There was a time when wars between European nations used to be professional affairs. Armies fought, won or lost, but there was no hatred amongst people. Socio-cultural exchanges between England, France, Germany, Russia etc., continued unabated in spite of innumerable wars over centuries. The modern era is, however, characterized by hatred and bloodlust. All the ‘inebriated, ignorant masses’ want is the utter annihilation of the enemy. This desire has exacerbated with the possession of nuclear weapons (nukes) by some nations.
Deterrence Has Serious Limitations
I do not wish to confuse readers with elaborate theories of deterrence, including Counter-force deterrence; Counter-value deterrence; Flexible Response deterrence; First-Strike deterrence; and Existential deterrence, etc.
In simple words, deterrence means the use of threats by one party to convince another party to refrain from initiating some course of action; or else, the threats would be translated into reality and which would be unpleasant for him. BUT, there is a catch in it. For a threat to be effective, it must be credible. Incredible threats do not work. In other words, the opponent must have good reasons to believe that the other side is actually capable of carrying out what it has threatened.
There is one more catch. It is known as the Dilemma of Deterrence. Deterrence seeks to reduce the chances of a war but one has to be willing to fight a war. If one is not willing to fight a war, his possession of nuclear weapons becomes pointless. For example, if someone has a licensed gun but is scared to use it on a robber who could kill or rape his wife because he does not have the heart to fight the subsequent legal battle in court, his possessing the gun is pointless.
Similarly, one may have nuclear weapons and reliable means of delivery. Still, the enemy must know that from the military history of the country, the national character of its people, and the personality of its leaders at that time, it would be reasonable to infer that the nation does have the moral courage and strength of conviction to use nuclear weapons and face the consequences. This knowledge does not and cannot come from jingoistic statements of leaders. A nation is made up of things much more than charismatic leaders and their bombastic statements. In this field, loudmouths have no value.
Dynamics of Nuclear Exchange
There are theories like Doctrine of Massive Retaliation, Flexible Response Theory, Mutually Assured Destruction, Countervailing Strategy, and Minimum Deterrence etc. Readers might get confused with them. One thing, however, must be clearly understood.
It is technically impossible to destroy ALL the nuclear weapons of an enemy in the First Strike, howsoever heavy that be. If the USA or Soviet Union had found a reliable way of neutralizing the enemy’s nuclear weapons with certainty before they hit them, that nation would have demonstrated it before the world, and would have commanded the rest of the world to kneel before it. It never happened so. This means that the enemy will necessarily be left with many nuclear weapons and also a Second Strike Capability.
Also Read: MIRV technology – modernizing India’s nuclear arsenal
Whoever uses a nuclear weapon, will find the other nation responding with his nuclear weapons. They have to. Otherwise, they would face tremendous humiliation before their own people. Then the first nation would use more nuclear weapons for the same reason, and so on. This, in short, is what is known as Nuclear Escalation.
What Is Needed To Withstand Nuclear War
In boxing, the capability to take punishment is known as having an ‘iron chin’ or a ‘granite chin’. Extremely few boxers like Muhammad Ali and George Chuvalo had it. In an interview with Lance Pugmire of the LA Times after Ali’s death, his great rival George Foreman admitted, “I saw his face and realized this is not the fight I planned. This guy can take a punch and can hit back.” Chuvalo has the formidable reputation of being the only heavyweight boxer in the world who, in 93 professional bouts, was never knocked down to the canvas even once!
The same thing applies to nations as well. One can inflict exactly similar damages on two nations by nuclear strikes; one would survive it, the other would capitulate. Unless one has the national will, courage and the capability to withstand the enemy’s nuclear strikes, it is pointless to indulge in a nuclear slugfest. All the three factors are equally important.
A nation would be recognized a ‘credible nuclear power’ only if it has made known to the world that they have all the three factors. The first two fall in the realm of mass psychology. The third requires great preparation on the ground and it is that which will, in turn, feed the psychological preparedness. In the end, a nuclear war is as much a military matter as a sociological and psychological one. The question is which country’s people would crack first under pressure.
No country should ever live under a self-delusion fuelled by false notions of invincibility. Unfortunately, if the people of a country are dumb like sheep, they could possibly be misled on all the three counts. Manipulating their minds is not a serious problem for clever leaders. As for physical preparedness, they can always be fooled. Most people are actually willing to believe that their governments must have some secret plans up their sleeves.
Physical Aspects of Coping with Nuclear Strikes
Most un-informed people, who think that their nations can survive a nuclear war, think primarily in terms of their geographical size. They are not able to foresee the psychological impact of destruction. The economic and social life of most countries revolves around a few metropolises. Once they are taken out, they would crumble.
