in taking it further, and we’re clearly – NATO is clearly deterred in assisting Ukraine directly, other than through weapon supplies and other support. So, nuclear weapons are having an impact in this conflict anyway, and I think that’s a really important thing to say. So, one of the reasons, and I’m going to throw this out there. It may sound a bit strange, but let me throw it out there. I think it’s to do with Western values, and I think this is a moment where we really need to think about those. So, if we look at what Western countries have done, in terms of getting rid of chemical weapons, getting rid of biological weapons, getting rid of landmines, getting rid of cluster munitions, etc., these are all about the humanitarian impact of these weapons, and that countries that consider themselves to be – to have human rights values, civilised values, values of concern for fellow human beings, do not use them. They are, you know, “Unacceptable harm weapons,” this is what we might call them, and I think nuclear weapons fall into that category.

So what we’re seeing here is another type of thinking coming from a country that would at least threaten to use them. So, the question is, “Is Russia going to go down that route of being – of using inhumane weapons, which they’re doing with thermobaric weapons, cluster munitions, etc., or will they be able to reset their thinking about weapons use and who they want to be as a society? And I think that’s really important, as we go forward, from whatever comes out of this.

Dr Beyza Unal

Thank you very much, Patricia. So, I think this is a really interesting discussion that we’re having here on the – first of all, on the civil nuclear side, on the nuclear weapons side, but there is a – I think what I’m hearing is, we do not always agree with each other on the potential use of nuclear weapons as well, whether there is a very low likelihood, or whether there could be any chance of use. So, that is also interesting, although all of us come from the nuclear field, we all have different perspectives on the issue.

I think a question that we need to also think about is from the Western side, are we being self-deterred, are we being – putting that, like, self-restraint, you can call it, or self-deterrent from the very beginning of the war? And, for instance, why the West can’t, for instance, send fighter jets, but they could send missile defence systems, you know. Offence/defence relationship, from the Cold War thinking, I think, carries out in today’s agenda as well.

Is there a line that, you know, Russia or Putin has already mentioned, whether fighter jets are off, and I – that I didn’t hear of? Do we know for sure that offensive – any type of offensive capabilities, or any form of offensive capability would escalate the war into the nuclear realm? So, you know, there is a bit of self-restraint, self-deterrence going on, I think, within the Western side of it, so, it would be really interesting to hear a bit about your views on this. Did we forget about how deterrents work?

From the very beginning, Biden and NATO stating that they would not help Ukraine, they would not get into Ukraine. Was that part of deterrence? If so, it’s clearly failed. So, you know, those questions, I think, would be really interesting, if any one of you would like to touch on that, and then I’m going to turn to the questions that are coming through. I think we have around ten, 11 questions as well. Pavel or Lawrie, do you want to talk about – a little bit about the deterrence side of the things on the West’s – did we fail, do you think, at the beginning, or are we still failing, on the deterrence side? Or Patricia, you as well.

Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman

Well, I mean, I don’t think – you know, the point is that an alliance is – if you’re out of it, you don’t get the same protection as if you’re in it, and which is why the Ukrainians wanted to be in it, and, you know, the Georgians had the same problem in 2008. But the Estonians haven’t been attacked, and we’ll see what – despite what Medvedev said the other day about Poland, I don’t think they’re going to be attacked either. So, deterrence – you know, and to use the term that you mentioned, Beyza, right at the start, in existential terms, direct threats to states, deterrence works. Whether that led Biden and others to be too cautious is a different question. I don’t – you know, in terms of sending offensive weapons, which basically mean capable aircraft in, this has been discussed, but you could only send weapons that the Ukrainians could use, and that leads you essentially to old Soviet-type kit. And I don’t think that’s ruled out, I think we’ve just found it very difficult to work out the logistics and the practicalities, and I think they probably have thought too much about whether this is political signalling, as opposed to just whether it’s a way of helping the Ukrainians.

