In a joint statement, Britain, America, Russia, China and France have declared that they consider it their primary responsibility to avoid war between nuclear states.
The five nuclear-armed nations have agreed that a further spread of nuclear arms and that nuclear war should be avoided at all costs.
The joint statement issued by the nuclear nations reads:
“The People’s Republic of China, the French Republic, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America consider the avoidance of war between Nuclear-Weapon States and the reduction of strategic risks as our foremost responsibilities.
We affirm that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. As nuclear use would have far-reaching consequences, we also affirm that nuclear weapons—for as long as they continue to exist—should serve defensive purposes, deter aggression, and prevent war. We believe strongly that the further spread of such weapons must be prevented.
We reaffirm the importance of addressing nuclear threats and emphasize the importance of preserving and complying with our bilateral and multilateral non-proliferation, disarmament, and arms control agreements and commitments. We remain committed to our Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) obligations, including our Article VI obligation “to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”
We each intend to maintain and further strengthen our national measures to prevent unauthorized or unintended use of nuclear weapons. We reiterate the validity of our previous statements on de-targeting, reaffirming that none of our nuclear weapons are targeted at each other or at any other State.
We underline our desire to work with all states to create a security environment more conducive to progress on disarmament with the ultimate goal of a world without nuclear weapons with undiminished security for all. We intend to continue seeking bilateral and multilateral diplomatic approaches to avoid military confrontations, strengthen stability and predictability, increase mutual understanding and confidence, and prevent an arms race that would benefit none and endanger all. We are resolved to pursue constructive dialogue with mutual respect and acknowledgement of each other’s security interests and concerns.”
Would love to see statements like these from North Korea, Pakistan and India. Something along these lines from Israel would be nice too.
MAD has always been there and yes all with such should really start to think about putting them away. A bit common sense needs to come to the table and the funds once spent on such better spent to improve the life of all life on our HOME world. Lets get the above mentioned to join up too and see our way to a better future for all man kind.
The problem we have with MAD is it only works if the other fellow doesn’t want to die. Iran is an Islamic country and Islam promote this POV that life on this plane of existence is secondary to life in the afterlife and that those who die carrying out jihad are rewarded in the next life , a POV which we have seen time and time and time again with a heavy subscription rate amongst the faithful. But it gets worse, Islam has 2 main branches Sunni And Shia , who like the CoE and the Catholic Church simply do… Read more »
Although to be honest I’m pretty sure most of these religions leaders a more pragmatic and use it as a way to control their populations and extend their power. So we can only hope that having their population bombed into non existence would be counter to this aim ( as let’s be honest you don’t really ever see he leaders strapping explosives to themselves).
Iran leaders have kids and families like anyone else, they have no serious desire to die. It’s why suicide bombers are always the poor who have run out of options in life and are brain washed by the richer, who don’t put themselves at risk.
I’m sure there are extremists in Iran that would press the button, but they are not the ones in charge and I’m pretty sure there are ones in the UK/US also that would happily nuke the middle East, if they were given the chance.
Yeah it’s a pretty pointless statement, it effectively the same as confirming up is up. No one sane really thinks that a nuclear war is winable
Yes Angus nukes are a deterrent. If nobody else has them there is nothing to deter except perhaps conventional war which has been kept at bay in Europe and many other places for 75 years. Oddly nukes bobbing up and down in submarines are perhaps the reason we are alive today. It’s a strange old world.
Yes one thing you can say is the the policy of nuclear deterrent has kept the world free of nuclear war for over 75 years and I’m not sure there is any other type of weapon in human history that humanity has kept in a box marked do not use ever.
So from the point of view of evidence based practice, having nuclear weapons seems to prevent the use of nuclear weapons.
Following your evidence based practice logic Jonathan does it follow that conventional war has been severely curtailed if not eliminated in the world where that conventional war might well lead to nuclear war between the affected powers? If so how many lives might nuclear weapons conceivably have saved?
Well Mark it’s always difficult to do counter history but what we do know is that since 1945 no major nuclear power have gone to war with each other. The question is would there have been a great powers war After 1945 without nuclear weapons. The answer to this is difficult as it means looking into the minds of the leaders of a totalitarian state (the Soviet Union). What we do know is Stalin was the ultimate in opportunist and by 1945 the red army was probably the most effective ground army in the European theatre, there was a real… Read more »
Yes. Interestingly it might be fair to say that many smallish conlicts involved the great powers usually on the territory of third parties but never in a way which might prompt the use of WMD. Almost as if they were now resigned to air their ideological differences by any means short of direct conflict. This brings us up to date with certain powers trying to push the boundaries and the ever present danger that someone miscalculates.
