Nuclear War | The increasing risk of broken arrows

For a fortnight in 1962, the world teetered on the edge of nuclear war as the United States and the Soviet Union faced off against each other over the presence of Russian missiles in Cuba. How US President John F Kennedy stood up to the Soviets, who eventually blinked and withdrew the missiles from the island, is history, and the world has been spared such an existential crisis ever since. Recent geopolitical events, however, suggest that this may be about to change, as the latest incident over the Black Sea dramatically increases the risk of a direct confrontation between the US and Russia in the Ukraine conflict.

On March 14, two Russian Su-27 fighter jets buzzed a US unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), or drone, and dumped fuel on it before reportedly clipping its propeller to make it crash into the sea. Washington condemned the downing of the drone which was flying over international waters near Crimea as a “brazen violation of international law”.

The Kremlin contested that the drone was flying with its transponders — sensors used to track it — turned off (read, to avoid detection) when it went into ‘unguided flight’ and fell into the water. The following day, British and German fighter jets intercepted a Russian air-to-air refuelling aircraft that apparently intruded into the airspace of Estonia, a NATO member. US officials claim the Russian plane failed to communicate with Estonian air traffic control, which prompted the interception.

Aerial snooping by UAVs is of vital importance to the US and its allies to monitor Russia's military operations. It is no secret that these vital intelligence inputs help Ukraine resist the Russian forces just as military hardware from the West does. Although Washington has often accused Moscow of trying to deliberately disrupt these routine operations, it is a fact that the Russians have a bigger stake in the Black Sea, home to its vaunted Black Sea Fleet. Russia zealously guards these waters, and is sensitive to snooping activities by other militaries in this zone, which increases the chances of aerial encounters as seems to have happened now.

Although drones have been used in war before, what we witnessed in Ukraine is unprecedented. Large combat drones have become key weapons for both Russia and Ukraine who also use them as forward observers to locate enemy targets and guide artillery fire. These airborne platforms obviate the need for bulky control infrastructure on the ground, and provide round-the-clock cover for any part of land or sea, besides inland areas, which makes them a powerful force multiplier.

It is not that intercepting and buzzing military aircraft in international airspace is an uncommon practice worldwide. The problem is, it can be dangerous if the pilots engage in risky manoeuvres that could lead to a collision as apparently happened over the Black Sea. Shooting down a drone or any other aircraft, however, is a much more provocative act which could escalate tensions — especially today when global instability is rising, and the odds of miscalculations and accidents are probably higher than ever.

The biggest risk is not the deliberate use of nuclear weapons, but rather the accidental triggering of an atomic holocaust from miscommunication or miscalculation. The past is replete with instances when missteps almost led to global catastrophe.

In February 1992, two nuclear-powered attack submarines belonging to the US and Russia collided in the Barents Sea. The resulting dispute over who was responsible for the collision led to a tense standoff between Washington and Moscow which took several days to resolve. In the Barents Sea, in March 1993, a US nuclear-powered submarine ‘accidently’ bumped into a Russian nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine. The potentially dangerous situation was defused only after extensive negotiations between the two countries. In October 2022, a Russian fighter jet ‘accidentally’ fired a missile near a British aircraft which was patrolling over the Black Sea triggering global unease. Russia eventually admitted the incident was a ‘technical malfunction’, and London decided not to see it as ‘deliberate escalation’. It is too soon to forget the downing of a so-called Chinese weather balloon over continental US by the US Air Force and the diplomatic row between Washington and Beijing that followed.

Closer home, in 2022, an Indian nuclear-capable, land-attack Brahmos cruise missile ‘malfunctioned’ and landed in Pakistan raising concerns about safeguards against slip-ups between the two nuclear-armed neighbours. The clear and present danger of such ‘broken arrows’ (unexpected incidents that result in the accidental launch or loss of nuclear weapons) is multiplied when international relations unravel and communication between states becomes dense.

On January 13, 2018, people in Hawaii woke up to a terrifying, if false, missile alert on their cell-phones warning of incoming North Korean ballistic missiles. A wave of panic spread across Hawaii for a full 40 minutes before the government issued a correction — it turned out to be a software error made by a careless technician. This illustrates the risk of accidental war that technical error or misunderstanding can trigger. As the Black Sea incidents remind us, the probability of blunder is even more in an age where high-risk technologies such as UAVs proliferate.

(Prakash Chandra is former editor of the Indian Defence Review. He writes on aerospace and strategic affairs.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.