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The G20 and the G7, successively in Bali, in Delhi, and in Capri, have agreed that 'The use or threat of use of Nuclear Weapons is Inadmissible'.
https://www.mea.gov.in/Images/CPV/G20-New-Delhi-Leaders-Declaration.pdf
The Delhi G20 meeting (url above) specifically noted:
“Concerning the war in Ukraine, while recalling the discussion in Bali, we reiterated our national positions and resolutions adopted at the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly (A/RES/ES-11/1 and A/RES/ES-11/6) and underscored that all states must act in a manner consistent with the Purposes and Principles of the UN Charter in its entirety. In line with the UN Charter, all states must refrain from the threat or use of force to seek territorial acquisition against the territorial integrity and sovereignty or political independence of any state. The use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible.”
The G7, in a meeting in Capri on 19 April 2024, produced a declaration the largely focussed on Ukraine and condemned Russia. It noted:
“In this context, threats by Russia of nuclear weapons use, let alone any use of nuclear weapons by Russia, in the context of its war of aggression against Ukraine are inadmissible.”
Disarmament NGOs have sought, and continue to seek, a reaffirmation in UNGA of the G20 Bali and Delhi Declarations and of the G7 Capri Declaration, in terms according to which ANY use or threat of use of nuclear weapons by anyone is inadmissible. Such a reaffirmed declaration will reaffirm and strengthen existing international law and would have been thought, especially in the current fraught geopolitical situation, to be both 'motherhood' and commonsense. A strengthening of the norm, that nuclear weapons are NOT to be used nor threatened to be used, is urgently called for.
Yet in the last week, and prior to that repeatedly since 24Feb 2022, Russia has explicitly or implicitly threatened the use of nuclear weapons, a threat that ICAN has very properly deemed as 'irresponsible'. It is irresponsible in the extreme.
The most recent threat comes in response to a UK statement that Ukraine is entitled to use the (conventional) weapons supplied by the UK on targets within Russia, should it deem there to be a military necessity to do so.
Russia now plans exercises of its tactical nuclear forces.
An escalation to (Tactical) nuclear weapons use would be the first step on a ladder that culminates in use of the strategic nuclear arsenals of the UK, the US, France, and Russia, with its somewhat over 5000 warheads total. Such an event sequence
It is no comfort whatsoever to know that the NATO Steadfast Defender 2024 exercise of last January involved more troops than ever before. The most recent exercises in the Steadfast Defender series seem to have been in March.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steadfast_Defender_2024
While it may be understandable that NATO governments would wish to also rehearse their defence against Russia, these exercises are also part of a potentially escalatory spiral.
Exercises rehearsing the use of nuclear weapons – especially tactical ('war-fighting') nukes, definitely constitute an implicit threat of their use – as do repeated statements that threaten such use, such as the threats to incinerate London, Paris and other capitals repeatedly uttered by Putin acolytes Margarita Simonyan and Vladimir Soloviev, as well as by Medvedev, Peskov, and Lavrov. A bloodcurdling compilation of nuclear threats is below:
https://social.kyiv.dcomm.net.ua/@September_UA/112247906968824397
The need of the day is for de-escalation not escalation. A wider Russia-NATO war, at first conventional, would be highly likely – as Russia lost – to escalate to a nuclear exchange. Such an exchange might start with tactical nuclear weapons of the kind Russia plans to rehearse the use of, but would in turn be likely to escalate further to use of UK and French nuclear weapons and then to a central strategic nuclear exchange in which 'missiles would fly everywhere', and countries as far afield as Japan, Australia and China might be involved.
Such an exchange would:
--Bring about the more or less instantaneous deaths of several billion people in large cities in the first 90 minutes
--Subject those who survived that holocaust to a slower death from famine in the freezing twilight that would follow.
To threaten to use nuclear weapons is indeed to play with fire from hell. Their use or threat of use is indeed 'inadmissible'.
John Hallam
Nuclear Disarmament Campaigner
People for Nuclear Disarmament
Human Survival Project
Co-Convenor, Abolition 2000 Nuclear Risk Reduction Working Group
Member, Global No First Use Campaign
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