Yes, it’s why this statement is actually helpful. It’s clearly the major powers trying to get their no go lines in order. As we know the west has been very poor at ensuring geopolitical opponents have a clear understanding of the west’s resolve and red lines with the totalitarian great powers probably realising that they may be pushing to close to some lines. I also think there is genuine concern from all the great powers in regards to the new nuclear powers and general instability between them. We are talking Pakistan vs India and Iran vs Israel. Most of the… Read more »
Sadly as long as Iran openly and often declares to wipe Israel off the map. Israel would be stupid to say something like that. Leave the not air virtue signalling to those who can afford to play those games.
Anyhow, what makes you think Israel has nuclear weapons?
Israel’s official stance is to neither confirm or deny having nuclear weapons. It is entirely understandable considering their situation. Also one of the reasons I wouldn’t expect statements like these, but more along the lines. Can’t really say how exactly.
As for the assumption of them having nuclear weapons, it is from statements of most arms control and nuclear proliferation organizations. Some even state they have around 90 warheads, though the source of this seem to be from US intelligence data. How accurate that data is, I really don’t know.
Not sure if I can trust the Russians and Chinese on the above, both nations have invested in new forms of smaller nukes, not only that but both nations have gone out of their way to not only defend but support the likes of North Korea, Pakistan and of course Iran, none of whom can really be trusted and whom I believe Moscow and Beijing would have no problems using in which to cause problems for the Free world.
Its not like the others have stopped the R&D on nukes… French are working on the ASN4G (replacement of ASMPA), and focus the R&D on fusion only nuclear weapons… As for NK/PAK/Iran, its not really they want to protect them, they just dont want the US to cut them. You can understand why China want to preserve the NK, its a great tampon between the SK/USA and China. Preserve Pakistan, is to weakened India. Preserve Iran is to weakened the USA. Just like we want to preserve Taïwan, its not really because we fondamentally want to protect their freedom, but… Read more »
Hermes, Thank you for your reply, yes you are correct in stating that R&D on nukes hasn’t stopped, but the Western nations nukes are deployed on the retaliatory strike only. Both Russia and China have been sending the message that they would have no issues with carrying out a first strike, in fact the reason Trump pulled out of the INF nuclear treaty, was the belief amongst NATO (not just the US) that either Moscow of Beijing would be happy to carry out a first strike using a small tactical nuke believing quite correctly that the West would not go… Read more »
“but the Western nations nukes are deployed on the retaliatory strike only.” (See next) “Moscow of Beijing would be happy to carry out a first strike using a small tactical nuke believing quite correctly that the West would not go to war over 1 small blast” That’s the reason of existence of the french ASMPA, called “prestrategic” or “ultimate warning”. If the SLBM are a pure defensive weapon in the french doctrine, its not really the case for the ASMPA. France “keep the right” to defend its interests (Which includes the european countries), using the ASMPA in less concentrated area… Read more »
Hi Hermes, i actual think that all the nuclear powers have been a bit shocked by some of the latest modelling, which shows you don’t need much of a nuclear exchange to start a decade long plant wide castrophic famine. if you look at the latest research on the planetary impact of even a limited nuclear exchange you can see that it’s not the immediate blast and fallout that has the greatest impact. It’s on global food production over around a 7 year period due to cooling caused by soot production from burning and fire storms. A 100 low yield… Read more »
Farouk,
I can’t see that Moscow or Beijing would be happy to carry out a first strike using a small tactical nuke? Why would they do that? Against whom? Russia against Ukrainian forces, Finland or the Baltic states? China against Taiwanese forces?
Russia and China have huge conventional forces and some very capable conventional firepower – that is likely to overmatch any opponent.
Uk Nuclear mandate is to use in the face of a material attack, threat to the existence or sovereignty of the UK….not necessarily in response to use of WMD. in theory under UK doctrine a massive cyber attack that crippled the country with a Russian conventional landing force bobbing around the North Sea would be grounds for a Nuclear response.
