Alok Chandan

Ukraine crisis and Nuclear weapons
On January 3rd, 2022, all de-jure nuclear weapon states (same group happens to be P-5 countries)
reaffirmed their commitment towards arresting nuclear threat and reiterated the statement- ‘Anuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought’. But, within less than two months, to beprecise February 24th, Russia brazenly invaded Ukraine. Russian autocrat- Putin used nuclear sabre
rattling to shield NATO from supporting Ukraine. Moreover, he ordered military personnel to keep
nuclear deterrents in a “special regime of combat duty”. Which was later seconded by Russian
foreign minister- one must not underestimate the nuclear war. This invasion has once again
unbottled the genie of nuclear crisis, reaffirming the belief that any type of arms control orcommitments by states are useless in case of nuclear weapons.
New Trends
The world witnessed two new and dangerous trends with this invasion. First, the blackmailing ofnuclear weapons was used in war, almost at the onset of war, to keep other states away fromcoming for help to an invaded country. It was against the shared wisdom of security pandits. Sofar, nuclear weapons are believed to be weapons of ‘last resort’. Pronouncing the ‘n’ word, to alarge extent, helped Russia to limit the war between the two countries. It allowed the former tobuy extra time to recalibrate the military strength and strategy. It is now widely accepted among
academia and military experts that things didn’t roll out as planned by Russia- which thought it to
be a cakewalk to capture Kyiv.
Second, a nuclear ‘have’ state has invaded another erstwhile-nuclear state. In the early 1990s, withthe disintegration of the USSR, Ukraine inherited weapons of mass destruction. Which was later
returned to Russia under ‘Budapest memorandum-1994’ in exchange for promises from Russia,
Britain and the US that her sovereignty would not be breached. Many commentators and generalmasses have a consensus that it was a blunder for Ukraine to surrender nuclear deterrents.
As put by Indian nuclear security doyen Manpreet Sethi, there is a trend among vested groups to‘conventionalize’ nuclear weapons. These two trends as mentioned earlier, further contribute inthat direction and set a bad example for the future. Of course, such instances will hinder any
attempt to denuclearize and motivate the state to go nuclear.

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Alok Chandan
Future StepsToday’s world is utterly different from the Cold-war world. With the coming of the fourthindustrialization, exponential advancement in the suit of core technologies, and dual use in nature,
have further exacerbated the problem. In the third nuclear age (First: 1945-90 & Second: 19902010/15, roughly), interaction between modern technologies like- intercontinental ballistic
missiles (ICBM), hypersonic gliding vehicles (HGV), artificial intelligence (AI), cyber capabilities
on the one side and nuclear capabilities on the other side, either between two or among all,
produces the deadliest cocktail. Almost all nuclear experts accept that the coming of more andmore advancements in either delivery technology or command and control has further destabilized
nuclear stability. All types of fears – misinformation, disinformation, misfire, fire initiated by thebug or remote non-state actor- increase the chances the nuclear havoc.
But the solution lies in the same. With the help of the same technological advancements, we cancheck the further horizontal and vertical proliferation of nuclear weapons and ultimately lead toits elimination. The only way to save humanity from the future scourge of this deadliest weapons
is a complete ban on possession and production; also, incongruence with the goal of the 2017Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which entered into force last year.
Technologies like- Blockchain can be harnessed for verified elimination of nuclear warheads. Thiscan also be used for keeping an eye on the peaceful use of fissile materials, radioactive waste
management, and preventing divergence for covert military projects. A large amount of data, often
christened as ‘Big-data’ being generated related to nuclear-activity [use of information technology
in command and control, satellite signal, maintenance, radar system, delivery medium etc.] isanother gold mine for researchers. These Big-data can be used for feeding into Machine learning,which can be harnessed to keep an eye on the stealth activity of the rogue state. Advance satellite
technologies can be deployed to monitor such clandestine state activity under “mutualsurveillance”. This will also result in building confidence among the states.
In this arena, Japan is leading from the front. For example, last year Japanese Atomic Energy
Agency collaborated with International Atomic Energy Agency to help strengthen technicalcapacities in decommissioning, radioactive waste management and nuclear security. Uses of theseadvanced technologies are in some way already playing a significant role or have scope to do so.

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For example, in countries like Australia, Argentina and more, Blockchain is already used for
documentation of sensitive information related to fissile material.
Conclusion
Today’s scenario is different, P-5 counties must realize and keep non-nuclear states in the loop;
unlike past, any unilateral promise or treaty cannot be dictated. Instead, nuclear states need to rollout convincing and time-bound frameworks to eliminate weapons of mass destruction. Compellingenough for the non-nuclear states, only lip service will not be enough. The current crisis
demonstrates that we need to be creative and think out of the box to tackle such long persisting
danger to humanity. Old conventional practices of the past would not be of any use further.
A few lessons are: ‘positive peace’ is not enough for fighting a threat like limited nuclear war,
which is prone to slide into the full-fledged nuclear Armageddon. We will have to adopt a new
approach in this information technology age to fight misinformation and disinformation in the timeof caged media and controlled internet. With changing times, we need to adopt new technologiesfor a nuclear-free world; before they get entirely entangled with nuclear without having any optionof turning back. In nutshell, fourth industrial revolution advancements have fathomlesspossibilities to arrest the nuclear threat. We need to be little more creative and open minded toharness its advantages.

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