Introduction
The war in Ukraine, which began on 24 February 2022 with
a full-scale Russian attack on multiple Ukrainian cities, labelled a “special
operation” by the Kremlin, has so far led to Europe’s largest refugee crisis
since the Second World War. By September 2022, Russia had declared the annexation
of four formerly Ukrainian oblasts (regions): Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia
and Kherson (Russian troops withdrew from Kherson city in mid-November 2022). The
conflict is a continuation of hostilities which resulted in the annexation of
Crimea in 2014, driven at least in part by Russian imperialism , President Putin’s
resentment at not being treated by the US as an equal partner, and what he sees
as the strategically disastrous collapse of the Soviet Union for Russia. Ongoing uncertainty
surrounding NATO membership offered to Georgia and Ukraine during the Bucharest
summit in 2008, against Putin’s adamant opposition to NATO’s eastward expansion,
is also likely to be a factor. Russia’s national security
policy at present is therefore founded on the threat from the West and assumes
a defensive posture, reliant on ‘defensive weapons’ to maintain deterrence.
The Ukraine conflict draws attention to a number of
issues related to Gulf, Middle Eastern and international security. For some
states in the Middle East such as Egypt, Lebanon, Sudan, Tunisia, Turkey and
the UAE, which are dependent on Russia and Ukraine for wheat supplies, interrupted
exports have affected their food security and led to the inflation of related
food prices. Given the disparity between these economies, however, some states
are able to withstand the shock more effectively than others. The conflict has more
generally compromised rapid post-Covid economic recovery and created an international
energy crisis due to disrupted supplies and some western states seeking new
energy suppliers to replace Russia. When coupled with China’s zero-Covid policy
and its effect on scrambled supply chains, the conflict has led to rampant inflation
across multiple sectors. In conjunction with a stronger US dollar, it has also driven
currency depreciation in some cases.
The war in Ukraine has also played out in the cyber
domain. Microsoft has reported on a series of malware and phishing attacks
against the Ukrainian government, organizations and soldiers between January
and April 2022. Allies such as the UK have been boosting Ukrainian cyber defenses specifically
to protect Ukraine’s critical national infrastructure and vital public services
from cyber-attacks. The focus has been on preventing malicious access to vital
information to the war effort, attempts to undermine sovereignty and strategic
advantage, and includes forensic capabilities to fully understand breaches or
attempted breaches. Whilst not specifically nuclear related, it reflects cyber-attacks
as an important element in hybrid warfare, and a tool which has been allegedly utilized
by the US and Israel when targeting the Iranian nuclear program in a sustained
attempt to retard its progress.
For the sake of brevity, scale of the challenge and
potential impact on Gulf security, this paper will concentrate on nuclear issues
from the Ukraine conflict and their implications for Gulf security.
Nuclear Weapons Use and Proliferation
The war in Ukraine represents an egregious breach of
international law – an extension of what President Putin describes as a new
playing field established by the ‘unconstitutional coup’ and a ‘military
seizure of power’ following the election of pro-western President Viktor
Yanukovych in Ukraine in 2014, who he says was aided by western powers,
violating the sovereignty of Ukraine. Russia’s latest
encroachment is, however, contrary to President Putin’s previous rationale and interest
in upholding the sovereignty norm. He had criticized the G. W. Bush
administration’s decision to launch the 2003 war in Iraq and urged the restoration
of sovereignty to Iraqis and used President Assad’s
sovereign political legitimacy as its key rationale in defending its military intervention
in Syria from 2015. Challenging global norms
such as sovereignty could have serious consequences not only for territorial
warfare, but also for Russia’s own regime security as a consolidated
authoritarian state, as well as a knock on to other aspects of international law
such as non-proliferation. Following Turkey’s closure of the Bosporus and
Dardanelles Straits under the Montreux Convention and the sinking of Russia’s
Flagship “Moskva” in the Black Sea, Russia’s strategic corridor across the
eastern Mediterranean has been compromised. The lack of traction on a
base in Sudan could also mean a doubling down in other spheres of influence
across the Middle East, namely an increasing reliance on Iran, on clients
seeking civilian nuclear power, and on relations within OPEC+. Whereas non-state
actors such as the Wagner Group offered plausible deniability for a time in
Ukraine and other theaters, Russia’s maximalist aims in Ukraine mean that full
state commitment is needed to advance the prospects of success.
