Abstract
Amidst the war in Ukraine, it is important to raise the prospect and vision of creating mutual security guarantees and ridding Europe of its dangerous nuclear weapon systems and provocative force deployments. In view of reckless Kremlin rhetoric and aggressive military action in Russia’s so-called near abroad, it is time for renewed approaches to arms control. As the Ukraine situation plays out, Russia, the United States, and allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization must return to their bargaining tables and negotiate strict limits, verification measures, and overarching controls over their nuclear use doctrines, weapon stockpiles, and conventional force deployments. All sides will have to make deep concessions and de-alert and de-operationalize mid- and short-range nuclear weapons while improving command and control safeguards—because, as we see, brandishing weapons and threatening escalation heightens tensions and increases the danger of crises spiralling uncontrollably.
Keywords
The prospect of nuclear war
The war in Ukraine threatens democracy and the morale of the international community more than any other crisis since the end of the Second World War. It is time for renewed serious diplomacy, building upon and strengthening arms control treaties like the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). There remain approximately 12,700 nuclear warheads in the world, and the United States and Russia own approximately 90 percent of them. Russian president Vladimir Putin’s nebulous declaration on 27 February 2022 that he was putting his nuclear forces into “special combat readiness” was an ominous alarm. 1 In the midst of central Europe, the temptation to rattle nuclear sabres is destabilizing and could trigger pre-emptive blows by either side.
A US-Russian nuclear war remains unlikely, but accidental escalation or miscalculation from the threatened use of tactical nuclear weapons can happen; in this regard the Cuban Missile Crisis was a near miss because of intended Russian nuclear weapon deployment in Cuba and the forceful American response to missile deployment near its borders. In a speech one week before the Ukraine invasion, President Putin threatened “consequences you have never faced in your history” for “anyone who tries to interfere with us.” He came close to threatening nuclear war when he said that Russia “remains one of the most powerful nuclear states” with “a certain advantage in several cutting-edge weapons.” 2 In a show of military prowess on 19 February 2022, Putin invited Belarus despot Aleksandr Lukashenko to sit by his side when watching the testing of Russia’s nuclear triad and three types of nuclear missiles, and possible nuclear deployments in that country have been rumoured. 3
In a similarly sabre-rattling fashion, former US President Trump raised the prospect of nuclear war with North Korea in 2018, boasting that he commanded a “much bigger” and “more powerful” arsenal of devastating weapons than the rogue state. Such threats undermine the credibility of nuclear deterrence, which rests on a set of overriding preferences that serve as underlying assumptions guiding rational decision-making during crisis. Indeed, during the Cold War, the Soviet Union became increasingly amenable to a no-first-use pledge regarding such weapons, while Washington refused given a perceived inferiority in conventional infantry capability in Europe. 4
Leaked documents with thought-provoking ideas and items
It is time for a renewed approach to arms control, especially considering the abrogation of the INF during the Trump administration, amidst charges that Russia was not living up to the terms. As the Ukraine situation plays out, the US, Russia, and the European allies must not miss the opportunity to negotiate strict limits, verification measures, and overarching controls over their nuclear weapon stockpiles as well as any other weapons of mass destruction, such as chemical arms, along with their conventional force deployments in Europe. Significantly, in the lead-up to the Ukraine fighting, American and NATO official diplomatic replies regarding Ukraine and European security that were delivered to Moscow were somehow leaked and published by El Pais, the Spanish daily, as John F. Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary confirmed on 2 February 2022. 5 Despite, or indeed because of, the havoc wreaked by the subsequent Russian invasion, they remain of even higher priority.
Two papers, “NATO-Russia Restricted” and “Confidential/Rel Russia,” totalling nine pages, were straightforwardly written and itemized, composed with few surprises and no abusive language. NATO and American diplomats appeared willing to discuss different concerns using the thus-far largely dormant NATO-Russia Council (NRC). The numbered items in both documents were technical and wide-ranging. They proposed some thought-provoking new ideas about strategic and tactical arms control, interspersed among many paragraphs and arguments focused upon issues surrounding Russian and NATO force build-ups, and around Ukrainian membership in NATO.
