June 2024
By Luisa Kenausis

In recent years, nuclear weapons have made their way back to a prominent role in popular media in the United States. The headliner has been Oppenheimer, the most feted film of the 2024 Academy Awards and the most high-profile movie depicting nuclear weapons in decades. Beyond that example, nuclear weapons have appeared repeatedly in other U.S. media products, playing roles of varying significance in fictional movies, TV and streaming series, and docuseries and documentaries.

Nuclear weapons are not a new element in cinematic culture in the United States, but it seems they are more of a focus today than they have in a generation. To understand the surge in interest, viewers must consider the societal function of storytelling, the interaction of global politics and popular culture, and the history of nuclear weapons in pop culture.It is also necessary to examine some recent and upcoming nuclear weapons-related films and TV shows, assess how they interact with prevailing Western narratives about nuclear weapons, and consider their potential impact on public opinion on nuclear weapons in the United States.

Narrative and Popular Media

Storytelling is how humans preserve and share knowledge. When a story is shared with people, its imbued meaning can be spread widely and become part of a community’s common beliefs or knowledge. In this way, stories allow people to make sense collectively of the world around them.¹

Over time, the stories that people see and hear repeatedly, especially in a popular culture context, can contribute to their worldview and become part of a shared cultural perspective. The ways that objects such as nuclear weapons are depicted in popular, typically fictional TV shows and films and the narratives that are linked to them through popular media impact how the real-life versions of those objects are perceived and discussed within a culture.

Although global events can drive trends in popular culture, interaction between the two phenomena is more complex. Popular media informs the way that global events are perceived and interpreted within a specific cultural context.² Pop culture is produced and consumed intertextually, with viewers, consciously or not, interpreting popular films and TV shows in relation to other popular works that they have already seen or that have already entered cultural consciousness. One fictional depiction of nuclear weapons may not drastically change a viewer’s personal beliefs about those weapons, but the viewer’s preexisting beliefs about nuclear weapons likely have been shaped by nuclear-related narratives that have been repeated across U.S. popular media over time.

U.S. Nuclear Cinema From 1950 to 1990

Popular films tend to reflect the beliefs, fears, and pervasive questions of their time. Within just a few years of the first nuclear detonations in 1945, U.S. filmmakers were using their films to examine nuclear weapons and nuclear war and its potentially apocalyptic aftermath thoughtfully. When public views on nuclear weapons shifted over time in response to global events, the depiction of nuclear weapons shifted as well, leading to a few distinct eras in nuclear cinema in the United States.³

Early films about nuclear weapons took seriously the task of making sense of these new weapons. Their narratives often felt heavy with anxiety, fear, and guilt, reflecting the nation’s complicated feelings about the bomb. The first Soviet nuclear test in 1949 and subsequent nuclear arms race further drove nuclear fears in the United States. In the 1950s, radiation-based monster and mutant movies reflected growing fears about the unknown impacts of radiation, nuclear testing, and atomic fallout.⁴ Science fiction films such as Godzilla, King of the Monsters! released in the United States in 1956 in a heavily modified version from the original Japanese Godzilla, Them!⁵ in 1954, and The Incredible Shrinking Man in 1957 emphasized the unknown, unpredictable dangers posed by nuclear weapons. In the same period, films such as On the Beach, released in 1959 and set in 1964, offered direct warnings to audiences that a nuclear war could lead to the extinction of humanity in the near future.⁶ These films raised questions about the atomic bomb and its effects, and their narratives centered on the unknown, potentially uncontrollable destructive power of nuclear weapons.

A few years later, Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb in 1964 took a sharper look at the dangers posed not only by the physical power of nuclear weapons, but also by reliance on nuclear deterrence to prevent a doomsday scenario. In this film, nuclear weapons are not depicted as a source of strength or protection for the nation holding them but as a vulnerability at the global level.

While the Cold War thawed from the late 1960s to 1979, nuclear weapons played relatively little role in U.S. films. This shifted following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980. A series of crises in the early 1980s, along with Reagan’s “axis of evil” speech in March 1983, again stoked fears of nuclear war among the U.S. public.⁷ These heightened fears were reflected in The Day After, a 1983 ABC TV movie in which nuclear war breaks out between the United States and the Soviet Union, destroying Lawrence, Kansas. Nuclear narratives in The Day After are reminiscent of those from the early nuclear films, with emphasis placed on the unimaginable horrors of a nuclear attack and its aftermath and the human impact of nuclear explosions.

Since the Cold War ended, the role of nuclear weapons in films has been reduced significantly, with weapons often functioning as plot devices rather than as film topics in themselves. In the 1996 blockbuster Independence Day, for example, the United States launches a nuclear-armed missile at an alien spaceship hovering above Houston, and the missile destroys the city but fails to harm the spaceship. In this film, the primary purpose of nuclear weapons is to demonstrate the alien ship’s imperviousness to human technology. No clear message about nuclear weapons themselves can be discerned from the film.

Nuclear War Rebooted

One consequence of the complex relationship between global political events and popular culture is that a viewer’s specific experience with a particular work of popular media is dependent on when and where they see it, with their viewing context being informed by current events in the world and their local news cycle. In February 2024, an audit analyzing U.S. media coverage of nuclear weapons between August 2020 and August 2023 found that coverage increased sharply following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, from a prewar average of 500 stories per month to a peak of nearly 3,000 stories in March 2022.⁸ After that, nuclear weapons coverage appears to track with key events in the Russian-Ukrainian war and threatening statements from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Across the analyzed coverage, there appear to be broadly shared assumptions among journalists, officials, and other quoted sources that nuclear weapons are dangerous and that their use would be catastrophic and must be avoided. Perspectives diverge, however, on the question of how best to avoid nuclear war. Proponents of arms control characterize nuclear weapons as a source of risk and advocate for their reduction or elimination in order to prevent nuclear war. Those in the other camp characterize a strong nuclear arsenal as essential to deter attack. These perspectives constitute the two competing narratives about nuclear weapons in today’s media: nuclear weapons keep the world safe or put us at risk.

In recent months, there has been significant media attention paid not only to specific news events relating to nuclear weapons, but to the rising risk of nuclear war more broadly. In March 2024, The New York Times launched “At the Brink,” an interactive multimedia series that seeks to examine the current dangers posed by nuclear weapons and consider what can be done to reduce nuclear risks. In the first installment, a narrative essay is paired with interactive illustration, animation, photography, video, and audio to depict vividly a hypothetical nuclear attack.⁹ Five installments have been published so far, and the series is expected to run through 2024.¹⁰

A recent public opinion survey further illuminates the context in which the current wave of nuclear weapons media will be interpreted. In the survey, respondents report relatively low familiarity with nuclear weapons topics, but six in 10 of them indicate interest in learning more about nuclear weapons and U.S. nuclear weapons policy.¹¹ The survey was conducted a year after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and five months before the premiere of Oppenheimer, making it a useful snapshot of public opinion at this nuclear moment in film and TV.

The Current Wave

The much-anticipated release of Oppenheimer in July 2023 marked the start of the current surge of nuclear weapons in popular media. Directed by Christopher Nolan, the film tells the story of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and his role in the creation of the atomic bomb. Although most of the film focuses on the Manhattan Project, it also depicts a contentious 1954 congressional hearing on the renewal of Oppenheimer’s security clearance.