President Putin raised the specter of nuclear weapons
use in the war with Ukraine in late September 2022 as Russian fortunes on the
battlefield waned, sending a poor signal to Russian allies and arms purchasers
in the Middle East. Following his comments on the subject, senior Russian
military leaders are said to have discussed how and when they might use
tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine. A tactical nuclear weapon
has never been used in combat (although two atomic bombs were dropped by US
forces on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 - which would now be considered low-yield nuclear
weapons - with an explosive yield of about 15 kilotons of dynamite and 20
kilotons of dynamite respectively). They killed an estimated
129,000 to 226,000 people , most of them civilians. Russia
has about 2,000 lower yield tactical nuclear weapons, which could be deployed
by missile or artillery shell, capable of killing thousands and impacting the
health of millions. But Russian forces are
noted as not being trained to adequately exploit nuclear weapons use on the
battlefield and therefore their use is regarded as being mainly for deterrence
purposes. Nevertheless, the risk is serious enough (along with the issue of US prisoners
being held by Russia) that it led to CIA Director William Burns and his Russian
counterpart, Sergei Naryshkin, meeting for face-to-face discussions in Turkey
in November 2022.
Russian defense calls for the deployment of modern
weaponry such as the Avanguard, a Hypersonic Boost-Glide Vehicle (HBGV) with
speeds of up to Mach 20 (and therefore unable to be intercepted) which is
launched into the upper atmosphere on a ballistic missile, has a range of 6,000km
and is highly maneuverable and versatile.[18] It is one of 18
operational missiles in the Russian stockpile, alongside almost 6,000 nuclear
warheads which can be launched from such missiles or submarines or aircraft. Russia is already reeling
from unprecedented western sanctions that are targeting Russian individuals,
energy companies and high-tech industries for the part they play in the war in
Ukraine. In response to the potential Russian use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine,
former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson noted that a likely response would
include a “cryogenic economic freeze” against Russia’s economy, and that Russia
would “lose a lot of the middle ground of global tacit acquiescence that he’s
had” during the war in Ukraine.
In the Middle East, concerns surrounding nuclear
weapons is largely confined to the nuclear-armed state of Israel which operates
an opaque declaration policy. Its program continues despite the “Resolution on
the Middle East”, calling for a Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Free Zone
which was an integral part of the package that led Arab states to support the
indefinite extension of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1995. Although
Arab states shelved direct criticism of Israel during the first Conference on
the Establishment of a Middle East Zone Free of Nuclear Weapons and Other
Weapons of Mass Destruction in 2019, without its implementation by the NPT
depository states (US, Russia and the UK), Arab state support of NPT review
conferences could become increasingly hard to secure. Another serious
impediment to progress within the non-proliferation regime and in other spheres
will be the lack of US - Russian cooperation beyond the new START treaty on nuclear
arms, extended to 2026.
Outside of Israel, Iran stands accused of harboring
nuclear ambitions and building a nuclear program with questionable intent. The
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreed on by the permanent five
members of the UN Security Council, Germany and Iran in 2015, was compromised
by President Trump in 2018 when he unilaterally withdrew the US from the
agreement. Since then, Iran no longer sees compliance with the JCPOA to be in
its interests. In August 2022, Kamal Kharrazi, an adviser to the Supreme Leader
Ali Khamenei, said: “In a few days we were able to enrich uranium up to 60% and
we can easily produce 90% enriched uranium … Iran has the technical means to
produce a nuclear bomb but there has been no decision by Iran to build one.” A new nuclear deal
between the US and Iran is yet to be agreed upon and there are doubts that an
agreement is achievable in the current climate of Iranian support for Russia in
Ukraine and the protest movement building inside Iran. Should Iran develop a
nuclear weapon(s), it would fundamentally alter the regional balance of power
in the Gulf by facilitating a new era of pre-emptive strikes and nuclear
proliferation.