Wrong on China, it has a No first use policy and not enough warheads to win at this present time.
But you right on Russia.
Am I mad or are Russia, China and The UK all planning to increase their nuclear stockpiles?
It’s a nice statement but it needs to be backed up by real commitments to reduce the thousands of missiles still in service around the world.
The problem is that USA, UK and France have significantly reduced stoickpiles while Russia and China have dramatically increased theirs, and India, Pakistan, Israel and Noth Korea have done likewise. The increase is a response to rebalance the nuclear calculus that maintains an effective deterrent to war – the drivers of this arms race are not NATO states.
The UK went for the ‘showing leadership’ nonsense. So we scrapped a huge number. That said we have a mountain of plutonium and everything else we could possibly need. Oh, apart from tritium that is. As we no longer have the MAGNOX fleet which had a few special reactors to produce special isotopes with odd uses. I don’t think the UK actually arming its Trident boats more fully really changes the balance of anything. I do wonder when we will bring back the tactical nuclear depth charges etc as the others have them. In a sense not having them is… Read more »
We scrapped tactical nuclear weapons held by the 3 services, but have increased the number of strategic warheads.
So we should risk having no safe seafood any more? There’s already a lot of radioactive pollution in our seas in addition to all the microplastics fish contain.
That isn’t relevant.
What I was saying was that Russia or China are much more likely to use a nuclear depth charge if we don’t have one.
If the think we are then likely to go down that route and take out most of their sub fleets, given US/UK sonar and tracking superiority as well ASW noisier Russian and even more so Chinese boats that is a given, then they wouldn’t do it.
China is already growing its nuclear stock.
Its now the 3rd nuclear power with 350 weapons (From 290).
For Russia and USA, I dont think they have any utility to build more weapons…
Hi Challenger, You are right to say that the UK has announced an increase in its stock piles while it brings new warheads into service. I have wondered why the need to increase numbers, why not just do a straight one for one swap? The only reasons I can think of is that it takes time to decommission nuclear weapons – nasty things after all. However, speculating on my part there may be an additional issue when introductucing a new warhead which I believe is for the new Dreadnaught class. The current system is likely to continue to use the… Read more »
Since China is a new threat, 300 warheads comes to be limited to cover Russia and China.
Especially with China where you need to able to turn to ash all the chinese coasts, to be a real threat.
Take also in count that the antiballistic missile defensive systems are way more advanced than before…
So, from a pragmatic pov, you need more warheads to do the same jobs than before.
According to the latest data I’ve seen, the Russians are still reducing it. Didn’t notice any change with the UK.
Not sure about China, but a decade ago they were in a race with the UK and France on having the fewest nukes. Now they have +100 more warheads than the UK.
UK increased the cap to 260 warheads in the IR last year.
Most of the UK and France reductions were in tactical nukes. France still has air launched nuclear weapons on ASAMP missiles carried by Rafael, UK decomissioned it’s stock of WE177 tac nuke bombs carried by Tornado and ASW nuclear depth bombs. Unlikely that the UK will get tac nukes again, the increase is in stocks of strategic nukes for Trident and the Dreadnoughts. Some of the American tac nuke stock was operated by NATO allies – Lance missiles (UK, Germany etc.) and bombs – Germany still has facility to deliver American tac nukes by Tornado and will keep that with… Read more »
Isn’t this just an increase in the operational stockpile so they can load more on the sub on patrol? So not any extra nukes, just bringing a few extra out of storage or am I completely off?0
No it’s new weapons. The current stockpile was capped at less than 200 – so all others were dismantled. New warheads are being built for Dreadnought and the stockpile is being increased.
Ok thanks I was under the impression the UK had effectively lost the capability to manufacture new warheads and were just maintaining existing stocks, I’d read somewhere that even the Americans were struggling to restart production.
AWE still alive and kicking https://www.awe.co.uk/
Good Lord no! Aldermaston Burghfield have had a small fortune spent on them.
The benefit of nuclear weapons is that nobody wins and therefore, in theory, nobody goes to war. Having too many weapons is not the issue, the problem is too few thus giving a potential enemy the view that they might just win. Not forgetting the age old problem of a simple miscalculation obviously.
It was odd that some years ago it was announced that the Trident submarines were to reduce from 12 missiles carried (from 16), but that more recently it was announced that the number of warheads would increase. Can someone correct or update me?
