2011, Chernobyl 25 years later: Many lessons learned - Mikhail Gorbachev (Bulletin of Atomic Scientists)

Gorbatchov, o mais injustiçado de todos os "comunistas soviéticos" dirigentes da finada URSS – o homem que, finalmente, conseguiu abrir uma brecha no regime tirânico do bolchevismo totalitário – escreveu um artigo sobre a catástrofe que "ajudou" a extinguir o regime ditatorial do seu país. Chernobyl revelou o caos que era, finalmente, a imensa aldeia Potemkim figurando como o poderoso Império soviético. Ele tentou reformar o sistema, torná-lo mais humano e racional – tarefas virtualmente impossíveis no sistema bolchevique – e acabou por fragmentar o regime soviético, levando-o à crise final e à implosão. A explosão da central nuclear no norte da Ucrânia representou uma estalido europeu e mundial, e ali começou a derrocada do comunismo. Gorbatchov até que tentou com a glasnost e a perestroika, mas foi derrotado pelos próprios comunistas do PCUS.

2011: Chernobyl 25 years later: Many lessons learned

By Mikhail Gorbachev

Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, December 7, 2020

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in the March/April 2011 issue of the Bulletin. It is republished here as part of our special issue commemorating the 75^th year of Bulletin publication.

The catastrophic accident in 1986 at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in Ukraine was one of the worst man-made disasters of the twentieth century. Two and a half decades later, the nuclear accident offers many lessons for preventing, managing, and recovering from such a horrible event, as well as specific lessons for the further development of nuclear power.

I first heard of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor breakdown on the morning of April 26, when the Soviet Ministry of Medium Machine Building, responsible for nuclear reactors, reported it to the Kremlin. Though the seriousness of the incident remained unclear during our emergency Politburo meeting, a government commission headed by Boris Yevdokimovich Shcherbina, Deputy Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, was established and immediately dispatched to Chernobyl. This commission included scientists from the Soviet Academy of Sciences, nuclear reactor specialists, physicians, and radiologists. They met that evening with their counterparts from the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences.

Initial reports were cautious in tone, and only on the following day, April 27, did we learn that an explosion had taken place at the nuclear power station, at least two people had been killed, and radioactive material had been released downwind. International media, however, had already started to speak about a radioactive cloud. We received more concrete information on April 28 and started informing the Soviet public of the serious nature of the disaster, focusing on efforts to manage the very dangerous and worsening situation.

As efforts continued to contain the fire and radioactive releases, authorities began evacuating the local Soviet population. “The heart of the reactor—the hot radioactive core—is in suspension, as it were,” Soviet Academician Yevgeni Velikhov announced at the time. “It has been covered by a layer of sand, lead, boron, and clay, and this puts an additional load on the structure. Can it hold up or will it sink into the ground? No one has ever been in such a difficult position.”

Within about 10 days the reactor fire and major radioactive releases were contained, but by then nuclear fallout had spread over three regions of the Soviet Union—Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia—most of Europe, and beyond. Thanks to the bravery of thousands of emergency workers, the number of victims and the proliferation of serious consequences were limited. Much long-term damage, however, had been done. Some 50 workers died fighting the fire and reactor core meltdown, and another 4,000 or more deaths may eventually be shown to have resulted from radioactive releases. The radiation dosage at the power plant during the accident has been estimated at over 20,000 roentgens per hour, about 40 times the estimated lethal dosage, and the World Health Organization identified 237 workers with Acute Radiation Sickness.

Over 135,000 people were evacuated from the area, including the nearest town of Pripyat, immediately following the accident, and another 200,000 over the following months. The extent of the nuclear fallout was illustrated by the fact that, within only a few hours after the accident began on April 26, radiation alarms sounded at the Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant in Sweden, over 700 miles from Chernobyl. Today we know that about 77,000 square miles of territory in Europe and the former Soviet Union has been contaminated with radioactive fallout, leaving long-term challenges for flora, fauna, water, the environment, and human health. Tens of billions of dollars have already been spent in trying to contain and remediate the disaster, with a new containment shell now being constructed over the 1986 sarcophagus and what’s left of the reactor.

We must continue to seriously examine the long-term public health and environmental consequences of the accident to better understand the relationship between radiation, both low- and high-level, and human life. The twenty-fifth anniversary of the Chernobyl accident is an important historic milestone to remind ourselves of this solemn duty. Furthermore, it is also the perfect time to address four key and related issues:

Prevention

First of all, it is vitally important to prevent any possibility of a repetition of the Chernobyl accident. This was a horrendous disaster because of the direct human cost, the large tracts of land poisoned, the scale of population displacement, the great loss of livelihoods, and the long-term trauma suffered by individuals yanked from their homeland and heritage. Victims of the tragedy were confronted by a crisis which they could scarcely understand and against which they had no defense. The material damage inflicted by Chernobyl, although enormous, pales in significance when compared to the ongoing human costs. The true scope of the tragedy still remains beyond comprehension and is a shocking reminder of the reality of the nuclear threat. It is also a striking symbol of modern technological risk.

