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There is consensus that the world is crossing the threshold into a Third Nuclear Age, one in which artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies are becoming entangled with the command and control of nuclear weapons.
Veiled nuclear threats from Russia against NATO interference in its invasion of Ukraine and a US response warning Russia of ‘catastrophic’ consequences, awakened the world in 2022 to the renewed spectre of nuclear conflict and heightened risk.
Mutual assured destruction (MAD) was regarded as the bedrock of nuclear deterrence holding East and West bloc nuclear rivalry in check during the Cold War. But such pieties three decades from the end of the conflict offer little assurance.
The threat of using nuclear weapons to strong arm the outcome of a conventional armed conflict shattered any complacency over nuclear stability, adding to an inventory of nuclear dangers, including disruptive and emerging technologies, in a discordant multipolar world.
The Third Nuclear Age, potentially more dangerous than its predecessors, arrived mostly absent the hard fought agreements that offered a level of security in the Cold War. New policies provide nuclear weapons a non deterrent role, and investment in their modernisation signals little change in plans for their future. The Second Nuclear Age ushered in as the Cold War ended was haunted by a shared spectre of ‘rogue’ nuclear actors. Stealth, division, less time to make decisions and heightened odds of accidents, stalks the cyber realm of the Third Nuclear Age. Avowals a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought, begin to look hollow.
The world has lived with nuclear weapons since the first test explosion 77 years ago. At the height of the Cold War in 1986 there were 70,300 nuclear warheads. Although secrecy conceals exact figures and arsenals are growing, in early 2022 it is estimated nine countries (including stored and deployed warheads) possess 12,700 warheads: China (350), France (290), Israel (90), India (160), North Korea (20), Pakistan (165), Russia (5977), UK (225), USA (5428). Approximately 2,000 US, Russian, British and French warheads are on high alert, ready for use on short notice: fas.org/issues/nuclear-weapons/status-world-nuclear-forces/Source.
Reporting the nuclear file is challenging because of its secrecy and complexity. A lack of better understanding of nuclear basics has handicapped the press, particularly in the run up to the 2003 Iraq war, when false evidence about the existence of nuclear weapons in Iraq and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD) went mostly unquestioned until their insubstantiality was revealed.
More than three quarters of a century after their advent, nuclear weapons continue to pose an existential threat to humanity. Broader evidence based reporting about them would be in the interest of the public to whom there is there is little accountability and inform a more protective policy.
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{"event_count":0,"events":[],"sortedEvents":[],"epochs":[{"indexOfEpochs":2,"epochCategoryId":15723685,"title":"First Nuclear Age, 1945-1991","subtitle":"","description":"On 16 July 1945, the first atomic bomb, ‘The Gadget’ was successfully tested at the Trinity test site in the desert near Alamogordo, New Mexico, in the US, ushering in the First Nuclear Age. Less than four weeks later the US dropped nuclear weapons on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima, 6 August, and Nagasaki 9 August 1945. The first nuclear age ended with the cessation of the cold war around 1991. At the height of the cold war in 1986 there were 70,300 weapons in the world’s nuclear arsenals. (Cuban missile crisis, Reykjavik)","image":"/o/adaptive-media/image/15724155/teaser/Erstes+Nuklearzeitalter%2C+1945-1991.jpg?t=1646235967090","yearsToIndices":[{"key":"1942","value":0},{"key":"1945","value":1},{"key":"1949","value":3},{"key":"1950","value":4},{"key":"1952","value":5},{"key":"1953","value":7},{"key":"1956","value":8},{"key":"1957","value":9},{"key":"1959","value":10},{"key":"1960","value":11},{"key":"1961","value":13},{"key":"1962","value":16},{"key":"1963","value":20},{"key":"1964","value":22},{"key":"1966","value":23},{"key":"1967","value":24},{"key":"1968","value":25},{"key":"1971","value":28},{"key":"1972","value":29},{"key":"1974","value":32},{"key":"1979","value":33},{"key":"1980","value":36},{"key":"1983","value":37},{"key":"1985","value":38},{"key":"1986","value":40},{"key":"1987","value":41},{"key":"1988","value":42}]},{"indexOfEpochs":1,"epochCategoryId":15723709,"title":"Second Nuclear Age, 1991-2014","subtitle":"","description":"The shifting geopolitical compass needle from the predictability of east and west bloc adversarial relations to a multipolar world in which nuclear weapons continued to play a major role introduced the Second Nuclear Age. India, Pakistan and North Korea became nuclear weapons possessors, clandestine weapons programmes and the nuclear black market emerged as new threats, and fears of non state actors obtaining nuclear weapons was underlined by the savagery of the 9/11 attack on the US. Except for opening for signing of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty in 1996 nuclear arms control was ill served.","image":"/o/adaptive-media/image/15724462/teaser/Zweites+Nuklearzeitalter%2C+1991-2014.jpg?t=1646235965274","yearsToIndices":[{"key":"1991","value":0},{"key":"1992","value":1},{"key":"1993","value":2},{"key":"1994","value":3},{"key":"1995","value":4},{"key":"1996","value":6},{"key":"1997","value":8},{"key":"1998","value":9},{"key":"2002","value":10},{"key":"2003","value":11},{"key":"2004","value":12},{"key":"2006","value":13},{"key":"2007","value":14},{"key":"2010","value":15}]},{"indexOfEpochs":0,"epochCategoryId":15723774,"title":"Third Nuclear Age, 2014-Current","subtitle":"","description":"A scenario troubling analysts of contemporary nuclear affairs is the potential for information warfare, a cyber attack, rendering a nation’s nuclear forces impotent, undermining a fundamental tenet of nuclear deterrence - mutual assured destruction. Although computers and information technology have long been part of nuclear command and control, threats of hacking and computer malware being used as weapons of war are part of what is regarded as the Third Nuclear Age. Other disruptive technologies threaten stability and discussion addressing new threats is muted.","image":"/o/adaptive-media/image/15724519/teaser/Drittes+Nuklearzeitalter%2C+2014-heute.jpg?t=1646235963342","yearsToIndices":[{"key":"2015","value":0},{"key":"2017","value":1},{"key":"2018","value":2},{"key":"2019","value":3},{"key":"2020","value":4},{"key":"2022","value":5}]}]}
This timeline is a project of Atomic Reporters and the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung.