Telephone hotlines during future crises
An example is item 7.3 of NATO’s document that proposes, “Working on the Russian proposal to establish a civilian telephone hotline to maintain emergency contact.” An intergovernmental hotline had been established between the US and Russia in 1963, in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and was later upgraded from the original teletype link to actual voice and digital contact. Notably, one relevant aspect of settling the Cuban crisis was that it ended in such mutual agreements, including Soviet non-deployment in Cuba and US commitments to remove nuclear missiles from Turkey and not to invade Cuba militarily. 6 Therefore, renewed bargaining makes eminent sense in today’s Europe, and the NATO proposal is well overdue to establish more hotlines and communication measures during emergency, including those between general staffs, rather than resorting to the historically timeworn practice of withdrawing ambassadors and breaking off relations. 7
NATO’s Open Door Policy and consensus decision-making
Item 8.2 of the NATO document reaffirms the allied commitment to NATO’s “Open Door Policy” under Article 10 of NATO’s founding Washington Treaty. At the Bucharest Summit in April 2008, allied leaders agreed by consensus that Georgia and Ukraine might one day become members. Aspirant countries, presumptively qualifying as democracies, can prepare for possible membership through NATO’s Membership Action Plan (MAP) “without prejudice to further decisions which may be taken about their applications to join the MAP.” NATO allies must decide according to consensus rules whether to accept or reject potential MAP members. The prospect of Georgia and Ukraine’s NATO membership appeared to hasten Moscow’s so-called peacekeeping invasion of Georgia, a script later repeated with even greater destruction in Ukraine.
In early 2022, President Putin also accused Western nations of ignoring key Russian security concerns, including in his view the provocative 2007–2008 Ukraine and Georgia NATO references, as well as failed implementation of the 2014 Minsk protocol stipulating increased and controversial autonomy for Eastern Ukraine’s Donbas regions. With the onset of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, the NATO allies strongly united in opposition to Putin’s flagrant disregard of Ukrainian sovereignty and international law; yet, one long-term outcome of the war could be prolonged reluctance within the NATO Council about the merits of accepting Ukraine as a full-fledged ally. 8
NATO membership and eligibility
The leaked documents do not acknowledge that the NATO allies could defer the weighty issues of Ukrainian and Georgian membership for years hence. Importantly, there is no checklist for NATO membership, but emerging democracies officially must share the alliance’s values. Ukraine has considerable work to do to meet NATO’s unwritten standards for eligibility, though its reputation is clearly being enhanced by its courageous resistance to Russian attack. Of course, NATO members such as Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, and especially Turkey might also be deemed problematic in upholding democratic values. 9 Indeed, while premising democratic status, NATO inclusion has always been primarily about strategic geographic location in the alliance’s founding premise of Soviet/Russian containment. 10
Since NATO allies could certainly delay such weighty membership decisions, this could conceivably be part of a NATO-Russia de-escalation understanding, calling for formal Ukrainian neutrality perhaps on the order of Finland’s long-time approach, along with reduced Russian pressures on the border. Russia’s Ukraine conflict, now that it has resulted in war and retaliatory sanctions, could form the necessity for renewed European strategic détente, as well as a reshaping of world economics and markets. 11
Increased transparency and multilateral negotiations
Indeed, the risks of war escalating in Europe to both conventional and nuclear levels could be ameliorated by Item 9.3 in the exchanged documents that suggests “increasing transparency of exercises and snap exercises” in the region. Item 9.6 further suggests “reducing threats to space systems.” Such proposals make sense and are worth pursuing in a variety of negotiating forums including the NRC, as was proposed, or the European Union (EU), Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and the United Nations (UN). Now that Russian tanks, bombs, missiles, and artillery have descended upon Ukrainian cities, and with the uncertain prospect of strong economic sanctions deeply impacting Moscow’s inner oligarchy and restraining the president, it will be important for many international organizations to express strong messages of unity and seek valid means of de-escalation.
