One Step Closer to Nuclear War

This article was first published by Bob Ulin, July 25. 2022

A recent report in the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal was disturbing.[i]  The article suggested that the Russians may be willing to “contemplate nuclear first use” with short range (300 mile) small yield, nuclear weapons, even if their country was not under catastrophic attack.

As a former U.S. artilleryman, with a background in nuclear weapon target planning during the Cold War, and later as a policy analyst at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers, Europe (SHAPE), I find the discussions of the viability of using “tactical” nuclear weapons very unsettling.

The nuclear genie was released from the bottle for use to end WWII in the Pacific theater in August 1945. The U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.  The one dropped on Hiroshima had an explosive power of about 15 kilotons while the bomb dropped Nagasaki was about 25 kilotons. Together they killed between 150,000 and 246,000 people, mostly civilians. The long-term effects such as radiation poisoning and bombing-induced leukemia would eventually raise that death toll. [ii]

Today’s weapons can be far more destructive. The number of countries having nuclear weapons is noted below:

• Russia – 6,255 nuclear warheads
• United States of America – 5,550 nuclear warheads
• China – 350 nuclear warheads
• France – 290 nuclear warheads
• United Kingdom – 225 nuclear warheads
• Pakistan – 165 nuclear warheads
• India – 156 nuclear warheads
• Israel – 90 nuclear warheads
• North Korea – none, but material to build 40-50 nuclear warheads[iii]

While not all these weapons are currently deployed and ready for use, it’s impossible to speculate on how long it would take make all of these weapons fully operational.

The big challenge is escalation control. If the Russians were to launch a tactical (smaller yield) nuclear weapon on the territory of Ukraine, it’s impossible to speculate on how the other nuclear powers would react and the type of weapons they would use.[iv] While at SHAPE during the Cold War I recall our position was that any use of weapons of mass destruction (Chemical, Biological, or Nuclear) would invite nuclear retaliation.

Once nuclear weapons are launched no one knows where it will lead because there are no precedents, just speculation. One thing is for sure, if the American homeland is perceived to be under nuclear attack we would be compelled to retaliate. That by the way is the Russian position as well. God help us if it comes to that.

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Colonel Robert R. Ulin, US Army-Retired, was a nuclear weapons target planner who served with the 56^th Field Artillery Brigade armed with Pershing ballistic missiles in Germany during the Cold War. The Pershing 1a missile system had a 400-kiloton warhead.[v]  At that time, there were three quick reaction alert (QRA) sites in Germany, each with Pershing missiles armed with live nuclear warheads.

[i] Russia’s Aggressive New Nuclear Strategy, The Wall Street Journal, Saturday/Sunday, July 23-24, 2022, page C3

[ii] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-with-nuclear-weapons

[iii] ibid

[iv] The explosive power of hydrogen bombs…is frequently expressed in megatons, each unit of which equals the explosive force of 1,000,000 tons of TNT. Hydrogen bombs of more than 50 megatons have been detonated, but the explosive power of the weapons mounted on strategic missiles usually ranges from 100 kilotons to 1.5 megatons.

[v] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pershing_II