Preparations of military targets to withstand nuclear attacks can be expected to be national secrets. However, nations must make extensive preparations in respect of their civilian population, critical industries and infrastructure, and healthcare sector to cope with the devastations caused by nuclear weapons.
Take, for example, railways. Critical infrastructure like the railways in a large area will simply collapse as a result of the domino effect of a strike at an important junction. By a careful selection of the junctions to be struck keeping the extent and nature of rail traffic in mind, the railway network in most of the important parts of a country can be paralyzed. This will, by itself, be catastrophic for the people as well as military effort.
Damage to civilian airports might not have any effect on the war-fighting capability of the nation, but it would generate great panic and despair amongst people. Similarly, communication systems and Internet would be knocked out instantly. They are so fragile anyway—mobile communication collapses in cyclones also. When work on a road for a sewer line happens to break the optical fibre cable of Internet, it takes days for the company to restore it; it can be imagined what would happen for a nuclear strike.
Healthcare systems of nations are known to have virtually collapsed under Covid-19. They come under tremendous strain even for seasonal grips of vector-borne diseases like dengue, chikangunya and swine flu, etc. One can imagine the situation during a nuclear war.
Bluster Is One Thing, Real War Quite Another
Wars are fought and won by the collective will power of the people. Nations where people are eager to go to war as long as someone else is going to fight and get killed, are called Chickenhawk nations. They would be too happy with the war as long as they watch the big guns booming on TV. War should not touch them directly in any way. The moment the war touches the lives of the opinion-builders, the upper classes, the business houses, the industrialists, and the politicians; intrudes into their comfort zones or hurts their interests materially, they will undergo a rapid change of heart.
The moment a bomb drops near posh markets or malls where rich and smart girls go shopping; an airport shuts down; local trains stop; Internet and mobile services are disrupted in a couple of major cities; or the stock market crashes, the haemorrhoids would burst.
The same people would start clamouring for peace. The clarion call would be ‘peace at any cost’ and the next day all sorts of arguments would be advanced as to why peace is preferable to war. There would be peace marches by social activists, intelligentsia, academics, and, of course, beautiful film actors demanding an immediate end to hostilities. There would be candlelight vigil by young boys, girls and bored housewives. Marathons or Half Marathons would be organized as ‘Run for Peace’ with voluptuous actresses in tight shorts and even tighter T-shirts leading the packs. Big Business Houses would put out statements to the effect that ‘let bygones, be bygones’; and that the country must move forward and how they must create conditions conducive for attracting foreign investment. Not to be left behind, serious concern would be voiced by the environmentalists about the world, its environment and future generations and how they do not want to be one who ushered in the ‘nuclear winter’ on the planet!
Since the interests of the rich and the politically powerful are aligned, their governments would act immediately on such suggestions. Once the negotiations are over, anything short of surrender can be justified to the dumb people. That is child’s play for the leaders and the media controlled by them.
History stands witness, every nation that has ever lost a war, had been telling its people that they had been winning on all the fronts until the moment it capitulated! The gullible public can easily be convinced that they were indeed victorious and that the country got an excellent deal in the negotiations.
I can bet, exactly the same scenario would play out in case Russia were to use even a tactical nuclear weapon on Ukraine.
Countries, which are rattled, shaken to their very foundations by small terrorist strikes; where the media goes ballistic showing repeated visuals of wailing widows and funerals, cannot be expected to withstand the terrible devastations caused by nuclear weapons. The people and the media of such nations do not understand that honouring the dead is one thing, collective mourning quite another. There are countries that have taken frightening casualties in their various wars. Yet, they did not go into such collective shock.
It Is National Character That Wins
If a country wants to emerge victorious in a nuclear war, its people must develop the strength of character to withstand human sufferings, deaths, gore and devastation. They need their ‘baptism by blood and fire’. Unless they develop this ‘inner muscle’, all their military hardware would amount to nothing but ‘show muscle’. Preparedness of a nation to fight a war comes primarily from its people and society, not from the weapons it has. In the end, surviving nuclear strikes or other horrors of war boils down to the will power of the nation as a whole.
One must understand that once they and their enemies both are nuclear powers, they must accept the reality of a stalemate. It is impossible to pull off a victory in a nuclear war without suffering great devastation. If a nation is keen upon victory, it must be prepared, both mentally and physically to withstand the human carnage and the damage to infrastructure. Or else, it would be foolish in the first place to go to war in a nuclear overhang.
Presently, only Russia, China and North Korea have the courage to use nuclear weapons and withstand nuclear strikes. That’s why the world is afraid of them. USA comes second. Israel comes third, but only as long as Iran does not have nuclear weapons. Once Iran develops nuclear weapons, it would also join this league.