The film uses debates among Oppenheimer and other scientists to raise some of the competing narratives about nuclear weapons. As the Manhattan Project progresses, viewers see scientists discuss whether the new weapon will make the world more or less safe, whether the bomb should be used against a nearly defeated Japan, and whether the United States should pursue development of a hydrogen bomb. Although these on-screen debates add some nuance, the primary narrative is that before the United States used nuclear weapons against Japan, its creators believed that atomic bombs would mean the end of war. In an early scene, Niels Bohr asks Oppenheimer, somewhat leadingly, if the weapon will be big enough to end “all” war. Later, Oppenheimer repeats this belief directly more than once, saying that the bomb “will ensure a peace mankind has never seen” and that after it is used, “nuclear war, maybe all war, becomes unthinkable.” Notably, his view changes dramatically by the end of the film, but his post-Hiroshima perspective on the bombs is less explored.

Oppenheimer has drawn criticism for not giving a voice to the victims of nuclear weapons.¹² Although the number of Japanese people killed by the atomic bombings is mentioned, the movie does not show the use of the bombs against Hiroshima and Nagasaki or the physical effects of the weapons on the human victims. Moreover, in telling the story of the Manhattan Project and the first U.S. nuclear test, called Trinity, Oppenheimer makes no mention of the downwinders, the victims of the fallout from U.S. nuclear testing. Nolan has said that the film does not show the bombings of Japan to maintain its subjectivity because Oppenheimer himself did not witness them and the film extends from Oppenheimer’s point of view.¹³ This omission may strengthen the film as a portrayal of Oppenheimer, but by leaving out the ugliest and most horrific consequences of nuclear weapons, it limits its own potential to inform its audience on nuclear weapons.

In some recent releases, nuclear weapons exist in the background. In Wes Anderson’s 2023 movie Asteroid City, for example, the film takes place in an isolated desert town, bursting with atomic kitsch imagery reminiscent of 1950s Americana. Characters comment idly on the atomic bomb tests that go off every so often. Despite the obvious proximity of nuclear weapons to Asteroid City, it is difficult to say what statement, if any, the film is trying to make about them.

Amazon Prime’s new streaming science fiction series Fallout, based on the video game franchise, reflects a similar tendency. The Fallout games are known for raising complex questions about nuclear weapons¹⁴ and, at times, offering a surprisingly accurate and powerful portrayal of a nuclear attack. In the new series, nuclear weapons serve only to explain the postapocalyptic setting in which the story takes place, and their portrayal lacks realism. In the first scene, viewers see a large-scale nuclear attack on Los Angeles, but the explosive flashes are weak, the shock waves move impossibly slowly, and the scale of destruction per detonation is far too small.¹⁵ The series explores stories in a wasteland created by a massive nuclear war, but real-world questions and concerns about nuclear weapons feel out of scope.

Fictional and dramatized films can increase viewers’ interest in nuclear weapons, but leave out key information when it does not fit the narrative of the story being told. Recent and upcoming documentaries can build on this increased awareness and allow interested viewers to learn more about the reality of nuclear weapons.

Netflix’s Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War is a nine-part nonfiction docuseries that looks at the development of the atomic bomb and the ensuing rapid proliferation of nuclear weapons. It links the collapse of the Soviet Union to the history of the Cold War to Putin’s ascent to power and ultimately to the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. Nuclear weapons are particularly relevant in the first episode, which focuses on the U.S. effort to develop the atomic bomb during World War II and the decision to use it against Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

There is overlap between the timelines depicted in Oppenheimer and Turning Point, but the two productions differ sharply in that Turning Point tells the story with a focus on the victims of the bomb, including victims of nuclear testing in the United States. For example, in Turning Point, viewers learn how a girls dance camp was located only 40 miles from the Trinity test site and how all but one of the 12 girls there would die of cancer before turning 30 years old. In Oppenheimer, these girls and other downwinder victims are not addressed at all.

Turning Point continues to challenge and interrogate commonly held notions about nuclear weapons. When the narrative that using atomic bombs against Japan was militarily necessary in order to end World War II is raised, most experts interviewed challenge or flat out reject it, arguing that the decision to use the atomic bomb was driven more by concerns about the balance of power with the Soviet Union than actual military imperative. The same episode features interviews with several Japanese hibakusha as they share their memories of the atomic bombing, another group of nuclear weapons victims essentially ignored in Oppenheimer.

Upcoming Documentaries

Looking forward, a flurry of new documentaries and the seriousness with which they promise to address nuclear weapons could mark a meaningful shift in nuclear cinema. First We Bombed New Mexico draws attention to the downwinders of New Mexico who have been harmed by the testing of nuclear weapons near their communities. The film profiles Tina Cordova, leader and co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium and a cancer survivor, in the fight for justice for the many nuclear victims in her state. Directed by Lois Lipman, the film is screening in festivals. Its timing coincides with a legislative effort to renew and expand the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, which originally excluded New Mexicans and is slated to sunset on June 7. The expansion bill passed the U.S. Senate in March, but is stuck in the House of Representatives.¹⁶

Bombshell tells the story of the struggle to control the narrative surrounding the atomic  bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The documentary will examine how the United States fought to repress accurate reporting on the atomic bombings until the publication of John Hersey’s Hiroshima. The film will consider the staying power of narratives and the ways journalists and others can challenge prevailing narratives. Now in production, it is directed by Ben Loeterman.¹⁷

Finally, How to Stop a Nuclear War will adapt Daniel Ellsberg’s book The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner into a feature-length documentary that promises not only to inform its audience about the dangers inherent in U.S. nuclear war planning, but also to call the audience to action. In a promotional video, actress Kristen Stewart said the film “sounds the alarm about this threat, but also shows the solutions and steps we can take to avert catastrophe.”¹⁸ Directed by Paul Jay, the documentary is in production.

Impact and Trends

The United States may be at the beginning of a wave of pop culture products depicting or discussing nuclear weapons. The earliest and most popular project in this current era, Oppenheimer, was released less than a year ago. It is too soon to draw conclusions about the long-term impact that any of these recent or planned releases will have on public opinion about nuclear weapons, and there are no recent survey data.

Nevertheless, there are some real-time information sources that can inform this question. Reviewing Google Trends data for U.S.-based web searches for “nuclear weapons” over the last few years suggests that people tend to seek information on nuclear weapons immediately following global events that remind them of the risks of nuclear war. In particular, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Putin’s subsequent nuclear threats have led to spikes in search volume, but other recent film and TV releases that deal with similar topics have not had a similar effect. Despite Oppenheimer’s release in late July, for instance, July and August 2023 did not see a significant uptick in searches on nuclear weapons.¹⁹ There was a heavy media buzz leading up to the premiere and a healthy box office turnout, but it appears that watching the film did not spur many viewers to seek further information about nuclear weapons.

Recent and upcoming media projects dealing with nuclear weapons can be grouped into two broad categories, based on content, target audience, and intended impact on the viewer. Several dramatized and fictional properties (Oppenheimer, Fallout, Asteroid City) appeal to a relatively broad audience and aim primarily to entertain audiences. Films and TV shows in this category have the effect of increasing public awareness of nuclear weapons through viewership of the properties themselves and through media coverage surrounding their release, which can have an even bigger impact.²⁰ Yet, these projects are unlikely to move viewers to take action against nuclear weapons because they are meant primarily to entertain.