Israel which, like the UAE, lacks strategic depth,
would probably respond first as it has done in the past against nascent
suspected nuclear programs. Operation Opera/Babylon was conducted on June 7, 1981
and destroyed an unfinished Iraqi nuclear reactor located southeast of Baghdad.
In Operation Outside the Box/Orchard, an Israeli strike hit a suspected Syrian
nuclear reactor in the Deir ez-Zor region of Syria on September 6, 2007. Although
Saudi Arabia would want to be seen to be a neutral actor in such a confrontation
between Israel and Iran, should such an attack prove impossible or ineffective
at halting Iran’s transition into a nuclear power, Riyadh would no doubt quickly
follow Iran’s lead. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman stated publicly in March
2018 that “Saudi Arabia does not want to acquire any nuclear bomb, but without
a doubt if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as
possible.” Given the kingdom has access to significant uranium deposits on its territory
and has already begun extracting uranium yellowcake from uranium ore, with
China’s help, as part of its civil nuclear program , it could potentially catch
up with Iran rapidly. There is an argument that the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) should therefore extend its inspection regime to all states, closely
monitoring states with ambiguous nuclear policies and those able to acquire nuclear
weapons from third party states.
Civil Nuclear Power Plants
There are multidimensional threats to nuclear power
plants, including from terrorism, conflict, earthquakes, civil unrest or
accidents. It is the unexpected nature of these factors or combination thereof,
which makes them dangerous and difficult to mitigate against, as the Fukushima nuclear
disaster in Japan in 2011 shows. The attack on, and capture of, the
Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station in southeast Ukraine has been alarming. Zaporizhzhia
is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe and has been occupied by Russian
forces since March 12, 2022. The Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986 and the
Fukushima incident, two of the most severe in history, coupled with an
attempted intrusion by Right Sector,
a Ukrainian far-right group, to the Zaporizhzhia site in 2014, have focused the
international community on stabilizing the situation. When the IAEA visited Zaporizhzhia
in September 2022, they reported damage caused by external shelling and the
potential threat to plant security from the presence of occupying troops in the
plant. The use of the site as a
Russian army base, alleged repulsion of Ukrainian attempts to retake the
facility in October 2022, and as a shield against strikes and bombardment, should
make site security and the independent operation of nuclear related sites
during periods of conflict an IAEA priority. Concerns must be heightened by
reports of the facility as potential cover for a false flag operation
(committed with the intent of disguising the actual source of responsibility)
involving a “dirty bomb” (a device which combines radioactive material with explosives).
During a de-escalatory phase in the Gulf following the
election of President Biden and a return to nuclear negotiations with Iran, sparking
some regional dialogues, many of the main
security challenges continue to come from either state miscalculation or from non-state
actors acting independently or offering plausible deniability to a state sponsor.
The rise of Islamic State, especially suicide attacks in Syria and Iraq, have
led to fears that nuclear sites such as Bushehr (which began functioning in
Iran in 2011) might be attacked. The Gulf is a relatively small region, and
what happens on the shores of one side of the Gulf in the nuclear sphere is
bound to affect the other. Al Qaeda’s use of commercial airlines on September
11, 2001 were used for dramatic effect. Its use of WMD, involving chemical,
biological, radioactive or nuclear materials would no doubt be calculated to cause
maximum loss, destruction and psychological trauma to the confidence of a
nation. However, as Dr. Richard A. Meserve, then Chairman of the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission in Washington D.C., observed in 2002, the impact of a so-called
“dirty bomb” would probably be lower than assumed. Tens of people, rather than
thousands, could be killed. The number reflects the sophistication of
protection required to produce a more potent radioactive weapon, the safeguards
in place, dispersal of material taking place at the point of explosion, and the
mitigating effect of evacuation. Although the impact is bound to vary depending on these factors in
different locations, the potential for chaos is perhaps going to be the
greatest common threat.