There are stories today that the Ukrainians are getting pretty anxious about supplies from the West, but what they really need still are anti-tank and air defence weapons, artillery, ordnance. I mean, this is the basic stuff that they’ll keep their campaign going. Their air force has done actually remarkably well with very few planes so far. So, I think that you can get too bound up with the signalling. I think that would be one lesson, that you can think small things matter because they cross some sort of line, more than they do. You know, nuclear weapons are blunt inst – to say the least, blunt instruments, and they’re geared to big scenarios, and that would be clearly Western forces entering the war against and fighting directly. That’s a big deal, other things less so, you know, Russian forces.

Now, take an example. Let’s say there’s an attempt to interdict supplies coming in from Poland or wherever by Russian forces, and they stray over the border. Does that launch a nuclear war? No, it doesn’t. I mean, you’d be saying, “Don’t do that again, and if you do that” – and there’s – if you feel you’re going to have to escalate, there’s ways of doing it without going to all-out nuclear war. So – but it requires pretty, sort of, steady nerves, and I think as this war gets more tense and emotional, given what’s happened, the risks do grow. But I think, you know, so far we’ve shown that there is possible – I would say, possibly to do too much, in terms of being nuanced about it, rather than just being, sort of – throwing oneself into a, sort of, crazy nuclear fray.

Dr Beyza Unal

Patricia, I saw your hand first, then I’ll come to Pavel.

Dr Patricia Lewis

Thanks, Beyza. I got there first, Pavel. So, just very quickly to extend on Lawrie’s really thoughtful remarks, you know, you said that “Nuclear weapons are a blunt instrument and designed for big scenarios,” and indeed they were, for the Cold War, and it was a very different time. So, here we are now in a situation where we have a very different scenario than they were first, originally designed for, and we have, as you rightly say, a sort of – the risks increase, in terms of the mayhem, the fog of war, you know, the decision-making, the uncertainty as to who’s in charge as things go on, all sorts – you can imagine, all sorts of things. And in the meantime, we’ve got somebody who – whose theory of mind we’re really struggling to understand, right? We’ve seen this before, we’ve seen this with Kim Jong-un. I would say we had discussions about it with President Trump. We’re seeing a rise of these, sort of, so-called “Strong men.” I think they’re probably not strong, but for all sorts of reasons, but, you know, they are – we’ve got ourselves in a situation with these weapons that are very blunt instruments, that go bang very bigly, and they do terrible things. But are they really fit for today’s situation, is the question, and I’d really like us perhaps as we go forward, Beyza, in the discussion and with the questions, to think about how we go forward with thinking about these weapons and what we’ve learned from this.

Dr Pavel Podvig

Yeah.

Dr Beyza Unal

Pavel.

Dr Pavel Podvig

If I may, I – a couple of things about the alliances and the utility, and that I would actually argue that it’s not about Ukraine being or not being a part of NATO. Yes, of course, it is not being in NATO doesn’t extend this nuclear umbrella over Ukraine, but on the other hand – and if you have conversations with people in the Eastern NATO states, they worry and they actually – they do not feel particularly safe under this nuclear umbrella of NATO. So, in effect, what we have, we have this, kind of – as I usually say, the worst of all worlds, because what we see – and we see that nuclear weapons are actively being used to shield an aggressor from – in pretty blunt aggression, and they don’t really offer much of a protection to those who seem to rely on those weapons for their security.

And on top of that, we do have a chance, however small, of this being – escalating into a really serious nuclear exchange. I would agree with Lawrie that it’s – you know, it’s not like, yeah, some kind of incident would immediately trigger something nuclear. But I do worry about those escalation, kind of, ladders, if you will, because, yes, it could start with a small action, this is – could go farther. It could end up with the conventional exchanges and/or attacks on territories. And then the issue is that we don’t know where the red lines are.

You look at the Russian doctrine and it says, they – “Yeah, the nuclear weapons could be used if the very existence of the state is in danger.” Which is perfectly fine, but then, the thing to keep in mind, that that – all that interpretation of what is the threat, what is existential, what is danger, that interpretation would be done in the Kremlin and not in Brussels or in Washington DC. And, I don’t know, I mean, it could be interpreted very, kind of, widely, and so, I do believe that there is this, kind of, a deterrence effect that the nuclear weapons have, and I don’t think that in fact they, as I said, they offer much of a protection to anyone, including to those who possess them.

Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman

But Putin clearly believes they do, you know, and I think that’s the difficulty. I mean, if – right from the from the 1950s, since the US started to provide nuclear guarantees, certainly once the Soviets had caught up, this issue about the credibility of deterrents was always there. So there’s, you know, Dennis Healey remarked in the 60s about how it was much easier to deter the Soviets than it was to reassure allies because you think, “Well, why would they risk Washington or New York for Vilnius or whatever?” So, yeah, that issue has always been there, but the second part of what you said, Pavel, illustrates why it still can work, because you just don’t know. Once these things develop and the problems of escalation come in, then the uncertainties come in. So, you know, I think at the moment people’s main conclusion from what’s happened will be, you know, the Ukrainians wish they hadn’t given them up.

You know, we can go back and say, “What would have happened if the Budapest Memorandum hadn’t been signed in 94, would they have had the codes, could they have maintained them themselves and so on?” Nonetheless, if you talk to Ukrainians, they’ve got a strong view that they would have been better with nuclear weapons. So, it’s about – you know, I understand fully what Patricia’s saying. At the moment I don’t think that’s the lesson anybody’s going to draw. I don’t think the Indians’ll draw it, or the Pakistanis will draw it, and you’re still left with the problem that if you want to kill large numbers of people and you’ve got enough artillery, you can do it.

It’s – you know, the tra – the other bit of deterrence that’s failing in all of this at the moment is international humanitarian law. Nobody seems bothered by being – coming up as a war criminal.

Dr Beyza Unal

Thanks, Lawrie. So, I’ll turn to the questions, so, just, I think, one point, and there’s a question on this, and Lawrie made the point as well, so I think we need to clarify this and I’ve seen Patricia going up as well on that.

So, Timothy Reed actually put the question, “Had Ukraine kept its own nuclear weapons, would it be a better situation today?” And I think we need to clarify some points about Ukraine and nuclear weapons, whether Ukraine actually had nuclear weapons as its own. I saw, Patricia, your hand up. I think that was on this point, if I know you for seven years. Could you please give us a bit of a response on this, and then I’ll come to the other questions.

Dr Patricia Lewis

Sure. I mean, just to say that, as Lawrie well knows, that Ukraine never had control over those nuclear weapons, they were on Ukrainian territory. They had built the – for the most part, the missiles, but the warheads were from Moscow, essentially from Russia, and they were transported back to Russia for dismantlement.

The Budapest Memorandum, I think, you’re – you know, that’s terrible, what’s happened over the trashing of that memorandum and the understanding, whether you say, “Oh, it was – it wasn’t law, it was just a political agreement,” that’s irrelevant, you know, a country’s word should be its bond, and that was appalling. But I don’t think we can say that Ukraine ever had nuclear weapons, and I think we must be careful in drawing that distinction. They might have been able to, with those missiles, with that material, develop a capability over a period of several years. They chose not to, but they didn’t actually give up nuclear weapons as such.

Dr Beyza Unal

Thanks, Patricia, so…

Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman

Just that they think they did. I mean, I understand exactly what Patricia’s saying. They did have – I mean, they did have nuclear weapons on their territory, they just didn’t actually have the control systems. They felt that they were put under enormous pressure at the time, which they were unable to resist, to get rid of them. That’s the historical memory that, I think, is what’s gone on to be influential.

Dr Beyza Unal

Thank you, Lawrie. So, I would like to continue with the questions coming up. There are some questions around NATO, so, I’m going to ask two or three questions, and I see also Alex Command asking a question on NATO. It would be good to bring him up as well after I raise the first two questions, perhaps. There is a question from Thomas Harding. “What should be NATO’s response if there is a tactical nuclear strike, like-for-like or other significant retaliation such as a liberating cyberattack?

And I’m also seeing another question from Timothy Reed on this, on the cyberspace, in terms of escalation or getting involved in a direct confrontation with the West or NATO. “How would the cyberspace enter into the nuclear calculation?” So, the link between cyber and nuclear, maybe a point on that would be interesting.