Renewable energy

While the old Soviet nuclear reactor model, which was without a safety containment shell and helped cause the Chernobyl disaster, is no longer in production, we must still be extremely careful when constructing and operating nuclear power plants around the globe today. Chernobyl is a warning sign. In the worst of cases, a nuclear reactor accident may devastate huge territories where little if any human life can exist.

Access to affordable and safe energy is vital for economic development and poverty eradication. We cannot therefore simply reject nuclear energy today with many countries hugely dependent on this energy resource. But it is necessary to realize that nuclear power is not a panacea, as some observers allege, for energy sufficiency or climate change. Its cost-effectiveness is also exaggerated, as its real cost does not account for many hidden expenses. In the United States, for example, direct subsidies to nuclear energy amounted to $115 billion between 1947 and 1999, with an additional $145 billion in indirect subsidies. In contrast, subsidies to wind and solar energy combined over this same period totaled only $5.5 billion.

To end the vicious cycle of “poverty versus safe environment,” the world must quickly transition to efficient, safe, and renewable energy, which will bring enormous economic, social, and environmental benefits. As the global population continues to expand, and the demand for energy production grows, we must invest in alternative and more sustainable sources of energy—wind, solar, geothermal, hydro—and widespread conservation and energy efficiency initiatives as safer, more efficient, and more affordable avenues for meeting both energy demands and conserving our fragile planet.

Transparency

The closed nature and secrecy of the nuclear power industry, which had already experienced some 150 significant radiation leaks at nuclear power stations throughout the world before the Chernobyl fire, greatly contributed to the accident and response difficulties. We need full transparency and public oversight and regulation of the nuclear power industry today, along with complete emergency preparedness and response mechanisms.

Vulnerability to terrorism and violence

I also remain concerned over the dangers of terrorist attacks on power reactors and terrorist groups’ acquisition of fissile material. After the heavy damage wrought by terrorist groups in New York, Moscow, Madrid, Tokyo, Bali, and elsewhere over the past 15 years, we must very carefully consider the vulnerability of reactor fuel, spent fuel pools, dry storage casks, and related fissile materials and facilities to sabotage, attack, and theft. While the Chernobyl disaster was accidental, caused by faulty technology and human error, today’s disaster could very well be intentional.

We especially must pay attention to keeping weapons and materials of mass destruction—in this case, nuclear weapons-grade materials such as high-enriched uranium and plutonium—out of the hands of terrorists and rogue nations. US President Barack Obama’s historic initiative to secure and eliminate all bomb-grade nuclear material in four years is an important step forward in improving global security, but we must not forget that these fissile materials are often used in nuclear power and research reactors.

Let us all remember Chernobyl, not only for its negative impact on Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, and Europe, but also as a beacon of hope for a safer and more sustainable future.

The enormous risks and uncertain benefits of an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities - Assaf Zoran ( Bulletin of Atomic Scientists)

The enormous risks and uncertain benefits of an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities

By Assaf Zoran | 

Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, April 18, 2024

Iran’s unprecedented attack on Israel on April 13 has significantly escalated the tensions between the countries. For the first time, a declared and extensive Iranian military operation was carried out on Israeli territory. Now, the decision on how to respond rests with Israel. A direct war between the two countries now no longer seems unlikely.

Israel now realizes that it underestimated the consequences of its attack on an Iranian facility in Damascus that killed several senior members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps earlier this month. However, the exceptionally large scope of Iran’s response and the direct impact on Israeli soil is viewed in Israel as a disproportionate action that significantly escalates the conflict.

Despite the interception of most of the weapons launched by Iran and the lack of significant damage on Israeli territory, the outcome of the Iranian attack could have been vastly different due to the uncertainties of combat. Consequently, in Israel, there is a strong focus on Iran’s intentions and Tehran’s willingness to risk a direct confrontation.

Since Israel does not want to depend solely on defense and aims to prevent the normalization of attacks on its territory, it appears resolute to respond, reinforce its deterrence, and inflict a significant cost that will make Iran’s decision-makers think twice before attacking similarly again.

While some in Israel advocate for a robust immediate response to project power and display independence despite international pressures, others prefer a more cautious and measured reaction to limit the risk of escalating into a major regional war.

Several main response options are under consideration, possibly in combination: a diplomatic move, such as forming a regional defensive coalition against Iran and its armed allies in the “axis of resistance,” or revitalizing international efforts against Iran’s nuclear program; a covert kinetic operation, like past operations attributed to Israel targeting nuclear or missile facilities; or an overt kinetic military initiative, such as a missile or aircraft strike on Iranian territory.

Both covert and overt kinetic actions can vary in intensity and target different sectors—military, governmental, or nuclear.

Currently, there is significant attention on the potential for Israel to execute a kinetic move against Iranian nuclear sites, covertly or overtly. Iran itself recently closed these facilities due to security concerns—a move noted by the international community, including the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, who stated that inspectors have been temporarily withdrawn.

