CONSIDERING CONFLICT | NUCLEAR SAFETY
● By bombing nuclear facilities, a state with a small nuclear arsenal (Ramberg mentions Britain and France) could amplify or leverage its nuclear arsenal’s destructive power.
● In an age of relatively cheap precision munitions, powerful states’ ambitious nuclear power programmes gift leverage to weak states with modern weapons. Observed Ramberg: “Facility vulnerability is likely to increase… as nations acquire more lethal weapons, assuming that plants are not better protected”.
● A state, mindful of the vulnerability of its NPPs, might behave differently towards its neighbours. Observed Ramberg: “[NPPs] could have the positive effect of constraining… governments’… bellicose behaviour and serve as levellers of military power between weak and strong neighbours”.
● NPPs are vulnerable to saboteurs. ● An enemy whose munitions lack the precision to hit
a reactor containment, could target facilities with a larger footprint, such as waste storage ponds or fuel reprocessing plants.
● A state fearful of invasion could, by siting NPPs close to its borders, create a line of radiological mines or dirty bombs (the deterrent value of which would, of course, depend on the defending state’s willingness to sacrifice in its defence expensive infrastructure, and on the prevailing wind blowing in the direction of the aggressor state).
● Whatever the attractions of bombing an enemy’s NPPs, it is likely a breached containment or destroyed storage pond or reprocessing facility would cause less death, injury, trauma, destruction and disruption than a fusion weapon (Hydrogen bomb) dropped on an enemy formation, industrial complex, town or city. The NPP radiological or dirty bomb is the poor man’s nuclear weapon.
The Russia-Ukraine War through Ramberg’s optic In light of Ramberg’s discourse, a major war in a continent peppered with nuclear power plants is certainly concerning. Viewing the Russia-Ukraine war through the optic of Ramberg’s discourse yields the following ideas, insights and conclusions: There has been no deliberate targeting of nuclear power
plant reactor containments. The data suggests that, to date, reactor containments have not been deliberately targeted. Both Russia and Ukraine have the capacity to deliver conventional munitions with a high degree of accuracy. Russia can do this using ballistic and cruise missiles. Ukraine can do this using both indigenous munitions such as the Neptune anti-ship missile (that was reportedly used to sink the missile cruiser Moskva, flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet) and western-supplied munitions such as Britain’s Storm Shadow air-launched cruise missile (ALCM) and France’s version of Storm Shadow, the Système de Croisière Autonome à Longue Portée – Emploi Général missile, or SCALP-EG for short. On 13 September, 2023, Ukraine used British-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles to severely damage two Russian naval vessels, a submarine and a logistics ship, in the Black Sea port of Sevastopol in Russia- occupied Crimea. Despite these capabilities, to date, Russia has refrained from deliberately targeting Ukrainian NPP reactor containments and Ukraine, despite launching small- scale attacks against prestige targets inside Russia, such as airbases and Moscow’s financial district, has refrained from targeting any Russian nuclear power plant reactor containments.
NPP auxiliary buildings and NPP occupying forces
have been targeted. Both Russia and Ukraine have fired conventional munitions into NPP sites, albeit with a view to destroying auxiliary equipment and intimidating or neutralising occupying forces. During the early stages of
Above: Scud missiles were used to attack the Israeli nuclear research facility at Dimona Photo credit: Northfoto/
Shutterstock.com
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