And then I see Alex Command. Alex, would you be able to unmute yourself and ask the question directly? Thanks. And please introduce yourself as well.

Alex Command

Good afternoon. I hope you can hear me. Yes, I have two questions, actually, in response to Sir Lawrence’s last point on Ukraine and its final consequence, that’s an argument for the proliferation of nuclear weapons. I would be interested in his response, and the first question I had was, it’s really interesting, but I wanted to hear the – be interested in the panel’s view, whether what we’re seeing may lead to a reassessment on the legitimacy of the concept of nuclear deterrents, given that we see Russia using the nuclear threat to be able to wage war against a non-nuclear weapon state in an undisturbed way.

Then we see NATO is partly deterred to come to the aid of this country, but is not deterred to help with weapons, and there is the same, in terms of obvious hesitation from the US to be drawed in – to be drawn into a nuclear escalation, which may raise questions on the credibility of extended deterrence.

And then, also, we see at the same time the most comprehensive non-nuclear deterrence plan that is being implemented at the moment with economic sanctions and international condemnation. So, all these different aspects together raise a lot of questions on nuclear deterrence and I’d be interested to hear the panel’s view, whether this will lead to a reassessment of the way the legitimacy of nuclear deterrence is seen, in a way, following up to the point that Patricia has made. Thank you very much.

Dr Beyza Unal

Thank you, Alex. Just one last question that I saw actually is from Carlo Musso. Carlo, can you also unmute yourself to directly ask the question on NATO? Because I would like to take all the NATO questions. Thanks.

Carlo Musso

Yes, yeah. My question is put it this way. One point which is restraining the Western countries to enter in the conflict, Ukraine, was that Ukraine is not NATO member, but a reality is that the Western country want to avoid a direct conflict with Russia because of the nuclear option. And my point is that if Russia will invade, let me say, a Baltic state in the next few months, the nuclear option will be still there, and that warfare doesn’t change the reality of the threat, of the nuclear threat. So, the real point is, how NATO and the Western country want to manage this, the possible reaction to a invasion, or an action of Russia against another countries, despite the possibility that Russia goes nuclear.

Dr Beyza Unal

Thanks, Carlo, and the last question is from Jan Sullivan, again from a NATO side. He’s asking, “Is there any difference between nuclear weapons used versus nuclear terrorism,” what he defines as nuclear terrorism is the delivered damage to nuclear reactors, “in terms of NATO’s response?” So, “Would NATO respond differently if it – if it’s a nuclear weapons used case, or if it is a deliberate damage to nuclear reactors?

Who would like to start first? I have taken five or six questions. Please just, like, raise your hand if you’d like to go first. Pavel, please go ahead.

Dr Pavel Podvig

Only just – I just – I will just reiterate my point that in my view, again, the – and answering to Alex Command’s question, yeah, I do hope that this conflict and this – the presence of nuclear weapons in this conflict, I do hope that it will lead to re-evaluation of the role of nuclear weapons in – as a security or as a power instrument, and I do hope that we will arrive to the point where we will question the utility of these weapons, because again, I see that someone asked.

I definitely see scenarios in which Russia would threaten NATO states, and again they will be – NATO and the United States will be, kind of a, self-deterred because, yeah, they – I mean, this, they – a threat of escalation and the threat of a large-scale nuclear exchange is a serious business, and that has a lot of deterrence power, that’s how deterrence works. So, I think, again, this is – there’s a lot of – I – but I would definitely say that there is no way you could conclude out of this situation that, kind of, it’s better to have your own nuclear weapons, and that you will be fine. No, I just don’t see that kind of a outcome of this conflict. Thank you.

Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman

I wish we…

Dr Beyza Unal

Who should I turn to? Patricia first, and then Lawrie.

Dr Patricia Lewis

I think Lawrie wants to go first, so let Lawrie go.

Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman

Well, I mean, I just wish it wasn’t so, but I think if I was Ukrainian, I’d think I’d be better off at the moment if I had my own nuclear weapons. I mean, I – you know, and I think that’ll be the reappraisal that we’ll get. Now, the way round that is to reduce dependence upon nuclear weapons, so, you know, if we go back to the NATO questions, let’s say Russia decided to have a go at Poland. There’s lots of things you can do in response, without having to resort to nuclear use and that was – again, these are debates that have been going on for decades but, you know, US, UK and others have reinforced their position in the Baltic states with conventional forces.