Within Israel, some perceive the current situation as an opportunity to impair Iran’s nuclear program, considered a primary national security threat. The possibility of a military strike is reportedly under examination. In contrast, Meir Ben-Shabbat, former head of the National Security Council, suggested that Israel should target the Iranian nuclear program through diplomatic avenues.

The ability to execute an extensive and effective kinetic operation against Iran’s nuclear facilities on a short notice is doubtful. Such a move is also likely to lead to upheaval in the Middle East, contrary to Israeli officials’ statements that a military response will not lead to a full-scale war with Iran.

Conversely, a precise strike on nuclear facilities in Isfahan, Natanz, Araq, or Fordow could not only rekindle international attention toward Iran’s nuclear aspirations, it would also affirm Israel’s commitment to act after several years without significant action in that regard. In doing so, Israel could demonstrate resolve, conveying clearly that it does not accept the nuclear precedent Iran has established in recent years and is willing to take decisive action if necessary, even if opposed or not supported by the international community.

Moreover, a successful attack on a heavily protected target would highlight Israel’s superior capabilities and would undermine the new game rules that Iran attempted to establish. This, in turn, could decrease the likelihood of future attacks on Israeli territory.

Regionally, attacking a nuclear site could bolster Israel’s image as the sole nation daring enough to confront Iran and counter its provocations, particularly following the security breach on October 7. This action could effectively demonstrate Israel’s determination, showcase its military edge.

However, an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities carries significant drawbacks. 

In the short term, it would considerably increase the likelihood of a retaliatory response from Tehran, potentially even more severe, targeting sensitive locations in Israeli territory, and possibly extending to American and Jordanian interests in the region. This could inhibit the possibility of employing measured escalation levels and quickly lead to a broader conflict.

Hezbollah, which Iran sees as one of its assurances in case of an attack on its nuclear facilities, might be compelled to intensify its assaults against Israel.

Moreover, an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities may have the opposite result of prompting an escalation in Iran’s nuclear developments, a pattern previously observed in response to kinetic actions attributed to Israel. Such an attack could be used by Tehran as a justification and motivation to progress toward nuclear weapons development, confirming that conventional deterrence is insufficient. In recent years—and in past months even more so—senior Iranian figures have increasingly hinted at this possibility.

An overt attack on Iran could also diminish Israel’s legitimacy and international support, which momentarily recovered amid a historic low following the war in Gaza. This erosion could jeopardize diplomatic efforts to establish renewed coalitions and strategies against Iran.

Although it is crucial for Israel to impose a significant cost on Iran in response to its April 13 attack to deter further aggressive actions in the region, targeting nuclear facilities might be strategically disadvantageous. The costs could heavily outweigh the benefits, and Israel should be prudent to focus on a proportionate response, such as targeting missile and drone infrastructures in Iran or other Iranian assets in the region.

At the same time, it is vital to invest in a substantial political response, such as forming a defensive coalition against the resistance axis and incorporating into it countries threatened by Iran under international auspices. Amid an emerging contest of superpowers in the region and beyond, such a political response also presents an opportunity to foster closer ties and strengthen commitments between these nations and the West.

Assaf Zoran is a research fellow with the Project on Managing the Atom and International Security Program at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He is an attorney with 25 years of experience addressing policy and operational issues in the Middle East, engaging in strategic dialogue with decision-makers in Israel and other regions.

Why a nuclear weapons ban would threaten, not save, humanity - Zachary Kallemborn (Bulletin of Atomic Scientists)

Why a nuclear weapons ban would threaten, not save, humanity

ZACHARY KALLENBORN
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, January 10, 2024
Global governments and organizations aiming to reduce existential risks should support nuclear risk-reduction measures but oppose quick, complete abolition of nuclear weapons, writes one national security expert.

On January 22, 2021, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons entered into force with 69 state parties. The treaty aims to ban nuclear weapons, bringing global nuclear weapons arsenals down to zero. Treaty states, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, and other global zero activists that pushed for the treaty frequently highlight the existential harms from nuclear weapons, including in the second meeting of state parties to the treaty. The concern is legitimate. A 2022 study in Nature estimated a nuclear war between the United States and Russia would blast massive amounts of soot into the atmosphere, disrupting the global climate, and causing massive food shortages that could kill over five billion people.

But nuclear weapons are not the only threat to humanity. An asteroid over 1 kilometer in diameter striking the Earth, genetically engineered biological weapons, super volcanoes, extreme climate change, nanotechnology, and artificial superintelligence all could generate existential harm, whether defined as the collapse of human civilization or literal human extinction. To address those challenges, humanity needs global cooperation to align policies, pool resources, maintain globally critical supply chains, build useful technologies, and prevent the development of harmful technologies. Nuclear deterrence—alongside robust international organizations, laws, norms, alliances, and economic dependencies—helps make that happen.