Marked willingness to explore nuclear risk reduction measures
The leaked documents include a “Non-Paper” ranked as “Confidential” (not Top Secret) with proposals to improve security. Presumably, therefore, this paper was written by American diplomats with the approval of US president Joseph Biden. Diplomats and experts interested in setting up Nuclear-Weapon Free Zones (NWFZs), as in Canada’s Arctic, Latin America, and the Korean Peninsula, as well as regions free of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the Middle East and elsewhere can also learn from studying these documents.
In a non-confrontational tone, the non-paper’s main thrust emphasizes institutional approaches, proposing that the NRC is the “appropriate” forum to discuss the “security of Europe.” The US documents refer to the 2010 OSCE Astana Summit Commemorative Declaration, highlighting the right of each participating state to “be free to choose or change its security arrangements, including treaties of alliance[...]” 12 At the time of writing, the US and other allied states remained “concerned” that Russia has contravened its commitments under international law as well as under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances for Ukraine; it also appears that Ukraine somewhat blames the West for not protecting its security as premised in that document.
Nuclear risk reduction measures
Written in the fateful weeks leading up to the Russian invasion, the leaked American documents declare the US’s willingness to explore “nuclear risk reduction measures, including strategic bomber platforms.” They also mention the possibility of limitations on “deployments of intermediate and shorter-range land-based missiles.” Now amidst the Ukraine war, it must be emphasized, it is imperative that the United States, Russia, and NATO return to high-level negotiations in order to rid Western and Eastern Europe of dangerous, escalatory nuclear weapons that along with nuclear plants might also become soft targets, vulnerable to military attack in a deepening crisis.
Europe’s tactical nuclear weapons as credible bargaining chips
The B-61 nuclear bombs deployed in five NATO countries, along with future missile and anti-missile systems, are credible bargaining chips that could be de-alerted and disarmed for the safety of all sides. The secret locations of US nuclear weapons stored at bases in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey were accidentally included in Canadian senator Joseph Day’s report on behalf of the defence and security committee of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. 13 In any discussion about putting limits on Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, the planned modernization of these weapons could be a potential concessionary factor that could be used to advantage in negotiations.
Mutual force reduction including Aegis transparency mechanisms
In pursuit of reduced Russian border and regional troop deployments, Washington was also evidently prepared to discuss a “transparency mechanism to confirm the absence of Tomahawk cruise missiles at Aegis Ashore sites in Romania and Poland.” Russia had posed legitimate concerns that NATO’s Aegis Ashore system for defending against short- or intermediate-range missiles could use Tomahawk intermediate-range missiles against Russian targets potentially deployed in Romania and Poland. 14 A nuclear risk reduction agreement might, therefore, usefully involve both Aegis limits, and Russia’s calling back its deployment of modern dual-capable missiles and threats to arm Kaliningrad, its enclave on the Baltic Sea. NATO peacetime troop deployments in Poland and other eastern member states might also be appropriate agenda items in a mutual force reduction. The important points to emphasize here are the American focus on transparency concerning the absence (rather than the presence) of cruise missiles and also the fact that Moscow, facing NATO build-ups, may come to see greater strategic gains in European security as worth a compromise on Ukraine.