The other category is nonfictional properties, which often have a narrower audience but can dig deeper into the details of nuclear weapons topics with the primary objective of informing their audience and feeding its curiosity. Since the Cold War, the audience for documentaries and docuseries about nuclear weapons in the United States has been narrow. With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, nuclear weapons unfortunately have returned to salience, offering an unusually potent opportunity to reach viewers through a documentary. The potential audience for nuclear weapons documentaries is large and growing. Most people are interested in learning more about nuclear weapons, and it appears that filmmakers are moving quickly to meet and build on this interest.

Although these recent releases and the Russian war on Ukraine have brought nuclear weapons back into public awareness, it seems likely that the U.S. audience simply does not feel equipped yet to take action. Since the Cold War, most people in the United States have spent little time thinking about nuclear weapons, and an entire younger generation has no memory of the Cold War. As a major blockbuster, Oppenheimer may have raised public awareness of nuclear weapons, but it does not offer viewers a clear understanding of the dangers that these weapons pose or a pathway for viewers to take action against them. The film could increase interest to such a degree, however, that its audience might be more likely to engage with future nuclear weapons documentaries.

In terms of potential audience impact, the documentaries now being readied for release could not come at a better time. Russia’s war on Ukraine has kept nuclear weapons in the headlines, and this topic will continue to feel unusually relevant and salient to the public. The popularity of Oppenheimer may have a priming effect on public interest that bolsters viewership and audience engagement for upcoming anti-nuclear weapons documentaries.

ENDNOTES

1. Lucas M. Bietti, Ottilie Tilston, and Adrian Bangerter, “Storytelling as Adaptive Collective Sensemaking,” Topics in Cognitive Science, Vol. 11, No. 4 (October 2019): 710-732.

2. Jutta Weldes and Christina Rowley, “So, How Does Popular Culture Relate to World Politics?” in Popular Culture and World Politics: Theories, Methods, Pedagogies, ed. Federica Caso and Caitlin Hamilton (Bristol: E-International Relations Publishing, 2015), pp. 11-34.

3. Paul Boyer, “A Life in American Cinema: The Nuclear Option,” Perspectives on History, Vol. 46, No. 8 (November 2008), https://www.historians.org/research-and-publications/perspectives-on-history/november-2008/a-life-in-american-cinema-the-nuclear-option.  ​​

4. Toni Perrine, “The Godzilla Factor: Nuclear Testing and Fear of Fallout,” Grand Valley Review, Vol. 16, No. 1 (1997): 19-40.

5. Steve Ryfle, Ed Godziszewski, and Yuuko Honda-Yun, Ishiro Honda: A Life in Film, From Godzilla to Kurosawa (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2017), pp. 105-106.

6. Iris Strimitzer, “On the Relationship Between Apocalyptic Films and Reality in U.S. Cold War Culture” (thesis, Universität Graz, April 2021), https://permalink.obvsg.at/UGR/AC16210730.

7. Deron Overpeck, “‘Remember! It’s Only a Movie!’ Expectations and Receptions of The Day After (1983),” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol. 32, No. 2 (June 2012): 267-292.

8. Adrienne Lynett, “Arms Control Advocates Have Increased Voiceshare, Media Audit Finds,” ReThink Media, February 12, 2024, https://rethinkmedia.org/blog/arms-control-advocates-have-increased-voiceshare-media-audit-finds.

9.  W.J. Hennigan, “The Brink,” The New York Times, March 7, 2024.

10. “New York Times Opinion Announces a New Series on Nuclear Threats,” The New York Times, March 4, 2024.

11. Dina Smeltz, Craig Kafura, and Sharon Weiner, “Majority in U.S. Interested in Boosting Their Nuclear Knowledge,” Chicago Council on Global Affairs and Carnegie Corporation of New York, July 2023, https://globalaffairs.org/sites/default/files/2023-07/Nuclear%20Survey%20Report%20PDF.pdf.

12. Emily Zemler, “Critics Say Omitting the Japanese Toll Makes ‘Oppenheimer’ ‘Morally Half-Formed,’” Los Angeles Times, August 4, 2023.

13. Christian Holub, “Christopher Nolan Responds to Criticism for Not Showing Hiroshima Bombing in Oppenheimer,” Entertainment Weekly, November 8, 2023.

14. Cameron Hunter, “The Ambivalent Nuclear Politics of Fallout Video Games,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, October 17, 2018, https://thebulletin.org/2018/10/the-ambivalent-nuclear-politics-of-fallout-video-games/.

15. Fallout, season 1, episode 1, “The End,” directed by Jonathan Nolan, written by Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner, aired April 10, 2024, on Amazon Prime Video.

16. Danielle Prokop, “RECA Expansion Passes U.S. Senate,” Source New Mexico, March 7, 2024, https://sourcenm.com/2024/03/07/reca-expansion-passes-u-s-senate/.

17. “Bombshell,” Filmmakers Collaborative, n.d., https://filmmakerscollab.org/films/bombshell/ (accessed May 5, 2024). Devon Terrill, a colleague of the author, is a consulting producer on this project.

18. Etan Vlessing, “Kristen Stewart Warns the World Is ‘Dangerously Close’ to Nuclear Catastrophe,” The Hollywood Reporter, December 15, 2023, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/kristen-stewart-nuclear-catastrophe-warning-1235758067/.

19. Use of Google Trends highlighting Google searches from the United States from January 1, 2019, to April 1, 2024, showed spikes in search frequency for the term “nuclear weapons” that closely aligned with nuclear weapons-related global news events.

20. Stanley Feldman and Lee Sigelman, “The Political Impact of Prime-Time Television: ‘The Day After,’” The Journal of Politics, Vol. 47, No. 2 (June 1985): 556-578.

June 2024

 

When the World Ends in 72 Minutes

Nuclear War: A Scenario
By Annie Jacobsen
Dutton, 2024

Reviewed by Tom Z. Collina

Annie Jacobsen’s Nuclear War: A Scenario is a page-turning thriller about how, step by tragic step, the world as we know it might end with nuclear weapons. It is a welcome and timely reminder that “12,000 years of civilization” could be “reduced to rubble in mere minutes and hours,” as the author puts it. In her realistic narrative, it is all over in 72 minutes.

The book runs the reader through an engagingly written, painstakingly detailed scenario in which North Korea launches a “bolt from the blue” nuclear attack against Washington, D.C. and Diablo Canyon Power Plant in central California. The United States responds with a much larger retaliation, involving 82 warheads, against North Korea. Because the U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) overfly Russia on their way to Pyongyang, Moscow thinks it is under attack from the United States and retaliates with 1,000 warheads. Before North Korea is destroyed, it detonates an electromagnetic pulse weapon over the United States. Finally, the United States retaliates with everything it has against Russia. Game over.

