Ukraine: Tactical Nuclear Weapons

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, I too thank and commend the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, for instituting this important debate and for introducing it so profoundly.

Regrettably, we are all familiar with Putin’s and his spokesperson’s habit of using diplomatic relations like a cracked mirror, ascribing his own egregious intentions to others and therefore justifying aggression and escalations. From the start of this phase of the Ukraine conflict, it has had a nuclear component. In his declaration announcing the February invasion, Putin made statements warning the NATO powers of likely nuclear consequences should they choose to intervene. This nuclear blackmail appears to have, in limited terms, succeeded. NATO rejected Ukraine’s pleas to institute a no-fly zone, despite the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian Parliaments all voting in favour. It should not be possible for a tyrant to use nuclear weapons as a shield to conquer his neighbours like this; that it is points to one of several deep injustices and risks baked into the systems that we have created.

There is no such thing as a tactical nuclear weapon. The use of any nuclear weapon would be strategic; all are appallingly destructive and present an existential risk. They are not merely political instruments or one of the sinews of diplomacy. The risk of nuclear weapons being used on a European battlefield is greater today than at any time since the height of the Cold War, and this risk is not just subject to the caprice of an increasingly unstable political actor who is acting against the backdrop of a decaying regime. It is also subject to error or miscalculation. In October 1962 off the coast of Cuba, a Soviet submarine commander, on hearing depth charges, wrongly inferred that war had broken out and gave orders to fire a nuclear weapon at US targets. He was prevented from so doing only by the last-minute intervention of the senior intelligence officer on board the boat. I and almost everyone I know owe our lives to this officer.

We know that the reliability and safety of all nuclear weapons are potentially vulnerable to cyber intrusion and increasingly to disruptive technologies. This war in Ukraine has already exposed the degraded nature of Russian arms and military infrastructure, a situation that only builds upon the fallibility inherent in human nature. The use of nuclear weapons is now contingent not just on the temperament of those responsible for them but on autonomous systems and evolving weapons technology. Nuclear weapons could be detonated by accident or interference and, given that the bonds of trust between Russia and the West are fraying more every day, how could we realistically impute a lack of malign intention, even were that the case?

In response to this evolving risk, the US Congress and President have separately initiated a comprehensive fail-safe evaluation of their nuclear weapons. What assessment have our Government made of the implications of this action by our most important ally, particularly on our confidence in the fail-safe resilience of our systems and on whether we will take their lead and conduct our own similar review?

We face a moment of enormous danger. What mechanisms do we have in place to bring this conflict to an end on terms that are acceptable to Ukraine? In modern warfare, there is no such thing as a conflict that can be won by purely military means. The best that combat can offer is to fashion a context within which an acceptable settlement can be reached. But, ultimately, there will have to be a set of terms to which both Ukraine and Russia will be prepared to accede if this war is to end. It is not for this Government, or any other western Administration, to attempt to dictate the timing of such negotiations; that is a matter for President Zelensky and the people of Ukraine. But, as the US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, said only two weeks ago, we are reaching a time when the Russians would be negotiating from an adverse position, certainly in military terms and possibly in political terms as well.

This conflict has exposed the failures of a generation to grasp the opportunities after the Cold War to escape the global risk arising from our collective attachment to nuclear deterrence. This is not the time to look backwards; we now need to make a resolution to double down and realise the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons, repeatedly expressed by representatives of the British Government and the non-proliferation treaty. When I sat on the Trident Commission alongside several colleagues from this House a decade ago, we concluded that the UK needed to do more to drive genuine multilateral disarmament. Unfortunately, what effort we have put in has not borne fruit, and the strategic situation has deteriorated further. The latest NPT review conference this August ended in failure.

We cannot simply step back and shrug our shoulders. As a nuclear weapon state and permanent member of the Security Council, we bear a special responsibility. While we rightly condemn the leadership in Moscow, we must also draw it or its successors into a constructive process that builds an inclusive European security arrangement, with strong and credible security guarantees for Ukraine. This is a fearsome challenge, perhaps more problematic than winning a war with Russia, but we owe it to ourselves, our children and our grandchildren to engage in it.