Basic assumptions about arms control need not revert to Cold War tensions
Given the ideas being exchanged about the need for transparency surrounding existing weapons systems—as well as alarming forms of warfare ranging from accidental clashes to competing technologies and cyber measures over Ukraine—we must recognize that basic assumptions about arms control and NATO membership need not revert to Cold War brinkmanship tensions or early post–Cold War triumphalism. The solution is for the West’s sphere of influence not to expand significantly eastwards. The US president and NATO’s secretary general Jens Stoltenberg made it very clear that NATO will protect allied nations during this war, but the alliance will not undertake military action including enforcing a no-fly zone on Ukrainian territory against Russia. 15
In view of Russia’s military transgressions, it seems unlikely that the US and NATO will support near-term regional nuclear disarmament and risk-reduction measures. In future, to deter Russia they may emphasize a dangerous disparity in the numbers of battlefield-ready tactical nuclear weapons; the necessity to modernize NATO’s reliance on its tactical nuclear response; and the imperative of increasing all infantry, armoured, and special operations capabilities including the acquisition of more robust anti-air defence capabilities. Apart from the strong reverberations in defence policymaking and military spending due to the shock of Putin’s attack, we can expect deep opposition and concern among the NATO allies due to their cyclical fears of abandonment and entrapment, as well as their disagreements on how to respond to Russia—for example in Hungary’s contentions prior to the invasion that Moscow was justified in its claims, even as Hungary subsequently condemned the invasion, accepted refugees, but refused to allow the transit of lethal weapons to Ukraine through its territory. 16
The UN’s new treaty prohibits nuclear weapons
Moreover, the United Kingdom’s March 2021 decision to increase its nuclear warhead stockpile defies efforts to promote further consensus around the historical goals of the NPT and the new TPNW, which bans the possession, use, testing, development, and transfer of such weapons. 17 Thus, the continuing importance of both nuclear weapons and nuclear disarmament for Europeans must be acknowledged. We recall the stir created in the 1980s by then US president Ronald Reagan when he responded to a press question about whether a limited nuclear war could be confined to Europe and presumably not reach US or Russian territory; he reportedly said he thought so, and thereby created European furor and impetus for the anti-nuclear campaign. The UK’s decision defiantly rejects the TPNW’s central tenets, as does France’s foreign minister’s abrupt warning to Russia on 24 February 2022 that Putin, when making threats about using nuclear weapons, needs to understand that NATO, too, is a nuclear alliance, even while the French minister ruled out a NATO-led military intervention to defend Ukraine. 18
New initiatives including freezing nuclear deployments
Nevertheless, the non-nuclear NATO allies, including Canada, Germany, and Lithuania, which is located next to the Russian Kaliningrad enclave, could strongly encourage Moscow and Washington to negotiate constraints on nuclear weapons, such as: a freeze on their deployment; the storage of all B-61 gravity bombs away from their operational carriers; more sophisticated data exchanges; and the verification, dismantlement, and eventual removal of intermediate- and short-range nuclear systems. Indeed, such initiatives would comport with well-established international law and INF, NPT, and TPNW objectives.
Diplomacy spearheaded by Canada could play significant role
Among all the NATO allies, Canada is historically well-positioned to spearhead a call for intermediate-range nuclear negotiations and the reduction of provocative deployments in Europe. Why? Certainly, Canada is a member of the NRC through its NATO membership as a founding ally; it is a long-time signatory of the NPT—though not of the TPNW—and Canada is one of the major supporters of the fifty-seven-member OSCE, as well as the sixteen-member Stockholm Initiative for Nuclear Disarmament. Canada’s membership in many international governmental organizations (IGOs) means there is a notable opportunity for diplomatic initiatives, including from Canadian diplomats in the departments of global affairs and national defence, to work multilaterally with the Americans, Europeans, and Russians on their proposals.
