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Do nuclear weapons make a country safer?
Does acquiring nuclear weapons make your country safer? It’s a difficult question. On Ian Explains, Ian Bremmer looks back to the 1990s and a tale of two radically different nuclear—Ukraine and North Korea.
Ukraine inherited the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal after the Soviet collapse. They gave them up in 1994 in exchange for security assurances from the US, UK and Russia. But assurances aren't guarantees, and a decade later, Russia illegally annexed Crimea before launching its full-scale invasion in 2022. Meanwhile, North Korea abandoned diplomacy, pursued nuclear weapons, and lied to the world all along. Now it’s a global pariah, but the uncomfortable truth is nobody’s thinking of invading North Korea. So did Kyiv get played? Did Pyongyang make a smarter move? The contrast between Ukraine’s vulnerability and North Korea’s impunity seems stark. But the story is more complicated. Building nuclear weapons is a gamble, not a strategy. Watch Ian Explains to understand why and what it means for the growing nuclear threat in 2025.
GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, airs nationwide on US public television stations (check local listings).
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“Keep the nuclear codes away from that robot”
The United States has issued a warning to two fellow nuclear powers, in so many words telling China and Russia, “Keep your nuclear weapons firmly in human control.”
In a May 2 press briefing, US State Department official Paul Dean said that the government has explicitly told France and the United Kingdom that the decision to deploy nuclear weapons must stay out of reach of autonomous artificial intelligence systems — and said it welcomes China and Russia to make the same pronouncement.
Global powers are racing to level-up their military capabilities with cutting-edge artificial intelligence. The US military recently tested an autonomously controlled X-62A jet in a dogfight simulation, which it called a success; and AI has been used on both sides of the Russia-Ukraine war. Meanwhile, the US is trying to cut off China from powerful computer chips needed to run AI systems using stringent export controls, while giving grants to chipmakers willing to expand operations in America.
The State Department’s pronouncement sounds alarming, but the nuclear powers may, in fact, be on the same page, even if their diplomatic interests are more entrenched and complicated.
Alex Brideau, Eurasia Group’s practice head for Eurasia, says he doesn’t believe the US was accusing China or Russia of pursuing AI use in their nuclear command and control controls; rather, Washington is seeking public assurance on the matter. Still, since the US-Russia diplomatic relationship has been strained by the war in Ukraine, Russia might revel in the ambiguity.
“That’s not necessarily because Russia intends to explore the use of AI this way,” Brideau says. “Instead, Moscow might want to add it to the broader set of security issues, nuclear and non-nuclear, that it wants Washington to negotiate over.”
Rick Waters and Jeremy Chan, from Eurasia Group’s China practice, said they think China is on the same page as the US regarding this norm. Chan pointed out that Zhang Jun, who until recently served as China’s permanent representative to the UN, made two important points in a UN speech in March: (1) “nuclear weapons must never be used and a nuclear war never fought,” and (2) “countries should continue to enhance the safety, reliability, and controllability of AI technology and ensure that relevant weapon systems are under human control at all times.”
China may issue an explicit statement after the upcoming US-China dialogue, expected in the coming weeks. That said, Chan thinks Beijing may be reluctant to do so given other unresolved disagreements with the US over nuclear doctrine — “namely the US refusal to commit to a no-first-use policy and reduce its nuclear stockpile.”
The US is simply trying to avoid a classic sci-fi scenario: What algorithm can doom civilization without humanity’s involvement? Surely, that’s the quickest path to annihilation. Luckily, it sounds like its adversaries are already on the same page.
Russia-US nuclear war is no fantasy, says Kremlin ally
Russia has the world's largest arsenal of nuclear weapons. But from Moscow's perspective, the atomic deterrent was not enough to keep the US and its NATO allies from backing Ukraine against Russia.
That was unexpected since the Kremlin views this as a Western intervention in a proxy war that is strategically vital to Russia, Dmitri Trenin, an ex-Russian intelligence colonel and former director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, tells Ian Bremmer on GZERO World.
For Trenin, all nuclear bets are off if the trajectory of the conflict leads to direct military conflict between Russia and NATO.
"If there is such a collision, then (...) a nuclear exchange between Russia and the United States may not be seen as a fantasy," he says. "This is my worry."
Watch the full interview with Trenin in the season premiere of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer's sixth season. airing on US public television nationwide. Check local listings.
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Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant at risk of disaster, says top nuclear watchdog
Weeks ago, the head of the top global nuclear watchdog visited the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine. He saw two big holes on the roof caused by high-caliber ammo that could have impacted the fuel.
On GZERO World, International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi gives Ian Bremmer a first-hand account of the precarious situation there — and how close we came to "dramatic" consequences.
For Grossi, a major problem right now is that both the Russians and the Ukrainians consider the facility as part of the battlefield. He doesn't care who's doing the shelling now, whether it's Russians or Ukrainians, because his mission is to prevent disasters.
