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Highlights
- The Russia-Ukraine war involves stakeholders which are armed with huge nuclear arsenals.
- Russian Foreign Minister has warned that a third World War will involve nuclear weapons.
- Only a handful of nations have the nuclear capability enough to destroy the entire planet.
The Russia-Ukraine war has started the debate over the likelihood of Russia using its nuclear arsenal. Russia, boasting one of the world’s largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons, is capable of launching them from air, water and land. On the other hand, Ukraine reportedly does not possess any nuclear warhead; however, it operates the largest nuclear power plant in Europe.
The ongoing geopolitical crisis witnessed a drastic escalation when Russian President Vladimir Putin asked the country’s nuclear forces to be on high alert. Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has also warned that if the situation escalates to World War 3, it will involve nuclear weapons and highly destructive.
We all have seen or heard about the consequences of nuclear war through media archives or documentaries. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings ended the World War 2, but the incident also infused the fear of disastrous consequences of using an atomic bomb.
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Even the accident at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant and the Chernobyl (in Ukraine) accident in the erstwhile Soviet Union showed the world what nuclear meltdowns and disasters could unleash.
How many nuclear warheads do the global powers have?
There are only a handful of countries in the world that own or have developed nuclear capability. But it is said that the combined arsenal is so big that it can destroy our planet several times.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), nine countries hold nuclear weapons. They, in total, have approximately 13,400 nuclear weapons, with Russia holding the largest stockpile, as per 2019 estimates.
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Besides, Russia also has a huge stockpile of tactical nuclear weapons- a low-yield nuclear bomb that could be used to damage relatively smaller areas than normal nuclear bombs.
The US has stationed hundreds of nuclear missiles in its friendly NATO countries to tackle any misadventures from Russia.
The countries with nuclear capability advocate that these weapons of mass destruction will be used as last resort only. But what if Russia gets a false alarm of nuclear attack by the West in the middle of the ongoing conflict? Will the Russian President wait to confirm or press the launch button?
This question is giving nightmares to many European countries and the US. Russia has the capability of hitting major US cities with its Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. On the other hand, the United States possesses the same capability.
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What will a full-fledged nuclear war look like?
Regardless of how many lives it claims in the immediate aftermath, an all-out global thermonuclear war or an atomic fight that would render many of Earth's ecosystems untenable – posing the most serious threat to the planet.
The effects of the nuclear weapons depend on the type and capacity of the warhead used. A nuclear weapon vaporises itself instantaneously on the explosion. The most immediate effect involves the emanation of intense lethal radiations, primarily including gamma rays and neutrons. More lethal effects start after the radiations propagate to a much greater distance.
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Mushroom like fireball formed after nuclear explosion (Image source: ID 35543225 © Curraheeshutter|Megapixl.com)
The nuclear material turns into hot gas on explosion, hotter than the sun’s core. The hot gas radiates energy in the form of X-rays which heat up the surrounding air. The heated air forms a fireball, which grows in size rapidly.
The fireball radiates intense heat, which can ignite objects in the path and can burn human flesh easily. The fireball is accompanied by blast waves, which carry nearly half of the energy of the bomb and are the cause of the primary destruction by the bomb. The blast waves travel way longer distances than the radiations.
The effective distance of destruction caused by the bomb depends on its explosive yield.
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Hiroshima and Nagasaki have shown the world the kind of devastations a nuclear explosion could wreak. Those were low-yield bombs as compared to the contemporary nuclear arsenals the countries now have. These weapons have the capacity to cause a mass extinction event.