Moreover, Canadian diplomacy spearheaded by prime minister Justin Trudeau could play a significant role because Canada itself became nuclear-weapon-free in the 1980s under the leadership of Trudeau’s father Pierre Elliott Trudeau, then the longest-serving senior NATO political leader in history. Significantly, during the Cold War, Canada became the first country to divest itself of such weapons, a move later emulated by Ukraine but to little avail in Russian relations. It was thus not only among the countries capable of producing its own nuclear weapons that opted not to do so, but it was also the first to choose to rid itself entirely of an expensive and conceivably provocative nuclear arsenal that was deployed by the US on Canadian soil. 19
Nowadays, NATO allies and other UN member states could learn from Canada’s example and decide to dismantle the European-based nuclear stockpiles. Canada not only eschewed these weapons at the height of the Cold War, but significantly contributed to addressing proliferation and arms control challenges by taking a comprehensive approach to disarmament that contained a phased program including a strategy to suppress the arms race. As then prime minister Trudeau explained at the UN General Assembly in 1978, “If we can hold out hope that the arms race can be reversed, we shall have taken a significant step towards the better ordering of the affairs of our planet.” 20
Escaping arms races and the security dilemma
Pierre Trudeau’s approach embodied the “tit-for-tat” strategy of escaping the “prisoner’s dilemma,” because as states arm competitively for security, they actually feel less secure and are caught in the dilemma of an arms race. To escape the security dilemma and arms spirals, the US and Canada will need to work with their European allies to pursue multilateral and co-operative agendas, being aware of course that these allies are located geographically much closer to Russia. Rather than spend billions of dollars on high-intensity defence and nuclear deterrence, especially in an era of increased threats of hacked command and control systems and military attacks on nuclear facilities, all the European countries need to undertake multilateral initiatives that build and uphold trust, so that nations strive to work together toward a safer and more prosperous world. Both Russia and the West need reminding that during the Cold War they were in essence allies against mutual non-existence, in the words of the late American University professor Samuel Sharp. 21
Dangerous Cold War scenarios may be avoidable
The reality of long-term warfare in Ukraine and a precipitous military attack ironically undertaken by a despotic military autocrat reminiscent of Napoleon Bonaparte or Adolf Hitler, both of whom Russians remember invaded their country, will have global implications. NATO’s Article 5 (an armed attack against one of us is an attack against us all), though somewhat vague about the specific nature of a response, will continue to cover its thirty member countries, including the Baltic states, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia—but not potential “partners,” such as Ukraine and Georgia. The Baltic states along with Poland and Romania are situated near Russian allies such as Belarus, led by another military autocrat, and the neutral but conflictual Republic of Moldova; these frontline states will be by far the most affected and threatened by Russian attack and the potential for future destabilization. 22
However, all global citizens will pay a heavy price in the face of violated human rights and international law, as well as anti-Russian sanctions, with the price of oil already jumping and defence budgets soaring around the world, thus effectively derailing treatments for fighting pandemics and climate change. No logical policymaker can relish the idea of ongoing warfare in and around Ukraine for years to come because of Kyiv’s tilt to the West and appeal to join NATO and the EU. Nor does any world leader, with the possible exception of Putin, seem to want Ukraine to become the scene of sustained military standoff and potential war scenarios, such as West Germany’s Göttingen Corridor or Fulda Gap during the Cold War years. Back then a Russian invasion and capture of West Berlin, or a violent incident during the Cuban Missile Crisis, would have been catalysts for world war.
Fortunately, as noted, the US and the USSR largely practiced mutual-survival strategies during those days, avoiding direct military confrontation with each other and relying mostly on proxy competition. Dangerous Cold War era scenarios, including those involving America and Russia’s sphere-of-influence and maritime policies in the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea, are still quite possible, though possibly avoidable through some measures of mutual understanding and accommodation.
In Europe all sides will have to make deep concessions
In Europe, all sides will have to make deep concessions and de-alert and de-operationalize mid- and short-range nuclear weapons—because brandishing nuclear weapons could heighten crises on the ground. Indeed, in Putin’s threat posture toward Ukraine he has incited the very NATO military build-up and consensus he presumably opposed. Putin was not deterred by the grim toll of another Afghanistan-like military quagmire. Thus, in the midst and aftermath of war, it will be important to raise the prospect of entirely ridding Europe of its dangerous nuclear weapon systems, as well as the provocative force deployments on all sides, while formulating strategies for multilateral use of IGOs that could be applicable models for increased regional stability elsewhere.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by research and travel grants from the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, Wayne State University and the Faculty of Social Science at the University of Western Ontario, the Pugwash International Conferences on Science and Global Affairs, and the Canadian Pugwash Group helped support interviews and research at the headquarters of the UN and NATO.