Although neither Moscow nor Kyiv have agreed to his safe zone, Grossi thinks he's getting through to Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky.
They don't have to listen to each other, he clarifies, as long as they listen to him on protecting Zaporizhzhia.
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Ian Bremmer: US support for Ukraine vs fear of Russian escalation
Rogue Russia is Eurasia Group's #1 top geopolitical risk for 2023. But what does that mean if you're Ukraine?
For Ian Bremmer, so far Ukraine and NATO have been very aligned on their goals. But that might change in the future if Ukraine's demands threaten unity between the US and its allies, he said in a GZERO Live conversation about Eurasia Group's Top Risks 2023 report.
The West will continue supporting Kyiv. But the last thing America wants is to risk giving the Ukrainians too much or too fast that it'll risk an escalation that could lead to nuclear war.
At the end of the day, Bremmer suggests, what Ukraine might find reasonable to ask for might not be reasonable for the US to provide.
Read Eurasia Group's Top Risks 2023 report here.
Watch the full live conversation: Top Risks 2023: A rogue Russia and autocrats threatening the world
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Putin bombs Ukraine
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi everybody. Ian Bremmer here. A happy Monday to you. A Quick Take, again, turning to the war in Russia. Lots going on, almost all of it escalatory at this point. Most recent state of play, a spectacular attack by the Ukrainians on the Kerch Bridge, the Crimea bridge that was said by Putin to be impregnable, can't possibly be able to attack it. It was providing a lot of supply chain, military supply chain from Russia sourcing capabilities material into Crimea and the rest of Ukraine, and suddenly significantly disrupted by a Ukrainian truck bomb.
That led Putin to respond in the early hours today, rush hour in Ukraine. Indiscriminate attacks against all of Ukraine's major cities. Nearly 100 bombs, civilian targets, killing lots of Ukrainians. An act of state terrorism on the part of Russia. On the one hand, absolutely horrifying that the Ukrainians are living through the kind of attacks in recent years that we've only seen in Aleppo in Syria, in Grozny, by the Russians in early post-Soviet days, and now seeing it across Ukraine.
War crimes, yet again. Acting with impunity in terms of Russia's complete indifference to how the rest of the world sees him and reacts to him. Having said all of that, part of the reason why we're seeing state terrorism from Putin is because he does not have conventional capabilities to respond to the Ukrainian counter offensive, which continues to eat up territory, Ukrainian territory, that they are retaking from the Russian occupation, significantly in Kherson which is north of Crimea, but if the Ukrainians are able to take it, that would disrupt yet another key supply chain of Russia to Crimea.
Then finally, Zaporizhzhia, which is the land bridge between Russian and Crimea, you get all three and the Russians can mobilize all they want. They can't get troops to Crimea. They can't get troops to the South. This war continues to go badly for the Russians. The Russians continue to try to make the Ukrainians pay. The Ukrainians, of course, have extraordinary support from all of NATO. That continues. Russia's willingness to take these acts against the Ukrainians is only going to harden the resolve of NATO countries to continue to provide direct military support to Ukraine, and even to increase the levels of, say, air defense, missiles, and the like to defend themselves and also to be able to counterattack.
The next few months we are looking primarily at Ukrainian counteroffensives to take as much territory from the February 24th lines as they can. The Russians trying to get their troops in as quickly as they can to hold some of that territory. That's basically what's playing out. Beyond that, the big question is whether or not the Russians are going to take asymmetric attacks against NATO. If you watch this conflict played out from Russian state media and how Putin is portraying it to his people, it's that they are losing territory and they admit to losing territory. They're losing the bridge. They admit to losing the bridge, at least for a brief period of time, because of attacks from NATO. This isn't just Ukraine, it's all the intelligence. It's all the ordinance. It's all the money. It's all the training. They're fighting against NATO.
Well, are they going to do anything against NATO? So far what they've been doing is only against Ukraine. And the ability of the Russians to engage in asymmetric attacks against fiber attacks, cyberattacks, pipeline attacks, critical infrastructure attacks, things that the Europeans need to be able to function as normal economies, and yet well short of weapons of mass destruction on the ground in Ukraine. If the Russians were to take steps like that, how might NATO respond? That is, I think, a big question that the European leaders are asking themselves and we don't have a clear answer for. I do expect that over time, especially as it is clear that Russia's economic stranglehold on energy for the Europeans is increasingly not going to make a difference in terms of NATO response, that Putin has to think about what else he can do.
Suing for peace does not appear to be in his playbook at this point. The other thing I would say is watch carefully the Chinese, the Indians, other countries that have been more supportive or at least more willing to be on the sidelines for Putin, increasingly are being outspoken and saying they want an immediate ceasefire. They want the Russians to stop this war. Putin has been ignoring them thus far. Will he continue to, and will those countries be willing to make Russia pay any cost themself? So far they have not. That may change.