The bulk of the book is a riveting minute-by-minute account of how each step of this dizzying process plays out, starting with the launch of one warhead from North Korea. The launch is detected, analyzed, and assessed. At 3 minutes and 15 seconds after launch, the U.S. president is informed. At 9 minutes, an attempt is made to intercept the missile. It fails. At 23 minutes, after the first detonation in California, the U.S. president orders a strike against Pyongyang. At 33 minutes, the Pentagon is destroyed. At 41 minutes, Russia detects a massive nuclear attack heading its way. The dozens of expert interviews and deep research that Jacobsen conducted make the scenario feel realistic and terrifying. Along the way, the author reminds readers about some of the more troubling aspects of current nuclear policy, such as the facts that the United States or North Korea could start a world-ending nuclear war on the orders of just one person, a concept known as sole authority; that Russian and U.S. nuclear weapons are on high alert, ready to be launched at a moment’s notice, even before a reported attack has been confirmed to be real, a concept known as launch on warning; that U.S. ICBMs are highly vulnerable to attack and that their use against a nation such as North Korea would look like an attack against Russia; or that existing U.S. missile defenses stand little chance of stopping even a limited attack from North Korea.

In laying out this scenario, Jacobsen also challenges many of the questionable assertions employed by the nuclear establishment to defend the status quo. One of those assertions is that deterrence works. Well, it does until it does not. It is true that nuclear deterrence has worked so far and rational leaders seem to understand that initiating a nuclear attack against another state with nuclear weapons would be suicidal. Unfortunately, that does not mean it will keep working forever, and there are multiple ways it can fail catastrophically. As in Jacobsen’s narrative, a leader in a nuclear state such as North Korea can become irrational (a “mad king”) and launch a first strike for any reason at all. This may be a highly unlikely scenario, and some may say it is a thin reed on which to hang a whole book. Yet, that may be Jacobsen’s point: deterrence is vulnerable to factors that are out of our control.

Another questionable assertion is that a “limited” nuclear war would stay limited. Some would like everyone to believe that it is possible to have a “small” nuclear war, using just a few nuclear weapons, and that this could somehow restore deterrence before things really get ugly. Jacobsen shows just how dangerous such thinking can be. The gruesome logic of the system is biased toward quick and massive retaliation (“use them or lose them”), so limited use rapidly escalates into full-scale war even if no one intended that to happen. In the book, the United States never intends to start a nuclear war with Russia, but that is exactly what happens.

The author also makes it brutally clear that nuclear war has no winners and, as Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev predicted, “the survivors will envy the dead.” Her description of what would happen to Washington after getting hit with a 1-megaton bomb is particularly chilling. “Wind rips the skin off people’s faces and tears away limbs. Survivors die of shock, heart attack, blood loss. Errant power lines whip through the air, electrocuting people and setting new fires alight everywhere,” she writes. “Never in the history of mankind have so many human beings been killed so fast.” Capitol Hill is obliterated. The animals in the National Zoo have no chance. Globally, over time as smoke blocks out the sun, billions die. Humans have gone the way of the dinosaurs.

Jacobsen writes that, “[f]or as long as nuclear war exists as a possibility, it threatens mankind with Apocalypse. The survival of the human species hangs in the balance.” She concludes that rather than the United States, Russia, China, or North Korea, “[i]t was the nuclear weapons that were the enemy of us all. All along.”

What Now

Jacobsen revealed in Mother Jones that she “wrote this book to demonstrate—in appalling, minute-by-minute detail—just how horrifying a nuclear war would be. Join the conversation. While we can all still have one.”¹ Yet, the book offers no solutions. The author has said that she did not want to step out of her “lane as a journalist and as a storyteller” and into the lane of an expert on policy fixes.

Even so, a key part of this much needed conversation is to ask what now. How can the world prevent a nuclear war that Jacobsen accurately describes as possible and catastrophic? For those who read this compelling book and are rightly motivated to get involved, what policies would prevent the very scenario she lays out?

In general, people on both sides of this debate think that nuclear war would have no winners and should be prevented. Those who support maintaining current nuclear arsenal levels, or even increasing them, justify their position on the need to have a strong nuclear force to deter an attack by others. Humanity must face the reality that even if the United States offered to eliminate its arsenal if others did so too, the others might not follow. Russia, in particular, appears to have little interest in reducing its arsenal and recently has made thinly veiled nuclear threats against Ukraine.

This creates a challenging environment for the most straightforward approach to ending the threat of nuclear war: eliminating nuclear weapons. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is the best vehicle for this approach. It has been in force since January 2021 and has been signed by more than 90 nations. Unfortunately, none of the nuclear-armed states currently support this treaty or seems likely to do so anytime soon.

Short of global elimination of nuclear weapons, the next best approach is gradual reductions. Alas, Russia has told the Biden administration that it is not interested in discussing ways to replace the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), which expires in early 2026. If New START disappears without being replaced, there would be no legal limits on Russian and U.S. nuclear forces for the first time in 50 years. China, for its part, is increasing its nuclear forces and also is not interested in talking about reductions, although Beijing recently said it is willing to discuss an agreement to prevent the first use of nuclear weapons. As long as the Biden administration remains committed to arms control, there is reason to keep pursuing diplomacy with China and Russia, but the near-term prospects for significant arms reductions are bleak.

If arsenal reductions are not promising now, there are changes in U.S. policy that could make nuclear war less likely. One policy ripe for change is sole authority. In the book, North Korea starts a nuclear war all by itself. Presumably, the leader of that nation has the absolute authority to make this decision. Washington likely cannot change Pyongyang’s launch policy or convince it to give up its nuclear arsenal, although it should try. The United States has a sole-authority policy as well, and North Korea has no monopoly on making bad decisions. Washington could at least reduce the risk of a U.S.-initiated nuclear war by requiring that any decision to launch a first strike must be a joint decision with Congress or a subset of its members. The initiation of nuclear war should require the shared authority of the executive and legislative branches. This seems like a prudent approach, particularly in light of the upcoming U.S. presidential election.

Another potential change involves launch on warning. This policy supports the president launching U.S. nuclear weapons after a possible attack has been detected by early-warning sensors but before the reported attack is proven to be real, such as by landing on U.S. soil. In the book, the U.S. president launches nuclear weapons only after the attack on California is confirmed, so this is not an example of launch on warning. Yet, the way the fictional president is rushed into a decision, with another attack reportedly heading toward Washington, is similar. Imagine an alternative scenario where the president is first removed from Washington to a remote location where he can take time to reach a decision when more information arrives. There is no need for the president to launch quickly, within minutes. In the book, a quick launch leads to a tragic error: sending a large force of U.S. ICBMs on a flight path over Russia.

A main reason why U.S. presidents are pushed by advisers to act quickly in a scenario such as this is that the country’s ICBMs are in fixed locations and thus are vulnerable to attack. If not used quickly, they may be destroyed by the incoming attack. This leads to rushed decisions. By contrast, U.S. nuclear-armed submarines at sea are not vulnerable to surprise attack and create no pressure for quick launch. Moreover, submarine-based weapons do not have to be launched from fixed sites; unlike ICBMs, they could attack North Korea without flying over Russia. The United States would have fared far better in Jacobsen’s scenario with no ICBMs at all, and such weapons should be retired. Short of retiring its ICBMs, Washington could prohibit their use in any mission that overflies a nuclear-armed state that is not the intended target.

Some critics say that Jacobsen’s scenario is not realistic, that U.S. planners would not launch ICBMs over Russia and would instead use submarines to avoid this possibility. Yet, that may be Jacobsen’s precise point. Humans make bad decisions all the time, especially in a crisis.

