Is It Time for a Nordic Nuke?
warontherocks.com
warontherocks.com
This is all a horrible development for the overall future of humanity, but it's the world we live in now. At a minimum hundreds of billions of dollars will be siphoned off from more beneficial uses over the coming decades, and the risk of major accidents will increase. The worst change is of course the fact that the odds of a complete societal collapse have increased dramatically.
Almost all of the world's nukes are controlled by aging old dictators or aspiring dictators who are surrounded by sycophants and treat competence as much less important than personal loyalty. Geopolitical risks are only going to increase as these rulers become more erratic and demented.
Yes, it definitely is.
> The worst change is of course the fact that the odds of a complete societal collapse have increased dramatically.
A nuke means that anyone who wants to invade you needs to price in a total loss of their largest city as a possible outcome. That is a great disincentive, one that Ukraine probably wishes it had against Russia.
> and the risk of major accidents will increase.
I don't think that's reasonable to say about a bunch of countries getting their first nuke. The concern should be more with countries like the US and Russia that have so many nukes, which they can't possibly use effectively, and don't have the ability to properly maintain.
If every western country had exactly one nuke, the world would probably be much safer than if the US has all of them.
It's even more complex than that. If Ukraine responded conventional war with nukes, it can be sure Russia would retaliate with even more nukes, practically extinguishing their statehood.
The equilibrium is reached when the exchange is equally devastating, so the only winning move is attacking first, and only if the attacked won't be able to retaliate. The Cold War never ended, just warmed a little, because it doesn't exist (yet) a guaranteed way to avoid an all-out nuclear retaliation.
What it seems to have deterred is two major states warring directly.
Luckily Ukraine beat back the drive on Kyiv. But if Russia’s success metric at the outset of the war (the complete capitulation and conquest of Ukraine) carried a credible risk of losing Moscow or even smaller cities closer to the front would they have been anywhere near as likely to have made such an attempt?
Why do you believe they would rationally and accurately assess nuclear war probabilities?
The entire problem is that these leaders are fucking nuts, and surrounded by people who cannot defect from sycophancy to burst the stupidity bubble and bring people back to reality.
What would have saved Ukraine is actual support.
Arguably what would have been Ukraine's best bet is if they had substantial independent oil reserves that they could not tap alone. The USA would have "liberated" them years ago. Hell, Trump is literally going this direction now, demanding "mineral rights" to do what we should be doing already.
I was stating what I believe to be a true counter-factual. If every western country had 1 nuke, the world would be safer than if a single country has all the nukes.
The west is also not "my side". I have no stake in most western countries, and their success or failure is not something I feel as part of my day-to-day. I'm glad there is more than one, so if something goes wrong I can go to another one.
The west gets special treatment because it is filled with prosperous democracies. Democracies are relatively stable, and rarely do things outside their Overton windows, like launching a nuclear weapon unprovoked. Prosperity is what makes people peaceful. Prosperous people have more to lose. No one in the west wants to backslide towards a state of nature because an invasion or unprovoked conflict went the wrong way.
I hope my state is because the alternative is being at the whim of the powerful nuclear states around us in a political climate of rising authoritarianism.
They couldn't have launched the Russian warheads as-is, but disassembly and reuse of the warhead material is another thing entirely.
> They couldn't have launched the Russian warheads as-is, but disassembly and reuse of the warhead material is another thing entirely.
Another thing entirely, yes.
But consider that Ukraine build the Kuznetsov aircraft carrier, lost it in the collapse of the USSR because the (captain?) just sailed off with it: everyone would have noticed if Ukraine had tried to keep those weapons, and at least some of them would have demonstrated how upset they were with an invasion and/or by bribing guards to put them in trucks and drive them across a border (not necessarily the USSR-Ukraine border) regardless of what the government thought.
The USSR had a policy of distributing economic development over its entire area instead of concentrating it in one place. Once a high-tech facility was built, it would be staffed by specialists recruited from all over the Soviet Union. They would be offered generous relocation assistance.
Now, I am not saying that Ukrainians are dumb or anything like that. What I am saying is that in a centrally planned economy the location of a project is chosen according to different criteria.