One disturbing side, we have coming up very soon in the General Assembly, a global vote that will be taken about condemning the Russian annexations of the four Ukrainian territories. That will easily pass, but it looks like the number of positive votes are going to be around 100, 110. In other words, very large numbers of abstentions from the majority of the developing world. That continues to be the story here. That because Ukraine is being treated so differently as a conflict by the West than other invasions, illegal invasions in other parts of the world, where the West would normally say, "We want a ceasefire and then we'll see what we do."
Here, the West isn't calling for a ceasefire. The West is saying it's an illegal invasion, and so the Ukrainians need to be supported to take their land back. That hypocrisy, certainly that level of lack of alignment in the way the West treats Ukraine compared to other parts of the world, is leading the developing world to say we want very little part of this crisis. To the extent that Putin is increasingly seen as a war criminal globally, is involved in terrorist activities that other states would not be allowed to get away with, that of course is going to increase pressure on the developing world to get on-side publicly on this issue. Puts more pressure on Putin, too.
That's state of play right now. I still am someone who thinks that nuclear weapons, of course, are something to be worried about because Russia has lots of them and because they're in a tough position, but the likelihood of being used or being used soon in my view is still very, very low indeed. Higher than at any point since 1962. The Cuban Missile Crisis. I wasn't around for that. I don't want to be around for this, but let's hope we can avoid it.
For more of Ian Bremmer's weekly analyses, subscribe to his GZERO World newsletter at ianbremmer.bulletin.comWill Putin drop a nuke on Ukraine?
Vladimir Putin isn't exactly losing the war in Ukraine, but he's definitely not winning it either.
Although Russia has more territory now than before the invasion, things aren't going well. Putin has had to call up reservists, his annexation of four Ukrainian regions was immediately challenged, and he's on the hook now for selling to the Russian people the idea that they are at war with NATO and the West.
Putin's push to win at all costs might soon force him to make one very serious and potentially scary choice. He needs to land a big blow, so what bigger blow than the biggest of them all: nuclear weapons. Russia's president has already hinted at the possibility, while Washington and NATO are sorting through what they might do in response.
Let's look at why he might, or might not, pull the trigger to launch what is known as a tactical nuke, a low-yield atomic warhead designed to take out military targets, not entire cities.
The sheer destructive capacity of a nuclear weapon could turn the tide of the war in Russia’s favor. Even a small nuclear strike could wipe out entire units of Ukraine's army in minutes. It would also give the Russians time to regroup their forces to push back against the ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive and appease hardliners griping about Russia not doing enough to win in Ukraine.
Putin still has some other options. He could order cyberattacks, the sabotage of European energy links, or more intense conventional strikes on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure. But none of those have the shock value of a single nuke, which might just scare Kyiv into accepting Russia’s terms for “peace” — such as the recent land grab of 15% of Ukraine.
Also, Putin perhaps thinks he can get away with it (relatively) unscathed. In other words, the US and NATO will respond, but probably not in kind.
Aside from warning of somewhat vague "catastrophic consequences," the West hasn't been very clear on what it would do if Putin pushed the nuclear button. Doing nothing at all is a non-starter, yet the US and its NATO allies, wary of a dangerous escalation with nuclear-armed Russia, might only toughen sanctions and send more advanced weapons to Ukraine — a best-case scenario for Putin.
Putin might even test a tactical nuke just to bait NATO into attacking Russia, which he's been daring the alliance to do since his invasion began. It would give him an excuse to say he was right all along about the West trying to encroach on Russia’s sphere of influence.
Still, for Russia, a non-nuclear Western response might be almost as bad as a nuclear one. US airstrikes could wipe out most of Russia's forces inside Ukraine and sink its entire Black Sea fleet in one fell swoop. Putin might back down if he thinks the price would be too high — even if it went against his own grievance-fueled narrative.
Dangerous escalation? Perhaps. But it hasn’t been ruled out by retired senior US officials.
Putin might lose his two most powerful friends if he pushes the button. Although we know both China’s Xi Jinping and India’s Narendra Modi are unhappy about how the war is going, we don't know what they recently told Putin about how they’d react to a Russian nuclear strike. But Putin does, and his decision-making will surely factor in how it'll go down in Beijing and New Delhi.
The Chinese or Indian response could be anything from a reprimand at the UN to cutting economic ties with Moscow right when the Russian economy is reeling from sanctions despite a strong ruble. Just the threat of turning down Russian oil and natural gas — which Putin needs to sell to keep his war machine going — should give the Russian leader pause.
There's no turning back. If Putin crosses that line, all other options cease to exist. He loses control of the narrative because he's done the unthinkable. Then again, perhaps the Russian leader has already backed himself into a corner, and it's all just a question of not if but when he orders the first nuclear strike since World War II.
What do you think Putin will do? Let us know here.This article comes to you from the Signal newsletter team of GZERO Media. Sign up today.
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