As a journalist, Jacobsen’s strength is her powerful storytelling, and readers can excuse her lack of solutions, some debatable aspects of the scenario, and even a few errant facts. Nuclear War is an excellent book for anyone who wants to understand just how quickly nuclear conflict can start and how badly it can end. With its gripping narrative and timely arrival, it has the potential to start a new debate on how best to avert nuclear war. This book is a welcome addition to global efforts to reduce the risk of the ultimate disaster.

 

ENDNOTE

1. Annie Jacobsen, “America’s Nuclear War Plan in the 1960’s Was Utter Madness. It Still Is,” Mother Jones, March 27, 2024, https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/03/nuclear-war-scenario-book-siop-weapons-annie-jacobsen/.

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Tom Z. Collina, former senior policy adviser at Ploughshares Fund, is a nuclear expert and co-author of The Button: The New Nuclear Arms Race and Presidential Power From Truman to Trump.

 

June 2024

Germany and Nuclear Weapons in the 21st Century: Atomic Zeitenwende?
Ulrich Kühn, ed.
Routledge
2024

The contributors to this collection have produced a valuable introduction to current nuclear debates in Germany, providing foreign readers with a first reference for deciphering recurring allusions to an independent nuclear deterrent in German political circles. Although not a comprehensive history of postwar Germany’s relationship to the bomb, this edited volume provides the context to understand a wide range of contemporary nuclear issues. The volume benefits from an impressive range of viewpoints, with highlights such as Giorgio Franceschini’s chapter explaining shifts in the Green Party’s policy on nuclear weapons and Michal Onderco’s polling of German public opinion.

Editor Ulrich Kühn and co-author Barbara Kunz explain in their chapter that a Franco-German route to a German nuclear weapon is barred by a “lack of strategic convergence” and numerous practical, legal, doctrinal, and cultural challenges. In examining Germany’s decision to give up its own latent potential, Kühn argues that the strategic considerations that led to the abandonment of nuclear technology persist to this day. The book makes clear that stray talk in the Bundestag distracts from the far more substantial and nuanced nuclear debate in Germany on the country’s role in nonproliferation, NATO deterrence, and disarmament.—XIAODON LIANG

Arms Control at a Crossroads: Renewal or Demise?
Jeffrey A. Larsen and Shane Smith, eds.
Lynne Rienner Publishers
2024

With the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty expiring in 2026 and the future of arms control uncertain, this edited volume centers on the editors’ assertion that arms control is “not quite” dead and its value as a tool of statecraft remains even if it faces steep challenges ahead. The book presents 16 analyses by respected experts who probe the editors’ view that “arms control will need to adapt to the realities of a new era to remain a relevant instrument of statecraft.” It provides a comprehensive overview of international efforts to rein in nuclear weapons.

The book covers a wide variety of arms control and cooperative security topics, including the theory and contexts of arms control, the perspectives of major powers and their competitive relationships, and the future of arms control in traditional and new domains, such as cyberspace and outer space.

In a world that has grown pessimistic about containing nuclear weapons, the editors acknowledge that arms control has “lost its luster among many of the world’s political leaders.” Yet, they remain hopeful that “political leaders will one day again see the utility and value of arms control as a primary tool for managing competition.”
—SHIZUKA KURAMITSU

June 2024
By Xiaodon Liang and Shizuka Kuramitsu

China has not provided a “substantive response” to three U.S. strategic risk-reduction proposals and has declined to schedule a follow-on meeting to a November 2023 bilateral meeting on arms control and nonproliferation matters, U.S. officials said.

But diplomatic engagement continues on other tracks. Chinese and U.S. delegations met in Geneva on May 14 to begin a dialogue on strategic risks associated with artificial intelligence (AI). U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with his counterpart, Chinese Defense Minister Adm. Dong Jun, for the first time in 18 months on May 31 on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.  U.S. officials confirmed that nuclear weapons concerns were on the agenda.

According to U.S. officials, the United States at the November meeting proposed risk reduction measures on missile launch notifications, a crisis hotline, and space deconfliction. China “has declined a follow-on meeting and has not provided a substantive response to the risk reduction suggestions we put forward,” Bonnie Jenkins, U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, testified May 15 before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Jenkins said that the United States would continue to “increase diplomatic pressure” on China to be more transparent about its nuclear forces. Citing the Defense Department estimate that China will increase the number of its operational warheads from 500 warheads currently to 1,000 by 2030, she said the buildup raised questions about China’s nuclear posture and strategic goals.

The United States also has urged China and Russia to mirror the unilateral U.S. statement that humans, rather than AI, always should be in control of nuclear weapons. Speaking to reporters May 2, Paul Dean, principal deputy assistant secretary of state at the Bureau of Arms Control, Deterrence, and Stability, described that commitment as “an extremely important norm of responsible behavior.”

But when asked by reporters on May 13, a U.S. spokesperson declined to confirm that nuclear command and control would be prioritized during the talks with China in Geneva. According to a summary of the talks issued May 15 by the U.S. National Security Council, the two sides discussed “respective approaches to AI safety and risk management,” and the United States raised concerns about Chinese “misuse” of AI. The Associated Press on May 15 described hints of tension between the parties and said that the Chinese delegation criticized U.S. restrictions on exports of computer hardware that are critical to research in the AI field.

Meanwhile, China has continued to reaffirm its nuclear no-first-use policy. Arriving in France for a state visit May 5, Chinese President Xi Jinping, writing in the French newspaper Le Figaro, “stressed that nuclear weapons must not be used, and a nuclear war must not be fought.”

In response to questions from Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Jenkins said she was aware of a specific Chinese no-first-use proposal but the matter would have to be taken up by the interagency process. Jenkins added that she had questions about how China’s no-first-use policy was compatible with its current nuclear weapons buildup.

Jenkins also said that, in bilateral discussions with China, the United States stressed the importance of being a responsible nuclear power and how Russian threats of nuclear use are irresponsible.

Xi “has played an important role in de-escalating Russia’s irresponsible nuclear threats, and I am confident that [he] will continue to do so,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a May 6 press statement, following talks with Xi and French President Emmanuel Macron.

On a May 16 state visit to China, Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed with Xi to deepen the “comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for the new era” as they commemorated this year’s 75th anniversary of Chinese-Russian diplomatic relations, according to reports from the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

June 2024
By Carol Giacomo

U.S. President Joe Biden came under fresh pressure to halt the transfer of weapons to Israel after the state launched a deadly bombardment of Rafah that killed at least 45 people.

On May 28, CNN reported that its analysis of videos and a review by explosive experts showed that U.S.-made munitions were used in the Rafah attack, which occurred May 26, two days after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to “immediately” halt its military offensive in the southern Gaza city.

Earlier in the month, Biden threatened to suspend the delivery of some U.S.-made offensive weapons if Israeli forces entered population centers in Rafah, a refuge for civilians fleeing the fighting that is also viewed as a Hamas stronghold. U.S. laws and a U.S. presidential directive impose requirements on presidents to curb U.S. weapons transfers to countries that violate international humanitarian law or fail to avoid harming civilians.

But even after Israeli strikes killed what the Gazan Health Ministry said were dozens of people sheltering in tent camps and wounded 249 more, the White House suggested that the military offensive still had not crossed a redline that would force significant changes in U.S. support for Israel.

