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Letters to the editors

Vol. 5, NO. 1 / December 2019

Managing Doomsday

Thomas Shea,
reply by Jean-Pierre Dupuy

In response to “Striking Second First”

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To the editors:

Daniel Ellsberg’s book and Jean-Pierre Dupuy’s review both emphasize the likelihood of nuclear catastrophe. In this letter, I will propose a course of action to avert that outcome. This approach involves managing the risks associated with nuclear arsenals and aiming for synchronized arms reductions among adversaries.

In 2020, anniversaries will be marked for two key events in the history of nuclear weapons. In August 2020, 75 years will have elapsed since the first atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the closing days of World War II. In May 2020, it will have been 50 years since the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) entered into force. Among the undertakings specified in the NPT, signatories agree to, “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race … and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”1

Five of the nine currently nuclear-armed states are parties to the NPT: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.2 All are obliged to participate in good faith negotiations, but as the 50th anniversary draws closer, no negotiations have been announced or appear imminent.3

The world’s stockpiles of nuclear weapons peaked at approximately 70,300 weapons in 1986. Since then, these stockpiles have declined significantly to an estimated 13,890 weapons.4 This development may seem promising, but the remaining arsenals held by the nine nuclear-armed states continue to place human survival at peril.5 Indeed, the fact that there has not been a nuclear war since 1945, or any form of nuclear terrorism, seems miraculous.

Proponents maintain that nuclear weapons have prevented a third world war, broken the cycle of wars between India and Pakistan, ensured the survival of the state of Israel, and stopped threats by the US against China. Following this line of thought, nuclear weapons have also given North Korea extraordinary leverage in negotiations over its future. Each of the nine nuclear-armed states relies upon its arsenal to protect itself against existential threats. None possess any other comparable means of assuring their survival. The nine states differ in many respects. It is conceivable that some might decide, following the example of South Africa, that their arsenals no longer provide security and that the enormous costs involved in maintaining them can no longer be justified. Even so, it seems extremely unlikely that nuclear disarmament will come about anytime soon. A more realistic hope might be a series of measured steps that continue the current 75-year streak of control and abstinence.

If the nuclear-armed states are persuaded that their arsenals can be reduced in numbers or through operational changes, some progress toward disarmament might then be made. But, for disarmament to succeed, no new nuclear-armed states can emerge.6 The Iraqi nuclear weapons program may have been successfully dismantled, but the international community has been unable to stop North Korea from developing its own weapons program. Further proliferation can be prevented when the states that retain nuclear arsenals unite to prevent nascent weapon programs, such as in Iran.

The world’s existing nuclear stockpiles pose a number of threats to international security:

  • The outbreak of nuclear war ranging from limited-scale operations, including preemptive strikes, retaliation, and full deployment. The mechanism to manage this threat is mutual assured destruction (MAD), the perceived ability of the adversaries of each nuclear-armed state to retaliate with devastating consequences. Concerns over the potential use of nuclear weapons in some conflicts have not been allayed by the specter of MAD.
  • An unauthorized launch or detonation within the territory of a nuclear-armed state. Such an event may provoke retaliation or a broader nuclear conflict.
  • An accidental detonation that generates uncertainty among other nuclear powers as to whether it was truly unintentional, perhaps the result of poor design or shoddy maintenance, or otherwise.
  • Acquisition of nuclear weapons by an unauthorized third-party through bribery, extortion, theft, or seizure.

In addition to these risks, the special status enjoyed by the nuclear-armed states and the continued existence of their arsenals serves to inspire others to consider how they, too, might join the nuclear club.

Managing doomsday will seem a much more likely prospect if three conditions can be met. First, a legal and diplomatic framework is needed to engage the nuclear-armed states in an ongoing effort to address the risks associated with their arsenals. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) could provide such a framework. For the TPNW to enter into force, 50 states must complete their national requirements. So far, 79 states have signed the treaty and 32 have completed their ratification.7 I would like to propose two amendments for the consideration of all the parties to the TPNW.8 The first is that the nuclear-armed states take incremental steps toward full participation, as deemed consistent with their national security requirements. The second is that the costs arising from verification should be borne more widely by the international community, reflecting both the shared benefits from managing the risks associated with nuclear arsenals and the practical need to verify the enactment of the treaty among the nine nuclear-armed states.

