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Nuclear blackmail is a form of nuclear strategy in which one of states uses the threat of use of nuclear weapons to force an adversary to perform some action or make some concessions. It is a type of extortion that is related to brinkmanship.
In 1950, US president Harry S. Truman publicly stated that the use of nuclear weapons was under "active consideration" against Chinese targets during the Korean War. [1] [2] [3] [4]
In 1953, US president Dwight D. Eisenhower threatened the use of nuclear weapons to end the Korean War if the Chinese refused to negotiate. [5] [6] [7]
In order to support the continued existence of the Republic of China government, the United States issued several nuclear threats against the People's Republic of China in the 1950s to force the evacuation of outlying islands and the cessation of attacks against Quemoy and Matsu. [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]
Declassified documents from the UK National Archives indicate that the United Kingdom considered threatening China with nuclear retaliation in 1961 in the event of a military reclamation of Hong Kong by China. [13]
In 1969 and onwards, US president Richard Nixon indirectly threatened North Vietnam with nuclear weapons via his madman theory.
In 1981, the US Department of Energy said there had been 75 cases of people attempting nuclear blackmail against the US but only several were serious attempts. [14]
In 1991, Israel threatened Iraq with a "nuclear counter-response" if there was an attack using chemical weapons during the Gulf War. [15]
In 2002, the George W. Bush administration declared that it was prepared to strike with nuclear missiles against Iraq if biological or chemical weapons were used against American troops or their allies during the Iraq War. [16]
In 2005, Chinese major general Zhu Chenghu said that China might retaliate with nuclear weapons if the United States attacked Chinese forces in a conflict over Taiwan. [17]
On January 2, 2018, US president Donald Trump threatened North Korea by pointing out that the US has much more nuclear firepower than North Korea, in response to a press release stating that a "nuclear button is on Kim Jong-un's desk at all times." [18]
On February 24, 2022, in the TV address where Vladimir Putin announced Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Putin warned that any countries interfering would face consequences they had never encountered in their history. This was widely interpreted as being a threat of nuclear attack. Several days later, Putin put Russia's nuclear forces on a higher state of alert. [19] [20] United States warned Russia of "catastrophic" consequences for Russia if Russia uses any nuclear weapons after setbacks in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. [21]
On September 25, 2024, Putin warned the West that if attacked with conventional weapons Russia would consider a nuclear retaliation. Putin went on to threaten nuclear powers that if they supported another country's attack on Russia, then they would be considered participants in such an aggression. [22] [23]
On September 27, 2024, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko warned that Belarus will use nuclear weapons if attacked by the West. [24]
Nuclear warfare, also known as atomic warfare, is a military conflict or prepared political strategy that deploys nuclear weaponry. Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction; in contrast to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can produce destruction in a much shorter time and can have a long-lasting radiological result. A major nuclear exchange would likely have long-term effects, primarily from the fallout released, and could also lead to secondary effects, such as "nuclear winter", nuclear famine, and societal collapse. A global thermonuclear war with Cold War-era stockpiles, or even with the current smaller stockpiles, may lead to various scenarios including the human extinction.
The phrase "axis of evil" was first used by U.S. President George W. Bush and originally referred to Iran, Ba'athist Iraq, and North Korea. It was used in Bush's State of the Union address on January 29, 2002, less than five months after the September 11 attacks and almost a year before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and often repeated throughout his presidency. He used it to describe foreign governments that, during his administration, allegedly sponsored terrorism and sought weapons of mass destruction.
In nuclear ethics and deterrence theory, no first use (NFU) refers to a type of pledge or policy wherein a nuclear power formally refrains from the use of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in warfare, except for as a second strike in retaliation to an attack by an enemy power using WMD. Such a pledge would allow for a unique state of affairs in which a given nuclear power can be engaged in a conflict of conventional weaponry while it formally forswears any of the strategic advantages of nuclear weapons, provided the enemy power does not possess or utilize any such weapons of their own. The concept is primarily invoked in reference to nuclear mutually assured destruction but has also been applied to chemical and biological warfare, as is the case of the official WMD policy of India.
World War III, also known as the Third World War, is a hypothetical future global conflict subsequent to World War I (1914–1918) and World War II (1939–1945). It is widely assumed that such a war would involve all of the great powers, like its predecessors, as well as the use of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction, surpassing all prior conflicts in geographic scope, devastation and loss of life.
Daniel Ellsberg was an American political activist, economist, and United States military analyst. While employed by the RAND Corporation, he precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Pentagon study of U.S. government decision-making in relation to the Vietnam War, to The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other newspapers.
