The Japanese city of Hiroshima was atom bombed by the United States and the city represented the first casualties from nuclear warfare with an estimated 1,26,000 people killed by this one bomb. Not coincidentally, G7 leaders have been meeting in this city with a tour of horrific images in the peace museum of the carnage that occurred in early August of 1945.
Yet, the chance spectacle of atomic weapons being launched because of the war in Ukraine makes one wonder has the world, especially its top leaders, learned little of or from what happened from this massive disaster. That includes from their visitations of the testimonies in that museum against the scourge of atomic warfare. It is a museum that I have visited and one reason I am writing all this.
As well and unfortunately, Moscow’s record in recent wars and its talking up by Russian president Putin about the extent and conditions of when he would use such horrible, devastating weapons require lucid realism. That is about how dangerous the war in Europe could go and the rising risks of the nuclear and other horrendous fallout from it all the way to India and beyond.
Following this, let us look at the history of the current Russian leadership. Pictures of the totally blown apart capital city of Grozny from the second war in Chechnya shows how ruthless Russian power can be unleashed when Moscow does not get the results it wants, as following the first Chechen war. Putin just seems willing to go to the ends of the earth and his people to maintain power and certainly Russian and cultural prestige. For further example, many Opposition figures of consequence to him have been poisoned, even one by radiation – Alexander Livtvinenko.
Then look at cities like Mariupol and well beyond, blown in part to obliteration by Russian artillery and advanced aerial weapons. Putin and friends show little restraint at times in Ukraine, too so, should this make one think again how nuclear far he might go?
As well, remember Putin talks of the idea that nuclear weapons being used is not unprecedented. He points to those dropped during World War II on Japan by the US, including on Hiroshima. This is coincidentally where the G7 meeting has been attended by Indian PM Narendra Modi.
Then reflect on this, the late US General Curtis Lemay reported in the “Fog of War” documentary to have said, “If we had lost the war (in 1945 to the Japanese) we would all have been prosecuted as war criminals.” So does Putin hold the same views he can stay out of jail or worse – as long as he wins. And if he was to see using atomic weapons as the only way to win (or not lose), might he be tempted to even use the “Tsar Bomb”. A bomb possibly up to 3,000 times larger in megaton explosive power than the one dropped on Hiroshima. (Wikipedia). Putin’s position as to whether he might be up to using one is indeed a relevant question. It is not to be forgotten that Russia is already highly tense evermore surrounded by NATO member countries and forces unfriendly to it and essentially at direct war with Russia through the West’s Ukraine proxy.
Then, there are views on the usual CIA and US State department machinations to topple governments from within. Would these institutions and those they support be more encouraged to over throw the current Kremlin leadership if Russia were to lose in Ukraine? And to be more emboldened to interfere with the Narendra Modi government that irritates Washington for its more neutral views on sanctions. Now, the real question is about Putin’s real policy on using nukes. By his statements and those of his seasoned and crafty Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, they would be only used against an enemy which attempted a first nuclear strike against Russia. Or, if Russia was under existential threat as being invaded, if it felt necessary, it could employ a range of nukes. On this, it is really hard to know for sure if Putin now considers all the captured parts in Ukraine as both fully Russian territory in its nuclear doctrine. But do the West and Ukraine really want to put this to the test by defeating Moscow?
In fact, former Russian President Dimity Medvedev worries about Russia’s existence if it loses in the war. He also talks up using nukes. Tass news services quoted him as saying about the West’s intention to carve up and control the country and in that way the “desire is very simple – to destabilize …” Russia. So the Kremlin looks to its country’s arsenal of advanced nukes as the final trump card to prevent this very proud nation being broken up? More ominous is that Putin stated that he could not imagine a world without Russia.
Yet hermetically, ideologically sealed, major parts of Washington and friends seem to underestimate Moscow’s capacity to go radioactive and the massive destruction that could accompany it. For example, Carl Bildt, ex-Prime Minister of Sweden and a neoconservative is fully supportive of NATO when he said at the Holberg 2022 debate that the West cannot give in to Putin’s nuclear blackmail. That is fine and dandy for him to say if Russia felt the need to detonate in Europe an atomic warhead. For he would have taken his “very bellicose, supreme elite, anti-Kremlin friends to a private jet to Argentine Patagonia in the deep south. That is all while radiation hit just about all Indians, especially the poor hardest.
Playing some form of “nuclear chicken” with Vladimir Putin is a very bad idea. Even attacking the Kremlin with drones, recently (by Ukraine?) may just add to Putin and friends’ dangerous list, used in deciding whether Russia is under enough existential threat demanding a nuclear response.
In my preferred scenario as many times stated, I believe Putin’s forces should leave Ukraine and declare victory. However, Russia will not willingly pull out. So either this war goes on for many more months and years, with its impact adding to inflation, food shortages and other negative fallout for India and much of the global South. Or, Ukraine with NATO’s massive help gets a victory at some point. The third possibility of a Russian victory of taking much more of Ukraine, I am excluding based on the extent of the previous withdrawal last year of Russian troops from many areas and NATO hell-bent not to let Russia overrun Ukraine. And in the case, Putin is looking like he will lose, might he push the nuclear button? And if not him, there is a line-up of replacements who may be even more trigger happy and more ruthless?
India and its likes, thus, must still keep pushing harder for peace but now with a tone more assertive as this war looks more like it is escalating and getting out of control. India can do this for example at fora like the G7 it attends “informally” in Hiroshima, a once victim of nuclear warfare – or, the G20 it heads this year. All else may be much less material. Humankind may be dependent on it.
Peter Dash is an educator based in the global South. He is a former researcher at Harvard University.