Eighty-two million dead on the first day is the balance that the Russian television station RT predicted in January for a nuclear war between Russia and NATO. In an unusual piece of political fiction, parabolic trajectories start from beyond the Urals, and they light up with red dots Paris, London, Rota…
All the rain of destabilizing content through a multitude of channels that preceded and succeeded in winter the Russian invasion of Ukraine had among its flow that RT report, recreation on a map of the northern hemisphere of that black perspective, practically an animated infographic that has disappeared from YouTube after thousands of clicks.
In Russia there is talk of missiles and devastation in the political and news media, especially on public television, with much more self-confidence, when not boasting, than in NATO and in its documents. The Alliance is silent because “it is clear that it should not support the irresponsible nuclear rhetoric of Vladimir Putin and incur escalation verbally around this matter”, explains a senior managerial source of the Organization.
But, after the summit, it confirms that NATO has closed the stage of ‘soft power’ described in Lisbon in 2010, when it considered Russia a ‘partner’. It’s time to teach both atomic fangs: the arsenal of warheads and the anti-missile shield.
“full range”
In a recommendation made public ahead of the summit, NATO’s Parliamentary Assembly urged heads of state and government to “reaffirm the importance of nuclear deterrence as a guarantee last of the security of the allies”.
And in Madrid, those leaders have subscribed to the need to maintain that deterrence credible, since a threat grows outside the walls: “The Russian Federation is modernizing its nuclear capabilities,” summarizes the Strategic Concept, and evaluates the “potential use of chemical, biological materials and weapons or nuclear” by “hostile states and non-state actors”; and stresses that “China is rapidly expanding its nuclear arsenal (…) without participating in good faith on gun control.”
NATO foresees an increase in anti-missile defense in various parts of Europe; also in Rota
Faced with this reality, NATO puts black on white the determination to deploy “the full range of forces, capabilities, plans, resources, assets and infrastructure necessary (…) even to high intensity multi-domain attacks against nuclear-armed competitors.
In NATO they perceive that since the invasion of Ukraine the atomic profile of the alliance raises less dissension in public opinion in Belgium, Holland and Germany, where there was more traditional opposition. However, show the fang it is not about deploying more missiles in Europe. Another thing is the capacity building of the anti-missile shield, and the increase in anti-missile batteries, Patriots, for example… not only on the eastern flank, but also wherever the United States reinforces its presence, including the Rota base.
remote probability
The Madrid Strategic Concept states that “the circumstances in which NATO might have to use nuclear weapons are extremely remote”but “the Alliance has the capacity and the determination to impose unacceptable costs on the adversary that would far outweigh the profits I could hope to achieve.”
Latest US nuclear warhead count: 3,708, of which 1,744 are deployed
And that is deterrence; the new and the old. The last major occasion that NATO spoke disturbingly about the use of nuclear power was in 1981, when Spain was debating joining the Alliance, and a meeting of a key body, the Nuclear Planning Group, was about to begin in Glasgow (Scotland). It was after the president Ronald Reagan would have confessed to estimating the possibility of a limited nuclear confrontation in Europe against the USSR. For the US, it was essential to deploy half a thousand Pershing rockets on this shore of the Atlantic
“As long as nuclear weapons exist, NATO will continue to be a nuclear alliance,” says the Strategic Concept, clinching an old statement by the organization. Out of the summit came a US determination to maintain and modernize its nuclear arsenal –3,708 heads, of which 1,744 are deployed, according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists this month – even though, according to the source consulted, US intelligence analyzes “transmit a lot of calm to the allies about the possibility of Russia resorting to nuclear weapons. Despite Putin’s rhetoric, the objective risk has not increased because no alterations have been detected in its atomic deployment.”