Nuclear-armed powers have no intention of giving up the atom bomb as part of their military strategy, experts said after the Nobel Peace Prize committee urged against any weakening of the nuclear “taboo.”
Awarding this year’s peace prize to Japan’s Nihon Hidankyo, a grassroots movement of Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors pushing for a nuclear weapons ban, the committee on Friday said the atom bomb attacks on both Japanese cities in 1945 had led to a “nuclear taboo” which had, however, come under “pressure” since.
While none of the countries possessing nuclear weapons have used them in war since 1945, the implicit or even explicit threat to do so is part of their arsenal.
Photo: The North Korean Central News Agency via EPA-EFE
Moscow has repeatedly brandished the nuclear threat in a bid to dissuade the West from supporting Ukraine, which has been fending off Russia’s invasion since February 2022.
Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center director Alexander Gabuev said it was “no coincidence” that Russian President Vladimir Putin made a nuclear threat on the eve of a meeting between US President Joe Biden and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy about Kyiv’s possible use of missiles capable of striking Russian territory.
The Nobel committee wanted to send “a strong signal” to Russia, said Bruno Tertrais, political scientist at France’s Strategic Research Foundation.
Russia had “normalized,” even “trivialized,” talk of a nuclear weapons use since its invasion of Ukraine, he said.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said last week his country would use nuclear weapons “without hesitation” if attacked by South Korea and its ally, the US.
In the Middle East, Israel, the region’s only nuclear-armed state, has vowed a “deadly, precise and surprising” response to Iran’s direct strike on Israeli territory on Oct. 1.
Meanwhile, Tehran has significantly ramped up its nuclear program and now has enough material to build more than three atomic bombs, the International Atomic Energy Agency said.
“The logic of deterrence is firmly entrenched in countries that have nuclear weapons,” said Tertrais, adding however that the risk of atomic bomb use “is no greater now than five years ago.”
Standard nuclear doctrine — developed during the Cold War between superpowers the US and the Soviet Union — is based on the assumption that such weapons would never have to be used, because their impact is so devastating, and because nuclear retaliation would probably bring similar destruction on the original attacker.
This is why China has never given up its “no first strike” doctrine, said Lukasz Kulesa, Director of Proliferation and Nuclear Policy at the Royal United Services Institute.
Other countries have also signaled that nuclear arms use would be a last resort while not ruling it out completely to maintain credibility in the eyes of opponents, Kulesa said.
However, keeping a safe balance between threat and restraint can never be risk-free, he said.
“There is always a possibility of failure. There is also a possibility of inadvertent escalation that can go all the way to the nuclear level,” he said.
Countries possessing nuclear weapons today are the US, Russia, the UK, France, China, India, Pakistan and North Korea.
Israel is also widely assumed to have an arsenal of nuclear weapons, although it has never officially acknowledged this.
Millions of dollars have poured into bets on who will win the US presidential election after a last-minute court ruling opened up gambling on the vote, upping the stakes on a too-close-to-call race between US Vice President Kamala Harris and former US president Donald Trump that has already put voters on edge. Contracts for a Harris victory were trading between 48 and 50 percent in favor of the Democrat on Friday on Interactive Brokers, a firm that has taken advantage of a legal opening created earlier this month in the country’s long running regulatory battle over election markets. With just a month
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is in “excellent health” and fit for the presidency, according to a medical report published by the White House on Saturday as she challenged her rival, former US president Donald Trump, to publish his own health records. “Vice President Harris remains in excellent health,” her physician Joshua Simmons said in the report, adding that she “possesses the physical and mental resiliency required to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.” Speaking to reporters ahead of a trip to North Carolina, Harris called Trump’s unwillingness to publish his records “a further example
North Korea blew up sections of roads in its own territory that are part of links once used to connect the southern part of the peninsula with the north, in a show of defiance after it accused Seoul of flying drones over Pyongyang. North Korea detonated bombs north of its eastern and western borders at around noon yesterday, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said. South Korea’s military later fired off warning shots within its border, said the JCS, which also confirmed there were no reports of damage in South Korea from the detonations. A video released by the South Korean
RUSSIAN INPUT: Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called Washington’s actions in Asia ‘destructive,’ accusing it of being the reason for the ‘militarization’ of Japan The US is concerned about China’s “increasingly dangerous and unlawful” activities in the disputed South China Sea, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told ASEAN leaders yesterday during an annual summit, and pledged that Washington would continue to uphold freedom of navigation in the region. The 10-member ASEAN meeting with Blinken followed a series of confrontations at sea between China and ASEAN members Philippines and Vietnam. “We are very concerned about China’s increasingly dangerous and unlawful activities in the South China Sea which have injured people, harm vessels from ASEAN nations and contradict commitments to peaceful resolutions of disputes,” said Blinken, who