Global Nuclear Security: The High-Stakes Game of Individuals

Andrea is a second-year ISPS student at UCL. Originally from Iceland, she has lived in both  Sweden and the UK. She has a passion for all things diplomacy, developed through her study of international relations and Japanese. 

Since July 16, 1945, the landscape of global security has changed drastically. What began with two states rapidly trying to proliferate has turned into 9 nuclear states. Russia, China, North Korea, France, UK, USA, Pakistan, India and Israel (unofficially for now) all, to differing extents, possess the capability to set off nuclear winter. Currently, 90% of the globe’s warheads still lie in the hands of the US and Russia, but due to recent geopolitical events, the number of both warheads and states possessing nuclear weapons is shifting. 

The problem is that proliferation is contagious. If Iran gains nuclear capabilities, it spooks Turkey and Saudi Arabia. If nuclear states begin to threaten non-nuclear states, it spooks South Korea and Japan. Nuclear weapons rely on Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), and as such nuclear proliferation is almost always met with further nuclear proliferation. What’s worrying about the situation today is that this nuclear danger is on the rise. But before we get 

into that we need to look at what global nuclear defence is, who has what bombs, and how do  they use them?  

Nuclear weapons can broadly be categorised into the triad: earth, sea, and air. Further to that,  there is a huge distinction between their explosive power – from portable devices to  Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM). The importance of this diversification of nuclear  power is essentially to uphold deterrence. The US adheres to this nuclear triad because if  North Korea was to launch an attack, it would have no hope of striking every American  nuclear power base, and as such could never attack and wipe out the prospect of retaliation.  Deterrence is also upheld on a smaller scale with the UK’s trident programme. This consists of four nuclear submarines, one of which is always active and in an undisclosed location. It  has no way of contacting London to ensure that there is no traceable signal. 

This method of deterrence forms a sort of hesitant sense of security, but it overlooks who has control over these defence systems. Nuclear power is largely a game of individuals. The closest the world has come to nuclear winter has been down to the choices of only a few men  (and yes, it has always been men). In 1962, at the height of the Cuban missile crisis, a  Russian nuclear submarine was cornered and under a perceived attack from US boats. The  Submarine did not need permission from Moscow to launch the warhead, and the Captain  Valentin Savitsky needed only the other two men on the submarine to agree. The first agreed,  but, luckily for the world, the second, Vasily Arkhipov, refused and the situation was avoided.  This only became public knowledge in 2002. 

Because of the nature of nuclear war, there are virtually no checks on the power of  individuals to launch a warhead. In the US the president has complete autonomy over the use  of nuclear weapons (a system put in place due to the need for a quick response to a Soviet  sneak attack). The UK has the letters of last resort, in which each Prime Minster at the  beginning of their term is asked to write a plan in response to a hypothetical nuclear attack  that destroyed the whole of the UK’s government. The letter sits in a safe inside a safe on the  nuclear submarines, the contents only known by the individual who wrote it. So yes, for three  months we had a nuclear response plan crafted solely by Liz Truss.  

What is also important to note is the fact that nuclear war is more likely to break out due to a  misfire rather than any calculated attack. The incentives to actually launch an attack are 

incredibly low due to MAD. But no state wants to look weak; if an attack is launched, they  have to respond and now, with 9 nuclear states and a complex geopolitical landscape, the  stakes have only gotten higher. 

We often mistake the threat of nuclear war to be a Cold War relic. The horrors of Hiroshima  and Nagasaki are fading from collective memory and the gravity of the current nuclear  situation is being put to the side. But the reality is, after the recent invasion of Ukraine and  now the war in Gaza, we are returning to a time of nuclear sabre-rattling, and in turn an  increasing risk of an accidental misfire. Putin’s initial threat to take the War in Ukraine  nuclear was enough to upset the nuclear order. It sent a message to non-nuclear states that  they were not free from the threat of nuclear power. Even though Putin reverted his stance on  the use of nuclear power in Ukraine, the rhetoric is becoming more aggressive and more  unhinged. North Korea has seemingly abandoned its plans for international allies, and as a  Financial Times journalist wrote, “has emerged into the warm embrace of Moscow and  Beijing”. Russia and China are helping revitalise the North Korean economy, and in turn Kim  Jong Un will likely bolster nuclear efforts. In the Middle-East states are increasingly viewing  the war in Gaza as a regional issue. Each side has a threshold which if passed, would  necessitate their involvment, but no one knows where each country’s threshold actually lies.  

If Putin’s threats are anything to go by, we are entering a new era of, at least rhetorically,  heightened nuclear threat. No one wants a nuclear winter, nor is it on the horizon, but we are  too quickly disregarding the threat. With the rising tensions, we have to hope the world has  enough Arkhipovs.