Given the way that Russian conventional perfo – forces have performed so far, I wouldn’t be too al – as in awe of them as, I think, we were a month and a half ago. So, you know, the first thing you do is recognise that just because something happens, doesn’t mean you escalate straightaway to nuclear use, you have options.

Secondly, you know, there’s the Article 5 question, so, if you look at Russian propaganda in all of this, Russian propaganda against Ukraine, one of the things that they said was that, “Ukraine wants to join NATO because then it will have a go at – to take back Crimea, and because of Article 5 the NATO countries will have no choice but to join them.” Well, that’s nonsense, and we all know that there are – you have to deliberate, you have to convene, you have to work out what you should do, but you’re under absolutely no obligation to back what you might think to be a rather foolish adventure. So, you know, there’s always going to be choices in this, there’s nothing automatic.

One of the things that you’ve seen a bit of discussion about is, let’s say, Poland decided that what was going on was intolerable, and that it had to work with the Ukrainians to push the Russians back. Let’s say, Ukraine joined the war, not as a member of NA – sorry, Poland joined the war, not as a member of NATO, but as Poland. What does that mean? Does that mean Article 5 is invoked, everybody’s got to help them? No, it doesn’t mean that. How would Russia react? Who knows? They would see this as a major escalation.

So, what we find in these crises is a var – a number of things that go on, which each time poses the question, “How dangerous is this, where is it taking us?” And I think at each stage, when it happens, you think, “Well, there must be an alternative to nuclear use. We don’t really have to go that far.” So, you know, I think we – to not be so dependent upon nuclear weapons means you’ve got to think a lot more about your – how you do your non-nuclear options.

And just to conclude, and I think Patricia’d probably be well-placed to talk about this, on the cyber stuff, I mean, this is the stuff – Biden warned the other day that this was what the Russians were going to do next, and we’d have big cyberattacks. This really is the dog that hasn’t barked in this conflict so far. You know, we were expecting, you know, this hybrid war model of enormous cyberattacks. You know, Ukrainian internet is still working, Russians are having to use the Ukrainian internet ‘cause their own communications aren’t working very well. So, I think there’s a another area for reappraisal after this, is exactly what difference does – do cyberattacks make when you’ve got a real war on your hands?

Dr Beyza Unal

Patricia.

Dr Patricia Lewis

So, I would completely agree with that last point, Lawrie, and I think it’s fascinating, the issue of cyber and all the predictions, and it – in part it’s probably to do with the resilience of Ukrainian cyber-defences and the capability that – you know, with a lot of support over many years. In part, I think it’s to do perhaps a bit with, you know, “If you do that to us, what will happen to you?” with cyber, ‘cause that’s something where you could go down with a lot of plausible deniability, and I think it’s quite interesting what some of the hacktivist organisations are doing at the moment.

I think that if we just go back to Carlo’s point and to Alex’s point, I think, you know, deterrence is all about understanding what deters, and understanding the mind of the other, and we’ve all understood that that’s quite difficult, and it’s not a single person either, right? We – there – we don’t quite understand how this whole thing is happening, and I know that there’s all sorts of aspects to it to do with, you know, religious ideas, and so on and so forth, it’s very complex. So, here’s a thought experiment that I’d quite like to do but, you know, what if we had in the 90s made all that hay while the sun shone, and actually eliminated nuclear weapons, and were pretty certain about that because it’s easier than eliminating chemical weapons actually, because the infrastructure for making them, etc., etc. So, let’s imagine that we had a lot of confidence in that, and that we were now in a situation where, you know, Russia had invaded Ukraine, which still wasn’t a member of NATO, what would have been our responses then?

