- Hubert Walas
“It’s time to give Poland nuclear weapons”
"South Korea’s Interest in Nuclear Weapons Hasn’t Gone Away"
"Crown prince confirms Saudi Arabia will seek nuclear arsenal if Iran develops one".
A new world order is being forged; this is not a particularly controversial hypothesis today. We are in the midst of a transition from one order to another. In principle, this is an extremely unstable moment.
This instability is manifesting itself in many places. The Houthi attacks in the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the prospect of tensions on the Korean border, or the ongoing war in Ukraine. In all these places, the current order is being tested.
The shaky security architecture creates a temptation, or even a demand, to seek new responses to the situation. This is the case among the closest US allies, as the Americans are increasingly signalling a willingness to gradually loosen their global commitments in order to focus their limited resources in key directions in accordance with defined interests.
And when such a process of disengagement begins, the political elites of large and medium-sized countries start to worry. Then, it is only a matter of time before someone utters the words: "what do we really think about nuclear weapons"?
Such behind-the-scenes calculations are taking place in at least a few places around the world: Poland, South Korea, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and even Ukraine.
In short, the dynamics of a fragmenting international system favour the process of nuclear proliferation.
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A nuclear Poland?
Poland will serve as a major example of the process described in the introduction. Why? Because to date nuclear energy - both its military and civilian facet - was basically nonexistent here, but now it is remerging in different forms.
So Poland is an utterly non-nuclear country. The map of nuclear power plants in Europe says it all - Poland is a nuclear desert, and I am not talking about a post-apocalyptic scenario. The only exception is the single scientific reactor Maria. Built in 1970, it is a popular destination for school trips, in addition to its scientific functions. In the early 2000s, as a young student, I took part in one myself.
Although the idea of building a Polish nuclear power plant has been in the public debate since the 1970s, it never came to fruition.
It took 50 years for the idea of betting on nuclear to move from imagination to concrete action in the wave of abandonment of conventional energy sources. A cross-party and social consensus has been gained, which will lead to the construction of three nuclear power plants, most likely in cooperation with the Americans and the Koreans, although the French are hoping for a piece of the deal. Warsaw is also considering small modular reactor technology.
This brings us to the question of whether the possession and development of civil nuclear power in the country is conducive to the process of potential nuclear weapons development. There is no denying that nuclear power plants, like nuclear weapons, are a common element in the internal Polish debate about increasing the country's independence and the fear of an unstable future, but does this convergence also occur at the technological level?
Well, there is a lack of a strong consensus.
Vladimir Kobezskii, an analyst at Russia's ROSATOM, wrote in 2019: "Nuclear technologies are dual-use; that is, they can be used for both civilian and military purposes. The domestic development of an ostensibly peaceful nuclear power program and the enrichment facilities needed to fuel it can provide the means for a non-nuclear weapons state to create nuclear weapons"
He is echoed by an American, Mark Z Jacobson of Stanford University, who wrote in his 2019 article, „The building of a nuclear reactor for energy in a country that does not currently have a reactor allows the country to import uranium for use in the nuclear energy facility. If the country so chooses, it can secretly enrich the uranium to create weapons-grade uranium and harvest plutonium from uranium fuel rods for use in nuclear weapons. This does not mean any or every country will do this, but historically some have and the risk is high, as noted by IPCC. The building and spreading of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) may increase this risk further”.
So Jacobson and Kobezskii would agree that nuclear power plants increase Warsaw's capacity to develop nuclear warheads. But there is a second, and probably stronger, group of researchers who think the correlation is so weak that we should drop the argument.
Ted Nordhaus of the Breakthrough Institute believes that 'Neither the physics nor the technologies are the same, nor are the institutions that manage the two technologies. Nuclear weapons today involve fusing two atoms together in an uncontrolled explosion. Nuclear energy involves harnessing the decay of naturally occurring radioactive elements in a slow and controlled reaction, creating heat that turns steam turbines". He is followed by, Nicholas L Miller, a professor at Dartmouth University, who added: "there is a dearth of systematic empirical work that directly assesses this proposition. A systematic analysis of the historical evidence suggests that the link between nuclear energy programs and proliferation is overstated".
Moreover, in the case of Poland, we are not talking about building a civilian reactor of domestic technology but about the import of technology - mainly from the US. Long story short - the nuclear reactors may help, but there are much greater obstacles in obtaining nuclear warheads.
