Nukes don't stop war, they just raise the stakes

From Vietnam to Ukraine, the real-world record of nuclear deterrence suggests it’s better at fuelling arms races than preventing bloodshed, writes Mark Beeson.

THERE’S NOTHING quite like a real-world test of a theoretical proposition to instil confidence in the conventional wisdom. Unfortunately, if it’s the credibility of nuclear weapons as the ultimate form of deterrence that’s in question, not many of us are likely to be around if the assumption proves unfounded.

What we do know is that nuclear weapons have no capacity to deter conventional wars, even if we assume that nuclear powers might think twice about getting into a fight with similarly equipped rivals. We also know that wars are easy to start and very difficult to stop, much less “win” in an unambiguously convincing fashion.

The Vietnam War – or the “American War” as the Vietnamese understandably call it – lasted for 13 years and led to the U.S.’s humiliating exit from Southeast Asia. Even though Vietnam undoubtedly “won” the conflict, some 2-3 million Vietnamese died in the process. To underline the pointlessness of all this carnage, Vietnam is now seen by many grand strategists as a potentially useful ally against China — the new existential threat to democracy, American primacy and much else.

Pointless, avoidable blood-soaked tragedies never go out of fashion, it seems. One might have thought that we would have learned some useful lessons from the “war to end all wars” – World War 1 – or the increasingly fashionable, increasingly futile “wars of choice” that have been undertaken by the Americans in particular.

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It is not simply the fact that such conflicts encourage other leaders keen to use their military might to try and violently solve complex, historically embedded political problems that undermines confidence in deterrence theory. On the contrary, even nuclear weapons are re-entering the lexicon of great power posturing and even war gaming, no doubt, as leaders try to convince their counterparts elsewhere that they aren’t bluffing about their possible use.

The most consequential example of this possibility at present is in Ukraine, where Russian President Vladimir Putin is threatening to use “tactical” nuclear weapons in the increasingly unlikely event that outside powers intervene or that he looks like losing the war.

Part of what makes such threats credible is what Hugh White, one of Australia’s most prominent strategic commentators, calls ‘the balance of resolve’; in this case, the belief that Putin is willing to risk an apocalyptic conflict and use nuclear weapons against equally powerful opponents.

White argues that:

‘Any international order is defined ultimately by the issues on which the strongest powers – the great powers – can convince one another they are willing to go to war with one another over.’

He may be correct that this has been the case for the last couple of hundred years, or even the last couple of thousand, according to some “realist” thinkers, but that doesn’t make it a desirable condition. Hopefully, it doesn’t make it inevitable either, despite what the realist strategists may tell us. Indeed, we must hope they are wrong because strategic standoffs don’t usually end well. The peaceful disappearance of the Soviet Union may be a historical aberration in this regard and one that Putin is determined to avenge.

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Given the consequences of what is euphemistically described by strategic thinkers as a “nuclear exchange”, we might expect that logic that underpins such possibilities might be subject to more rigorous examination and debate. But as is generally the way with military matters and grand strategising, such issues are the preserve of a coterie of specialists who seem immune to external influence or the worries of mere mortals.

But one question we might usefully ask is: if nuclear weapons are such decisive deterrents, why doesn’t everyone have one? Why shouldn’t Iran have one, to take a topical example, as that might have deterred the Israelis from launching yet another assault on one of their neighbours.

If the right to have nuclear weapons is judged on behaviour and historical body counts, Israel, under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is surely the last country that ought to have any because it is clearly the most likely to use them. If Israel under his leadership is determined to stop Iran getting one, a nuclear weapon ought to do the trick, no matter how deeply buried Iran’s bomb building facilities are.

No doubt, there are quite a few people who would think this was no bad outcome, and well worth all the collateral damage being inflicted on Iran’s already impoverished people and infrastructure. Serves the Iranian people right for not rising up and overthrowing an anachronistic theocracy, no doubt. And yet, Netanyahu is also a reminder that unscrupulous leaders who use war and hatred to maintain power can appear anywhere and prove difficult to get rid of, too.

For those countries that don’t have nukes, these debates can seem a bit detached from reality and something we can’t really influence. But that hasn’t stopped our own hardheaded realists from urging us to get ready to ‘strengthen U.S. extended nuclear deterrence and be ready to support nuclear operations to restore deterrence should it fail’.

Quite how you restore deterrence when you’ve just vaporised large numbers of the purported enemy is an open question. Probably not the moment for a rational calculation of strategic options, though. “Use them or lose them” might be the order of the day.

Mark Beeson is an adjunct professor at the University of Technology Sydney and Griffith University. He was previously Professor of International Politics at the University of Western Australia.