The Iranian backed Houthis alleged that they managed
to hit the Barakah nuclear site located in the UAE with a missile during its
construction phase in 2017, although such an allegation has been dismissed by
the UAE government. Should such an attack
occur, especially after Barakah began operating in 2021, it would show the
difficulty of defending nuclear sites from aerial threats and highlight a lack
of strategic depth in the UAE from regional threats. Nuclear power is currently
at a nascent stage in the Middle East, but it will become more commonplace due
to rising electricity demand (in part to power rising demand for cooling and
desalination plants), climate change policies favoring decarbonization, and
measures aimed at implementing economic diversification alongside the
diversification of the energy mix. Many countries in the MENA region are
pursuing civil nuclear power: Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE and Saudi
Arabia. In Turkey, the Akkuyu plant is under construction, built, owned and
operated by Rosatom. Egypt plans four nuclear reactors, and construction has
already begun on El Dabaa nuclear power plant in July 2022. Saudi Arabia plans
sixteen reactors by 2040.
Despite strong economic, environmental and energy
incentives, a multitude of nuclear proliferation risks and safety concerns are
evident. These extend beyond nuclear power plants to include nuclear reactors used for
research, testing and training; nuclear materials used in medical, industrial
and academic environments; nuclear fuel fabrication facilities; decommissioning
reactors; and transportation, storage, and disposal of nuclear material and
waste. Licensing, control and
better engagement with third parties is therefore paramount.
State-Based Measures to Enhance Nuclear Safety and Security
At the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit, 102 nations
adopted the Amendment to the Convention on Physical Protection of Nuclear
Material (CPPNM), requiring ratifying states to take steps to safeguard their
nuclear material and facilities against threats such as terrorism. According to
the National Threat Initiative Nuclear Security Index, many Middle Eastern
states still have some way to go in boosting their support for global efforts,
protecting facilities and preventing a dirty bomb.
Iran, which ranks 21 out of 22 states for securing weapons
grade nuclear materials, and 46 out of 47 states in protecting facilities (such
as nuclear power reactors or research reactors), could strengthen insider
threat prevention, strengthen cybersecurity, strengthen security culture, ratify
treaties to bolster global architecture (such as the CPPNM), support global
norms through voluntary actions (such as becoming a member of the Global Initiative
to combat Nuclear Terrorism and opening a Center of Excellence to offer nuclear
security training). Iran does participate in IAEA initiatives such as
conferences and incident and trafficking databases. It could build confidence
in nuclear security (beyond public declarations and reports about nuclear
material stocks) and subscribe to nuclear security information circulars.
Kuwait, which ranks 69 out of 154 states in supporting
global efforts, could improve its ranking beyond adopting indicators such as
ratifying the CPPNM and IAEA safeguards agreement, by taking additional
voluntary actions such as becoming a member of the Global Initiative to Combat
Terrorism, and subscribing to nuclear security information circulars. While Qatar, which ranks
56 out of 154 states, has ratified most treaties to bolster the global security
architecture, except the IAEA safeguards agreement, it could equally further support
global norms through the same voluntary actions of membership in the Global Initiative
to Combat Nuclear Terrorism and subscribing to nuclear security information
circulars.
The UAE ranks 12 out of 154 states on supporting
global efforts and 18 out of 47 states on protecting facilities. It has ratified treaties
to support the global architecture and taken a number of voluntary measures
through voluntary actions such as becoming a member of the Global Initiative to
Combat Nuclear Terrorism. Its ‘123 Agreement’ with
the US is the “gold standard” of non-proliferation by not permitting a country
to enrich or reprocess nuclear material acquired from the US.