Global governments and organizations aiming to reduce existential risks should support nuclear risk-reduction measures but oppose quick, complete abolition of nuclear weapons. Nuclear abolition creates serious risk of returning to an era of great power conflict, which could drastically increase existential risk. A global war between China, Russia, the United States and their respective allies risks the survival of the global cooperative system necessary to combat other existential threats, while threatening infrastructure necessary for risk mitigation measures and accelerating other existential risk scenarios. As Iskander Rehman wrote in his recent in-depth study of great power war: “Protracted great power wars are immensely destructive, whole-of-society affairs, the effects of which typically extend well beyond their point of origin, spilling across multiple regions and siphoning huge amounts of personnel, materiel and resources… Ultimately, protracted great-power wars usually only end when an adversary faces total annihilation, or collapses under the weight of its own exhaustion.” If the great powers collapse, the global system may collapse with them. Nuclear deterrence can help prevent that.

Nuclear weapons place a cap on how bad great power conflict can become and may deter the emergence and escalation of great power war. If China, the United States, or Russia faced a genuine existential threat, the nuclear weapons would emerge, threatening nuclear retaliation. As Chinese General Fu Quanyou, head of the People Liberation’s Army General Staff until 2002, once said: “The U.S. and Soviet superpowers both had strong nuclear capabilities able to destroy one another a number of times, so they did not dare to clash with each other directly, war capabilities above a certain point change into war-limiting capabilities.” Mutually assured destruction also helps prevent serious great power conflict from breaking out in the first place. During the current war between Ukraine and Russia, Russian President Vladimir Putin has used nuclear threats to deter direct NATO involvement and keep the conflict local. The United States might wish to support Ukraine against Russia, but it’s not willing to risk a Russian nuclear strike on New York City or Washington, DC to do more than provide money and material. Removing that deterrence by banning nuclear weapons means a potential return to protracted, global great power war.

To emphasize: Opposing quick, complete abolition does not mean opposing reduction of nuclear arsenals or risk reduction measures like improved crisis management and ensuring human control over nuclear weapons. Massive nuclear war is the most likely scenario for existential harm to humanity in the near term. As the Chinese nuclear arsenal grows, and China potentially aims for nuclear parity with the United States in the coming decades, that problem is going to get worse. Current nuclear weapon strategies depend on targeting adversary nuclear weapons, which means as an adversary builds more nuclear weapons, the United States must build more too. If the United States builds more, so too will Russia and China. Unchecked, nuclear arsenal sizes could quickly spiral upwards, passing the heights of the Cold War when the United States had 23,000 nuclear weapons and the Soviet Union had 39,000.

The risks of great power war. War among great powers increases existential risk in at least four ways. First, the global cooperative system necessary to combat existential threats may be seriously damaged or destroyed. Second, combatants might target and destroy infrastructure and capacity necessary to implement existential risk mitigation measures. Third, military necessity may accelerate the development of technologies like artificial intelligence that create new existential risks. Fourth, a great power war following nuclear abolition could touch off rapid, unstable nuclear rearmament and proliferation.

After World War II, the United Nations, NATO, the International Monetary Fund, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and numerous other international organizations were built to stabilize the world and prevent such a global catastrophe from happening again. That cooperative framework allowed for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, enabled global partnerships on biosecurity through the G-7, and facilitated high-level discussions on the risks of artificial intelligence. However, a massive global war would undermine the very foundations of this order, because it would show the economic, political, and institutional ties between nations were never enough to prevent global conflict. Plus, World War III might result in the crippling or destruction of the powerful states and institutions that hold up global governance: China, France, Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, NATO, and others. The global community may lose the cooperative institutions necessary for climate change reduction, limiting or controlling risky biological research, prevent the creation and proliferation of artificial superintelligence, and generally defend the planet.

Great power war could accelerate a broad range of technologies that generate new and increase other existential risks. Russian President Putin noted in 2017 that, “[w]hoever becomes the leader in [artificial intelligence] will become the ruler of the world.” A great power war would almost certainly accelerate research, development, and implementation of artificial intelligence. One can easily imagine a Manhattan Project for artificial superintelligence, bringing together NATO’s leading artificial intelligence researchers and organizations to create a superintelligence (or close enough to it) to defend friendly cybernetworks and attack adversarial ones, manipulate adversary decision-making, or create and manage insurgent forces.  Although quantum computing is not an existential risk, accelerating development to help break adversary encryption or other military purposes would exacerbate artificial intelligence-related risks, too. Quantum computing offers potentially millions of times more computing power than classical computers, and computing power is a critical resource necessary to train artificial intelligence models. Great power war might also spur massive investment in biotechnologies like genetic engineering to enhance soldier effectiveness. Improvements and proliferation in genetic engineering generate a range of biological warfare concerns from creating new biological warfare agents to making existing agents more harmful.

