Back in the Cold War years the Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) doctrine established the insanity of pursuing nuclear attacks exchanges on the premises of vaporization not only of the United States and the Soviet Union, but the entire planet.
MAD is also a euphemism that suggests that in a nuclear war, there would be no winners, only losers.
Thus, the MAD doctrine involves only the possession of nuclear warheads and their delivery systems, not the actual use of them in combat. Well, until now.
Despite the existence of a very robust non-nuclear proliferation regime led by the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the existence of numerous Nuclear Weapons-Free Zones (NWFZ), plus paradiplomacy initiatives such as Mayors for Peace, that involves tens of cities, counties and municipalities that have declared themselves nuclear-free -including within states that possess nuclear weapons-, only nine countries in possession of nuclear weapons, pose threats to the world and have taken humanity as a hostage. The nine nuclear-weapons countries -United States, Russia, PR China, North Corea, India, Pakistan, United Kingdom, France and Israel- continue the development of such arsenals and recently, some of them have banalized the possible use of them.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock is set at 89 seconds to midnight, meaning the world is closer than ever to a nuclear holocaust. The nine countries that possess nuclear weapons keep developing new weapons and delivery programs, adding today the possibility of using Artificial Intelligence to have lethal autonomous weapons systems with nuclear warheads where human control over them is almost null.
On December 2, 2024, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 79/62 which passed with 166 votes in favor, 3 against, and 15 abstentions. The resolution acknowledges the serious risks posed by these weapons and establishes open informal consultations in 2025 to discuss challenges and concerns related to lethal autonomous weapons systems, though it stops short of mandating treaty negotiations at this time. Currently there is no convention to prevent Artificial Intelligence from contributing to the development of Lethal Autonomous Weapons system. The debate has been conducted through the existing United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), even though UN members disagree with the way the CCW addresses the issue, and the topic is being discussed at different fora.
For instance, in 2023, the Netherlands hosted the first international Summit on Responsible Artificial Intelligence in the Military Domain (REAIM). Then came the First Committee of the UN General Assembly where the debate focused on the responsible use of Artificial Intelligence in the development of lethal autonomous weapons systems.
In addition to that there are proposals made by International Humanitarian Law and its relation to lethal autonomous weapons systems. These various debates show an enormous interest on the topic and generate a mud on possible norms, regulations, codes of conduct and such at multilateral and minilateral levels. Criticism has emphasized the relevance of a broader approach to the issue besides the International Humanitarian Law vision. Some experts suggest that the use of lethal autonomous weapons systems needs to be seen through the possibility of an unintended escalation of conflicts, as well as the consequences of lethal autonomous weapons systems on strategic stability.
An example of the later is the announcement of the Russian government a few days ago, that it had successfully tested the Poseidon - a nuclear-powered, nuclear-capable underwater drone that can be fired like a torpedo. Back in 2018, when its development was announced Russian media said the Poseidon would be able to achieve a speed of 200 km/h and travel in a "constantly changing route" that would make it impossible to intercept. This announcement came only days after Moscow had conducted a test of its "unlimited-range" Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile. This occurred once US President Donald Trump said he would not meet with President Putin as planned due to the stagnation of the negotiations on Ukraine.
After the President Putin announcement, President Trump said the US would restart nuclear testing and wrongly instructed the Department of War -the controller of the US nuclear stock is the Department of Energy- to prepare for that. The news shocked the world since, with the exception of North Korea, no other country has tested nuclear weapons in more than three decades. It is true that currently there is no need for physical nuclear testing since the effectiveness of these weapons can be determined via computerized testing.
Yet, to many is clear that restarting nuclear testing would accelerate other physical explosions that in the past had very serious environmental and human heath impacts. It is also insulting to have these announcements precisely at a time when the 80 years of the nuclear age have been remembered by the world with horror and sadness and not only due to the Japanese victims but the other peoples exposed to radiation poisoning coming from nuclear experiments and testing in New Mexico, Semipalatinsk, Muroroa and Fangataufa, Algeria, Australia, India, Pakistan, PR China, etcetera. Next year both the NPT and the TPNW will have their respective review conferences, and the Russian and American recent announcements only contribute to a toxic political environment that may prevent the world from having consensus to avoid nuclear testing and reduce the nuclear threat.
Yet, the involvement of Artificial Intelligence in the use of force, seems to be one of the most pressing issues, since disagreements mixed with testing of lethal autonomous weapons systems such as the one with a Russian drone recently announced is stimulating a new nuclear arms race under the premises that Russia is leading where others are left behind.
There is another issue that deserves attention: how much do current leaders understand about nuclear deterrence and strategic stability? The announcement of Donald Trump about restarting nuclear tests let many experts wondering how much he knows about the way nuclear weapons and testing work and most important, who oversees the US nuclear stock. He seemed to believe it is the responsibility of the Department of War, instead of the Department of Energy. Also, if the proposed nuclear testing is aimed at responding to the development of lethal autonomous weapons systems by Russia it is fair to say that the US strategy of containment is far from clear.
For Mexico and Mexicans, the vicinity with the second major nuclear power poses many questions. Is Mexico safe in case nuclear weapons are use against the United States? This scenario is not a hypothesis. Back in 1962, Cuba, a neighbor of Mexico, was at the center of a possible nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. This is why Mexico and other Latin American and Caribbean countries pushed for the birth of the first nuclear weapons-free zone in an area highly populated: the Tlatelolco Treaty.
The Tlatelolco Treaty contains provisions endorsed by the five nuclear weapons states recognized as such at the NPT treaty refraining to attack non-nuclear states in Latin America and the Caribbean. Yet these so-called negative guarantees of security are being questioned by Russia that attacked a country without nuclear weapons, that is, Ukraine. Could this happen against a Latin American or Caribbean state, either on purpose or by accident during a nuclear confrontation? The best way to eliminate this possibility is through nuclear disarmament and also through work on norms pertaining new types of weapons that intend to eliminate the role of humans in combat operations.
Editor’s Note: The above guest column was penned by María Cristina Rosas, a professor and researcher in the faculty of political and social sciences at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City. The column appears in The Rio Grande Guardian International News Service with the permission of the author. Rosas can be reached via email at: mcrosas@prodigy.net.mx
