Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Restrospect and Prospect

Frank Barnaby, Douglas Holdstock

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781135209933
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

Fify-three years ago the first nuclear bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They killed some 250, 000 poeple. A distinguished group of contributors examine the background and effects of the bombing and look at the lessons for a world which harbours 45, 000 nuclear warheads.

Part II

THE PRESENT

NUCLEAR THREATS TODAY

The Current Status of the Nuclear Arms Race

PAUL ROGERS

The Nuclear Arms Race in the Early 1980s

Following the breakdown in East–West relations in the late 1970s, consequent in part on the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and the installation of the markedly hawkish Reagan administration in the United States shortly afterwards, there was a period of intense escalation of nuclear deployments by both superpowers. This affected most classes of nuclear weapons, involved quantitative increases and also qualitative improvements in capabilities and was accompanied by similar if smaller-scale developments in the middle-ranking nuclear powers.

By the mid-1980s the Soviet Union was in the midst of a comprehensive upgrading of its strategic nuclear weapons, with new intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) such as the SS-24 being tested, the world’s largest ballistic missile submarine, the Typhoon-class, being completed, a supersonic strategic bomber, the Blackjack, undergoing tests, and a number of nuclear-armed air-launched cruise missiles under development. Most of the new ICBMs and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) being deployed carried multiple independently-targeted re-entry vehicles (MIRVs) and showed considerable improvements in accuracy over earlier systems.¹

In the United States, the considerable increase in defence spending by the incoming Reagan administration after 1981 was yielding a range of results. Improvements in existing classes of ICBM were in progress, and the new 10-warhead M-X ICBM was undergoing tests. A small ICBM was being developed and four of the new Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines were operational, deployed with the new Trident SLBM. The US Air Force had successfully petitioned for the redevelopment of the B-1 strategic bomber, cancelled by the previous Carter administration, and prototype flights of the modified B-1B commenced in 1983. A substantial programme of development and deployment of over a thousand air-launched cruise missiles was under way.²

In addition to the modernization and expansion of strategic nuclear weapons, there was a similar process affecting intermediate-range weapons. A prime focus of public attention was over the deployment of the so-called Euromissiles, the Soviet SS-20 and the US cruise and Pershing missiles. The ground-launched cruise missile, being deployed in five West European countries, was seen as a symbol of a nuclear war-fighting stance by NATO, a part of its commitment to early first use of nuclear weapons. There was little doubt that the Warsaw Pact had broadly similar policies.

In addition to these many substantial nuclear systems, it was recognized that both superpowers were developing many new kinds of tactical nuclear weapon, and that these were deployed in many countries and on warships cruising in most of the world’s waters.

By 1984 the United States was believed to have nearly 11,000 strategic nuclear warheads, and the Soviet Union just over 8,000, although the latter were generally more powerful. In addition, there were estimated to be at least 20,000 intermediate and tactical nuclear systems deployed or under development. The strategic nuclear arms race was such that strategic arsenals of both superpowers were expected to expand by at least 50% during the course of the late 1980s.

The quantitative nuclear arms race was accompanied by qualitative changes, the most important being the development of highly accurate multi-warhead missiles. Many analysts argued that this greatly increased instability, especially at a time of crisis, through the possibility of either or both superpowers developing disarming first-strike policies.² This was made worse by the development of ideas about strategic defence, the so-called Star Wars programme. First strike strategic missiles combined with missile defences were seen to be particularly destabilizing in time of crisis, likely to encourage each side to initiate a nuclear exchange, a process expressed colloquially as ‘use them or lose them’.

In addition to the then superpowers, during the early 1980s the middle-ranking nuclear powers, Britain, France and China, were all involved in nuclear modernization and expansion. Britain was upgrading the Polaris submarine-launched ballistic missiles with the Chevaline warhead and was developing the Trident successor to Polaris, and France and China were developing new land and sea-based missiles.

