Diplomacy, Distrust, and Nuclear War

The war in Ukraine rages. Underwritten by US dollars, arms, intelligence, and provocation, US leaders have prolonged the war. And, in funding and arming Ukraine to the teeth, they have escalated tensions with Russia, a nation with thousands of nuclear weapons. Just this week, for the third straight month, the Russian military conducted drills to prepare for using short-range, “tactical” nuclear weapons. The risks could not be graver. Yet, as the threats of nuclear war daily become more ominous, our political class buries its head further into the sand.

Henry Kissinger notably concluded that nuclear war need not devolve into global nuclear war. But “limited nuclear war” is an oxymoron, rather like “journalistic ethics” or “military intelligence.” This is borne out in national security journalist Annie Jacobsen’s new book, Nuclear War: A Scenario, which explains in grim detail how nuclear war might play out. Her scenario begins with North Korea launching a nuclear ballistic missile at the US. Next, the Pentagon responds, launching its own ICBMs over the Arctic toward North Korea. Following this, Russia naturally believes the termini of the ICBMs are Russian cities. In response, they unload their own arsenal back in response. Finally, no one can defend against ICBMs, so they reach their targets. The world as we know it effectively ends—with two billion deaths—all in 72 minutes. Over a longer horizon, deaths will rise to five billion people. This is not armchair science fiction. It is a narrative based on interviews with dozens of nuclear experts and those in charge of our nuclear arsenal.

The upshot of this scenario is that we risk global nuclear war simply by maintaining the status quo. We need not even directly provoke a strong nuclear power like Russia, although doing so only piles madness onto our current trajectory. No, it can start with a launch from a weak nuclear state like North Korea. Nuclear War is a compelling, maddening, bone-chilling must-read on why we must avoid nuclear war at all costs. To date, the world’s been fortunate, but as the barriers to nuclear war recede, our luck may run out.

The biggest obstacle to avoiding full-scale nuclear war is distrust. According to Jacobsen, the US has SBIRS—a technology to detect ICBMs via satellite and exhaust them almost instantaneously when they are launched. Russia likely lacks this capability. In Jacobsen’s scenario, the Russians decide to retaliate against the US, even though it is North Korea, not Russia, that is the intended target of our ICBMs. They do so because they cannot discern the origins and target of nuclear weapons like the US can. And they would never trust our assurances it is not their cities we seek to destroy. One way the US could reduce the risk of this unnecessary catastrophe by sharing (and legalizing the sharing of) this technology with Russia. Or the US could provide Russia some credible way to access this information.

The problem with this idea: this possibility would never even occur in a foreign policy establishment. Even if it did occur to them, their entire ethos abhors this kind of diplomacy.

Overcoming this calcified distrust requires doing the taboo, the unthinkable, the politically suicidal—communicating with our so-called enemies. Unfortunately, US political elites believe diplomacy means dictation. Those elites have sought to sell this swill as Bordeaux, propagandizing Americans for decades. You don’t negotiate with terrorists. Compromise is appeasement.

This deception courts disaster. Communication is crucial to preventing global nuclear war. In Jacobsen’s scenario, US leaders’ untrustworthiness and lack of credibility dissolves any chance of preventing Russia from launching its own ICBMs. So long as realpolitik and saber rattling reign king in US foreign policy, rather than trust and credibility, launching one nuclear weapon will likely assure mutual destruction for all.

In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, William Faulkner said, “Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up?”

We are not quite at that level of fear, but that is only because of hubris and ignorance. Indeed, when Faulkner spoke in 1950, the risk of being blown up was miniscule compared to the height of the Cold War. Now, again, we are on the precipice. We must turn back, before it is too late.

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