On May 28, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said that what the Biden administration does not want to see in Rafah is a “major ground operation” in which “thousands and thousands of troops [are] moving in a maneuvered, concentrated, coordinated way against a variety of targets on the ground.”

He said that type of operation was not happening, and “I have no policy changes to speak of,” although he called the deaths in Rafah “devastating.”

For months, the Biden administration has straddled the sensitive question of whether Israel has violated U.S. and international humanitarian law as it sought to punish Hamas for the extremist group’s brutal Oct. 7 attack that killed more than 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals.

One particular deadly attack occurred on April 1 when seven employees of World Central Kitchen, an aid group, were killed by Israeli airstrikes. The Israeli military took responsibility for the catastrophe, The New York Times reported on April 8, and said it presumed some of World Central Kitchen’s vehicles were carrying militants, raising new questions about Israel’s ability to identify and protect civilians.

On May 10, the Biden administration announced the results of its internal review of Israel’s use of U.S.-provided weapons in the war in Gaza, as called for in National Security Memorandum-20. (See ACT, March 2024.)

The report said that “it is reasonable to assess” that U.S. weapons have been used in violation of humanitarian law and that Israel has acted in ways that blocked U.S. humanitarian assistance. But it does not make a specific enough finding to trigger sanctions against Israel.

The report also found that the U.S. intelligence community “assesses that Israel could do more to avoid civilian harm.”

U.S. law, regulation, and the Conventional Arms Transfer Policy require the United States to withhold military assistance when U.S. weapons are used in contravention of international humanitarian law.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who authored a proposed legislative amendment that prompted the drafting of the national security memorandum, said the report “ducks the ultimate questions that [it] was designed to determine,” according to AI Monitor.

The issue has divided the State Department, where some officials urged Secretary of State Antony Blinken to conclude that Israel has violated the terms of the memorandum and others pressed him to certify that it did not.

In early May, the Biden administration paused the delivery of a shipment of 3,500 500- and 2,000-pound bombs to Israel, Axios reported May 5, but other weapons continue to flow.

The United States provides more weapons to Israel than any other country, including $80 billion last year. Since Oct. 7, these transfers have included bombs, artillery shells, precision guidance kits, guided missiles, drones, and ammunition.

Israel’s Rafah operation has spawned international outrage and a demand for an end to the fighting, including from leaders in the European Union, the United Nations, Egypt, and China. The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has requested arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister and defense minister, and the Biden administration has expressed concern about the lack of a clear Israeli plan for postwar Gaza.

June 2024
By Libby Flatoff and Shizuka Kuramitsu

A senior U.S. Republican senator appeared to suggest that Israel should consider using nuclear weapons to defeat Hamas in Gaza, drawing criticism from arms control activists and others for normalizing talk of an option that the world has long considered anathema.

During a May 8 hearing at which he faulted the Biden administration for halting the delivery of some weapons to Israel, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) demanded of top U.S. defense officials, “Would you have supported dropping bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II?…Do you think that was disproportionate?”

“You’re going to tell (Israel) how to fight the war when everybody around them wants to kill all the Jews? Give Israel what they need to fight the war. This is Hiroshima and Nagasaki on steroids,” Graham told Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Charles Brown at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing.

Four days later on NBC, Graham again justified the use of nuclear weapons on Nagasaki and Hiroshima because the weapons were used “to end a war we [could not] afford to lose” and insisted, “Give Israel the bombs they need to end the war they can’t afford to lose.”

Whether Graham actually was advocating the first nuclear weapons use since World War II or not, the comments landed with a thud in Tokyo where Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa described the remarks as “not appropriate” at a May 10 press conference.

She said that Japan “has been expressing for a long time…[that] the use of nuclear weapons does not match the spirit of humanitarianism, which is the ideological foundation of international law, because of their tremendous destructive and lethal power.”

She added that Japan had reiterated this point to U.S. officials. 

On May 14, Kamikawa addressed the issue again, telling reporters that “[i]t was very regrettable that such remarks have been made repeatedly.”

The Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, also called Nihon Hidankyo, sent a letter to the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo requesting a retraction of Graham’s remarks, NHK reported on May 15. “The remarks go against international humanitarian law…. [N]ow that the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons has come into effect, the remarks can only be described as an anachronistic and malicious delusion,” the letter said.

In addition, the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in separate press conferences on May 16, condemned Graham’s justification of atomic bombings on their cities, according to Jiji Press.

Graham’s comments “run counter to the direction we should be taking in the future toward our ideals [of a nuclear-free world],” which U.S. President Joe Biden reaffirmed in Hiroshima at the 2023 Group of Seven meeting, Kazumi Matsui, the mayor of Hiroshima, said. (See ACT, June 2023.) “With humanitarian and catastrophic consequences brought about by atomic weapons in mind, nothing can justify the use of nuclear weapons,” Shiro Suzuki, the mayor of Nagasaki, said.

Meanwhile, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, wrote on social media May 13 that “likening the situation in Gaza to Hiroshima and Nagasaki [is] utterly unacceptable” and Graham’s statements “shouldn’t be normalized.”

Graham’s remarks garnered the most attention, but other U.S. politicians expressed similar views. Appearing on Newsmax on May 14, Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.) also invoked Hiroshima and Nagasaki and said, “[T]his is where Israel has every single right in the world to press this conflict further.”

Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) was caught on video at a town hall meeting on March 25 suggesting that the United States should use a nuclear bomb on Gaza to “get it over quick…. [Gaza] should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima.”

Walberg later denied that he was calling for the use of nuclear weapons, claiming instead that he “used a metaphor to convey the need for both Israel and Ukraine to win their wars as swiftly as possible, without putting American troops in harm’s way.” But Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the first Palestinian-American member of Congress, criticized Walberg, saying he “is not the first member of Congress to use despicable, violent, dehumanizing language to describe their genocidal intent in Gaza and will not be the last.” 

Despite Israel’s long-standing refusal to acknowledge having a nuclear weapons program, Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyafu said on Radio Kol Barama that using nuclear weapons in Gaza was “one of the possibilities,” the Times of Israel reported on Nov. 5.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied this possibility and suspended Eliyafu, but Eliyafu in January again “urged that Israel must find ways for Gazans that are more painful than death to defeat them and break their morale, as the [United States] did with Japan,” Middle East Monitor reported on Jan. 6.

June 2024
By Michael T. Klare

An international conference that drew more than 1,000 participants, including government officials from 144 nations, showed strong support for regulating autonomous weapons systems, but reached no conclusion on exactly how that should be done, organizers said.

There is a “strong convergence” that these systems “that cannot be used in accordance with international law or that are ethically unacceptable should be explicitly prohibited” and that all other autonomous weapons systems “should be appropriately regulated,” Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg, chair of the Vienna Conference on Autonomous Weapons Systems, said in his closing summary.

The April 29-30 conference, hosted by Austria, focused attention on the dangers posed by the unregulated deployment of these weapons systems, sometimes called “killer robots,” and on mobilizing support for negotiations leading to legally binding restrictions on such systems.

Schallenberg and other participants expressed concern that, without urgent action, these systems, which can orient themselves on the battlefield and employ lethal force with minimal human oversight, could soon be deployed worldwide, endangering the lives of noncombatants. The foreign minister spoke of a “ring of fire” from the Russian war on Ukraine to the Middle East to the Sahel region of Africa and warned that “technology is moving ahead with racing speed while politics is lagging behind.”