In a war for survival, infrastructure necessary to mitigate existential risks might be destroyed. Space launch capabilities constitute a prime example: On November 24, 2021, NASA launched the Double Asteroid Redirection Test from Vandenburg Space Force Base near Santa Barbara, California. If China and the United States were at war, Vandenburg Space Force Base would be a viable and desirable target for Chinese attacks. China has long recognized that the United States military depends heavily on space assets for communication, remote sensing, and position, navigation, and timing. And Vandenburg is home to the Combined Space Operations Center, the Space Force center responsible for executing “operational command and control of space forces to achieve theater and global objectives.” Damaging or destroying the base, including its space launch capabilities, could help China win the war. At the same time, damaging or destroying the base would make it harder for the United States to carry out asteroid deflection research and, depending on timing, prevent the United States from launching a planetary defense mission when an asteroid is inbound.

General loss of state capacity could also draw resources and policy attention away from existential risk mitigation. Research by, Greg Koblentz of George Mason University and King’s College London researcher Filippa Lentzos mapped 69 Biosafety Level 4 laboratories around the world. At these labs, research is conducted on the most dangerous pathogenic material, like the microorganisms that cause smallpox and Ebola. The United States and global community expends significant resources to secure those facilities: President Biden’s Fiscal Year 2023 budget provides $1.8 billion to strengthen biosecurity and biosafety. But in a World War III involving the United States and China, biosecurity may fall by the wayside. Even if the United States prevails, rebuilding Tokyo, Los Angelos, Seoul, or other major cities demolished during the fighting would command tremendous resources, and attention.

Finally, a World War III breaking out after nuclear abolition could trigger rapid, unstable nuclear rearmament and proliferation. The United States, Russia, China, and other nuclear powers would almost certainly realize that nuclear abolition was a mistake and rearm themselves. A post-abolition World War III would also likely demonstrate to many other states that nuclear weapons are necessary to defend their sovereignty. Rapid nuclear rearmament and proliferation could be highly destabilizing, with significant new risks of nuclear war, because new nuclear arsenals may not be accompanied by the necessary crisis communication, secure second-strike, and general deterrence doctrine necessary to ensure stability.

Even if nuclear abolition were achieved, the basic knowledge underlying nuclear weapons would not disappear. Even if all nuclear warheads were dismantled, weapon designs were destroyed, and enrichment facilities closed, the historical and scientific knowledge of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons would not disappear. Nuclear weapons knowledge would need to be retained even in a global zero world to support any monitoring or verification programs aimed at ensuring that a nuclear global zero stays “zero.” That knowledge could provide the seeds for rearmament. So, while nuclear abolition might reduce nuclear-related existential risks in the short-term, abolition might counterintuitively increase nuclear existential risk in the long-term.

Navigating the zone of uncertainty. Effectively managing the existential benefits and risks of nuclear weapons requires two questions to be addressed. First, how many nuclear weapons are minimally necessary to deter great power conflict? Second: At what point does a nuclear war go from just a moral horror and catastrophic loss of life to truly existential harm? Unfortunately, neither answer is clear and requires significantly more modeling and analysis than has been done.

Reducing nuclear arsenals only to the minimum amount necessary to deter great power war requires a nuclear state having sufficient, survivable nuclear weapons to reliably inflict unacceptable harm on an adversary. But how much harm is “unacceptable” will depend on the conflict context, leader personality, domestic and international politics, and other factors. Plus, nuclear forces might be destroyed in an initial nuclear strike; adversary air, missile, and submarine defenses might defeat delivery systems; and nuclear weapons might simply fail to cause expected harm. Finding that right balance will no doubt be hard and change over time, especially with nuclear-relevant emerging and evolving military technologies, but modeling and simulation, red teaming, war games, and similar exercises can all help. Global international organizations, alliances, and complex economic and social interdependence between great powers can also help to ensure nuclear weapons are not the only guarantor of great power peace.

The modeling of global cooling from nuclear war—often called nuclear winter—has been ongoing since Carl Sagan and team raised the concern in October 1983. The results of researchers vary drastically. When looking at the same regional nuclear war scenario, one group of researchers concluded the environmental harms could be globally catastrophic, while the other concluded the climate impact would be minimal. Assumptions regarding how much soot a nuclear war generates, how much soot reaches the upper atmosphere, how food consumption changes, effects on global trade, and the degree to which livestock feed is diverted to human use all affect estimated harm, sometimes drastically.

Unfortunately, political biases and agendas have often colored those assumptions. Fortunately, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine launched an independent study on potential environmental effects of nuclear war to assess the environmental effects and social consequences of nuclear war, including potential nuclear winter scenarios. The committee’s work continues, but the findings should merit significant attention. More generally, the global community should also invest financial, scientific, and computing resources to better assess the climate effects of nuclear detonations, connecting it with ongoing work on modeling climate change. Nuclear war would be a global problem that deserves global attention to understand and mitigate the effects.

