Officials and experts are warning that a Russian invasion could inadvertently trigger a nuclear exchange with the U.S.
As Russian troops bear down on Ukraine and the United States prepares its own military buildup in Eastern Europe, concerns are growing across the ideological spectrum that the standoff could inadvertently escalate into the unthinkable: nuclear war.
President Joe Biden has insisted that he will not use American forces to directly defend Ukrainian territory against a possible Russian invasion. But that is no guarantee that the two sides won’t come to blows.
The world’s two largest nuclear powers could even stumble into nuclear confrontation if the situation spins out of control, current and former officials and experts on both sides of the Atlantic worry.
“At the point you unleash war in the modern environment, the one thing that is certain is the law of unintended consequences,” Des Browne, a member of the British Parliament and a former secretary of state for defense, told POLITICO. “If you are talking about a nuclear-armed environment, which is already fragile … then you are living in an environment [where] things could escalate quite quickly, by accident or miscalculation.”
“Nobody thinks any of these weapons are going to be used deliberately, but miscalculation is a significant chance,” added Browne, who chairs the Euro-Atlantic Security Leadership Group.
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There’s also concern among Russian nuclear experts about the potential that the Ukraine crisis could escalate, according to former U.S. Ambassador Richard Burt, who negotiated arms control treaties with the Soviet Union.
He told POLITICO he was on a conference call Wednesday with European and Russian security officials and experts who discussed just such a scenario.
“People are worried about the possibility … through some process of escalation this somehow gets out of control — misreading, misunderstanding signals, or technical mistakes — [and] that nuclear weapons in one form or another could become a factor in this crisis,” he said.
The situation is exacerbated by the growing number of U.S., NATO, and Russian military forces in close proximity, Burt said.
“One thing I think is useful to remember is people are not just putting their forces on alert in and around Ukraine, but you’ve got nuclear-capable naval forces in the Black Sea and in the Mediterranean,” he said. “In the Baltic Sea there also has been an intensification of activity as well. You have a lot more aircraft flying overflights.”
Russia has also been nuclear saber-rattling in recent days, threatening that if NATO doesn’t meet its demands for halting the alliance’s expansion east it could deploy its tactical nuclear weapons closer to American borders.
“What we should be worried about is their doctrine and their 4,000 non-strategic nuclear weapons,” the former official added.
Another concern is that many of its military aircraft and missiles are also designed to carry both non-nuclear and nuclear weapons, a circumstance that could sow even more confusion during hostilities.
“It is very difficult for the West to know, ‘that conventional or nuclear,’ until it’s used,” the former nuclear official said, citing in particular air defense systems.
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Officials and experts are warning that a Russian invasion could inadvertently trigger a nuclear exchange with the U.S. https://t.co/FwSVsfrFzw
— POLITICO (@politico) January 28, 2022
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