There were also concerns over proliferation. Israel was credited with having a substantial nuclear arsenal, South Africa was believed to have a small nuclear force, and India had tested a device ten years earlier and was assumed to be developing a nuclear arsenal. There was particular concern over the development of regional nuclear arms races in Latin America between Brazil and Argentina, in South Asia between India and Pakistan and in East Asia between the Koreas and between Taiwan and China. There was also a suspicion that Middle East states, specifically Iraq and Egypt and possibly Iran, had nuclear weapons programmes under way. In short, a superpower nuclear arms race was in progress, middle-ranking nuclear powers were expanding their forces and there were concerns over proliferation.

A Process of Transition

The easing of Cold War tensions began early in the time of the Gorbachev administration from 1985 onwards. For about two years almost all of the significant initiatives came from the Soviet Union, especially a number of temporary nuclear test bans. An improvement in Soviet–American relations with the Reykjavik Summit in 1987 was followed by the successful implementation of the INF treaty towards the end of the decade. This involved the removal of all land-based intermediate-range missiles from the US and Soviet inventories and included the Euro-based cruise, Pershing and SS-20 missiles, a process of symbolic as well as military importance.

This was followed by the relatively rapid negotiation of the two START agreements, again a process of bilateral Soviet-American arms control, which put into reverse the previous expansion of strategic arsenals and also set severe limits on numbers of multi-warhead missiles. Britain, France and China were not parties to these treaties and their own strategic programmes were largely unaffected by the superpower developments.

During the early 1990s the collapse of the former Soviet Union was accompanied by the large-scale withdrawal of many tactical nuclear systems and their placing in storage pending dismantling. The substantial majority of all naval and army tactical nuclear forces were involved in this process. In the United States, the US Army relinquished all of its tactical nuclear weapons, including artillery and battlefield missiles, and the wide range of naval tactical weapons was reduced to a handful of nucleararmed cruise missiles on submarines. This process also affected the middle-ranking powers, especially Britain, where the numbers of tactical forces were cut substantially, including the withdrawal of all army and navy tactical systems.

The effect of all the changes of the past decade may be summarized briefly. Provided that the START 2 agreement is fully implemented, US and Russian strategic arsenals will each reduce to about 3,500 warheads by the early part of the next decade, although each party is likely to maintain reserve forces of a similar number of weapons, together with several hundred tactical nuclear weapons.³ Total active forces will be around 8,000, with several thousand in reserve, but this compares with perhaps 45,000 at the peak period of deployment in the mid-1980s. Britain, France and China are all likely to have smaller nuclear forces, but with modernization continuing.

Concerning proliferation, substantial progress was made in Latin America, where greatly improved relations between Argentina and Brazil resulted in an agreement to curb nuclear weapons developments. There was also evidence of a US success in limiting the nuclear ambitions of South Korea and Taiwan, although tensions remain over the status of North Korea. South Africa announced the dismantling of its small nuclear arsenal.

In the Middle East and South Asia, by contrast, there remain major concerns. Pakistan is now considered to be a nuclear-capable state, and it and India are both developing substantial missile capabilities as well as likely to have active nuclear weapons development programmes. One effect of the Gulf War was to demonstrate that Iraq had made much more progress in developing nuclear weapons than had been assumed, and Iran is believed to have a limited nuclear weapons development programme. Furthermore, Israel remains a substantial nuclear power, a matter of continuing concern to states such as Egypt.

The Nuclear Age – End or Transition?

It would seem from the foregoing description that the intense nuclear arms race between the two superpowers, developing in the late 1940s and lasting for forty years, is largely over. There have been significant agreements which have resulted in nuclear arms control and some nuclear disarmament. These have not just halted the trends towards quantitative and qualitative expansion of the nuclear arms race, but have, to an extent, put it into reverse.

There have also been significant decreases in the nuclear capabilities of the middle-ranking powers, a pronounced change of policy by a number of nuclear weapons states away from nuclear testing, and some progress on reversing regional nuclear aspirations, especially in Latin America. It is reasonable to conclude that the nuclear arms race of earlier decades is over in that form, and that some of the trends in nuclear proliferation have been curbed. It does not follow from these conclusions, though, that nuclear weapons are in process of wholesale withdrawal, nor that the international system is moving clearly towards a non-nuclear environment. There is, rather, strong evidence to indicate that the nuclear era is not over, but in a process of transition.