Saudi Arabia currently ranks 66 out of 154 states in supporting global nuclear security efforts. It has ratified most related treaties, except the IAEA nuclear safeguards agreement, is a member of the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism and it is involved in bilateral nuclear security cooperation. Saudi Arabia is currently in discussions with the US over a so-called ‘123 Agreement’. However, with China’s growing civil nuclear credentials, inclusion of nuclear power in its Belt and Road Initiative, and positive but uncertain relationship with Russia (given its territorial revisionism, nuclear saber-rattling and relative isolation in the G20), China could be better placed than the US to influence the rollout of civil nuclear programs across the Middle East in the future.
Conclusion
There are a series of commonalities and fluidities
between Ukraine and the Gulf concerning the impact of alliances, diplomacy,
coercion, and the mismatch between sanctions and hard power objectives,
especially when set against the more immediate constraint from diplomacy leading
to an implemented agreement. The JCPOA
could have functioned as a building block towards greater arms control and
regional security. It might even have led to a new dialogue on a Gulf security
architecture in which US, GCC state and Iranian security interests could
eventually have been reconciled. There is no apparent alternative should the
JCPOA fail, beyond a military option or highly destabilizing nuclear
proliferation. Hybrid warfare is increasingly apparent in Russian, US and
regional strategies, incorporating the cyber domain, and yet there is often
evidence of only modest gains. This is especially the case when stacked against
nuclear agreements such as the JCPOA that include verifiable checks that enable
both sides to monitor compliance with a treaty. Indeed, prior to the unilateral
withdrawal of the US and even up to July 2019, Iran was found to be in
compliance with the JCPOA’s provisions by the United Nations, European Union,
the IAEA and non-US participating governments.
President Putin’s
invasion of Ukraine showcases the impact of a perceived strategic disaster in
the decline of its empire on the mindset of leadership, translating into the
increased likelihood of greater foreign policy assertiveness and persistent or refreshed
territorial claims. This is still relevant in Iranian attitudes towards
Bahrain, Abu Musa and the Tunb islands after British withdrawal from the Gulf.
The NATO – Russian relationship underscores the risks associated with leaving
contentions to fester, the importance of explicit and precise communication in
avoiding foreign policy blunders, the centrality of alliances and international
unity, and the role that creative bilateral diplomacy and regional forums could
potentially play in creating opportunities for dialogue and in de-escalation.
The paper elucidates and contextualizes the various
threats from conflict and instability that affect nuclear security, including from
internal threats, from cyber warfare, and evolutions in conventional and
strategic warfare whose effects can be equally devastating. It finds that some vital
aspects of nuclear security are yet to be fully addressed by many states,
including site security, enhanced nuclear safeguards, and additional voluntary
actions. There is a recognition that nuclear safety is a process requiring a
sustained investment in technology, the
development of regulatory frameworks, and building educational capacity.
Russia is integral to global governance but deadlock in
the UN Security Council and the inability of multilateral organizations such as
the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to influence the
outcome in Ukraine echoes the inability of the UN Security Council to stop the
Iraq War and potential weakness in addressing further escalation in the Gulf. Russian
identity, role conception, and decision making, coupled with NATO enlargement
and influence, directly affect regional and international security. This could
have serious consequences for the international non-proliferation regime.
The impact of conflict on the mindset of leaders in (emerging)
nuclear powers is an area ripe for further inquiry. Russia and China could come
to dominate civil nuclear power in the Middle East, pending their policies and
respective positions in the Middle East and international system relative to
the US. The Ukraine war has drawn attention to a series of nuclear issues, but
not to the extent that Middle Eastern states have yet reconsidered their
contracts with Rosatom, the Russian state, or the rollout of nuclear power
plants more broadly. Given the growing potential for international competition
and conflict affecting the Gulf and Middle East, new entrants to civil nuclear
energy might choose to follow a path of least resistance and best practice
already outlined by the UAE.
Dr. Robert Mason is a Non-Resident Research Fellow
with the Gulf Research Center