It is not the technological barriers that pose the most prominent hindrance for Poland and similar other states in the process of potentially acquiring a nuclear weapons capability.
The nuclear dilemma
From the moment the news reached the world that the Americans had found a way to split the atom and use this technology in combat, nothing was the same. Suddenly, there was a technology that could wipe out all life on Earth in an instant.
"Now I Am Become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds". - famously said Manhattan Project architect Robert Oppenheimer, quoting from the Bhagavadgita.
The first nuclear weapon, code-named 'Trinity', was dropped into the New Mexico desert on 16 July 1945. A month later, the more famous Fat Man and Little Boy bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing a total of 150,000 people.
The peak of US power can be defined in different ways, depending on the methodology and the area being assessed. Nevertheless, one of these definitions can point to the period from 1945 to 1949, when the Americans were the only nation in the world to possess nuclear weapons. At the level of state actors, they were the only ones who were 'death, destroyers of worlds'. They destroyed two such worlds on the Japanese islands. The American success naturally caused panic among the Soviets, who set out to catch up.
In the nuclear weapons debate, the question is sometimes asked - why didn't the Americans use their technological superiority and, morality aside, pre-emptively bomb the Soviets to stop their development of nuclear weapons and remain the sole destroyer of worlds? In doing so, they would also have effectively stopped the phenomenon of future proliferation since anyone willing to do so would be at risk of nuclear destruction, as the example of the USSR would show.
Again, abstracting from the philosophical issues of why Americans should be the only nation given the right to mass destruction, an effective pre-emptive strike was simply not feasible in the late 1940s. There were plans for the post WW2 war with the USSR, such as Operation Unthinkable, prepared at Churchill's request, but they were unrealistic. Both sides were exhausted, and nuclear weapons were in very short supply at the time.
In 1946, a year after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US had just nine atomic bombs and a dozen bombers capable of carrying them. The Soviets had thousands of fighter planes and a nuclear programme with no fixed location.
In other words, nuclear proliferation was bound to happen. After the Americans, in 1949, the Soviets did it too. Three years later, the British followed. In 1960, the French. In 1964, the Chinese. India conducted its first successful test in 1974, Pakistan in 1998 and North Korea in 2006. Israel is also widely believed to have nuclear weapons. Nine countries in all.
Quite a lot, as the first four nuclear powers were already planning to limit nuclear proliferation at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s. The "Ten Nation Committee on Disarmament" established in 1960 evolved into the "Eighteen Nation Committee on Disarmament", leading to the ratification of the most important document, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the NPT, in 1970.
The treaty recognises as nuclear powers those countries that developed and successfully tested nuclear weapons before 1 January 1967, i.e. the USA, the USSR (now Russia), the UK, France and China, which also happen to be permanent members of the UN Security Council. The treaty has been ratified by every country in the world except North Korea, which denounced it in 2003, while it has never been signed by India, Pakistan, Israel and... South Sudan.
The Treaty is based on a simple principle. Non-nuclear-weapon states agree never to acquire nuclear weapons and, in return, nuclear-weapon states agree to share the benefits of peaceful nuclear technology and to pursue nuclear disarmament with the ultimate goal of eliminating their nuclear arsenals. Although the NPT ultimately failed to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, it was a major success for arms control advocates in the context of the Cold War arms race and growing international concern about the consequences of nuclear war. The number of nuclear warheads has been reduced sixfold from more than 60,000 in the early 1980s, to today’s 10,000 bombs.
In practice, all countries that have shown sufficient potential and determination have them, while almost all the rest have lost the motivation or were forced to drop it.
The NPT was based on the dualistic world order of the time. The two blocs, the US and the Soviet Union, theoretically offered a nuclear umbrella to the allied states and at the same time checked that no undesirable party got hold of weapons. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 did nothing to change this situation. The world got even calmer, which further demotivated anyone to possess weapons of mass destruction.
This was all the more the case as the pursuit of nuclear weapons by the world's sole hegemon- the USA, was seen as openly hostile, making it risky to raise the issue, even verbally. Any such attempts were equated with the actions of terrorists or autocrats. The motive of having nuclear weapons was even used as a cassus belli to launch a war against Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.
