Banished from public consciousness for decades, the nightmare of nuclear warfare has surged back to prominence with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, highlighting the erosion of the Cold War global security architecture.
With Moscow on the back foot in its offensive, the military stalemate has raised fears Russia could resort to its nuclear warfare to achieve a military breakthrough.
Russia, along with Britain, China, France, and the United States, is the five recognized nuclear weapons powers and a permanent UN Security Council member.
“It’s the first time a nuclear power has used its status to wage a conventional war under the shadow cast by nuclear weapons,” said Camille Grand, a former NATO deputy secretary-general.
“One might have imagined that rogue states would adopt such an attitude, but suddenly it’s one of the two major nuclear powers, a member of the UN Security Council,” he told AFP, insisting the actual use of the weapons remains “improbable”.
For now, the moral and strategic nuclear “taboo” that emerged after the US bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II in 1945 still holds.
But rhetoric has escalated massively.
Russian TV broadcasts, since the invasion of Ukraine, have repeatedly discussed nuclear strikes on Western cities like Paris or New York.
One former Russian diplomat, asking not to be named, warned that if President Vladimir Putin felt Russia’s existence threatened, “he will press the button”.
The year’s events have been a harsh wake-up call for Europe, which spent decades in a state of relative relaxation in terms of nuclear security, enjoying the so-called Cold War “peace dividend”.
Across the Atlantic, President Joe Biden warned in October of a potential “Armageddon” hanging over the world.
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