Nuclear Weapons Imbalance Creates ‘Dangerous Moment’: Former CIA Officer

Intercontinental ballistic missiles are launched by the Vladimir Monomakh nuclear submarine of the Russian navy from the Sera of Okhotsk, Russia, on Dec. 12, 2020. Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP

A former CIA officer and expert on nuclear weapons has criticised successive American and British leaders, including President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Boris Johnson, for believing the mantra “nuclear wars can never be won and should never be fought” and allowing Russia and China to build up a massive strategic advantage over the West.

Peter Vincent Pry, director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security, told The Epoch Times, “This is one of the most dangerous moments we’ve ever faced in the nuclear missile age.”

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and some of the belligerent remarks made by President Vladimir Putin, have resurrected the specter of a nuclear war that could wipe out humanity.

Earlier this month a white paper was published (pdf) that recommended the British government make public information films—such as the “Protect and Survive” series, made in the 1970s—to prepare the population for the possibility of nuclear conflict.

In response to the white paper, UK Defense Select Committee chair Tobias Ellwood MP said, “Perhaps, with the war in Ukraine and Russian troops attacking nuclear power stations and Putin threatening nuclear attack, it is timely to review our resilience to nuclear accidents and attacks.”

Soldiers in Moscow look on at the funeral of Soviet leader and former KGB head Yuri Andropov in 1984. Seven years later, the Soviet Union collapsed. AFP/Getty Images

Pry said the Soviet Union collapsed because it could not keep up with U.S. military spending, but he said that in the 1990s and even after the rise to power of Putin in 2000, too many U.S. and British political leaders assumed the threat of nuclear war was a thing of the past and reduced military spending even while Russia rearmed and China built up a massive nuclear arsenal.

‘Gullible’ West Swallows Official Russian and Chinese Figures

Officially China spends $293 billion a year on its military and Russia only $66 billion, compared to the $800 billion the Pentagon spends, but Pry said the reality was that China had more than matched U.S. spending and Russia had massively under-played how much it had spent and “gullible” Western politicians had believed it.

He said Russia and China now outnumbered the West by 10 to one on tactical nuclear weapons and he added, “All their nuclear missiles are brand new, whereas ours are 30 years old.”

But Tim Ripley, a defense analyst and author of “Little Green Men: The Inside Story of Russia’s New Military Power,” told The Epoch Times: “During the Cold War, and especially during the Cuban missile crisis, the clock was ticking towards Armageddon. Are we at the same level of danger now? Probably not.”

Ripley said: “There has been lots of rhetoric but we have yet to actually see the deployment of nuclear weapons. For all the rhetoric coming out of Russia their nuclear ships and submarines are spending an awful long time in port.”

Russian servicemen patrol the destroyed part of the Ilyich Iron and Steel Works amid fighting in the port city of Mariupol, Ukraine, on May 18, 2022. Olga Maltseva/AFP via Getty Images

But he said the Ukraine conflict did pose a great risk of a nuclear accident.

Ripley said: “Certainly there are Russian nuclear weapons at air bases and ports close to Ukraine and Ukraine has attacked several of those with missiles, so there is potential for an accident. Not necessarily a Hiroshima, but certainly one causing nuclear pollution.”

So are political leaders ready for nuclear conflict and do they understand the complex nuances of military strategy?

UK’s Policy of ‘Strategic Ambiguity’

Britain has long maintained a policy of “strategic ambiguity” as far as its nuclear weapons.

The alternative would be a “no first strike” policy, which means Britain would only launch nuclear weapons if it came under nuclear attack itself.

Dominic Cummings, the former government adviser who has now become one of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s critics, wrote recently on the subject.

He said, “COVID showed how leaders can stumble into disaster because they have meetings based on big assumptions they’ve never really studied and questioned.”

Cummings also said he started questioning government officials in 2020 about the nuclear strategy in regards to Russia but said, “It can’t easily be publicly discussed.”