However, the collapse of the Soviet Union set the first major precedent in the area of the credibility of nuclear powers vis-à-vis non-nuclear states. We’re talking, of course, about the famous 'Budapest Memorandum', under which Ukraine gave up the nuclear weapons it had acquired as a separate entity after the collapse of the USSR. In return, the US, Russia and the UK were to guarantee respect for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Today, some international lawyers point out that Budapest Memorandum was a non-binding agreement, not a treaty, which did not guarantee that Western countries would come to Ukraine's aid in the event of aggression by a third country, so de jure the Ukrainians should have no grudge against anyone, except the Russians, of course.
Nevertheless, the Budapest Memorandum can hardly be interpreted as anything other than one of the most devastating decisions for the early emerged Ukraine state, resulting from a misreading of the far-reaching consequences of such a decision. The painful lesson for Ukrainians assures that any future attempts at denuclearisation will be essentially impossible given a multilateral order develops - every society will remember the consequences of this decision for Ukraine.
Moreover, this case legitimises nuclear weapons as an effective, ultimate deterrent, and this is a very compelling argument in favour of having weapons at a moment of chaos, global transition and the emergence of a new order. In 2024, I don't think anyone doubts that we are at this very stage of history.
On a side note, it should be noted that Ukraine has not only given up these weapons, but Kyiv is the only one who felt the consequences. Kazakhstan and Belarus have also done so in the post-Soviet space. South Africa also gave up its nuclear weapons under the NPT, although it already had six home-made warheads in the 1980s. Argentina and Brazil also had their own nuclear programmes, but the unipolar moment of the United States in the 1990s de facto forced both countries to suspend their projects.
So the following sequence emerges. The rise of China has shattered the world order. The rise of China and the fracturing of the order are forcing the guarantor of the current order - the US - to reallocate limited resources and set priorities carefully. This in turn means increased uncertainty in many parts of the world about US security guarantees - especially in Europe, whose de-prioritisation in favour of East Asia in Washington's strategy is increasingly evident. Still the instability will lead not only America's allies to think about nuclear weapons. The very fact of global uncertainty is a potential motivation for launching a nuclear programmse in many regional power centres.
Polish nuclear weapons
Having said that, let’s return to our initial example - Poland. "For Poland to seriously consider becoming a nuclear power, its security environment would have to change dramatically. But it’s worth contemplating what the impact such a scenario would be for Europe.” - And contrary to appearances, this is not a statement by a Pole, but by a German - Fabian Hoffman for the prestigious German quarterly Internationale Politik.
Hoffman's text highlights the indispensable nature of nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine. Manifested not in using them directly, but in the dimension of Russian strategic signalling, which undermines the West's motivation to support Kyiv more broadly. Put simply, the Russians are using the nuclear bogeyman to dissuade the West from supporting Kyiv. The author, therefore reflects on the implications of Poland - NATO's largest conventional force on the Alliance's northeastern border - having nuclear weapons.
Hoffman outlines three main scenarios in which Warsaw could acquire nuclear weapons.
The first, and most likely, is to join NATO's 'nuclear sharing' programme, the initiative under which 100 US nuclear warheads are deployed in five NATO member states - currently Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey.
The aim of nuclear sharing is to share risks within NATO and/or maintain a balance based on the theory of mutual deterrence. Still, the de facto owner of the bombs is the US Army, and their use requires authorisation from Washington.
Nevertheless, "nuclear sharing" seems to be the most favourable solution for Poland. The effect would be available here and now, in agreement with its most important ally - the US, and at a relatively low cost (let us not forget that developing and maintaining nuclear weapons is very expensive). Even a dozen warheads would give Warsaw an argument in a nuclear debate with Moscow. Poland has already signalled its desire to join the programme in mid-2023. "Due to the fact that Russia intends to site tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, we are all the more asking the whole of NATO about taking part in the nuclear sharing program," said then Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.
It is not inconceivable that in the event of a wider American withdrawal from Europe, discussions on nuclear sharing would also intensify in the new NATO countries of Sweden and Finland, or in Romania, for example. All of these countries have, or will have, the capability to use them, notably in the form of the F-35 multi-role fighter.
And so, a nuclear dispersion to the east of NATO, reinforced by the US-French-British nuclear umbrella, would limit Moscow's ability to alienate certain regions, though not completely.
The isolation of the Baltic states would remain a problem. Who should respond to a Russian tactical - and therefore small-scale - nuclear attack on a small Latvian village let’s say? The Poles or the Finns, risking retaliation on their territory? The French or the Americans, risking a wider nuclear exchange? The ambiguity of the answer to this question remains a weakness.
