Russian President Vladimir Putin argues that after joining NATO, if Ukraine decides to militarily invade and retake the Crimean Peninsula, a Ukrainian territory now occupied by Russia, it may result in a possible nuclear war— “the European countries will automatically get drawn into a military conflict with Russia”. Attack on any NATO member country means an attack on all NATO countries and so collective pushback against the attacking country.
He clearly reminds other countries of a war situation with Russia— the country having the largest number of nuclear warheads in the world.
But is it really possible, particularly when both Russia and NATO (with the US) have thousands of nuclear warheads active now that can end the planet’s civilisation completely and force the earth to a perpetual nuclear winter?
As per the ‘FAS Nuclear Notebook’, published by the ‘the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’, Russia has a stockpile of 4,497 nuclear warheads while 1,760 retired nuclear warheads are awaiting dismantlement. Out of its stockpile, a total of 1,700 nuclear warheads are deployed while 2,897 are kept in reserve.
To counter it, NATO has its own nuclear arsenal, mainly from the US. As per the ‘Nuclear Notebook’ data, the country has 3,800 nuclear warheads while 1750 retired ones are awaiting dismantlement. Also, at 1,800, the country has deployed 100 more nuclear warheads than Russia.
According to the ‘FAS Status of World Nuclear Forces’, two other NATO countries, France and Britain, have nuclear warhead inventories of 290 and 225 weapons respectively.
So, there will be two rival sides with over 90% of the nuclear weapons on the earth — in case Ukraine joins NATO, and Russia and NATO come to a war-like situation — if Ukraine in future decides to retake Crimea militarily, as the Russian President argues.
Will this lead to a possible nuclear war?
If we go by the only nuclear blasts done so far during any war, that doesn’t look like a possibility.
The only nuclear warfare the world has seen so far was during the Second World War in August 1945. The city of Hiroshima in Japan saw atomic bombing by the United States on August 6, 1945, and the city of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. The initial explosions saw widespread killings and destruction, forcing Japan to surrender.
According to the US Department of War report on these two atomic bombings, Hiroshima lost more than half of its population with 1,35,000 casualties while Nagasaki, a city of 1,95,000 residents saw 64,000 people killed in the explosion. As per the report, the two nuclear blasts destroyed almost 70% of the building infrastructure of the cities.
These figures of casualties are just assessment figures from the limited data available. The combined death figure of residents in these cities can go around 2,50,000 according to some other estimates. Also, the two cities had forced labourers and military personnel as well during the time of the explosion who were not counted in these investigative reports.
And what happened initially was just the beginning of a series of future disasters. What followed later was radiation poisoning and its long-term health effects on the remaining population. The surviving people and their children saw health problems like leukaemia and other cancers, small head size, mental disability and impairment in physical growth.
These were disastrous effects of just two nuclear weapons — with 36 kilotons capacity — meaning they hit the cities with a force of 36,000 tons of trinitrotoluene (TNT). The Hiroshima nuclear bomb was of 15 kilotons capacity while Nagasaki’s was 21 kilotons.
Today, the nuclear stockpile of the world has bombs worth hundreds of kilotons of damaging effect. The FAS estimates nine countries carrying nuclear weapons currently have 13,150 such warheads. Out of this, 3,650 are deployed on missiles or bomber bases with 2,000 warheads on high alert.
In 1945, Japan had no nuclear deterrent with the US being the first country to develop a nuclear bomb.
In 2022, if a war-like situation comes between two countries or groups armed with nuclear weapons, the possibility of near-total annihilation with simultaneous use of the nuclear weapons will itself act as the deterrent, be it by Russia, NATO, the US, or any other country.
So, the chance of another nuclear war seems remote. Yes, the world can see a limited military strike in the future as Russia did in 2014 to annex the Crimean Peninsula if talks fail, and if that happens, Ukraine may see another battleground opened apart from the unrest going on in Eastern Ukraine by Russia-backed separatist groups.
The same is expected to happen in case Ukraine joins NATO and if a war-like situation crops up. There may be a war but not a nuclear war between two nuclear-armed sides.
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