French political scientist Bruno Tertrais, deputy director of the Foundation for Strategic Research, is one of the leading Western experts on nuclear deterrence. Did you just publish Pax atomica? Theory, practice and limits of deterrence (Odile Jacob). Tertrais spoke with La Vanguardia about the validity of the atomic weapon and the fear of its use in Ukraine.
What did you think of the film Oppenheimer?
I didn’t think it was Christopher Nolan’s best film, but it does show quite well the issue of the responsibility of scientists in the face of a major political decision. I don’t think that, from a historical point of view, it is the most interesting film about the Manhattan Project, except for the part about the Oppenheimer trial, which reminds us how paranoid the United States was at that time.
Do you believe that, despite moral and ethical reservations, the world is safer with nuclear weapons?
Yes, that is the root of the problem. It can be thought that the atomic bomb raises serious ethical problems and, at the same time, that it has made it possible to contain large-scale political violence between the main powers. Nuclear weapons do not ensure peace in the world, but they considerably limit the risks of a major military confrontation.
Recently the British, for the second time, failed to test a missile. Can we be sure that nuclear weapons stored for decades would actually work?
The main thing is that the opponent believes that they would work. That is the particularity of deterrence. It is a psychological process that occurs in the opponent’s head. Today there are no major nuclear tests, but it would be quite unreasonable for an adversary to bet on the fact that the weapons do not work. In the British case, it is very rare for there to be two failures in test launches. It is an American missile that has proven its reliability. These accidents are perhaps due to London’s lack of investment in its deterrence, but it is too early to know what exactly happened. It is very possible that it was a problem with the submarine and not the missile.
In his book he says that nuclear deterrence assumes a minimum of rationality. How is this rationality guaranteed?
Rationality is shared by the majority of political actors. The issue is not so much rationality but reason. Mr. Putin is rational, but he is not reasonable. Deterrence is based on the idea that two adversaries can understand each other a little better. It is true that it is based on some conditions. You cannot be sure that they are always respected.
Do you think that the fear of a nuclear escalation in the war in Ukraine is not justified?
I think it’s excessive but understandable. Excessive because I do not believe at all that Vladimir Putin would be tempted to use nuclear weapons, although at the same time it is understandable because a Western head of state or government has an essential responsibility, that of not being at war with a nuclear power.
And wouldn’t you use it even if Ukraine recovered all the territory currently occupied?
If Ukraine regained all the territory, the issue could indeed be raised in Moscow, but that would not mean that we were on the brink of a nuclear war. The use of nuclear weapons has been proposed dozens of times during the Cold War and no one used them.
A former KGB spy, Sergei Jirnov, once told me that Putin wanted to be the second man in history, after Truman, to use the nuclear weapon to show that Russia is strong and capable of anything. What do you think?
I think Jirnov doesn’t know anything about nuclear weapons. In any case, we can be concerned about the reference that Putin made, in September 2022, when he announced the annexation of the Ukrainian regions. He spoke of the precedent of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki explosions. In my book I say that the heads of state or government who used nuclear weapons today would be, in a certain way, on par with the United States. I therefore understand this reasoning, but that does not bring us closer to the use of nuclear weapons by Russia.
Speaking of NATO’s nuclear deterrent, and therefore of France, the only EU country with this capability, one wonders if the West, NATO, the United States, France, would be willing to die for Riga, for a Baltic republic. Would you even go to the nuclear option in the event of a Russian attack?
The essential thing, again, is what goes through Putin’s head, not mine or yours. The question is whether Putin would think that we, French, Europeans, would be willing to die for Riga. Personally I think that perhaps it is more credible for France to die for a European country than for the United States to die for a European country.
Simply because it is closer and the threat is more direct?
That’s how it is.
Where are we in the case of Iran and its nuclear program?
For approximately a year now, Iran has had the technical capacity to produce, if it decides, in a few days, enough enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon. But that does not mean that you can have the weapon in a few days. It would take months of work to make the device itself. The question is whether Iran will one day decide to cross this threshold. For now nothing indicates it, but it would be imprudent to bet on the fact that it never will.
Will the United States and Israel tolerate the bomb?
I have always thought that the threshold of what is intolerable for the United States and Israel would be the manufacture of an operational device.
But was North Korea tolerated?
It is a very different situation on a legal and strategic level.
Because China is behind, I imagine…
No, it’s not that. First, North Korea announced its withdrawal from the non-proliferation treaty, while Iran intends to respect that treaty. Secondly, Iran does not recognize the existence of Israel, so it poses a relevant problem for that country. The third point is that the risk of a wave of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East would be greater than in East Asia, where several countries, such as South Korea and Japan, are protected by the American nuclear deterrent. That is not the case in Saudi Arabia.