Each missile carries a mix of warheads and decoys – using MIRV (multiple re-entry vehicles). So each Trident carries more than one warhead. Most V boats have only been loaded with 8 missiles since the Cold War ended, so upping to fully loaded boats means more warheads. Also normally only one boat is on patrol, but better availability of new boats means that 2 could be on patrol simultaneously, meaning 24 missiles each with 5 warheads could potentially be at sea.
I thought the bombers sailed with 12 missiles out of 16 loaded.
The CAP limit on weapons was increased but that doesnt actually mean we have built more weapons.
I cant imagine them being the price of a brimstone each so if we have ordered another 40 or so how have they hidden that in the budget?
Stating the obvious while continuing to build more?
For internet we have the EPenis.
And for nuclear power we have the HowMuchWarHeadsDoYouHaveLittleKid
It all reads like a joint Russian / Chinese statement to the effect of “the invasions of Ukraine & Taiwan will be conventional but don’t forget we carry the big stick if you chose to intervene”
And if you wield that big stick bye bye Russia and China is the retort, I guess. So we are back where we started.
Hmm, well we all now about MAD and there is an argument that it has kept the peace between the ‘great’ powers since end of the Second World War – if you ignore Korea, which many seem to… Apart from the obvious omission of the none permanent members of the Security Council nuclear powers e.g. India; two things catch my eye in the above statement. First, the reiteration that they 5 do not have the missiles targetted at nay nation and secondly, the phrase, “We intend to continue seeking bilateral and multilateral diplomatic approaches to avoid military confrontations…” The idea… Read more »
Well, I’m glad they worked that one out.
If Russia invades Ukraine and China invaded Taiwan would it be reasonable to assume they would not seek further expansion by military means? China is the big threat but their global dominance is already pretty clear considering no one has even dared punish them for covering up and lying about COVID 19 until it had spread well beyond its borders. The WHO basically thanked them for their efforts.
…. but we can still try 😈
This may be a bit of a response to some of the latest scientific papers around planetary response to even a limited nuclear war. The modelling around a 100 low yield warhead exchange ( the India Pakistan war scenario) evidenced that even 100 Hiroshima sized bombs would cause world wide famine of castrophic proportions with the world effectively running out of staple foods within a year of the nuclear exchange. It shows that the mid latitude bread baskets would be most effected loss of crops in the US, Russia and China, the crash in world food markets would also be… Read more »
Have you got a link to that?
Hi James, I’m a bit rubbish at hyperlinking on a portable device, but if you cut and paste these leadl to a few articles This one goes into a detailed study of the potential nuclear war between India and Pakistan, giving casualties and rates of black soot injection into the atmosphere, from this they give some crude modelling of global impact. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aay5478 this article builds on the firsts data sets around black soot injection and feeds the data into some complex food and agriculture models to provide impact on likely for production, at its core you are looking at a… Read more »
Hi James
I posted the links but they have been sucked out by the filter, so should pop back when a moderate gets to them.
I wonder if Ukraine would recommend to North Korea, Israel, India or Pakistan that they should sign up to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. The Budapest Memorandum didn’t do Ukraine any good when they did so.
An excellent point Benjamin, had the Ukraine retained a small nuclear capability, would Russian territorial annexing of Ukrainian territory have taken place …. No… However, it’s entirety hypothetical and it was never going to happen, back in 91, the Ukraine was in a state of chaos, suddenly finding itself an independent country, with no money. Ukraine had a share of a broken Soviet command economy and no one with any real idea how to construct a robust independent democratic market economy… Against that background, countries like the US and organisations like the EU insited on nuclear disarmament, as part of… Read more »
Ukraine may well have given up its nukes as part of the treaty. But as the genie is already out of the bottle, how difficult would it be for them to build at least some small tactical nuclear devices? I would suspect that they could build them pretty quickly if required.
Did they actually build them in the first place?
I thought the weapons they had came from within the USSR and Russia itself.
The problem is you cannot uninvent some thing so until we have developed a 100% shoot down capability we must continue with MAD and also make sure the opposition remains stable and able to look after its Nuclear stock pile. Just think of the consequences of losing a nuclear warhead or even a radioactive sources if it fell into the hands of a terrorist gang like IS. We have MAD but we cannot plan for a dirty nuclear war. So by releasing this statement the Russians and China are telling the rest of the club we will do what we… Read more »
“…we must continue with MAD and also
make sure the opposition remains stable and able to look after its Nuclear stock pile.”