Anyone that has read history knows that state leaders' promises are written in the wind. Throughout history, states have traditionally behaved like dishonorable people, because their leaders have been traditionally dishonorable. It's as if it was almost a requirement, no matter the form of government.
I suspect that is because the majority of people who would make good, honorable leaders of nations do not want the job.
And considering the level of poverty there in the following decade, chances are nukes would've just gotten sold off, just like its carrier
Of course, it has later been argued that by entering into various more or less hidden agreements with the US, we made ourselves nuclear targets anyway, with no formal guarantees whatsoever to show for it...
Agreed that finding a target that doesn't blow back in our own face would be an issue. Though you don't really have to answer that question to have a deterrent, almost by definition.
insane we're back here.
Germany hasn't invaded France (or vice versa) for two generations now. The Soviet Union dissolved itself peacefully by act of parliament. (Compare to Germany/Japan/Napoleon)
I think you'll find Finland in particular doesn't have much innocent bliss regards Russia and some history there.
Instead we paid more, got hundreds of thousands of people dead, undermined our security guarantees, and all because of short term idiocy/cowardice.
The only reasonable consequence is EU countries getting nukes and getting closer to China.
And we're digging our grave further by Trump undermining NATO guarantees.
The Domestic Politics of Nuclear Choices — A Review Essay by Elizabeth N. Saunders (pdf) - https://profsaunders.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/saunders...
Any country (this includes both democracies and petty dictatorships) which wishes to be safe and independent must get nukes and means of delivery now.
We're in crazy-town because of Trump and the Republicans, with very real consequences.
But the collapse of the EU/US relationship means you probably want to plan for the potential of a similar collapse within the European alliances.
IIRC the UK has committed its nuclear weapons to defend NATO countries.
So has the US, which is part of why this is so odd of an approach. Technically we’re required to nuke ourselves if we attack Greenland.
They largely rejoined in 2009 (and very deliberately never rejoined NATO's Nuclear Planning Group), but if any NATO member is capable of going it alone on this one, it's probably France.
240 nukes on subs is plenty to wave around as a stick, too.
Even if American defences stopped 80% of them, estimates say France has enough (290*(1-0.8)=58) to destroy every state capital.
Is more really necessary, if the goal is simply to deter?
What is not discussed well is delivery systems, which we are lacking for second strike capability… submarines or complex siloes?
My only wish for the program is that we keep the capability within our control to prevent political overhead and give the current government the ability to destroy the current capabilities at a moment’s notice in case the following govt seems irresponsible. Who knows what we will look like in 200years.
Russia will be prepared to launch another attack in just a few years after the war on Ukraine ends and the US cannot be relied upon.
In fact, it's even worse as the US may end up as the enemy!
Building and maintaining an air defense system that protects your nuclear arsenal unless you own thousands of km airspace as buffer is much harder: Look at Pakistan.
Israel is special in the sense that: 1. All its enemies are underarmed. 2. The US acts as additional deterrent.
I think you’re missing a few other countries
Canada has all of the resources too; SK is the 2nd largest source of uranium in the world.
Even if tomorrow they decided to actual work together and invest in their own capabilities it would be decades before they would be free of the US defense sector and they know it and it's why they are so resistant to the idea. I think you would need to see more aggression by the Russians combined with substantially more shenanigans by the US (more than just bombastic announcements for the sake of grabbing media attention) for that to change because you are talking about trillion dollar investment, every year, for decades to walk a different path.
This is also why anarchies are not very stable.
The international order, with each nation being kinda like an individual person, has few enough actors that the distinctions between "anarchy", "democracy", and "dictatorship" are blurry.
Let me tell you, you folks weren't the only ones caught off guard by the current American political leadership. I think Europe is still betting this is more theater than anything and things will move back towards baseline in the long run, which I think is a fair bet, but I do wish they would hedge that bet a bit more than they are currently.
I think the EU should effectively form a military alliance with Ukraine who are the main force against Russia at the moment and crank things up to actually win.
Rockets, submarines, aircraft, or even a nuke in a container ship parked in a big harbor work.