Brinkmanship or brinksmanship is the practice of trying to achieve an advantageous outcome by pushing dangerous events to the brink of active conflict. The maneuver of pushing a situation with the opponent to the brink succeeds by forcing the opponent to back down and make concessions rather than risk engaging in a conflict that would no longer be beneficial to either side. That might be achieved through diplomatic maneuvers, by creating the impression that one is willing to use extreme methods rather than concede. The tactic occurs in international politics, foreign policy, labor relations, contemporary military strategy, terrorism, and high-stakes litigation.
The Russian Federation is known to possess or have possessed three types of weapons of mass destruction: nuclear weapons, biological weapons, and chemical weapons. It is one of the five nuclear-weapon states recognized under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and one of the four countries wielding a nuclear triad.
The First Taiwan Strait Crisis was a brief armed conflict between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC) in Taiwan. The conflict focused on several groups of islands in the Taiwan Strait that were held by the ROC but were located only a few miles from mainland China.
Deterrence is a 1999 political thriller drama film written and directed by Rod Lurie, depicting fictional events about nuclear brinkmanship. It marks the feature directorial debut of Lurie, who was previously a film critic for the New York Daily News, Premiere Magazine, Entertainment Weekly and Movieline, among others. Kevin Pollak, Timothy Hutton, Sheryl Lee Ralph and Sean Astin star. The film is an international co-production between France and the United States. It premiered at the 1999 Toronto International Film Festival, and was released in the United States on March 10, 2000, by Paramount Classics.
The madman theory is a political theory commonly associated with the foreign policy of U.S. President Richard Nixon and his administration, who tried to make the leaders of hostile Communist Bloc nations think Nixon was irrational and volatile so that they would avoid provoking the U.S. in fear of an unpredictable response.
The United States was the first country to manufacture nuclear weapons and is the only country to have used them in combat, with the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II against Japan. Before and during the Cold War, it conducted 1,054 nuclear tests, and tested many long-range nuclear weapons delivery systems.
A tactical nuclear weapon (TNW) or non-strategic nuclear weapon (NSNW) is a nuclear weapon that is designed to be used on a battlefield in military situations, mostly with friendly forces in proximity and perhaps even on contested friendly territory. Generally smaller in explosive power, they are defined in contrast to strategic nuclear weapons, which are designed mostly to be targeted at the enemy interior far away from the war front against military bases, cities, towns, arms industries, and other hardened or larger-area targets to damage the enemy's ability to wage war. As of 2024, no tactical nuclear weapons have ever been used in combat.
The United States and Russia maintain one of the most important, critical, and strategic foreign relations in the world. Both nations have shared interests in nuclear safety and security, nonproliferation, counterterrorism, and space exploration. Due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, relations became very tense after the United States imposed sanctions against Russia. Russia placed the United States on a list of "unfriendly countries".
Russia–South Korea relations or Russian–South Korean relations are the bilateral foreign relations between Russia and South Korea. Modern relations between the two countries began on September 30, 1990. Due to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, relations became very tense after South Korea imposed sanctions against Russia. Russia placed South Korea on a list of "unfriendly countries", along with Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, the United States, European Union members, NATO members, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Micronesia and Ukraine.
This timeline of nuclear weapons development is a chronological catalog of the evolution of nuclear weapons rooting from the development of the science surrounding nuclear fission and nuclear fusion. In addition to the scientific advancements, this timeline also includes several political events relating to the development of nuclear weapons. The availability of intelligence on recent advancements in nuclear weapons of several major countries is limited because of the classification of technical knowledge of nuclear weapons development.
This article shows various estimates of the nuclear weapon stockpiles of various countries at various points in time. This article also shows the number of nuclear weapons tests conducted by each country at various points in time.
This article describes the foreign policy positions taken by Donald Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign.
During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, several senior Russian politicians, including president Vladimir Putin, former president and prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, and foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, have made a number of statements widely seen as nuclear blackmail. The possibility of Russia using tactical nuclear weapons, and the risk of broader nuclear escalation, has been widely discussed by commentators and in the media. By 2024, many of the Russian government's "red lines" had been crossed without nuclear weapons being used in response. As well as nuclear weapons threats, the Russian occupation of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant has led to a crisis over the safety of the plant and the risk of a nuclear disaster.
The term red lines has seen use in the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It is a veiled threat of engagement intended to warn an opponent or observer not to interfere or undertake an action or behavior that would "cross the red line."