The United States and global governments can also take action to reduce the risk of nuclear war causing existential harm by strengthening food security. Because the existential harm of a nuclear war that caused nuclear winter would come primarily through massive starvation, the global community can work together to build new and enhance existing long-term food reserves. In addition, the United States and others should think through and develop post-catastrophe plans for a broad range of extreme events, including nuclear war. For example, the United States could develop plans to use the military for emergency food supply, as in the Berlin airlift, when American and British aircraft delivered 2.3 million pounds of food, and other supplies to West Berlin. The United States and global community should also invest in research and development towards synthetic and resilient food sources like methane single cell proteins. These activities would not just be useful for life after nuclear war, but also enhance food security in the near term and be useful for a broad range of ecological and social disasters.

Of course, the best way to reduce the risks of nuclear war is to ensure it never happens in the first place.

The survival of humanity needs to be a global priority, because humanity’s survival transcends every social, economic, and political issue. What importance is war in the Ukraine, Taiwanese sovereignty, global poverty reduction, or Icelandic fishing rights, when all of mankind is in danger? For better or worse, ensuring human survival means keeping nuclear weapons for their deterrent effects, accompanied by diligent efforts to ensure that they are never used.

Keywords: TPNW, Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, existential risk, great power war, nuclear abolition, nuclear ban treaty
Topics: Nuclear Risk, Nuclear Weapons

Kallenborn is an adjunct fellow (non-resident) with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), policy fellow at the Schar School of Policy and Government, fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies, Research Affiliate with the Unconventional Weapons and Technology Division of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), an officially proclaimed U.S. Army "mad scientist," and national security consultant. He has published more than 60 articles in a wide range of peer-reviewed, wonky, and popular outlets, including the Brookings Institution, Foreign Policy, Slate, DefenseOne, War on the Rocks, the Modern Institute at West Point, Terrorism and Political Violence, and Parameters. Journalists have written about and shared that research in The New York Times, the AP, NPR, The Economist, Forbes, Popular Mechanics, Politico, Al Jazeera, The Independent, Blick, Newsweek, New Scientist, MIT Tech Review, WIRED, and the BBC, among others in dozens of languages.

Os motivos de Putin para sua agressão à Ucrânia - Rose Gottemoeller (Bulletin of Atomic Scientists)

A autora faz uma pequena lista de todos os motivos que podem ter impulsionado Putin ao deslanchar sua guerra de agressão contra a Ucrânia.

Eu ficaria num dos motivos que impedem o Putin de ser destituído: a falta da tradicional gerontocracia do PCUS que antigamente controlava o Estado, a ponto, inclusive de escolher que poderia encarnar o poder do Partido depois de Stalin. Sabemos, por exemplo, que o Diretório do PCUS escolheu Kruschev, em lugar de Beria (que foi friamente assassinado) para dirigir o partido e o país, o império. Kruschev reprimiu a revolta húngara, em 1956, mas depois se mostrou covarde no enfrentamento dos EUA por ocasião da crise dos mísseis soviéticos em Cuba, em 1962. Foi demitido pelo Politburo, e substituído por Brejnev, que foi até o fim, e depois substituído por dois outros gerontocratas, até eles escolherem alguém mais jovem, Gorbatchev. Em sua carreira, Brejnev expandiu a presença soviética no mundo, reprimiu o "socialismo com face humana" na Tchecoslováquia, e tratou de se implantar na África, apoiando diversos ditadores no continente. Também se meteu no Afeganistão, possivelmente um de seus erros mais fragorosos, mas que os ingleses já tinha cometido e os americanos bem depois.

Atualmente, Putin está como Stalin, solitário no poder, que mantém com o terror sobre todos os que o apoiam. Vai ser difícil demitir o insano tirano. A comunidade internacionacional precisa saber dito.

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

What’s eating Putin?

Rose Gottemoeller

 The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, 5/03/2022

As horrific and needless violence unfolds in Ukraine, my friends, family, colleagues, and media from around the world have all been asking the same questions: What’s eating Putin? What has driven him to start the largest war in Europe since World War II? What is driving him to threaten World War III, including the use of nuclear weapons?

 

My answer has been: It’s complicated. No single answer fully accounts for the display we are seeing of Vladimir Putin’s anger and grievance. Many Russian experts who know Putin well have been commenting on his mindset, but I want to lay out how I think about the picture. As I see it, at least eight different factors account for Putin’s erratic and dangerous behavior:

 

Genuine nostalgia. Putin has done a lot to stir up nostalgia for Russia’s imperial past and the nationalist trappings that go with it—Russian Orthodoxy, protection of Russian-language speakers, and conservative interpretations of Russian national identity. His 6,000-word treatise last summer on Moscow’s undying links to “Staraya Rus’”—now inconveniently located in independent Ukraine—is his clearest articulation of this nostalgia. He conveys the notion that Russians and Ukrainians are one people, ignoring opinion to the contrary.

 

Righting past wrongs. Putin has famously said that the demise of the Soviet Union is the greatest tragedy of the 20th century. He holds in contempt Gorbachev and Yeltsin, two Russian leaders who let the Soviet republics go to seek whatever measure of independence and sovereignty they could achieve. The Crimean invasion in 2014 was one of his earliest efforts to right past wrongs. In 1997, a treaty between Russia and Ukraine established that the borders of Ukraine would be those of the former Soviet Republic of Ukraine, which included Crimea. Putin reportedly argued fiercely against this outcome at the time, and so his 2014 invasion of Crimea can be seen as his first step in righting past wrongs.

