Do we need nuclear weapons?

Does the U.K. need nuclear weapons? 

According to the U.K. government, the answer is yes, for the time being. Its strategy is to work towards the ultimate goal of a world without these weapons but the official line is: “A world where the UK’s potential adversaries have nuclear weapons, and the U.K. (and NATO) does not, is not a world in which you and your family are safer.”

You may be surprised to learn that my country has the smallest stockpile of nuclear warheads of the five nuclear weapon states (China, France, Russia, the UK and the US), and are the only one to have reduced to a single delivery system. But others haven’t followed suit, and so the weapons remain here to protect ourselves and our NATO allies.

Others completely disagree. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament group, who have been operating in the U.K. since the 1950s, will tell you that in terms of national security, nuclear weapons are irrelevant. “The UK government’s own National Security Strategy identifies the real security threats we face today as terrorism, cyber-attacks and the consequences of climate change,” it says. To be fair, Trident, our current nuclear system, would be useless in dealing with these.

But unusually, I go with my government on this one. Better to have the deterrent than not. 

Even though this is a very serious subject, I want to end on a lighter note. This is the transcript from an episode of one of the BBC’s most enduring satirical comedy TV series, “Yes Minister”, from the early 1980s.

Does the U.S. need nuclear weapons?

I’m really, really old. I’m old enough to remember the cold war. Back in the day, only the richest, most powerful countries had nuclear weapons. Hell, now even North Korea has em’. Look at list of nations working to get them: Iran, for example. Nuclear weapons are for poorer countries. The exact opposite of when I was but a tadpole.

I already know I’m the outsider here. Putin and Russia need their nuclear deterrents right now. A little factoid Putin likes to remind us of about once a week. I’m not really sure what Roger will say about the UK but Great Britain (read NATO) doesn’t need the bomb at all. 

Now, why would I say such a thing? This country or that country doesn’t need nuclear weapons? The simple truth is that Nato could dismantle any country on the planet brick by brick without “it”. Seriously, how stupid would you need to be to mess with 1000 F35s? Yeah, China says they want Taiwan but they damn sure don’t say they want a piece of France.

I’ll drive my point home for the doubters reading this. Everybody knows the US Air Force is the biggest in the world. But who has the second biggest air force? The US Navy. I am saying these guys can destroy every last ship, tank, and plane any country has without nuclear weapons. The Americans don’t need the bomb. And neither does the UK. Laser-guided, smart munitions fill the exact same military need today.

I will argue that today only small, weak countries need nuclear weapons. Members of the G7 don’t. This is the exact opposite of when I was a child. Of course, nobody will give them up. These are physiological terror weapons. I say Nagasaki and your mind automatically sees those grainy black and white pictures. Desolate landscapes from hell. Smashed buildings and splintered, charred tree trunks. We never think of firebombing Dresden or Tokyo, even though those took more lives. Even during World War II, conventional attacks could kill more people than a nuclear strike. But that’s different; and that is the power of physiological warfare. Nagasaki was awful; Hiroshima was terrible but they pale next to Dresden. But that is not how you feel.

Does My Country Need Nuclear Weapons?

There are people in Russia who believe that nukes are the country’s last resort. Whatever happens to Mother Russia, we have hundreds of nuclear missiles that would be our defenders in case of an existential threat.

I remember the heat of the Cold War from my experience in the 1980s before Reagan and Gorbachev became buddies. I’ve also read various sources about previous times of the Soviet-American standoff. As a kid, I was afraid of nuclear war; it seemed like the final Armageddon, a dreadful point of no return for the human race.

Nobody – not the United States nor the Soviet Union – has ever threatened to use nuclear weapons against each other or a third party, even during the Cuban missile crisis – what we in Russia call the Caribbean crisis.

Now, Putin’s nuclear threats have become routine. He behaves like a thug who wants to frighten the opponent. For the first time since the mid-80s, in 2022, I was afraid that nuclear war might have broken out. Literally, out of nothing, a Russian Tzar caprice.

I must admit, too, that Putin succeeded in his nuclear blackmail. The West blinked first and didn’t stuff Ukraine with weapons and armoury to effectively end the war by defeating Putin on the battlefield in 2022. That hypothetical event could have highly likely lead to Putin’s home front debacle, with him desperately looking for an exit strategy.

All these wet dreams have been ruined by the threats to use nuclear weapons.

I now don’t believe in Putin’s nuclear bluff: he’s threatened too many times. I think that the United States would strike back with their advanced conventional weapons – and I think Putin knows it better than everybody else.

On the other hand, Russia existed before Vlad and will after him. Due to Russia’s imperialistic expansion of the past, we are cursed with our geography. We have China on our eastern borders, a nuclear power with an economy ten times bigger than ours. A power that has territorial claims to Russia because we had cut off vast lands to the north from the Amur River in the 19th century.

I don’t believe in NATO/America’s threat to Russia. It is total bullshit. Even Putin knows that, because his military bases in the Kaliningrad enclave, surrounded by NATO countries, and on the Russian-Finnish border, with Finland as another – fresh – NATO member, are EMPTY! Everybody went to Ukraine. Simply because NATO is not going to attack us.

But we have China in the east and Iran in the south.

Even after Putin, we need nukes to deter these guys from making any sharp moves. Period.