Steve Nystrom, Journal guest columnist

While no one knows for sure how the Russia-Ukraine war will playout before it ends, one thing is for sure. Nuclear non-proliferation is either dead or on life support.

When I have given my Russia-Ukraine conflict presentation to civic organizations, as well as to high school and college students everyone agrees on this basic point — if Ukraine had kept the 1,800 strategic and 4,000 tactical thermal nuclear warheads it once had Russia would not have invaded.

Ukraine could have threatened or used its longer-range, more powerful SS-18 and SS-24 strategic intercontinental ballistic missiles to destroy Russian cities within minutes, or shorter range less powerful tactical nuclear warheads to destroy Russia’s military forces once they entered Ukraine proper.

Yes, Russian President Putin would never have started his “Special Military Operation” had Ukraine kept its nuclear arsenal in 1991. Unfortunately, Ukraine agreed to give up all its nuclear weapons in 1994 after receiving security guarantees from the United States, Britian, and Russia. We all saw how well that worked out.

Why do nations develop and deploy nuclear weapons?

Countries acquire nuclear weapons for three reasons. First, to maintain the sovereignty of the nation-state and to ensure survival of the regime or existing government.

Nuclear weapons are used by militarily less capable countries to deter larger more powerful nations from using their superior conventional military forces (tanks, ships, planes) to conquer or destroy smaller ones.

Even one lower yield tactical nuclear weapon used on the battlefield can destroy hundreds of tanks, artillery pieces, aircraft, and thousands of soldiers (and civilians).

The U.S./NATO relied on nuclear weapons to deter the former Soviet led Warsaw Pact Forces from using their numerically superior forces to invade western Europe during the Cold War.

Although nuclear weapons are hard to develop and expensive to acquire, they are less costly over time than conventional armies that require a constant supply of recruits that must be trained and equipment that must be maintained, replaced, or upgraded year after year.

The second reason countries acquire nuclear weapons is to deter other nation states from using nuclear weapons against them.

If the U.S. maintains a credible triad of nuclear weapons that can be launched from land-based silos, submarines patrolling the seas, and bombers stationed worldwide, America doesn’t need to worry about Russia or China attacking us. This is what is commonly known as “mutually assured destruction” or MAD.

For example, if President Putin ordered a nuclear first strike against America for supporting Ukraine, our reconnaissance satellites should provide sufficient early warning so that enough of our nuclear triad would survive to devastate Russia in a retaliatory or “second strike.”

To avoid tragic miscalculations resulting from smaller conflicts escalating out of control, the nuclear powers have traditionally established direct lines of communication or “hot lines” as they are known to reduce the risk of an accidental or incidental nuclear war.

The third reason countries may acquire nuclear weapons is for the prestige of being able to claim that they are a “nuclear power,” so that other world leaders and international organizations will pay attention to them.

North Korea has traditionally used this logic to extract diplomatic and economic concessions from South Korea, Japan, China, and the U.S.

Nuclear weapons are also a key component of our security guarantees to U.S. allies through both treaties and actual deployment. During the Cold War and even now with the Russia-Ukraine conflict raging, the U.S. has pledged to defend NATO/EU from Russian aggression including the use of nuclear weapons, if necessary, as well as defending South Korea, Japan, and Australia if North Korea or China attacks them.

For America’s nuclear deterrent to continue to be effective it requires two necessary things: a credible amount of functioning nuclear weapons and the willingness to use them against an aggressive enemy. If either of these two key ingredients are missing or in doubt, nuclear deterrence will fail, and war could result.

So, why are more countries now able to develop nuclear weapons? Well, nuclear weapons technology is now more available than in the past.

Pakistani nuclear physicist Abdul Qadeer Khan, known as the father of Pakistan’s nuclear program, also provided Iran, North Korea, Libya, and China with nuclear weapons know how for years of work at his Khan Research Laboratories.

Khan not only became very wealthy from selling his nuclear know how to various governments, but he also started to encourage nations such as Iran and North Korea to collaborate in developing both the nuclear weapons and long-range missiles to deliver them to targets around the world.

This so called “flipping” enabled Iran to obtain critical nuclear know how from North Korea to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons, while North Korea received critical missile technology from Iran for its newly fielded Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile that can now hit the U.S.

The key problem confronting the U.S. and the United Nations is this, “How do we stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the long-range missiles that deliver them?” We will examine this complicated issue over the next coming weeks.

Hint: We may not be able to.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Steve Nystrom is a lifelong resident of Marquette and a Northern Michigan University Distinguished Alumni Award recipient. He served for six years in the U.S. Army and spent over 25 years in the intelligence community.