 

A different reality. Putin is surrounded by a fortress-like inner circle that has long jealously guarded what information gets to the boss. Its members are allergic to wider viewpoints breaching the wall and Putin likes it that way. He no doubt genuinely believes at this point that NATO promised not to expand to the east, although his intimate experience with NATO should lead him to know otherwise. In 2002, Putin signed the Rome Declaration, which led to over a decade of pragmatic cooperation benefitting both NATO and Russia. By that time, NATO was already through its first waves of expansion to former Warsaw Pact countries and the Baltic States. This history seems to have been wiped from Putin’s memory.

 

Scorn for Ukraine’s leadership and system. Ukraine has evolved into a messy but vibrant democracy that Putin cannot understand. Its leader is a comic, its electoral system uncontrollable, its government, including security services, reforming in directions inexplicable to him—except they are taking Ukraine farther and farther from Russia’s orbit. The Ukrainians do not jump any more when Putin says so.

 

The global bully. In 2007, Putin brought his black Lab Koni into a meeting with Angela Merkel, because he knew she was deathly afraid of dogs. She was indeed frightened, visibly so, and he thus solidified his reputation as a bully. As Merkel commented at the time, “I understand why he has to do this—to prove he’s a man…He’s afraid of his own weakness.” That sounds like the classic definition of a bully. Now he’s playing the global bully, frightening the world with the Russian army and fierce threats of war. It is what he knows how to do best, and it pays off for him.

 

“Look at Me.” China has been astride the world stage, throwing its wealth around, building up its military, broadcasting that it owns the 21st century. This behavior has alarmed the 20th century superpower, the United States, which has duly pivoted to Asia. Prior to the current crisis, President Biden and his administration barely mentioned the word “Russia” in their talk about their foreign policy priorities. Putin does not like disappearing from sight and so has done what he can do—brandish his military might, insisting that the world “look at me.”

 

Domestic bargaining. Putin is 70 years old this year. He has reached the late stage of autocracy, when he constantly has to balance and bargain among powerbrokers who need him to sustain their own power but are jockeying already to succeed him. He also has a public steadily less trustful of his government. He has to keep everybody off balance, and claiming an existential external threat is a time-honored way to do so.

 

Real frustration. When Putin was first briefed on the nature of the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE), he reportedly got angry that the limitations in the treaty meant that he could not move his own forces around on Russian territory. The “flank limits” were designed to keep Russia from concentrating its forces close to the borders of NATO countries, against Norway or Turkey, for example. These NATO countries were also prevented from concentrating forces against Russia, but that did not stop Putin’s anger, which led Russia to declare in 2007 that it would no longer abide by CFE. In the current crisis, he has frequently said that he must have the right to move his own forces around on Russian territory.

What’s eating Putin is therefore a dangerous brew: part personal grievance, part bullying behavior, part scorn for his adversaries, and part dictates for staying on top in the Russian system. Given his grave isolation, a part may also be his sense of genuine threat. Trying to back him off this precipice will take a good deal of finesse. No foreign counterpart has found the means thus far to tempt him off the cliff, although many have tried. President Macron of France is still trying. Perhaps now that China has taken an interest in facilitating diplomacy between Ukraine and Russia, President Xi Jinping will be the hero of the tale. That would be interesting. 

The pathways of inadvertent escalation: Is a NATO-Russia war (now) possible? - Ulrich Kühn (Bulletin of Atomic Scientists)

The pathways of inadvertent escalation: Is a NATO-Russia war (now) possible?

By Ulrich Kühn 

Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, February 24, 2022

February 24, 2022 marks a historical watershed for global peace and security. Violating international law, Vladimir Putin of Russia has ordered an illegal full-fledged assault on the entire Ukraine. Russian forces are pouring into the country from at least four directions, following an initial shelling of Ukrainian airfields, air defense, command and control, and other strategic assets. Analysts, including myself, have warned of that grim scenario for months. Yet, diplomacy to avert war against Ukraine has failed.

President Biden and other Western leaders have made it clear repeatedly that they would not send forces to Ukraine. After all, the country is not a member of the NATO alliance. A deliberate decision by Western leaders to go to war with Russia over Ukraine should therefore not be expected. That does not mean, however, that unintended actions by Russia, by its proxy Belarus or by individual NATO member states could not spark a larger conflict that no one planned. During the next hours, days, and weeks, the risk of what strategists call “inadvertent escalation” will increase.

A report from the RAND Corporation from 2008 describes inadvertent escalation as occurring “when a combatant’s intentional actions are unintentionally escalatory, usually because they cross a threshold of intensity or scope in the conflict or confrontation that matters to the adversary but appears insignificant or is invisible to the party taking the action. Such a failure to anticipate the escalatory effects of an action can result from a lack of understanding of how the opponent will view the action, it may result from incorrectly anticipating the second- or third-order consequences of the action in question, or both.”