“This is the Oppenheimer moment of our generation,” Schallenberg said. “The preventative window for such action is closing.”

Over two days of plenaries and panels, speakers from academia, civil society, industry, and the diplomatic community addressed the dangers posed by autonomous weapons systems and various strategies for regulating them. Numerous experts warned that once untethered from human control, these systems could engage in unauthorized attacks on civilians or trigger unintended escalatory moves.

As reflected in public statements and panel discussions, there was near-universal agreement that, in the absence of persistent human control, the battlefield use of such systems is inconsistent with international law and human morality. But participants expressed some disagreements over the best way to regulate them.

The conference occurred at a watershed moment in the international drive to impose international controls on autonomous weapons systems. For the past 10 years, a UN group of governmental experts has been meeting under the auspices of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) to identify the dangers posed by these devices and assess various proposals for regulating them, including a protocol to the CCW banning them altogether.

During these discussions, many participants in the group of experts coalesced around the so-called two-tiered approach, which would ban any lethal autonomous weapons systems that cannot be operated under persistent human control and would impose strict regulations on all other such weapons. But because the CCW operates by consensus, progress toward implementation of these proposals has been blocked by several countries, including Russia and the United States, that oppose legally binding restrictions on these systems.

This impasse has sparked two alternative approaches to their regulation. The advocates of a legally binding instrument, having lost patience with the group of experts, have urged the UN General Assembly to consider such a measure.

In December, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution expressing concern over the dangers posed by these systems and calling on the secretary-general to conduct a study of the topic in preparation for a General Assembly debate scheduled for the fall. (See ACT, December 2023.)

An alternative approach, favored by the United States, the United Kingdom, and several of their allies, calls for the adoption of voluntary constraints on the use of autonomous weapons systems. As affirmed in a document titled “Political Declaration on Responsible Military Use of Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy,” released by the U.S. State Department in November, there are legitimate battlefield uses for such systems as long as they are used in accordance with international law and “within a responsible human chain of command and control.” (See ACT, April 2024.)

Based on statements by panelists and government officials, most participants in the Vienna conference appeared to favor the first approach, abandoning the CCW and pursuing a legally binding instrument, preferably through the General Assembly.

“The process at the CCW is a dead end because of the rule of consensus and the possibility of certain states, like Russia, blocking any meaningful measures on autonomous weapons,” Anthony Aguirre, executive director of the U.S.-based Future of Life Institute, said. “I think we need a new treaty, and that treaty needs to be negotiated in the UN General Assembly.”

Most of the states represented at the conference, including Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Egypt, Germany, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, New Zealand, South Africa, and Switzerland, echoed Aguirre’s view, asserting support for negotiations leading to such a treaty. But other states, including Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, Turkey, the UK, and the United States, indicated that the CCW remains the most appropriate forum for further discussion of autonomous weapons systems regulation.

With the conference behind them, Schallenberg and his allies are looking to preserve the convergence of views that the conference achieved and ensure that it is brought to bear at the General Assembly in September.

June 2024
By Xiaodon Liang

Russia conducted military exercises involving nonstrategic nuclear weapons in late May and framed the drills as a response to statements and actions by NATO in support of Ukraine. The invocation of nuclear options perpetuates a pattern of nuclear saber-rattling by Russia since the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. (See ACT, September 2022.)

In a May 6 press release announcing the exercises, the Russian Foreign Ministry said the drills were intended to send a “sobering signal to the West.” Russia’s complaints include the delivery of French, UK, and U.S. strike missiles to Ukraine and the authorization of their use against targets in Russia. The Russian statement also referenced French President Emmanuel Macron’s May 2 interview with The Economist reaffirming that France has not ruled out sending its own troops to Ukraine.

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Russian security council, stated in a May 10 social media post that, under “certain circumstances,” the response to attacks against targets on Russian territories would not be limited to Ukraine and may involve “a special kind of arms.”

France and the United Kingdom have provided Ukraine with the Storm Shadow air-launched cruise missile, known in France as the SCALP-EG, for defense against the Russian invasion. The Russian statement describes the missile as a “long-range” weapon. Manufacturer MBDA lists a 250 kilometer range, but the UK Air Force claims the missile can operate out to 550 kilometers. These missiles first arrived in Ukraine last summer, but UK Foreign Minister David Cameron’s May 2 statement that the UK would not object to Ukraine using the missile against targets in Russia provoked the Russian response.

The Russian statement also criticized the United States for developing and producing ground-launched missile systems that would have been barred previously by the now-defunct Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. The statement said that Russia would terminate its unilateral moratorium on the deployment of these systems if the United States were to deploy such missiles in Europe or the Asia-Pacific region. (See ACT, May 2024.) U.S. intelligence believes that Russia had already deployed a weapons system barred by the INF Treaty, the 9M729 cruise missile. (See ACT, June 2019.)

The United States has not transferred missile systems to Ukraine that would have fallen within INF Treaty restrictions, but it has provided Kyiv with the Army Tactical Missile System, a ballistic missile with an estimated range of 300 kilometers, the State Department said on April 24. The Russian statement also criticized this transfer. A Defense Department spokesperson on May 6 described the announcement of the nonstrategic nuclear exercises as “irresponsible rhetoric,” adding that there was no change observed in Russia’s strategic posture.

The Russian Defense Ministry announced the first phase of the exercise in a May 21 Telegram social media post and said it involved units equipped with the Iskander missile system assigned to the Southern Military District, as well as aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces bearing the Kinzhal hypersonic missile. No end date was mentioned.

According to the ministry, the exercises involved handling nuclear warheads and pairing them with missiles, as well as maneuvers by the missile launchers and aircraft. In a Telegram post May 6, the ministry said that naval vessels would participate.

Russia often includes nonstrategic nuclear weapons in regular, large-scale exercises, but does not publicize separate drills of nonstrategic missile units. The delivery vehicles operated by these units may include shorter-range tactical missiles with a range of up to 300 kilometers, as well as longer-range missiles.

Estimates of the total number of Russian nonstrategic nuclear weapons are imprecise, but U.S. intelligence and independent sources place the number between 1,000 and 2,000.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko confirmed on May 9 that his country’s military forces would take part in the nonstrategic nuclear weapons exercises, Tass reported. Days earlier, the Belarusian military had ordered snap inspections of units equipped with the Iskander missile system and the Su-25 combat aircraft.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced in June 2022 that Russia would provide Belarusian forces with the nuclear-capable Iskander and configure Belarusian Su-25s for a nuclear role. In March 2023, he added that nuclear weapons would be stored in Belarus.

Open-source investigations conducted by independent analysts and The New York Times confirm progress in constructing a likely nuclear weapons storage site near Asipovichy, Belarus. In March, NATO officials, including Lithuanian Defense Minister Arvydas Anusauskas, told Foreign Policy that Russian nuclear forces had redeployed into Belarus.

June 2024
By Mina Rozei

The United States has accused Russia of violating the international chemical weapons ban by using choking and riot control agents multiple times in its full-scale war against Ukraine and has imposed new sanctions as punishment.

In a May 1 statement, the U.S. State Department said that it had “made a determination…that Russia has used the chemical weapon chloropicrin against Ukrainian forces in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) [and]…has used riot control agents as a method of warfare in Ukraine, also in violation of the CWC.”