Therefore, Poland's entry into the nuclear club is beginning to break through in the debate within the Alliance countries. In September, experts of the Heritage Foundation concluded that Germany's nuclear warheads should be transferred to Poland under the nuclear sharing programme because doing so " would assure those NATO allies closest to Russia that the arsenal remains credible and effective; and better dissuade Russian aggression by increasing the relevance of the nuclear deterrent" the report said.
But 'nuclear sharing' is not the only way forward. Hoffman also considers more 'controversial' development paths, let’s put it this way. One would be for Poland to have its own nuclear programme, although the author rightly notes that this would require a complete change in the security architecture in Europe, even including a complete American withdrawal not only from Europe but perhaps even the end of NATO.
A nuclear programme of its own is an extremely risky proposition. On the one hand, it would alienate the current patron, the US, which would be neutral to the program at best, and encourage the main adversary, Russia, to launch a pre-emptive attack to neutralise the programme.
For these reasons, for the programme to succeed, it would have to be at the top-secret state level, and still its success would be far from certain as, to return to the beginning, Poland today has almost no nuclear capability. In such a situation, Warsaw would need a nuclear patron, or at least a "partner in crime". This could be South Korea, for example, which is also interested in these capabilities and already cooperates closely with Poland in the military sphere and on a planned nuclear power plant. In a period of chaos, technologically advanced Sweden could also be an option, as could Ukraine, which has a rich Soviet nuclear heritage. The motive for all the three is the same - Russia, and the potiential lack of the US. Apart from the problem of maintaining the secrecy of such a programme, the simultaneous entry of several countries with a similar ideological profile could neutralise some of the negative effects of developing such a programme individually.
With a neutral American stance, but still unwilling to start a nuclear programme on its own, proliferation could also have an economic motive, i.e. cost sharing. Such a configuration was considered in an article for The Spectator in early February 2024 by Dalibor Rohac, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. Reflecting on the state of the alliance after Donald Trump comes to power, the author considers the development of autonomous nuclear capabilities on the alliance's eastern flank, in addition to the nuclear sharing programme.
To quote the author: "there is a sizeable contingent of countries that do trust each other, have a shared view of Russia and who could easily acquire and sustain their own nuclear deterrent – Poland, the Baltic states, and the Nordics. [...] Poland, heavily investing both in its military and its nuclear energy, would be an obvious first mover. The cost may be surprisingly modest. The UK’s Trident system, acquired in the 1980s, cost around £21 billion in today’s prices. Expenses were spread over more than a decade with annual maintenance coming in at around £3 billion. Simply announcing such as intention may prompt France and/or the UK to offer a bilateral nuke-sharing deal to Warsaw, which may also do the trick. But, ultimately, for deterrence to be credible, the weapons ought to be controlled by the party that bears the most risk of a direct Russian attack: Poland itself”..
The statements of key decision-makers show that the issue is not abstract. The nuclear signalling comes from the mouth of Poland's current foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski. [video].
While it would be the easiest course of action for Poland to join the nuclear sharing programme, dependence on the Americans in this regard is uncomfortable for another member of the programme - Turkey. Ankara sees nuclear dependence on the Americans as its own weakness.
If the Islamic Republic of Iran's efforts are confirmed and it comes into possession of nuclear weapons, its lack of independent possession will be strongly felt in Turkey. Saudi Arabia, which, unlike the Turks, does not possess nuclear warheads in any form, will feel even more vulnerable. Prince Mohhamed Bin Salman has already announced this. Add to this a nuclear Israel and you have a situation in which the major powers in the Middle East will feel a deep need to possess nuclear weapons in order to balance each other out. The domino effect is easy to see.
The phenomenon of sudden proliferation is all the more likely when the interests of its hitherto main guardian, the United States, become involved in the process.
After all, Washington cannot simultaneously "leave Europe and go to the Pacific", demand that Europe take responsibility for its security, and at the same time block potential new forms of nuclear deterrence vis a vis by far the largest nuclear power in the region, i.e. Russia. In this case, it is impossible to have one's cake and eat it too. The Americans would have to agree to a new nuclear arrangement in the region - either through extended nuclear sharing (the easier option) or through more European states sharing the costs of the British and French nuclear programmes, but still having the weapons on their soil. This is a more difficult option, but theoretically more effective. Why? Because there is less risk asymmetry. That is, in the case of nuclear sharing, the Americans retain control over the ultimate use of the weapons and their appetite for risk may be less than that of the Russians, which could lead them to test this arrangement.