Reminds me of the Rapid Dragon missile system the US uses to weaponize cargo planes - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_Dragon_(missile_system)
I'd fully expect China and the US to be working on such things.
For something to be a deterrent it must have a few properties. Delivery taking a non-zero amount of time and producing a gigantic visible ordeal from outer space is a feature here. A container bomb going off somewhere in a civilian logistics chain is a surprise. Surprises cannot be deterrent by their very definition. The inability to ~instantly attribute the attack to some party would only invite additional instability.
You don't have to have them on a container ship. You need the credible threat of being able to do so.
The only way for this to work as a retaliatory measure is to have the weapons already in place at the target locations. Now, imagine if someone were to discover the weapon and trace it back to whomever installed it. This is effectively a slow motion nuclear exchange that was initiated by the "defender".
"Yeah, you can drop bunker busters on the silos you know about, but six months later one of your cities evaporates."
The five big nuclear powers use subs for this, but it's hardly the only option.
It's also a bit more sneaky than a damn merchant vessel. You really think you're getting secrecy of a nuke existing on a merchant vessel? Why? You have given the enemy intelligence agency nothing more than an entry level homework assignment. That vessel is 99/100 getting intercepted or sunk. How many of your merchant vessels are otherwise sailing towards the country that just armegeddon'd you?
It certainly doesn't have to be, but that doesn't mean it can't be.
> You really think you're getting secrecy of a nuke existing on a merchant vessel?
Things are very routinely smuggled into countries this way today.
And nukes are surprisingly hard to detect.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/detecting-nuclear...
"Twice in recent years the two of us helped an ABC News team that smuggled a soda can–size cylinder of depleted uranium through radiation detectors at U.S. ports. The material did not pose a danger to anyone, but it did emit a radiation signature comparable to that of highly enriched uranium (HEU), which can be assembled into a nuclear bomb."
> How many of your merchant vessels are otherwise sailing towards the country that just armegeddon'd you?
Why would you put it on your own vessel?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_nuclear_weapons_progra...
There are two ways to make a bomb: either using weapons grade uranium (like the Hiroshima bomb) or weapons grade plutonium (like the Nagasaki bomb). The first requires uranium enrichment facilities and the second requires spent fuel reprocessing facilities. No such facilities exits in the Nordic countries, and both are stupendously complex. You can't just wave a want and build them. And certainly not in a clandestine way (which the author does not actually propose). If they start on this path, maybe, maybe, their own population would accept, but it's unlikely the population of other countries would accept too. Lots of the parts and raw materials needed for these facilities will need to be imported, the Nordic countries can't simply build the entire supply chain, no matter how rich they are per capita. The access to some of that upstream supply chain will be curtailed, because other countries are either strategic adversaries (Russia, China) or democracies where a large fraction of the population opposes nuclear armament. Add to that that some of the key scientists and engineers involved in such a project could be the target of assassinations (oh, wait, Russia would never do that, would it?).
Considering they got to within 6 months of finishing a bomb in 1965, I think they could probably do it again today.
There are 2 main differences. Sweden has signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) and Sweden is now a member of NATO. Both of these things result in Sweden being extremely unlikely to be able to pursue a nuclear weapons program in a clandestine way. And the article doesn't even imply that it would try that, given that it talks about a Nordic compact to pursue the bomb.
Announcing to everyone that you are trying to get the bomb implies that you first withdraw from the NPT. Legally, all the nuclear suppliers (such as Urenco) are obligated to immediately stop shipments to you. All your nuclear power plants will run on fumes. Once you run out of whatever inventories you have (most importantly nuclear fuel), you need to find way to supply yourself with what you need. Sweden gets 30% of its electricity from nuclear power plants [1]. If the population really, really wants to pursue a bomb, they can probably tough it out and find ways to overcome a 30% drop in electricity generation. But it's a tall ask.
They gave up their nukes to be betrayed. There will be A LOT of new countries with nukes soon because of that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_nuclear_weapons_progra...
Everything is service or finance economy now. Nobody cares about science sadly (me included).
It's all Netflix & TikTok, Foodora scrolling until the end now.
