Nuclear weapons are the main factor determining views on the future war, which includes regional conflicts involving major powers. They have not only changed the science of warfare, but literally disorganized everything from the strategic relations of various countries and international politics to global economy. The chances are high that any direct confrontation between the armed forces of Russia and the United States quickly escalates into a nuclear exchange with disastrous consequences both for the major powers and the rest of the world. And so all the latest changes in the art of war, that seem so revolutionary today, will turn into meaningless nuances of the end of our civilization. Such observations were made by Alexei Arbatov, Head of the Center for International Security at the Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO) and a full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), in his contribution to the "Novaya Gazeta" newspaper. We offer a digest of this article.
The domination of major powers in a conventional war can only make sense as long as one of them assumes the fatal responsibility for escalating the war to the nuclear level. Whatever the analysts of modern war say, the losing side will do this anyway, perhaps with a limited attack, the other will respond with a massive one, and then the former will find something else to add – and so on until a mutually assured destruction takes place. If the warring parties fail to stop before launching the first strike with conventional means, this will entail uncontrolled escalation, and such a scenario is apparently underestimated by either Moscow and Washington. Averting confrontation with America should be driven not by fears of losing a high-tech war, but by the inevitable perspective of turning into "radioactive dust".
As for tendencies, they do expand the scope of conventional weapons. But space is not yet becoming a battle ground, with no arms there. Mankind has simply not reached this stage of development, and one should not get intimidated by any potential "star wars".
The US military are also keen on such fantasies and mislead (along with the military space industry lobbyists) their politicians. Therefore, Trump (like Reagan 30 years ago) has suddenly discovered that space is becoming a new theater of military operations.
However, the world's most developed countries possess only satellite information management systems, including military and dual-purpose ones. The US has 580 satellites of this kind, China – 180, and Russia – 140. In terms of cost-effectiveness it is much more profitable to develop ground, sea and air-based weapons for space warfare. They are intended both for missile defense purposes and the destruction of military satellites.
In Russia, the creation of armed forces is traditionally accompanied by an emphasis on the firepower of troops and the multilayered deployment pattern, including both general-purpose forces and nuclear potential (e.g. the new heavy ballistic Sarmat missile or the multi-megaton super-power nuclear torpedo Poseidon).
The last few years saw position papers and analytical reports providing numerous speculations around hypervelocity kill mechanisms. No doubt, those are rapidly evolving. If they prove their reliability and are taken to the assembly line, the foreseeable future will witness a possibility of inflicting rapid and severe damage to all the nuclear forces of a major country, including the United States and Russia. They will not only ensure a breakthrough of any missile defense system, but also discard the entire concept of a retaliatory strike.
By the way, such an effect will also entail the deployment of America's new medium-range missiles, should the Gorbachev-Reagan INF Treaty flaw; and over the last ten years there was hardly anyone in Russia who didn't denounce it. All this significantly lowers the "threshold" for nuclear use.
Paradoxically, the driving force of this scenario are the most technologically advanced countries, primarily the United States, which is home to the most cutting-edge projects. Advanced countries set the tone in both positive and negative trends: this is what technological progress is all about. After all, the concept of strategic stability so eagerly praised by our country's leadership, was formulated by then US Defense Minister Robert McNamara in the late 1960s. Later this concept generated defense system restrictions, as well as the entire negotiation and agreement process around SALT, and then START. But the United States also offered a concept of a limited nuclear war and while putting it into effect concentrated some 7 000 tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, and after that the concept of selective nuclear strikes moved into the sphere of strategic nuclear forces and plans for their employment.
The US has long been recognized as a global leader for developing high-precision strategic systems that have disturbed the strategic balance and implicitly undermined arms limitation talks. Today, we have surpassed them in some areas, particularly in the field of hypersonic systems. Trump will not tolerate this for a long haul, he will seek to secure America's superiority, since his country is also rich in ideas and armed with massively more money.
The situation is complicated by a new threat, perhaps the most fundamental one: the military and political establishments of Russia and the United States do allow direct confrontation of their armies and navies. At the outbreak of the Cold War they offered each other a few trials of strength, but after the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 got seriously scared. Later on, we became much more cautious and started respecting each other as worthy adversaries in the quest for mutual understanding.
The current military of the two parties show mutual arrogance and even contempt. Mind you, without any real reason. Today they talk about the possibility of war without ruffle or excitement. It turns out that even a nuclear war can be waged and won quickly and efficiently, without unacceptable consequences. In days past, an exchange of massive strikes would result in blowing up three million nuclear bombs of the so-called "Hiroshima equivalent", and now after deep nuclear cuts – "merely" (!?) a hundred thousand.
A new generation has emerged which does not remember that experience and never knew severe psychological distress of a crisis environment. Not only did the generation which remembered the horrors of World War II die, leaving the scene is the Cold War generation which survived all the ordeals and mastered the ability of finding mutually acceptable solutions to the most challenging problems.
Sometimes it seems that the current leaders of the great powers and their advisers in charge of the security of their states and the whole world, suffer from a superiority complex, as if no one lived on this planet before. They remember nothing and learned nothing, falling into the same trap over and over again and advancing ideas that have been repeatedly discussed and rejected long before.
At the same time, world public is occupied with anything but the new threat of war.
Present-day Europe is only concerned about Brexit and migration, the US – about its border barrier with Mexico and trade tariffs, Russia – about the Kerch Strait. Meanwhile, the danger of war is far from following the scenario of 40 years ago: this threat is fundamentally different and more sophisticated, really serious and quite likely. A military face-off between Russia and the United States can happen at any time in Syria, the Baltic region, the Arctic or around Ukraine – a fact which global politics and world public occasionally disregard.
These issues certainly need to be discussed. But the key element of such a discussion is the availability of diverse but competent opinions set forward in understandable terms and well in line with common sense.