“The use of such chemicals is not an isolated incident and is probably driven by Russian forces’ desire to dislodge Ukrainian forces from fortified positions and achieve tactical gains on the battlefield,” the department added.

But on May 7, the Technical Secretariat of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which oversees the CWC, released a statement saying that it had been “monitoring the situation on the territory of Ukraine since the start of the war in February 2022” and that despite allegations reported by Russia and Ukraine to the OPCW, the evidence of chemical weapons use remained “insufficiently substantiated.”

In its statement, the State Department said that, in coordination with the Treasury Department, it is sanctioning three governmental entities associated with Russia’s chemical and biological weapons programs and four Russian companies providing support to such entities. The entities include a Russian specialized military unit that the United States claims facilitated the use of chloropicrin against Ukrainian troops.

The Treasury Department is separately sanctioning three entities and two individuals involved in procuring items for military institutes involved in Russia’s chemical and biological weapons programs, pursuant to a separate weapons of mass destruction nonproliferation authority, the State Department said.

It also announced new sanctions against “more than 280 individuals and entities” connected to Russia’s energy, mining, and military sectors in an effort to stem “Russia’s ability to wage its war against Ukraine.”

On May 2, Russian spokesperson Dmitry Peskov denied the U.S. accusations, saying “Russia has been and remains committed to its obligations under international law in this area.”

This is not the first time there have been reports of Russia using riot control agents on the battlefield or chloropicrin in Ukraine. In February, the Ukrainian military published a statement claiming that Russia had been using chloropicrin throughout 2023. (See ACT, March 2024.) Russia has denied these allegations repeatedly, but the Ukrainian army has claimed that at least 500 soldiers have been treated for exposure to toxic substances, including one who died from suffocating on tear gas, according to Al Jazeera on May 2.

Chloropicrin, a choking agent that causes severe irritation to the eyes, skin, and lungs, was used in World War I and is listed under Schedule 3 of the CWC as a banned agent whose use constitutes chemical warfare.

The use of riot control agents is permitted in certain circumstances. They often are used by police forces worldwide to quell protests, but they are prohibited on the battlefield because soldiers confined to trenches without gas masks are forced either to flee dugouts and trenches under enemy fire or risk suffocation.

The OPCW cautioned that the situation in Ukraine “remains volatile and extremely concerning regarding the possible re-emergence of use of toxic chemicals as weapons.” This comes after the OPCW verified chemical weapons attacks in Syria by the Syrian government in 2013 and the Islamic State group in 2018, marking an uptick in the use of chemical agents in war after decades in which they were considered taboo.

In its statement, the OPCW noted that Russia continues to deny “making use of such weapons” and said that, in order for the OPCW "to conduct any activities pertaining to allegations of use of toxic chemicals as weapons,” CWC states-parties would have to make a formal request. “So far, the Secretariat has not received any such request for action” in Ukraine, the statement said.

The Ukrainian parliament on April 24 ratified an additional agreement on privileges and immunities for technical assistance visits between Ukraine and the OPCW secretariat. This action creates the legal basis for Ukraine to cooperate with OPCW technical assistance visits for analyzing samples of toxic chemical agents that may have been used by Russian forces in Ukraine.

The OPCW also said that it remains open to information from states-parties and will continue to support Ukraine under CWC Article X, which provides assistance and protection to a state-party that has been attacked or threatened with attacks by chemical weapons.

 

June 2024
By Kelsey Davenport

North Korea is continuing to test new military systems and pledging to build up its nuclear arsenal further in response to U.S. and South Korean activities.

On May 18, North Korea said it tested a new ballistic missile with an “autonomous navigation system.” The state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said the test verified the “accuracy and reliability” of the new navigation system.

On the same day, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visited a military production facility and expressed “great satisfaction” with the work being done in “bolstering up” the “nuclear war deterrent of the country.” According to KCNA, he stressed the importance of accelerating certain production activities to further expand North Korea’s nuclear forces.

These new capabilities are driving South Korea to prepare to respond to large-scale aerial attacks from North Korea. Seoul held a drill focused on repelling North Korean projectiles, including ballistic missiles and cruise missiles. In a May 14 press release, South Korean Air Force Lt. Gen. Kim Hyung-soo said that recent conflicts overseas demonstrate that initial responses to “large-scale aerial provocations determine the success or failure of the war.”

North Korea continues to justify expanding its nuclear arsenal as necessary to respond to what it says are security dynamics and hostile U.S. policy toward Pyongyang. Pyongyang reiterated that it would expand its arsenal after Washington conducted a subcritical nuclear test in May.

In a May 20 report, KCNA described the U.S. test as a “dangerous act” and said Washington has “revealed” that its strategic goal is to “militarily control other countries with the unchallenged nuclear edge.”

The test has added “new tension” to the security situation on the Korean peninsula, the statement said. North Korea will not tolerate a “strategic imbalance” on the Korean peninsula and will reconsider its deterrence posture in response, the statement said.

In addition to showcasing new systems, North Korea conducted a military exercise designed to test the country’s preparedness for a nuclear counterattack.

According to KCNA, North Korea on April 22 tested its “nuclear trigger” command-and-control system for the first time. This system enables Pyongyang to switch rocket launchers from conventionally armed shells to nuclear armed shells. This capability “substantially” strengthens North Korea’s “prompt counterattack capacity.” The test also provided an opportunity to reexamine the “reliability of the system of command, management, control, and operation of the whole nuclear weapons forces.”

KCNA reported that rocket launchers used in the drill accurately struck their targets and that Kim expressed “great satisfaction” with the drill and noted that plans to build up the country’s nuclear forces have been “translated into reality.”

North Korea is compelled to “more overwhelmingly and more rapidly bolster up its strongest military muscle” in response to the “ceaseless military provocations” from “hostile forces,” KCNA said.

Specifically, the statement condemned recent South Korean-U.S. joint airborne exercises held in April, which KCNA described as “extremely provocative and aggressive.”

The United States continues to defend the necessity of joint military exercises. Daniel Kritenbrink, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, said on May 14 at the Brookings Institution that the United States has no choice but to “double down” on military cooperation with South Korea and Japan in response to North Korea’s military developments and rejection of U.S. calls for dialogue. He said U.S. cooperation with regional allies has “reached unprecedented levels” to counter the growing threat from North Korea.

Kritenbrink also referenced the importance of enforcing sanctions against North Korea, saying that the United States is left with “no choice but to focus on these harder elements of our strategy.”

As part of the U.S. sanctions strategy, Japan, South Korea, and the United States coordinated a joint statement endorsed by 50 states condemning Russia’s veto in the UN Security Council of a resolution that would have extended the panel of experts charged with assessing the implementation of UN sanctions on North Korea. (See ACT, May 2024.) The panel’s mandate officially ended April 30.

The statement said it is “imperative” for UN member states to comply with Security Council resolutions and that states “must now consider how to continue access to this kind of objective, independent analysis in order to address [North Korea’s] unlawful [weapons of mass destruction] and ballistic missile advancements.”

North Korea responded to the statement by saying that any efforts to reestablish a panel of experts is “bound to meet self-destruction with the passage of time.” In a May 5 statement, Kim Song, North Korea’s representative to the United Nations, said that the panel of experts and the UN sanctions regime is a “tool for the hegemonic policy” of the United States.