Puzzling over that dreaded bomb

Now it is in his interest, in the wake of talks between Biden and Starmer on whether to allow the Ukrainians to use allied long-range missiles against targets inside Russia. Putin has said that this would have consequences because it would involve us in war, and the loquacious Dmitry Medvedev added colour to the issue by saying that it would leave Kiev looking like ‘a giant grey, melted blob’. 

According to US intelligence, in October 2022, the risk of Russia using nuclear weapons in Ukraine was a staggering 50%. Now it must be more. 

The language of war is back, defence budgets are increasing and military service is returning to some countries. And the nuclear threat is also back because the contacts between the Americans and Russians that secured peace during the Cold War have been broken off: the Nunn Agreement has been denounced; a place to inspire confidence, as have the Open Skies and NIF treaties (on medium-range missiles in Europe), and the START II Treaty on intercontinental ballistic missiles has also been put on hold by the Russians and Americans, which is particularly serious when each has 1,600 warheads and both are modernising their stockpiles. China, on the other hand, which has ‘only’ 300 warheads, is increasing them at a rapid pace and expects to have 1,000 by 2030. 

In other words, there are more and more bombs and less and less control. As if that were not enough, Russia has renounced the axiom of not being the first to use nuclear weapons, and Trump has said that if he is elected he will once again authorise terrestrial nuclear tests, those carried out outside the laboratory, which are expressly prohibited by the CTBT (Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty) signed by 187 countries, but which has not entered into force because Washington and others have not yet ratified it. 

Trump unilaterally abandoned the Iran Nuclear Deal, increasing instability in the Middle East, which Israel, Hamas, Houthis, Hezbollah and Iran itself have been busy pushing to the limit. There were discreet indirect talks between the Americans and Iranians in Oman for a new deal, but Tel Aviv's ‘targeted assassinations’ and Tehran's response in the form of missiles and drones over Israel have scuttled it as Jerusalem probably wished. 

Today Iran is enriching uranium uncontrollably and beyond the limits allowed by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which brings it dangerously close to being able to acquire a nuclear weapon, and this is an unacceptable existential risk for Israel, as Tehran will not give up its goal of destroying ‘the Zionist entity’. Moreover, if Iran gets its hands on the bomb, the Turks, Saudis and Egyptians will want to have it too, and that would provoke an undesirable arms race in the Middle East. The Iranians say they do not want it, but it would be naïve to believe them, especially when they see how North Korea has become untouchable after crossing the nuclear threshold. 

Kim Jong-un, the satrap who rules unchecked over a paradise of communist automatons in which people are starving, mocked Donald Trump in a couple of meetings in which he gained international legitimacy for nothing, and today is an untouchable nuclear power with ever more powerful missiles that can already reach American shores, while, like Iran, he supplies weaponry to Russia for its ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine. There they have it clear: more guns and less butter. It should not be ruled out that it will cooperate with Iran and help it cross the nuclear threshold to join the select club that already includes conflict-ridden countries such as Israel, countries that get along badly with each other such as Pakistan and India, and the Europeans France and the UK. There are already too many of them. 

And this poses a serious problem for Europe, which, without the American nuclear shield that NATO provides, could be at the mercy of an expansive Russia if Trump wins the elections and does what he says: not helping Europeans who do not spend enough on defence and even leaving NATO (impossible because he will never get the necessary votes), or emptying it of its content by denying it arms and funding (something perfectly possible). 

European autonomy in defence is not credible without nuclear weapons, and after Brexit only France has them in the entire European Union. There is no choice but to talk about the issue, however thorny it may be and however little our politicians like it. 

Jorge Dezcallar, Ambassador of Spain