NUKES ARE THE ANSWER – MANY SEE NO CHOICE

At my age, having lived through thirty years of the Cold War and come out the end of it thinking we dodged a bullet and we’d never go back there again, to find we are indeed going back there again for much the same reasons, but in a very different way, is more than a little disappointing. That’s British understatement by the way. When we say that, it’s the point where we walk calmly to the locked gun cabinet, load one, and blow the head off the messenger bringing the bad news, before asking the maid to clean the mess up and could she ever so kindly, pop some Earl Grey tea and a ginger biscuit on a plate to the study when she’s done. Meanwhile you call your chums at the MoD to tell them that their man had a terrible accident on his way home.

After 30 years of nuclear disarmament in Europe, where ludicrous numbers of tactical nuclear weapons, ranging from artillery shells to ‘ADM’ Atomic Demolition Munitions that were placed on key bridges, at airports and so on, all the way to interdiction strike weapons like SRAM & Pershing, let alone the SS-20’s and the SS-12’s and the Ground Launched Cruise Missiles, you’d be grateful that was all over.

Yet here we are again. President de Gaulle’s long held belief that you could never trust America in the end, has come home to roost. Even if the current administration vanished overnight to be replaced by something altogether less objectionable, you can’t rely on America ever again. We all know it. The reality has struck home. The trust has gone, eaten away over long years and then trashed by Trump once and for all. It cannot go back. Only a fool would let it.

And with that trust goes so much else. Not just troops on the ground willing to fight with us, aircraft in the skies helping us shield our land and naval forces, but the one thing that mattered most in the super view of strategic power, the infamous nuclear umbrella. That vast arsenal of nuclear weapons America retains to ensure it isn’t attacked – and nor were we.

Britain, whose only nuclear weapons are the CDAS (continuous at sea deterrent , operational since 1969) submarines, with their dozen or so Trident-2’s perhaps feels less edgy. But only a little. The trouble for the British is those missiles came from the US and most of the 26 spares are in Kings Bay, Georgia. If America changes its mind on the long standing arrangements over Trident where does that put it?

France of course, is in a totally different situation. De Gaulle’s go-it-alone policy led to this relatively small country successfully developing a CDAS of its own, along with air strike capabilities from land and sea on its single carrier. It now finds itself thrust into the frontlines, with not just the many Europeans saying it needs to use its deterrent to defend Europe, but a majority of the French too. In essence France has already largely committed to extend that deterrence.

The Russians of course are bemused by it all. France, even combined with the UK is no match for Russia’s vast arsenal, but as the leadership well knows, that’s not how this works. The French and British strategic weapons don’t have to be vast in number – they just have to be able to wreck the Russian economy and society, leave its major cities in a mess they wont quickly recover from, to make it clear that the use of Russian nuclear weapons isn’t viable.

However there’s one area the Russians have complete unassailable dominance – tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield. They also have the doctrine to use them.

In 2005 the Russians declassified a vast array of soviet documentation, amongst which was a plan to use no less than 200 theater and tactical nuclear weapons in a shock attack across western Europe, that would take them to the Rhine in a week. Another strike on France would see them in Paris a week later.

It would never have worked as they assumed, but the evidence of planning for such attacks sank in to those who study these things. Poland is one of those countries.

With its border with Russia in Kaliningrad, its upper eastern border area with Russian puppet state Belarus, it feels very much like its on the front line of NATO. Poland is no stranger to nuclear weapons either. As a trusted ally it was home to Soviet weapons that once a war began were trusted to the sole command of Poland. Now thirty odd years later, even though it has struggled with anti-democratic forces, it has near unanimity of its incredibly high defence spending (4.3% of GDP) and this week Prime Minister Donald Tusk, to strong applause, said that, “At the moment — I say this with full responsibility — purchases of conventional weapons, the most traditional ones, are not enough.”

Poland fears Russia, it doesn’t trust it an inch, and its put its money where its mouth is. Now faced with the near certainty of American withdrawal from NATO at the military level, Poland worries again. It’s gone out of its way to host an anti-missile Aegis Ashore site, its provided the US with vast amounts of land and secure warehousing for forward deployed military equipment. It has already volunteered and asked to be part of the NATO Nuclear Partnership -where forward deployed US owned tactical nuclear weapons can be flown on Polish owned F-35’s and stored at Polish air bases; a request that has largely fallen on deaf ears. Even so President Duda reiterated the request recently, calling on Trump to move tactical nuclear weapons into Poland.