I think – my view is, I think they’d have been very different, and I quite like doing those thought experiments. I like to just take people up to that thought and then let people think about it, because it – there are no – they’re all what-if scenarios and so on, but they’re worth thinking through because we’ve got to think through where we go with this, because if it’s going down the route that you’ve suggested or you have increased nuclear proliferation, then we’re going to be in more and more of these situations as we go on, or we do go down the route. And I would like to say that I actually do think humanitarian law matters, and I do think that a large part of what we’re trying to communicate here are values about what systems we want to be in. We want to be in democracies, we want to be in countries with human rights, we want to be in countries where there’s freedom of expression, and so on and so forth, and that is a package deal.

So, I do think it matters, the types of weapons systems we allow ourselves to have, and right now, with everything going on, you know, the issue of war crimes is not deterring, perhaps, President Putin, but later on, it may be very important, and we’ve seen that after other wars as well, extremely important.

Dr Beyza Unal

Thanks, Patricia. I’ll come to you, Pavel. I think it’s an important point to make, that if we go through the route of, you know, nuclear non – or nuclear proliferation, we will then probably – a thin thread of nuclear weapons used at the likel – when we talk about the likelihood of use, that calculation will definitely change as you add more actors into the space. So, I think a lot has been written during the Cold War on this balance of terror and so on, on the proliferation side. So, it’s important to make that distinction, you’re right. Pavel.

Dr Pavel Podvig

Yeah, I just want to make a – I’ll try to make it brief, but I think that we should not really think about this, kind of, Ukraine – Ukrainian nuclear weapons. Yes, maybe they wanted – they would prefer to have them at this point, but I usually say, “It’s just too many counterfactuals here.” It would have been a different Ukraine, it would have been a different Russia, it would have been a different Europe, it would have been different everything, so there’s no way you could, kind of, implant this into this. And frankly, I think again, this is back to my point about the, kind of, re-evaluation of the role of nuclear weapons, I think we – everybody would be better off had nuclear weapons not been at the – part of this whole equation. We wouldn’t have the problem of Russia’s invading Ukraine, because it would have been a different Russia.

So, what’s – in many ways, nuclear weapons are responsible for bringing us to this point, where everybody believes that, “Oh, we have our own little umbrella, and we have our own nuclear weapons, and we can solve all our problems just by waving those nuclear weapons around.” And in the end, you see, nobody’s solving any problems, everybody is just clinging to their nuclear weapons, and here we are. We have a major war in Europe in how many? 70-plus years. Well, if we don’t count Yugoslavia. So, I think this is exactly my point. You – this is an illusion, that nuclear weapons give you security. They don’t, and it is – they are not just useless, they are really harmful because they pre – they, kind of, give you this feeling of being, kind of, warm and fuzzy, but in the end, you realise that there is, like, only ash there. There is nothing there to keep you warm. Thank you.

Dr Beyza Unal

Thanks, Pavel. Can I ask a question? We have around seven minutes left. I have so many questions going on, on the chat, it’s crazy, but we also need to finalise the discussion on time. So, a few questions, I think, that are just, like, in general, that are coming up. “How would this war end, or how should we be thinking about the ways forward?” So, that’s one area of questions that are coming up. And that’s, I think, beyond the nuclear question. There is the question that I saw earlier. I think that’s pointed to Pavel, mainly. James Senor asked this question, “Could we discuss the potential for a repositioning of Russian nuclear weaponry in Belarus, and what does that mean?” And then, Tanal Chokusal asks the question, “If the nuclear weapons will be used by Putin, what is your assessment about the potential targets,” command and control systems and so on, probably, that he’s asking.

But I think, in the last couple of minutes, a really important question that we need to be thinking of, as the experts is, how does, do you think, or how will the war in Ukraine affect the nuclear non-proliferation treaty or the past commitments of countries, questions around Article 6, nuclear disarmament, considerations? That, you know, comes back to the point on nuclear non-proliferation as well. But also, how should we be thinking about new objectives on strategic stability and arms control? Because we can’t, you know, we can’t assume the prior logic of, you know, arms control, where the INF and we talk about open skies and so on, we should be thinking about a new kind of framework and what would that look like? Patricia, I’ll start with you.