In Ukraine, Russian and perhaps Belarussian forces will most likely establish control over Ukraine’s borders with NATO member states Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania within the next hours and days. These borders—together with the borders that NATO members Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland share with Russia and Belarus—may soon become some sort of new “iron curtain.” That in itself would be bad enough for Europe. Even worse, however, they could become dangerous military contact zones with heightened risks of inadvertent escalation.

Already during the first hours of the Russian campaign, Russian aircraft and surface-to-surface missiles eliminated most of Ukraine’s air defense assets. Effectively, Russia has now established air dominance over Ukrainian airspace. The following hours and days will most likely see additional Russian air support for ground operations. What exactly that would mean and how any ground battles will play out cannot be said now. There is, however, a certain risk that Russian fighter jets, engaged in ground support operations, might inadvertently violate NATO airspace over Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, or Romania.

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Incidents of such kind have happened in recent years and NATO forces usually respond swiftly by escorting any Russian air assets out of NATO airspace. The significant difference today is that similar incidents would take place against the background of an ongoing war at NATO’s borders. Whether Russian pilots, already under duress due to battle engagement, would be able to respond to NATO air policing in a responsible manner remains an open question. A first incident happened in the early hours of the Russian attack when a Suhoi 27, belonging to the Ukrainian Air Force, entered Romanian airspace and was escorted for immediate landing at the Bacău Air Base 95. The next days might see a number of dangerously close air encounters between Russian and NATO forces.

Another possible scenario for inadvertent escalation is linked to western calls for arming Ukrainian forces. A day before the Russian assault, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced, “the UK will shortly be providing a further package of military support to Ukraine. This will include lethal aid in the form of defensive weapons and non-lethal aid.” As morally justified such calls might sound in the current environment, the question remains: How will weapons be transferred to Ukraine, now that Russia has established air dominance over the country? They would almost certainly not be flown in but would have to be provided using land or sea routes. It would thus be in the interest of the Russian military to gain quick control over Ukraine’s western borders with NATO allies. Possible efforts by individual NATO member states to send additional military equipment via the Ukrainian land borders could be met with fierce Russian resistance and may lead to skirmishes between Russian and NATO personnel.

A somewhat similar grim scenario could unfold if America or other allies decide to back a Ukrainian insurgency by training and equipping Ukrainians on adjacent NATO territory. US officials have reportedly already discussed seeking to help any Ukrainian insurgency by training in nearby Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. Again, NATO-backed insurgents would have to cross the Ukrainian border, thereby inviting possible Russian military action. In addition, such training activities would most likely involve intelligence personnel that, if captured by the Russians, could be put on public display with the aim of making the other side look weak. Back in 2014, Russian personnel captured an Estonian counter-intelligence officer in the Estonian security agency, Kapo, and paraded him on Russian TV just two days after then-President Barack Obama had visited the Baltic state.

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On Twitter, security experts have started to debate additional scenarios. William Alberque, a former NATO official, pointed out that a wave of refugees that could soon pour into Eastern European states could create cross-border incidents related to management of a messy human situation or lead to infiltration and false flag operations. Alberque also mentioned inadvertent risks that could emanate from the formation of possible volunteer units of irregular forces from NATO allies, such as Poland, en route to engaging Russian troops in Ukraine.

Obviously, one can and should debate whether those scenarios are at all realistic and plausible. But one point is absolutely real: With an ongoing war in Europe, Russian and NATO forces could clash in the next hours, days or weeks—even though neither side intended any military escalation in the first place.

To prevent NATO from inadvertently ending up in a shooting war with Russia, Western allies need to do three things. First, they need to consult closely and assess internally which risks they deem acceptable and which risks they want to avoid and at what cost. Allies might find it useful to revisit some of the practical mechanisms to deconflict US-Russian military activities in Syria in that regard. Second, the allies should consider contingencies they did perhaps not focus on so far. Simulations involving experts from different disciplines could help to think through the scenarios. Third, the NATO allies must act in unity. Particularly, the issue of sending further lethal equipment to Ukraine should only be considered if all member states are fully on board. One of the worst outcomes would be an entrapment commitment—that is, a situation in which one ally establishes facts on the ground without the consent of the other allies and ends up in a military confrontation with Russia that pulls in the entire alliance.

The war in Ukraine signifies the end of an era. An era where Europe was mostly “whole and free,” to recall the famous 1989 dictum from George Bush senior. We do not know what the new era will look like. One thing is for certain, though: It will be less peaceful and safe, and more militarized and risky. Knowing about some of these risks is a necessary condition for closing inadvertent escalation pathways. But even that knowledge might not be sufficient, in the fog of war, to prevent a possibly devastating war between nuclear-armed adversaries.

As the coronavirus crisis shows, we need science now more than ever.

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Keywords: NATO-Russia war, Russia-Ukraine, Ukraine, inadvertent escalation
Topics: Nuclear Risk, Nuclear Weapons