What Is a Nuclear Threat?
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The saber-rattling in Ukraine by Vladimir Putin has rekindled fears of a nuclear war. In the past, the nuclear taboo was such that even implicit threats from superpowers were rare. Implicitly, the belief was that if any one nation attacked another with nuclear weapons, that country would receive a swift retaliation from the other. This system of deterrence has been called mutually assured destruction or MAD.
MAD has largely been effective, but its success has been a matter of timing and negotiating skill. When the US and Soviet Union both had large stockpiles of atomic weapons, it was believed that the potential for a devastating exchange of full-scale nuclear bombs kept each party from launching a first strike.
Now, with the proliferation of rogue states and smaller nuclear arsenals, it is no longer clear what defines a nuclear threat. George Perkovich, a vice president at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an expert in nuclear policy, has developed a framework for understanding what constitutes a nuclear threat.
He defines a nuclear threat as an explicit statement that a state intends to use its nuclear weapons, with a material action to support the declaration. He has worked with other nuclear experts to define a framework for measuring the impact of verbal and material nuclear threats.
In the event of a nuclear attack, people should shelter-in-place. Ideally, this should include finding an interior room without windows on the lowest floor of a building. A “go bag” with disaster supplies, including food, water, medications, a flashlight and extra batteries, two-way radios or ham radios, is also recommended.
