The most disturbing sideshow of the US presidential campaign has been Israel’s attempts to pressure the Obama administration into military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities. The latter remain functional despite sanctions, cyber-attacks and the assassinations of scientists.
An Iranian bomb would be an existential threat to Israel. So Israel would like to pre-empt this and do unto Iran as it did unto Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007. But a pre-emptive attack will provoke an Iranian response sometime, maybe with nukes. And then Israel’s submarine-based missiles will retaliate even if the Jewish state is wiped out.
Iran-Israel is just one of many tricky regional situations that could spark nuclear war, and even a contained regional nuclear conflict would kill millions. Ironically, the chances of that have increased after the Cold War ended. The US and Russia own roughly 90 per cent of the world’s nukes and these are now less likely to be used. But there are “neo-nuclear” aspirants like North Korea, Israel, India, Pakistan and Iran. Proliferation plus regional tensions increases risks of nuclear war. And, of course, there is the new nightmare of terrorists acquiring nukes.
The good thing about the Cold War was that it was bipolar and conducive to game theory. The players were rational with clear, opposed goals and understood each other. The concept of mutually assured destruction (MAD) worked because both believed in the other’s second-strike capability. Although nuclear exchanges nearly occurred many times, a mix of luck and mutual understanding averted them. The 21st century flashpoints are much harder to game. Little is known about the nuclear doctrines of neo-nuclear states. There are question marks about the stability and rationality of several neo-nuclear regimes.
In 2010, Scientific American estimated a 1 in 30 chance of nuclear war within the next decade. For example, Pakistan-India tensions could escalate into nuclear conflict, as nearly happened in 1999 and 2002. Scientific American also estimated in 2009 that an Indo-Pak nuclear war could kill up to a billion people if it triggered a nuclear winter with crop failure and starvation.
All the neo-nuclear nations have uneasy relations with their neighbours. India and China have border disputes. China has issues with US allies, Taiwan and Japan. North Korea periodically threatens to nuke South Korea. Japan and its Nodong missiles could, in theory, hit California. The internal dynamics of the Kim dynasty are, to say the least, enigmatic. Pakistan has an unstable political system. Iran has seen violent street protests.
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Accidental launches may also be triggered by instrument malfunction or human error. Elaborate checks were developed in the Cold War to reduce the chance of a launch in error. Even so, malfunctions and human errors led to several close calls. Complex chains of command also evolved to ensure retaliation if national leaderships were wiped out in first strikes.
Nukes are smaller now. A 50-kilogramme device with a yield of a few kilotonnes will fit into a backpack, and stealing one of these miniaturised weapons would be a terrorist’s wet dream. Suitcase nukes can also be deployed with front-line formations. India and Pakistan have played war games simulating tactical nuclear battlefields. A tactical nuke exchange in the fog of war leading inevitably to escalation is easy to imagine.
What are the chains of command in neo-nuclear nations? What fail-safe procedures exist? How are communications protected from hackers? What are first strike and escalation doctrines? Who will control arsenals in case of violent regime change? The answers are mostly unknown and must vary from state to state.
Another haunting conundrum: in 1973, at the height of the Watergate hearings, a visibly disturbed and possibly drunk President Nixon said, “I could leave this room, and in 25 minutes, 70 million people would be dead.” Given that context, how can one know that the person ordering a launch is actually sane? Nobody has yet found a fail-safe answer to that question.