The new administration is unlikely to do so. There’s a complex logistics trail and command and control element, (none of it cheap) as well as the geopolitical realities of parking nuclear weapons closer to Russia. And frankly there are not that many to go around, the US is unlikely to spend the money to build more.

Which puts Poland in a spot it doesn’t like. And that includes a willingness to at least consider building its own. Poland doesn’t have anything more than a small nuclear research reactor at present, but nine of various types are planned, with a three-reactor site starting in 2026 using Westinghouse AP-1000 PWR’s. A second site using two APR-1400 PWR’s, along with four of GE Hitachi’s BWRX-300 technology micro-reactors, with multiple sites planning four units of 300MW each. South Korea is involved with the APR-1400’s – and they too are keen to develop their own nuclear weapons. SK have been deeply involved in Poland’s rearmament, having a powerful fast delivering industrial capability few other nations can match. Both sides have trust in the other and the will to collaborate at an industrial level on Poland’s military build up. A nuclear weapon would be easy for both of them given how far SK has already gone down that path. The other major issue – neither poses a threat to the other. It’s an ideal partnership.

According to Russian and Polish data, Poland had three storage sites equipped with a large number of warheads. In the mid-1980s they stored 14 500kt warheads, 83 10kt warheads, two 200kt bombs, 24 15kt bombs and 10 0.5kt bombs. In 1991, Poland announced that they would remove the nuclear capable delivery systems from their weapons inventory, and the warheads went back to Russia. This was a very sizable collection of weapons, most of them for equipping tactical missiles.

Poland isn’t looking at such a vast arsenal again, but when it’s faced with as many as 2,000+ Russian tactical weapons, it won’t be looking at just a small handful.

Politically, in Poland 53% of the population support the idea with many who don’t being prepared to accept it if it happened. Donald Tusk making the whole thing a popular discussion topic has annoyed many who think it should be done quietly and in secret – “do, don’t talk” being their preferred way. But Tusk knows that such a program isn’t something you just impose on the people. Nuclear weapons and their infrastructure are costly, and Poland is staunchly Catholic, the Vatican is opposed to such weapons, so he needs to take people with him if it’s to happen. Parliamentary elections are due on October 15th 2027 – and the Russians will try to influence them.

Poland is after all trying to ensure it doesn’t slide back into the authoritarianism it was heading towards under the previous government. Its had a hard enough time trying to undo many of the changes they made to suppress free speech, the judiciary, the media and peoples rights. The President is still a member of the defeated political party, and a constitutional obstacle to change. Duda is serving his final term, with elections due this year and his term ending on August 26th.

If Poland is to embark on its own independent deterrent – then it must be popular. It must be willing to work within a revised NATO/EU defence format, with France as its partner, contributing to a mutual deterrence policy. For once, it seems that is an entirely probable likely way forward, even though the implications for non-proliferation are serious. If Poland does it why not Iran, or anyone else? Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates have all suggested it at one time or another.

This of course is the problem when one of the great nuclear powers falls into introspection and ignores its stabilising influence in the world. When the cat’s away the mice will play. India trusts nobody else to defend it, nor does Pakistan, not even Israel. Britain’s history with nuclear weapons is quite different, but with Russia’s attitude towards Britain one of intense hostility – only this week blaming the UK for stirring up Europe against it and being the instigator of Ukrainian resistance, it remains grateful it has its missiles.

Some call nuclear weapons the last line of defence, the place you go when all else has failed, yet other see it as the first. A force sufficiently capable of rendering your enemy – even a large one far bigger than you, impotent, can be the first – because if it makes them think twice and back away, then they instantly worked.

Ukraine is I think, almost certainly going to go down the path. It knows how and it has the materials and technology. A Polish-Ukrainian effort might even be a solution for both with or without S.Korea.

Either way, I remain convinced that we will see more nuclear states, more nuclear weapons and proliferation will increase. America is creating a power vacuum, and geopolitics ensures it will be filled one way or another. Its just a question of who and when. Sadly nuclear weapons will play an increasing role in our future. The days of limitations, reductions and restraint are already over.

The Analyst

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