Edit: to be more clear: I can't believe that after 4 fucking years, a hostile nation is still permitted to wage war against a sovereign country.
When the USSR broke up, Ukraine gave up its nukes in exchange for security guarantees (lot of good that has done them)
Also Epstein was probably also a spy, but more likely for Mossad. BIG COINCIDENCE he was so close with dear leader?
Then tell me you think that doing things in Russia isn't possible.
Reasonable observers don't think ukraine could have kept russia's nukes, firstly because they were russia's and not ukraine's, and secondly because a country with less than $100B economy (in shambles at the end of the ussr) can't afford to maintain nuclear surety. Additionally, it's very unclear whether any nukes would have been employed by now. Any nuclear attack on russia would result in total annihilation, and if ukraine could only strike a few high-value targets in exchange, it's not a winning weapon or even a deterrent.
Finally the rest of the thesis above is likely to result in a wave of assassinations and sabotage across europe and a wider war that almost all parties have sought to avoid. It's a fever dream shared by angry dummies who are completely incapable of rational thought.
I'm not saying that at the time it wasn't the best course of action. Something other than what happened may have been possible and may have been an improvement, but it certainly would give any future nations considering giving up their nukes a significant pause.
>Finally the rest of the thesis above is likely to result in a wave of assassinations and sabotage across europe and a wider war that almost all parties have sought to avoid. It's a fever dream shared by angry dummies who are completely incapable of rational thought.
Again, this is the method that you would use to do it. If it were a good idea it would likely already be done. I'm not saying it's a good consequence-free course of action, that wasn't the question.
Stripping nation from nuclear deterrence is suicide: Ukraine did this in 1993. Both missiles, payloads and strategic bombers :/ They had it all... (Reverse engineering some command codes would be trivial as Ukrainians had top tier engineers in the entire Soviet Union).
Now the west is mostly trying to bankrupt Russia which isn't going too badly. Oil's being kind of blocked and they've sold 71% of their gold to keep things going but that'll run out. https://united24media.com/latest-news/russia-liquidates-71-o...
What exactly do you think their response to attempted forcible disarmament would be?
There's this mental cold war image of these people grinding it out to the Armageddon but in reality the entire Russian leadership has their children living in the cities they're threatening. Putin has a daughter that manages an art gallery in Paris. Bullies back down when you punch back and that's the much better framing of modern day rogue actors.
Then you're not paying attention. They have nukes, europe needs their gas, and the other major powers don't care about what they're doing to Ukraine.
America doesn't have hegemony any longer and its leaders and people have been subjugated by foreign powers intelligence actions.
Needed, past tense. The hold-outs today want it, they do not need it.
There's still concern about the nukes though.
It's not exactly like Europe is in a comfortable place energy-wise nor can it say it doesn't need energy from any current supplier.
This time around we must demand that it fully gives up WMDs before any help or humanitarian aid reaches it.
But something fundamentally different happened in 2022.
Remember, Zelensky was elected on a platform of negotiating with Russia for the dispossessed territory. That was acceptable 2014 - but certainly not now.
No, I think what you have is mostly different people saying different things, not people going back and forth.
> But something fundamentally different happened in 2022.
Yes, an escalation in the level of conflict from the Russian side intended to bring a rapid conclusion of the war happened in 2022.
We could have had a world without nuclear escalation.
But the last 4 years have shown that if as a country and nation you don’t have a nuclear umbrella, you don’t have recognised sovereignty and hence cannot do the single most important duty a state has - to protect the human rights of it’s citizens.
So I’m afraid the lot of the non-nuclear countries is either nuke up, or lick the boot.
If they don't have a sufficient secret stock pile of nuclear weapons already, then they have been utter and total fools.
If they don't have secret nuclear weapons in orbit, they have been severely irresponsible.
Let's hope the plans of their leaders is not to send all young men as infantry to the meat grinder to die for a country which hates them, like they are doing in the Ukraine war. But who knows? Life is full of surprises.
A lot more countries then expected had or almost had the bomb.
The UNSC has long been toothless on this issue; see North Korea.
Please read Nuclear War: A Scenario, a book by Annie Jacobsen that discusses the insanity of nuclear war.