If, on the other hand, the Swedes, Poles or Finns were in charge of them, we would achieve a symmetry of risk, or even an asymmetry in favour of the European states. A Russian nuclear attack would certainly provoke a response, so it would be less likely to be used. As an aside, this example shows that the nuclear weapons gameplay is fundamentally a psychological contemplation. The aim of this psychological game is to create a balance so that no one is tempted to use weapons of mass destruction, either out of fear or out of a sense of weakness on the part of the other side. Moreover, it can be assumed that it is not the mere fact that a state possesses nuclear weapons that has a destabilising effect, but the period of acquiring these weapons, especially their development - this is the only window of opportunity to react to the acquisition of this instrument by a geopolitical rival. Therefore, the shorter this period, the safer, in theory.
So the Americans may find, or even be forced, to accept a new nuclear architecture in Europe. A similar phenomenon cannot be ruled out in East Asia. Letting the closes US allies in the region to actually have nuclear weapons could play to the US advantage, and such scenarios are certainly considered. Why? Japan or South Korea having nukes could take much of the burden off the US and increase the strategic ambiguity of its adversaries - mainly China, Russia or North Korea. Just as the existence of nuclear weapons in North Korea attracts American attention and plays to the advantage of Moscow and Beijing. Similralily the possible existence of nuclear weapons in Japan or South Korea is a new, undesirable variable for the Chinese and the Russians.
Even before his death, in April 2023, Henry Kissinger stated that the Japanese - so far the only victims of weapons of mass destruction - would become a nuclear power within five years.
Writing for the National Interest, author Barry Gewen acknowledges that the horrors of 1945 remain deeply ingrained in the Japanese psyche but that the changing international order is putting pressure on policymakers in Tokyo. A nuclear Japan would be a major setback for Beijing's war plans, as would a nuclear South Korea. Although Seoul's potential motivations for nuclear weapons would stem mainly from the aggressive behaviour of its northern compatriots. Public opinion in the South is already in favour of developing nuclear weapons. This has been suggested by President Yoon Suk Yeol. Assuming such a decision is taken, given the technological sophistication of both Korea and Japan, it should not be a major problem for either to develop such a capability.
The fact that the world is on the brink of the next phase of nuclear proliferation is best illustrated by that the nuclear debate has reached Germany, perhaps the most pacifist society in the post-war world.
Ukraine also remains on the nuclear chessboard, and according to Oleksiy Arestovych, a former adviser to the president's chancellery, Kyiv could acquire nuclear weapons "in the short term". Today, such a move would be extremely irresponsible, as it could undermine the willingness of states supporting the Ukrainian war effort, or prompt a preemptive Russian nuclear strike. In peacetime, however, nuclear weapons could become one of Ukraine’s main objectives as it seeks to correct its 1994 mistake.
For the Russians, playing the nuclear card will remain an integral part of their strategic repertoire, and attempts at nuclear proliferation will only serve to reinforce the Kremlin's threats. Recently, there has been another 'leak' about Russian plans to use nuclear weapons. However, Russian threats do not exist in a vacuum and can contribute to the opposite of the Kremlin's intentions, namely the expansion of the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Europe and beyond.
The undermining of the existing order by Russia, but also by China, Iran or North Korea, is forcing the 'nuclear debate' to be revisited in many parts of the world. So much so that the next wave of proliferation could dramatically increase the number of actors with this tool in the coming decades.
How can we, as a human species, perceive this? Obviously, the first reaction is unequivocally negative because it dramatically increases the number of potential scenarios for their use, and thus increases the risk of our ultimate annihilation. It is hard to argue with that.
On the other hand, nuclear weapons in all the ‘evilness’ can be seen as a stabilising element, as there is always the fear of their use by the defending side. If Ukraine had still had nuclear warheads in 2014 or 2022, the invasion might never have happened. Is the nuclear force ‘evil’ in this case?
Anyway, just as it was certain after the Americans achieved nuclear capability in 1945 that proliferation to other countries would occur sooner or later, it is also certain today that we have not reached the final stage of nuclear proliferation and that weapons of mass destruction will once again fill the headlines of the daily news.