Pry said he agreed with Cummings that Britain seemed unprepared and Johnson should rein in his warlike rhetoric over the Ukraine.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson (L) and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy light candles at the Mikhailovsky Zlatoverkhy Cathedral (St. Michael's Golden-Domed Cathedral) in Kyiv, Ukraine, on June 17, 2022. Ukrainian Presidential Press Office of Ukrainian/Handout via PA Media

Ripley said that in 1991, Britain, along with the United States, threatened to “nuke” Iraq if Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against allied troops during the Kuwait War, and he said the Ukraine conflict had raised the possibility of certain scenarios under which Britain might launch nuclear missiles at Russia.

“If Ukraine was overrun and there were British troops in Poland or Estonia that is an example of where a threat could come into play. If the Russians nuke a British battalion in Estonia and we nuke their troops in Ukraine, what happens next? Would they nuke one of our aircraft carriers off Norway? If either side nukes the other’s territory then that is the end of the world,” said Ripley.

But he said both Russia and NATO are aware of the “escalatory dilemmas” and neither side wanted the conflict in Ukraine to develop into a wider war, let alone a nuclear conflagration.

‘Russia and China Think They Can Win Nuclear War’

Pry is not so sure. He said: “Russia and China think they can win [a nuclear war]. We have brainwashed ourselves that you can’t win a nuclear war ... but they don’t believe that, not when you dig into their military doctrine, you look at their exercises, you look at their posture. That’s what you trust, not what they say.”

Pry said Russia believes that with its latest hypersonic nuclear missiles it could knock out the U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile silos and ultimately defeat the West in a nuclear war.

A hypersonic Zircon cruise missile is fired from the guided missile frigate Admiral Gorshkov during a test at the Barents Sea, in this still image taken from a video released May 28, 2022. Russian Defense Ministry/Reuters

He pointed out the hundreds of deep underground shelters Russia has for its military and political elite and said they conducted a nuclear attack drill in 2016 which involved sheltering 40 million people.

Cummings also raised the idea of building underground bunkers: “Given the inevitability of future pandemics and the cumulative probability of WMD [weapons of mass destruction] attacks growing over time (without dramatic political changes), should we invest in new civil defence structures? For example, should we encourage the building of shelters that could double for pandemics and nuclear attack, with off-grid energy and recycled air?“

Ripley said Sweden, Finland, and Switzerland built bunkers during the Cold War as part of their normal housing programs, but he said it would be “phenomenally expensive” for Britain to embark on such a project.

Political Resistance to Updating Nuclear Weapons

While Russia and China have been investing in a new generation of nuclear weapons, politicians in NATO countries have been struggling to persuade voters of the need to update their weapons.

In 1980, shortly after the BBC revealed the existence of the “Protect and Survive” films, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s government announced plans to produce a new independent nuclear deterrent, Trident, which would replace Polaris, the submarine-launched system which had been operating since 1968.

An undated photograph of the Vanguard-class submarine HMS Vigilant, one of four Royal Navy submarines armed with Trident missiles, at Faslane naval base in Scotland. Danny Lawson/PA via AP

Trident came into operation in 1994 but Ripley said: “Thatcher started building it but the Cold War was over by the time it was ready. Now the Royal Navy is replacing its Vanguard submarines with a new class of Dreadnought subs but they will still use Trident missiles.”

The new submarines, which are being built in Barrow-in-Furness in the north of England, are reported to be costing £31 billion ($38 billion) and many Labour Party MPs, including former leader Jeremy Corbyn, were opposed to them being built.

Pry said the submarines may be new but the Trident missiles they would use are “antiques,” but there was no political appetite for updating them.

He said people in Britain and the United States had forgotten the lessons of the Cold War.

Pry said: “The USSR spent itself into oblivion eventually with the burden of defense armaments and that’s my hope for us to win the new Cold War. If we can just stay out of war with these great powers for long enough, and if we can deter them for long enough, I think they will collapse because their systems are based on lies. They have a false understanding of how economies work and they have a false understanding of human nature.”

A UK Ministry of Defense spokesperson said in an emailed statement to The Epoch Times, “We have absolute confidence in our nuclear deterrence and our ability, along with those of our NATO allies and partners, to deter the most extreme threats to our collective security and way of life.”