In the run up to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, many war analysts, including the US Pentagon predicted that the war will be a walkover for Russia. Specifically, the Pentagon estimated that it would take the Red Army 42 hours to run over Ukraine and overthrow the government in Kiev.
However, these predictions all turned out to be wrong. Four weeks into the war, Russia is no way near conquering Ukraine. In fact, several columns of the Russian Army are currently bogged down at several theatres of the conflict. Not only that, several experts are estimating that more than 40 thousand Russian soldiers have been killed, wounded or captured in Ukraine. There is also, serious speculations making rounds that following the several rounds of Western sanctions imposed on Russia, the country may have run out of resources to continue prosecuting the war. This claim seems to be supported by some reliable intelligence that Russia has approached China for help with weapons and other resources to continue the war effort.
The events surrounding these huge military loses for Russia have led many experts to speculate on what President Putin’s next more in Ukraine might be. There are two moves being emphasized among the possible moves the Russian president might decide to make, name deploying chemical or nuclear weapons in Ukraine. However, among these two possibilities, the one that has received the attention and emphasis of analysts and experts is nuclear weapons. Hence, the question that will be addressed in this article is what exactly nuclear weapons and what will a war where nuclear weapons are used look like. First, let’s begin with an analysis of the weapons of war.
Weapons of War
Weapons of war classified according to their destructive power include conventional and unconventional weapons.
Conventional Weapons
Conventional weapons are defined in relation to weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Compared to WMD, conventional weapons are less destructive. The American Heritage Dictionary defines it as a “weapon that is in relative wide use and does not include WMD.” Accepted use of any types of conventional weapon is governed by the Geneva Convention.
Unconventional Weapons
Unconventional Weapons specifically refer to WMD.
Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)
The phrase “WMD” is applied in three ways: general, technical and restricted senses. Our interest is in the technical and restricted usage. Technically, WMD is used to mean nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. This is exactly how Encyclopedia Britannica sees it: “Modern Weapons of Mass Destruction are nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons—collectively called NBC weapons.” In the restricted sense WMD simply refers to nuclear weapons. The reason for this is provided by G. Harigel: “Only nuclear weapons are completely indiscriminate by their explosive power, heat radiation and radioactivity, and only they should be called WMD.”
Nuclear weapon itself is categorized in two ways: by the chemistry of their production and according to their use. The former is of two types: Atomic-Bomb and Hydrogen Bomb (H-Bomb or thermonuclear bomb). H-Bomb has never been used in history. G. Harigel argues that a strategic H-Bomb would cause more destruction than all the weapons used in WW I and WW II put together and that the nuclear stockpiles in the US and Russia alone are capable of destroying the earth several times over.
The latter category is also of two forms: strategic and tactical nuclear weapons. According to G. Harigel Weapons designed to threaten large populations, or to generally deter attacks are known as strategic nuclear weapons (SNWs). Weapons designed for use in battlefields are called tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs). The rationale for TNWs is the so called counterforce disarming first strike, premised on the logic that nuclear warfare can be fought and won.
Nuclear Warfare
Nuclear war according to Wood is a “warfare in which NWs are the major means of coercing the capitulation of the other side, as opposed to supporting tactical or strategic role in a conventional conflict.” Nuclear warfare is unique because of its immediate and long term destructive effects. The Encyclopedia Britannica has it that a major nuclear exchange would have long-term effects, primarily from the fallout released, and could lead to a “nuclear winter” that would last for decades, centuries, or even millennia after the initial attack making the earth uninhabitable.
Nuclear Bombs were first used by the US to bring about the surrender of Japan. On August 6, 1945, the first atomic bomb (A-bomb) was detonated over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. On August 9, the second A-bomb was detonated over Nagasaki, Japan. Approximately 200,000 Japanese died immediately from the issuing explosion and firestorms; many more died later from contaminations and radiation related injuries. Ten years later Mrs. Hazume of Hiroshima reported:
All the houses were demolished. The crumbled walls and heaps of tiles stretched for miles. Many people rushed from the centre. Their bodies were burnt. Their skin was hanging down like rags. Their faces were swollen to twice normal size. They were holding their hands to their breast. They were walking, embracing one another and crying out with pain. Someone was dragging something alone. To my great surprise it was his intestine. His stomach was ripped open and it came out and he was dragging it along without knowing what he was doing…. My eldest daughter had only two slight wounds…. A month after the bombing she died. My second daughter had no wounds at all, but one day in July, six years after the explosion, she told me about pains in the throat and shoulder and she said she could not walk very well. She died six days after having been taken ill. It is more than ten years since the war was over, but the sufferings from the bomb have never yet being cured.
Types of Nuclear Warfare
There are two types of nuclear warfare: counterforce and countervalue. For H. Kahn counterforce is a nuclear war against an adversary’s military. Thus an ideal counterforce would kill no civilian. It is also called counterforce first strike, disarming first strike or decapitating first strike because the aim is to disarm an adversary by destroying his nuclear weapons. Countervalue also called counter-city or counter-population is a nuclear warfare against an adversary’s cities or populations. It is also known as counterstrike, massive retaliation or retaliatory second strike because the purpose is to deter attacks.
Nuclear Strategy
Nuclear strategy is a set of policies that deal with preventing or fighting a nuclear war. The policy of trying to prevent an attack by a nuclear weapon from another country by threatening nuclear retaliation is known as NUCLEAR DETERRENCE. The goal in deterrence is to always maintain a second strike capability and potentially to strive for first strike.
MUTUAL ASSURED DESTRUCTION (MAD) is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in which a full-scale use of high-yield nuclear weapons by two opposing sides would cause the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender. MAD considers that a nuclear attack by one superpower would result in nuclear counterstrike by the other. This would result in hundreds of millions of deaths in a world where, in the words widely attributed to N. Khrushchev, “The living will envy the dead”. The question is, will Russia use nuclear weapon in Ukraine and will NATO respond if it does? Let’s all pray it doesn’t come to this for all our sakes.
