Comment: Tests and threats recall nuclear fears of the cold war Published on: 5 May 2022 Writing for The Conversation, Dr Michael Mulvihill discusses how Russia's actions during the Ukraine War echo the cold war. , Russia is reported to have held drills this week simulating 鈥溾��. According to a , forces of the Baltic Fleet in the Kaliningrad region, conducted training sessions to 鈥渄eliver mock missile strikes with the crews of the Iskander operational-tactical missile systems鈥�. The Iskander has a range of about 300km, so missiles launched from the Kaliningrad region could strike targets in western Ukraine, Poland, the Baltic States and even parts of Germany. The latest drills follow the unveiling, on April 29, of . The missile can deliver their payloads onto targets in the US up to 18,000km away. Vladimir Putin said Sarmat 鈥渉as no analogues in the world and will not have for a long time to come鈥� and would be 鈥渇ood for thought for those who, in the heat of frenzied aggressive rhetoric, try to threaten our country鈥�. Mutually assured destruction I am a researcher at RAF Fylingdales a station on the North York Moors. I have spent the past three years building the , which charts the station鈥檚 60-year history of watching the skies for signs of nuclear attack by ICBMs. BMEWS was built in response to the in October 1957. Sputnik was the world鈥檚 first artificial satellite, launched from the top of the world鈥檚 first ICBM, the . The satellite demonstrated that the Soviet Union had the capability to and strike anywhere on Earth with little warning. Early in 1958, in response to Sputnik, the US Congress signed into existence measures that form the foundations of modern strategic nuclear deterrence. In addition to BMEWS, Congress also approved the , and ICBM programmes. These technologies formed the basis of what became known as (Mad), meaning both sides of a potential nuclear conflict have enough firepower to destroy each other and the rest of the world. Mistakes and miscalculations Deterrence strategies such as Mad depend on a delicate game of psychological poker, the risk being that your opponent鈥檚 reaction might be far beyond what was anticipated. The dangers of this did not take long to materialise. In the early 1960s, the US had its intermediate-range ballistic missiles stationed in Turkey and Italy, which Moscow felt could destroy Russia before it had a chance to retaliate. To level up their deterrent posture, Moscow started to deploy intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Cuba. Flashpoint: CIA map showing the Soviet military presence in Cuba at the time of the 1962 missile crisis. Karolis Kavolelis via Shutterstock What ensued went into the history books as the 鈥� a standoff between the US and Soviet Union, with, between them, 29,700 warheads (the US had 26,400 to the Soviet Union鈥檚 3,300). Each of these weapons on average was than the weapons used against Hiroshima. Happily, sanity prevailed and none were fired. Following this crisis, measures were put in place to ease nuclear tensions between the US and the Soviet Union. These included establishing a hotline between Washington DC and Moscow and limiting the number of operational ICBMs. But this period of relative detente proved to be short-lived. The war scare and arms control The early 1980s marked a period of renewed mistrust between the nuclear superpowers and a growth in the size of nuclear arsenals. By 1986, there were 70,000 nuclear warheads shared almost equally between the US and Soviet Russia. How close the two sides came to confrontation was illustrated by the 鈥溾�� of November 1983. Soviet nuclear forces for the start of a nuclear attack. Soviet nuclear forces in Europe were put on five-minute standby to launch a preemptive nuclear strike. Once again, constructive dialogues began between Washington and Moscow were renewed, culminating in the historic between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986, widely seen as the beginning of the end of the cold war. The summit began decades of disarmament, beginning with the signing of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty in 1987. The INF eliminated intermediate-range ballistic missiles from US and Soviet arsenals. It also paved the way for the , which effectively put a cap on nuclear proliferation, at least between the world鈥檚 two big nuclear superpowers. But the end of the Soviet Union brought an uncertain time for arms control processes as central command structures fragmented. The breakup of the Soviet Union also dangerously increased the number of countries with nuclear weapons. In 1991 , and were left in possession of over 2,000 former Soviet warheads. Following the signing of the in January 1994 these weapons were returned to Russia and became subject to disarmament process set out by Start. These arms reduction regimes were so successful that by 2012, 80% of the US and Russian nuclear peak stockpiles . Eve of destruction? But world leaders appear to have developed a renewed appetite for . In 2019, countries such as China (US$10 billion 鈥� or 拢8 billion) and India (US$2.3 billion) in their strategic nuclear forces. Meanwhile, the UK announced in 2021 that it will increase its stockpile . Donald Trump鈥檚 withdrawal of the US from the historic INF Treaty in September 2019, blaming Russia for deploying cruise missiles that breached the INF agreement, was also a bitter blow for disarmament campaigners. Putin has used the threat of nuclear war several times in recent years. His movement of the Iskander missiles to Kaliningrad in 2018 was a direct threat to , both members of Nato. And now Russia is demonstrating that, if it wants, they are there to be used. In the absence of arms control, nuclear weapons maintain their dangerous symbolic allure for leaders such as Putin. But the stark truth is that nuclear weapons have always put the world in catastrophic danger. , Interdisciplinary Research Associate, School of Geography, Politics and Sociolog, This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the . 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