U.K.s Chief of the Defense Staff Makes Headlines
The drawback of making clear arguments for a multicausal subject
Admiral Sir Tony Radakin of the Royal Navy (U.K.) is the president of the UK Armed Forces Tennis and Royal Navy Squash Associations and vice admiral of the Royal Navy Sailing Association. Admiral Radakin’s additional duties include being the Chief of the Defense Staff and military advisor to the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Defense. He holds the position of the highest-ranking military officer in the United Kingdom's armed forces. On December 4, 2024, Admiral Radakin delivered an annual address to the Royal United Services Institute, or RUSI, which holds the distinction of being the world's oldest defense and security think tank. Despite not being overly instructive, the address did contain some clear themes that provide an insight into the evaluation of the security situation in the West.
Admiral Radakin made a headline-grabbing statement when he declared that the world has entered a third nuclear age in relation to nuclear weapons. The three nuclear ages are as follows:
• The Cold War was defined by the two bipolar blocs that were “governed by the risk of uncontrollable escalation and the logic of deterrence.”. The Cold War was characterized by the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction, a security framework that maintained control over nuclear weapons, and the implementation of "hotlines" to facilitate crisis communications between the United States and the Soviet Union.
• The post-Cold War age of nuclear disarmament efforts and nuclear nonproliferation. The United States and Russia use the START and START II (which never entered into force) as markers for the reduction and verification of nuclear weapons. South Africa dismantled its nuclear weapons in 1989 and joined the NPT in 1991; Libya voluntarily dismantled its development program in 2003, and the defunct JCPOA with Iran also marked this milestone.
• The third age is where the world is today with the nuclear proliferation of nuclear and disruptive technologies, which coincides with none of the “security architectures” of the first nuclear age. Russia poses common nuclear threats, while concurrent nuclear drills aim at NATO countries as a form of coercion. The U.S. faces challenges in confronting China and Russia, two nuclear peer rivals, as well as concerns over the nuclear programs of North Korea and Iran, two nations that deliberately instigate international crises for their own gain.
It would be fair to say that the defining groups are largely true, though maybe the first age could be the development of nuclear weapons, the use, and the end of the U.S. monopoly of nuclear weapons that ended in 1949. The concept of nuclear annihilation and its governance emerged following the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, which resulted in the proliferation of long-range nuclear missiles. Subsequently, the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction emerged as a prevailing thought and a constraint on the use of nuclear weapons.
The concept of the third age lacks clarity, as it could encompass events such as the 2008 NATO expansion and the NATO leadership public consideration of Ukraine and Georgia joining the alliance, or the 2014 Russian seizure of Crimea and support for separatists in eastern Ukraine. The first two are nuclear in nature, while the third introduces "disruptive technologies," which raises a question: does it fit into the nuclear "club"? The current state of affairs clearly differs from the post-Cold War second age. China has called this the multipolar age, and it seems like this is what Admiral Radakin is referring to, but this third age definition sounds like a hodgepodge of the fact that the world is not in the second age anymore. When defining the present during a hot war, the phrase "something has changed, but we cannot explain it" usually works best to describe the logic of the third nuclear age. It is the equivalent of describing the age of World War I while the Battle of the Somme is ongoing.
Admiral Radakin has also stated that the U.K.’s nuclear weapons are a deterrent against Russia directly attacking the U.K. While it is a true statement, Admiral Radakin employs a subtle line of reasoning in the context of the Ukraine War. Indeed, the U.K.'s nuclear deterrent prevented Russia from attacking for its support of Ukraine, despite Russia’s threats to do so. Admiral Radakin does not specify whether the deterrent originates from the U.K.'s nuclear weapons, NATO Article V, or both. Admiral Radakin made this statement to justify the U.K.'s investment of billions of pounds in maintaining a credible nuclear deterrent, and it was not in his best interest to explicitly state NATO's deterrent effect. This is not an obfuscation on the part of the admiral, but the omission of a deterrent's co-factor suggests that he is likely overstating the role of the nuclear deterrent in preventing Russia from striking the U.K.
The admiral also discusses NATO in his speech. It appears that he was attempting to simplify his points and avoid the potential complexity of multi-causal factors by separating nuclear and non-nuclear topics. However, he has already blended these topics in his discussion of the third nuclear age by mentioning "disruptive technologies." Admiral Radakin is by no means unintelligent, but his separation of nuclear and non-nuclear discussions hinders the listener's understanding of the complexity of issues in this emerging third nuclear age.
Admiral Radakin has announced that the U.K. is planning to increase its defense spending to 2.5% of GDP, stating that the cost of defense preparedness and deterrence is less than that of ongoing conflicts and instability. The U.K. will provide an additional three billion pounds for defense spending that will be earmarked for Ukraine, but he states that pales in comparison to the economic impact the Ukraine War has had on the global economy, and worldwide inflation has cost 1% of global GDP growth. Again, a true but oversimplified point, but he uses the global economic cost of the war to justify the increased defense spending. A three billion pound investment for Ukraine pales in comparison to the 75 billion pounds spent on U.K. energy subsidies to "shield consumers from the cost of rising energy prices" and the 700 billion pounds for all of Europe, which he directly links to Russian aggression. His point is that the unpopular ongoing costs of the Ukraine War often pale in comparison to the non-defense costs of the war.
Overall, the statement about the economic impact is true. However, there is debate about the direct impacts, and it is difficult to pinpoint the exact amount directly attributable to the Ukraine War, given that it is not the only factor impacting the economy globally. It was yet another oversimplification of dynamic issues, implying that much could be isolated from the Ukraine War. The argument uses the dynamic factors of the larger economy to justify the relatively small cost of increased defense spending and support for the Ukraine War.
If it's a debatable fact that the cost of deterrence and defense is less than that of a war, why didn’t this idea originate before the war began, and why didn't it influence the decision to pursue a negotiated settlement? Would it not be cheaper to re-establish peace, restore the strategic situation, and spend more to reinforce the eastern flank of NATO? Admiral Radakin offers no rationale for the war's continuation, aside from President Putin's perceived bad behavior, which is a valid criticism. However, he fails to offer any alternative explanations or a clear path towards peace. He also makes the "above the fold" media statement about the third nuclear age, but he leaves it vague and doesn't use it as another argument that the Ukraine War is driving much of this newly emerging, yet-to-be-defined danger of a third nuclear age.
The overall critical evaluation of the speech, get ready for it, was that “We have entered a new nuclear age, that is more dangerous than the second but we don’t really know how it happened or what it is, but because it did happen it justifies the U.K.s nuclear deterrent, and one should not complain about the cost of the war, because the cost of supporting the war and increased defense spending to support this post-war deterrence pales in comparison to what you had to pay out of pocket due to higher energy costs and inflation due to the war, but don’t ask why that same logic does not apply to increased defense spending prior to 2022 where deterrence could have prevented a war or that this cost logic should not be applied to end the Ukraine War”. Admiral Radakin’s speech was not bad or disingenuous, but the speech used to create headline-grabbing subjects is what Hal Brands would state is the need to state provocative and clearly argued points but avoids the complex causality of human events, which meant that his speech probably left many of the RUSI audience wanting something more.
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Reference:
https://www.gov.uk/government/people/tony-radakin
https://apnews.com/article/admiral-radakin-defense-nukes-76f37aa34ceafffd6a9895d23547320b
https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/05/uk/third-nuclear-age-admiral-radakin-intl/index.html
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/chief-of-the-defence-staff-rusi-lecture-2024