Dr Patricia Lewis

Thanks, Beyza. So, can I just say, I think, I’ve been really impressed with the way NATO’s responded to this whole situation, both collectively and, you know, as with the transatlantic element as well, and the restraint that’s been shown. So, the way I’m hoping that this terrible war will end is that there will be a ceasefire, some kind of deal that will be respected, and that President Putin will be able to extricate Russian forces with some dignity intact. And that we’ll be able to go forward without there being any use of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons or dirty bombs or anything like that, and that we will be able to do a complete reassessment of – you know, we will learn so much from this. That’s my hope.

My fear of course is quite the reverse, that it won’t go that way, and then I think we end up in all sorts of potential scenarios that, again, I don’t want to take you down all the thought experiments, but I’m sure you’re all doing them in your head all the time, which is why you’re on this call. So, we’re in a really difficult situation, but the one thing that I think NATO has managed to do, that Ukraine has managed to do, is to stand up to a bully, and to not allow the bully just to win because it’s bigger and it’s nastier and more terrifying, and that’s a really important message to get out there.

Dr Beyza Unal

Thanks, Patricia. Lawrie, I see that you’re unmuted. Would you like to go next?

Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman

Yeah. So, I very much share Patricia’s last sentiment. You know, let me be clear, I’m not advocating nuclear proliferation. I don’t like the things, in spite of having worked on them most of my life, but I think you’ve just got to be realistic about how these things are seen. The – wasn’t one of the reasons – I mean, there was a lot of arms control in the 90s, but Russia changed its doctrine to be more dependent upon nuclear weapons, and you can understand why, because the balance of power looked different.

So, as much as one can hope that this will make us reappraise the existence of these things, I don’t think it will. But a lot depends on how the war ends, because, I mean, I don’t think this war will end easily with a deal and Russia walking away with dignity. It’s got no dignity, no dignity at all out of this. They – something terrible has been done, and they’re losing at the moment. Whether they’ll continue to lose is a speculative matter. So, I hope they – that they lose. I don’t want Zelenskyy to feel pressured into any sort of deal, and I’m sure Patricia doesn’t either, that compromises Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity. There may be a deal, at some point, there are things that can be offered but, you know, I think we have to recognise that if this whole thing fails, as I think it should, this is humiliating for Russia and will have enormous knock-on effect, and we’re in a different world then.

Now, let’s hope that in that different world with, even nicer to believe, a different leadership in the Kremlin, we can have a proper reappraisal of European security order and NA – the role of NATO, and all sorts of things. Because, you know, there were possibilities in the 90s and 2000s, not so much in abolition of nuclear weapons, but in different sort of security relationships, that passed away, for understandable reasons, but they passed.

Well, maybe we could look at that, but I don’t think – I think there could be a – very well a messy conclusion to this war, which won’t be to Russia’s advantage, I don’t think, but it will not be as clean a conclusion as we might like. And, you know, I still think the best way to reduce the nuclear danger is to find ways of making your strategies less dependent upon nuclear weapons, because I suspect they’re going to be with us still for some time to come.

Dr Beyza Unal

Pavel.

Dr Pavel Podvig

Yeah, and we’re running out of time, so I’ll be very brief. On Belarus and nuclear weapons, I strongly believe that this is not going to happen, for many reasons. I won’t go into that. And the important point about the, kind of, what, kind of a, targets Russia could choose if it decides – and I just want to again emphasise this. This is not about targets, and no matter what – even the thought of bringing nuclear weapons into this conflict should be condemned as totally inappropriate and, I would say, criminal. That should be very clear and consistent message.

We should not go into the discussion, “Oh, would the – how many weapons would it take to flatten Kyiv or some other city?” This is exactly the wrong thing to do. The message should be very simple: “Don’t even think about that, period.” Thank you.

Dr Beyza Unal

I think you did a really good ending, Pavel, on the discussion. Everybody, thank you very much for joining this event on Nuclear Threats and Russian war in Ukraine. I think the last point that Pavel made is really important, that nuclear weapons are indiscriminate weapons, and that their impact goes beyond wartime, and thus, I think, should ne – they should never be used or threatened to be used at any time. So, thank you very much for joining. Have a lovely day, evening, wherever you are.