What happens if a uprising in Russia and breaks it up into nations like Tatarstan and Dagestan etc?
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you, The world will be on a cliff edge if/when the Russian federation splits up whether from internal pressure or external pressure if such a situation develops then we will have to do what we did with Ukraine but this time try to not invade the country as soon as they have dismantled there nuclear weapons.
In 1992 we all thought the cold war was over and common sense had prevailed, but here we are again.
We all want to avoid use of nukes but Russia & PRC abandon these treaties whenever it suits them. So we need to be careful that we don’t drop our vigilance by carefully observing the restrictions while Russia & PRC prepare covertly a surprise attack, nuclear or not.
Has the US 100% stuck to said treaties since signing them?
BBC’s “Click” featured the possibility of millions of micro-drones, each with a small explosive charge to target any individual in a town or city & kill them. The AI can determine the criteria such as all adults or whatever. They can be dropped in thier 1,000s from aircraft & leave no radioactive residue or the huge destruction on nukes.
Now I think it is chilling, an abomination, but it is another WMD emerging alongside the current NBC & far cheaper than nukes. Apart from the explosives, most parts are freely available.
As shown in the Angel has Fallen movie with Gerard Butler.
Not seen that one yet Db. Best wear a hat so they can’t see my face.
In the film, a swarm of drones attack the President of the US and his secret service protection detail, while he’s fishing on a lake. The drones use facial recognition technology to target the secret service. Rather than dropping an explosive, the drones themselves are suicide drones and detonate when the hit the target.
See link below:
Angel Has Fallen || Drones Attack Scene in HD – YouTube
The scary thing is this is actually possible with today’s technology.
Well that’s one thing we agree on
The bottom line is that nuclear arms are here to stay and ,on a balance of probabilities a nuclear holocaust is inevitable. That is the depressing truth and this is based on the fact that any ‘agreement’ among nations to simultaneously scrap their nukes would not only be impossible to verify but simply would not be universally implemented. Countries would just lie and secretly retain a stock of weapons as necessary insurance i.e. the status quo. A more immediate threat to mankind is runaway population growth. China, to it’s credit, did something about this before any other nation. India by… Read more »
With all these goings on I hope to God that there is some serious ABM capabilities to be had on land, sea, air and space! Surely we need more than just some radars, satellites, AEW, and some pending ABM on the T45s? I just don’t trust the likes of certain self appointed leaders as I’m not sure they have universal human well-being beyond their political interests at heart. We probably have some mad nuts in our camp too. Our political leaders need keep our best values, freedom, power and influence held up in this world and even in having to… Read more »
Hopefully as Technology moves forward and Lasers become much more capable,perhaps in 20-30 years time ICBM’s will go the way of the Musket.
“A more immediate threat to mankind is runaway population growth. “
Bravo.
But it is deeply un PC to talk of this so this fact is brushed under the carpet while everyone goes on about the threat to the environment. Which I support by the way.
UK population to hit 70 million soon, if it hasn’t already, from about 56-58 million when I was a child.
Hi Daniele. Yes, scary stuff my friend and I fear for our kids and grandkids but let us hope we can muddle through!
31 degrees here and they say “feels like” 35 on the Humiture index and our tiled floor is sweating!!
Cheers from Durbs
The bigger the population the bigger the weapons we created. I believe this is a sign from nature to fuck off.
I thought that was the whole point of nuclear weapons. The minute Putain thinks he can get away with it, he will use them.
For those who have more than a passing interest this paper give a great overview of a India Pakistan nuclear exchange: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aay5478 this is a literature review and critique of the Two main black soot prediction models of a low level nuclear war in Pakistan India region. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/25751654.2021.1882772 This paper is the best I have found on the impact of a limited nuclear war on crop modelling and impact on global food production. https://www.pnas.org/content/117/13/7071 good reads all and really gives insight into the potential risks to our food security from Small regional nuclear exchanges on the other side of the… Read more »
I don’t want to sound like a no nukes pacifist, but couldn’t we get rid of them all and reinvest in conventional weapons? If a rogue nation attempts to build a nuclear device then we take them out using conventional weapons?