Second, the work involved in verifying the enactment of the treaty should be assigned to two international bodies: a new International Nuclear Disarmament Agency, tasked with addressing all matters related to nuclear weapons and all classified forms and uses of fissile material, and the existing International Atomic Energy Agency, responsible for the disposal of fissile material arising from arms reduction and the safeguarding of materials that could be used to manufacture new weapons. A chapter in my recent book, Verifying Nuclear Disarmament, offers some ideas for structuring such an institutional arrangement, including how to manage its technological demands, and what verification agreements might look like.9

Third, nuclear-armed states should become more involved in threat prevention. These states seize every opportunity to defer any form of engagement that might limit their autonomy, anticipating that giving ground will inevitably lead to increasing demands. Nonetheless, nuclear weapon states that are also parties to the NPT have also come under increasing pressure to demonstrate progress in fulfilling their treaty obligations. For the 50th anniversary of the NPT, these nations are working with non-nuclear-weapon states that are also NPT members to investigate steps toward disarmament and verification possibilities. This project is promising, but it does not involve any commitments, nor does it provide any framework or institutional arrangements that ensure progress will be made. The NPT Review Conference scheduled in 2020 will likely reveal mounting dissatisfaction among most of the NPT community. In the best-case scenario, a number of the NPT nuclear weapon states will see the TPNW as a strategic opportunity, pledge to complete their ratification requirements once the two amendments above have been adopted, and encourage other nuclear-armed states to sign on.

Through continued engagement and resolute diplomacy, all the parties involved could reduce the threats of catastrophe by managing the risks associated with nuclear arsenals. Adopting these proposals will go a long way toward ensuring that another 75 years will pass without nuclear war or nuclear terrorism, and that a world free of nuclear weapons may one day be secured.

→ Read a response from Jean-Pierre Dupuy to Bruno Tertrais, David Omand, M. V. Ramana, Thomas Shea, and Jacek Kugler.

DOI: 10.37282/991819.19.92
  1. Article VI, Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs. ↩
  2. These states are also permanent members of the UN Security Council and are often referred to as the P5. The four remaining nuclear-armed states are India, Israel, North Korea, and Pakistan. One other state manufactured a small arsenal of nuclear weapons, but when its motivating threats went away, South Africa chose to disarm unilaterally and destroy its arsenal. Three other states inherited nuclear weapons when the Soviet Union collapsed, but Belarus, Kazakhstan, and the Ukraine transferred the nuclear weapons left within their territories to the Russian Federation. ↩
  3. At the most recent review conference convened by the parties to the NPT, the five nuclear weapon states published a glossary of terms to facilitate further discussion. P5 Working Group, P5 Glossary of Key Nuclear Terms (Beijing: China Atomic Energy Press, 2015). ↩
  4. Hans Kristensen and Matt Korda, “Status of World Nuclear Forces,” Federation of American Scientists. ↩
  5. For the number of nuclear weapons by country, deployed and in reserve, see the table “Status of World Nuclear Forces 2019” in Hans M. Kristensen and Matt Korda, “Status of World Nuclear Forces,” Federation of American Scientists. ↩
  6. In addition, while nuclear weapons are more destructive than any other weapon of mass destruction, physics is far from finished: nuclear weapons may one day be rendered obsolete by some new type of weapon. Such a development would not make nuclear weapons any less lethal, only introduce a new dimension in global instability. ↩
  7. Figures are correct at the time of writing in October 2019. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs. ↩
  8. See Thomas Shea, Chapter 1, in Verifying Nuclear Disarmament (New York: Routledge Press, 2019). ↩
  9. Thomas Shea, Chapter 1, in Verifying Nuclear Disarmament (New York: Routledge Press, 2019). ↩

Thomas Shea is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Federation of American Scientists.

Jean-Pierre Dupuy is Professor Emeritus of Social and Political Philosophy at the École Polytechnique in Paris and Professor of Political Science at Stanford University.

More Letters for this Article

Deterrence Lost
Jacek Kugler
reply by Jean-Pierre Dupuy
The threat of nuclear retaliation preserves peace. This is nuclear deterrence. It is a policy that Daniel Ellsberg should have explored in The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner.
The Irrelevance of Deterrence
M. V. Ramana
reply by Jean-Pierre Dupuy
Nuclear deterrence is indeed a key part of many nuclear discussions, but it is merely theoretical and seems to have little utility for the people responsible for managing nuclear arsenals.
The Route to Nuclear War
David Omand
reply by Jean-Pierre Dupuy
Between nuclear powers, no-first-use declarations are built on sand. Even if a declaration is signed in good faith during peacetime, no aggressor can count on it being maintained in the stress of war.
The Philosopher and the Practitioner
Bruno Tertrais
reply by Jean-Pierre Dupuy
A political scientist warns against an exceedingly theoretical, partly obsolete, overly pessimistic, and ultimately incomplete view of nuclear deterrence and the risks associated with nuclear weapons.
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