This is apparent from a number of trends. Within Russia, there are few indications of any willingness to consider moving beyond the planned START 2 limits. There are occasional references to the desirability of negotiating a START 3 agreement, but at the same time there are also indications of a process of limited nuclear modernization under way. Russia is divesting itself of much of its armed forces, with rapid cuts in naval, army and air forces, yet certain core types of force are being retained in substantial numbers. These include rapid deployment and long-range power projection forces, core naval and air forces, and substantial strategic nuclear forces. These latter include a programme of continuing strategic nuclear developments such as the testing of a new or heavily modified ICBM.³

Similarly, the United States is in the process of re-orientating all the major branches of its armed forces to maintain its security interests in what is now seen to be a disorderly and unstable world. This process includes significant developments in long-range air power, a commitment to rapid deployment, carrier strike power, amphibious and special operations forces. Furthermore, the United States is maintaining substantial nuclear forces and is developing new nuclear targeting options including the packaging of small nuclear ‘expeditionary’ forces for possible use in limited regional wars.⁴

Concerning nuclear weapons and policy, both Britain and France are following a broadly similar programme – nuclear forces primarily relevant to the East–West confrontation are being downgraded or withdrawn, while other forces appropriate for the post-Cold War world are under development.⁵ Britain’s Trident system is a case in point. Originally conceived as a system for use against the former Soviet Union, this was a long-range, accurate multi-warhead submarine-launched missile with a destructive capability well in excess of post-Cold War requirements. As Britain withdraws its tactical nuclear forces over the next decade, Trident is now to be transformed into a flexible ‘sub-strategic’ missile system capable of carrying a small-yield single warhead suited for limited nuclear use in regional conflicts.⁶

The indications are that military planners in the more powerful states of the North, especially those with nuclear weapons, see a continuing requirement for nuclear forces, not least because they do not believe it likely that nuclear proliferation will be controlled. Furthermore, nuclear proliferation is seen as one part of a larger problem, the spread of weapons of mass destruction including chemical and biological weapons, area impact munitions and ballistic missiles.

There is a further belief that the East-West polarization of the Cold War era is being replaced by a North-South polarization, principally between the wealthy industrialised states and a substantial number of relatively poor states. In this context, weapons of mass destruction are seen to provide the latter with a means of redressing the military imbalance. Thus, one post-Cold War assessment of threats to western security included:

• widening economic differentials between the North and South;

• impact of high technology weapons and weapons of mass destruction on the ability – and thus the willingness – of the weak to take up arms against the strong;

• use of force or of terrorism to attempt to redress grievances or resolve problems.⁷

It is this expectation of a new axis of confrontation which is largely at the root of current changes in military orientation, including a commitment to versatile, modernized nuclear forces. The implications are clear – the nuclear arms race in its old form may be over, but the nuclear age is merely in a period of transition, with no expectation on the part of the military that it is feasible to move to a nuclear-free world.

Questions of Security

An assessment emerges of a future global security environment dominated by a North–South confrontation. This is fuelled by the deepening socio-economic divisions between rich and poor, and by environmental limitations on development, and made more dangerous by the increasing availability of weapons of mass destruction.⁸ The northern military response is, broadly, to see this as constituting a new set of security problems or ‘threats’, which require a military response, one that includes maintenance of weapons of mass destruction, especially versatile nuclear forces. That this outlook envisages the possibility of small-scale nuclear use in regional conflicts should not be too surprising, given the strongly-developed nuclear war-fighting postures of NATO and the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War.

More generally, it does not appear to address the core issues responsible for the new axis of confrontation, and is likely to exacerbate a process leading to a deeply unstable international system characterized by Brooks as:

a crowded, glowering planet of massive inequalities of wealth buttressed by stark force yet endlessly threatened by desperate people in the global ghettoes of the underprivileged.⁹

Within the context of the military dimension, it can be argued that t...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• I The Past: Hiroshima and Nagasaki – The Bombings and Their Aftermath
• Part II The Present Nuclear Threats Today
• Part III The Future Ways Out of the Nuclear Arms Race
• Part IV The Goal A Nuclear-Weapon-Free World
• Afterword
• Appendix The Global Nuclear Arsenals – Beginning of 1995
• Index