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2024 September 18 - 24 [WORLD]

CIA chief: There was a risk of a use of tactical nuclear weapons

Akahata ‘current’ column

“There was a moment in the fall of 2022 when I think there was a genuine risk of a potential use of tactical nuclear weapons,” said CIA Director William Burns during a public event in London on September 7. He appeared on the stage at the event and spoke of the possibility of Russia stepping in to use nuclear weapons in its war in Ukraine.

The New York Times in March of this year reported on part of what was happening over the crisis that was taking place in the fall of 2022. According to the report, intercepted Russian military communications included frequent exchanges about nuclear weapons, and top military officials in some communications were discussing their use on the battlefield.

The CIA at that time assessed that depending on how the war goes, the likelihood of nuclear use would increase to “50% or more”. The New York Times pointed out that once the escalation to retaliation is ignited, it is difficult to stop, and presented research results that showed that if 100 nuclear warheads or fewer are used, “an estimated 27 million people could immediately die, and as many as 255 million people may starve within two years.” It warned that even a limited nuclear war could lead to a global catastrophe.

Meanwhile, in August 2022, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that “humanity is just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation,” and added, “We have been extraordinarily lucky so far. But luck is not a strategy.”

The threat by nuclear-armed countries to use their nuclear weapons still continues to this day. Guterres in his message to the peace ceremonies in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of this year said that “the only path to eliminate the threats posed by nuclear weapons is to eliminate them altogether.”

In the ongoing LDP presidential election campaign, the candidates are competing with each other to push for constitutional amendments rather than calling for Japan’s participation in the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. There is no future for LDP politics that has only military responses in mind and has no vision to create true regional peace.