We live in very dangerous times, argued De Bretton-Gordon. He mentioned the tension over Taiwan. Iran’s and North Korea’s progress in developing nuclear weapons; and Vladimir Putin’s threats, veiled and not at all, to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine and NATO. The war in Ukraine also carries the risk of an accident – “or worse” – at Zaporizhzhia, the nuclear power plant currently held by Russia. “If we don’t curb these threats,” De Bretton-Gordin wrote, “everything else that bothers us right now will turn out to be terrifyingly irrelevant.” So if Britain is going to prepare, what preparations should be made? Paul Ingram, of Cambridge University’s Center for the Study of Existential Risk, tells me what the government should do to mitigate the damage caused by explosions here or elsewhere. Ingram has just returned from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in New York, where Russian diplomats, he says, “have spent a lot of time trying to change how their statements should be interpreted earlier this year, and “I try to frame them as warnings rather than threats.” This is a good sign, says Ingram, who for twelve years (2007-2019) was the executive director of the transatlantic British-American Security Intelligence Council. There is room, he says, “for a debate about the nuclear rhetoric to move forward” – dialogue that might cool the temperature somewhat. Ingram is concerned about Russia’s use of nuclear weapons in response to serious military casualties. in NATO’s steps in the delivery of advanced weapons, he sees an escalation. “Any escalation increases the risk.” This danger, he says, “is not imminent, but is spreading behind the scenes.” It is “low probability, but the impact is so high that I think the government needs to prepare.” One wonders if the government’s nuclear war preparedness plan is being filed alongside the Brexit preparedness plan and the coronavirus preparedness plan. “I suspect there’s not as much preparation going on right now,” Ingram says. (In the government’s defense, broadcasting the existence of its plans may inadvertently contribute to the risk of war.) The government’s most important task, Ingram says, is to avoid escalating that risk. Beyond that, a good first step would be to weigh the chances of explosions here (which would have a direct, catastrophic impact) and abroad (which would affect us indirectly, possibly through a nuclear winter that would damage crops worldwide.) difficult to get a clear handle on the odds,” says Ingram. “It’s easier to deal with the consequences. But a judgment is needed about these possibilities.’ These probabilities, however difficult to calculate with remote accuracy, would give an indication of the level of investment that would need to be made in preparation. Ingram uses the food supply as an example. “Should we be storing a lot of food now? This is problematic, because this will lead to all kinds of food waste. But equally, there has to be some question about a variety of different disasters that will require some kind of food storage in our answer. The government should think about it and weigh it in a reasonable way.” Another early priority, Ingram says, should be deciding who is responsible for what. “That was a really big hole in the response to Covid,” he says. “It was incredible, really, because the risk of a pandemic was right there as a top security threat, and yet government agencies had no clear idea of who was responsible for what activities and what kind of lines of communication needed to be open.” That shouldn’t happen again in the event of a nuclear explosion, Ingram says. “Across critical services, infrastructure and government departments, the government needs to be clear about responsibilities and then draw up event response plans.” The Ministry of Defense is generally considered to have these responsibilities. “But the Department of Defense is not going to be the first responder, nor is it going to provide health or other emergency responses. It won’t be the department responsible for feeding everyone, for sanitation or anything else.” Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting in Moscow in early August (AFP/Getty) When asked in March about emergency preparations shortly after the start of the war in Ukraine, government agencies rose to No. 10. But it’s easy to imagine that the Ministry of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is a suitable candidate to lead the emergency planning for food. Or the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, which is called upon to ensure that our supply is resilient in the face of disaster. “And there should be someone, or a group, responsible for clean water, because water is a very critical issue after the nuclear exchange because [radioactive] contamination,” says Ingram. “There would need to be some kind of system to coordinate health responses. And there would need to be a ticketing system for all of this, because the need will be far greater than the supply. There will be very difficult choices to be made.” Local governments, Ingram says, “will have to play a very central role in any response. There needs to be a clear perspective of what their ability is likely to be. In those areas where actual eruptions occur, I think we can assume that local government and any public services would be completely overwhelmed. But there will be other parts of the country that are not directly experiencing these outbreaks and will need to mobilize and pull people together and look at what essential services are needed in these circumstances and how they might be provided.” An evacuation plan will need to be in place to evacuate people in the event that an attack appears imminent. These evacuations would be massive and time-limited, posing enormous logistical problems. We could learn from the Americans, says Ingram. “They have much more sophisticated plans around evacuating cities in a variety of different contexts.” Britain built many nuclear bunkers in the Cold War, a strategy in which Finland – which borders Russia and fears its aggression – has invested huge sums. Finland’s public utility says its underground network of tunnels could easily accommodate Helsinki’s population of 630,000. Ingram, however, sees shelters as “an individualistic approach. I think we need to think a lot more in terms of resilience within communities.” If things start to get hairy I think the government should consider public awareness campaigns Paul Ingram, Center for the Study of Existential Risk The thing about major nuclear-armed states like ours, Ingram says, is that there is little we can do to prepare for an all-out nuclear war. However, this should not prevent us from preparing for war elsewhere. (South Asia is sometimes referred to as a danger zone: India, which has nuclear weapons, has acrimonious relations with China and Pakistan, also both with nuclear weapons.) Domestic responses to this kind of situation, says Ingram, it should still be quick and important. “It’s going to be different than what we’ve been talking about with the evacuation and the rest. It’s going to be a lot more about trying to secure food supplies and maintain vital infrastructure at a really difficult time when the sun is going to be very low” – nuclear explosions will shoot soot and dust into the atmosphere, reducing sunlight and causing nuclear winter – “and food suppliers will be greatly reduced”. As for attacks directly on Britain, Ingram says, a public awareness campaign would be premature. Now is not the time to supply every British citizen with potassium iodide packs, nor to send household leaflets (of the kind distributed in the 1960s) containing advice on what to do in the event of an attack. “But if things start to get hairy – and we have the Russians making significant threats – and there don’t seem to be clear and obvious ways out, I think the government should at that stage consider public awareness campaigns.” When new prime ministers take office, one of their first tasks is to handwrite four identical letters: one to each of Britain’s nuclear submarine commanders. The letter tells commanders what to do if a nuclear strike destroys the government. The order is said to be one of the following: retaliation. without retaliation; the commander using his own judgment; or the commander placing their submarine under the command of an allied country. Writing these letters – choosing a nation’s last act, and whether that act will be to turn the other cheek or not – is perhaps the most solemn duty of a prime minister. In September, when one of Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss takes office, a new set of letters will be required. When the new prime minister puts pen to paper, they might think about what other preparations they could make for nuclear war. And they’ll probably take more than a two-minute scribble.
