In August 1945, the US atom bombed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since then, nuclear weapons have never been used in conflict. That may soon change as Ukraine faces the increasing likelihood of a Hiroshima moment.
Conditions in Ukraine increasingly give Russia military and geopolitical cause to use tactical nuclear weapons. Though Russia will use them, the US and NATO are deeply implicated in the process. They are in the grip of Neocon madness which casually dismisses potentially catastrophic consequences and blocks all off-ramps.
Lessons from Hiroshima and Nagasaki
One way to understand the current moment is via the history of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Those attacks also had military and geopolitical motivations. The former is widely recognized: the latter is not.
According to standard history, in August 1945, Japan was de facto defeated and had signaled willingness to “conditionally” surrender. However, the US wanted “unconditional” surrender. It also estimated conquest of Japan might cost a million US casualties. Consequently, it elected to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki, thereby achieving unconditional surrender without such casualties.
The geopolitical motivation concerned the Soviet Union. It had declared war on Japan the day after the Hiroshima attack, and the US feared it would conquer Japan’s lightly defended north. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs prevented that by abruptly ending the war. They also sent the Soviet Union a chilling message about US power.
The Ukraine parallel
The Ukraine war has spawned a logic which echoes 1945. The military parallel is clear. Russia wants to bring the war to an acceptable close. Even after it has conquered the Donbass oblasts, it will confront continued attacks from long-range weaponry provided by the US and its NATO junior partners. The resulting loss of Russian lives and damage will be unacceptable. Tactical nuclear weapons can surgically end the conflict, with Ukraine compelled to accept the outcome or face further destruction.
The geopolitical parallel is also clear. In 1945, the US sent a message to the Soviet Union. In Ukraine, tactical nuclear weapons will send a message to the US that continuing its strategy of incremental conflict escalation risks full-blown nuclear war.
Neocon madness: incremental escalation and the straw that breaks the camel’s back
Neoconservatism is a political doctrine which holds never again shall there be a foreign power, like the former Soviet Union, which can challenge US supremacy. The doctrine gives the US the right to impose its will anywhere in the world, which explains US intervention in Ukraine long before Russia’s 2022 invasion. The doctrine initially seeded itself among hardline Republicans, but it has since been adopted by Democrats and is now politically hegemonic.
Since the late 1990s, the Neocon project has driven a slow-motion war against Russia based on a strategy of “incremental escalation”. The first step was incorporation of Central European countries into NATO, which was followed by incorporating the former Soviet Baltic Republics. Thereafter, the US began fomenting anti-Russian sentiment in the former Republics of Georgia and Ukraine. Longer term, it seeks to foster Russia’s disintegration, as advocated by US National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski in the 1990s.
A similar incremental escalation strategy has marked US/NATO involvement in Ukraine. In the decade prior to the war, Ukraine was the largest recipient of US military aid in Europe and NATO members stalled the Minsk peace process. Thereafter, engagement has been steadily ratcheted up, turning assistance into a proxy war and then into a tacit direct conflict with Russia. The time-line includes sabotaging peace negotiations in early 2022; providing Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, Javelin anti-tank missiles, and artillery ordinance; providing Patriot missile air defense systems; transferring MIG-29 jets from former Warsaw Pact countries; providing ultra-long-range artillery, advanced infantry carriers, and tanks; providing long-range HIMARS rocket systems, and longer-range ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles; and providing modernized F-16 jets.
Side-by side, the US has provided satellite information, while under-cover advisers have assisted long-range missile attacks deep inside Russia which include attacking the Kerch bridge, Russian naval vessels at sea, naval yards in Crimea and in Novorossiysk, Russia’s high altitude AWACS defense system, and an attack on Russia’s anti-ballistic missile defense system.
The incremental escalation strategy aims to tighten the noose, with each tightening supposedly small enough to deny Russia grounds for invoking the nuclear option. However, the strategy risks blindness to the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
Ending the war, ending incremental escalation, and restoring deterrence
Walking in the other’s shoes can be enlightening. Russia’s goals are threefold. First, it wants to end the war on acceptable terms. Second, it wants to blunt the US strategy of incremental escalation. Third, it wants to restore credibility of its nuclear deterrent which has been compromised by escalations that have blurred red lines which should not be crossed.
Using tactical nuclear weapons has become increasingly rational as it would achieve all three goals, which is why the situation is dire. The great paradox is deterrence aims to prevent nuclear war, yet restoration of deterrence may require using nuclear weapons as it proves willingness to do so.
Many Neocon supporters have casually talked of “Putin’s nuclear bluff”. The reality is it is the US threat of nuclear retaliation that is a bluff. No sane US politician or general would risk thermo-nuclear war for the sake of Ukraine.
A grim prognosis
There is still time to freeze the sequence. The problem is peace cannot get a hearing. Ukraine’s flawed democracy is suspended, the Azov extremists are in control, and any Ukrainian opposing the war faces imprisonment or worse.
In the US, the Neocons are in charge and the public is fed a Manichean narrative that paints the West as good and Russia as evil. That false narrative is constantly reinforced, and it makes compromise politically and ethically harder.
The prognosis is grim. Ironically, the thing that may prevent a Hiroshima moment is Russian success on the battlefield.