How the world could start a nuclear war by accident

Times

4 hours ago

The growing use of artificial intelligence in military planning could increase the risk of accidental nuclear war, a leading arms control monitor has said.
In its annual report, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri), the leading independent body assessing worldwide nuclear forces, says the world's nuclear stockpiles are about to be no longer in decline. The stocks had been declining since the end of the Cold War.
It highlights the fast-increasing stocks of China, which have grown from 500 to 600 warheads in the year, and the imminent expiry of the last remaining arms control treaty between the United States and Russia.
The institute's director, Dan Smith, also warns that the new arms race 'carries much more risk and uncertainty than the last one', not least because of the development of new technologies.
'One component of the coming arms race will be the attempt to gain and maintain a competitive edge in artificial intelligence (AI), both for offensive and defensive purposes,' he writes in the report's introduction.
'There are benefits to be found but the careless adoption of AI could significantly increase nuclear risk.'
He says that AI and quantum technologies could make it easier to assess compliance with any nuclear agreements that are forged. But they encourage speedier — and possibly less considered — decision-making.
'As the new technologies speed up decision-making in a crisis, there is also the risk of a war as a result of miscommunication, misunderstanding or even a technical accident,' he says.
Nine countries possess nuclear weapons. Five are the permanent members of the United Nations security council, and signatories of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT): the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France. Two declared nuclear powers, India and Pakistan, did not sign the NPT, while a third, North Korea, withdrew before conducting its first nuclear test.
Israel neither signed the NPT, nor declared its nuclear weapons, but is believed to possess about 90 warheads.
China has been expanding its arsenal fastest. President Xi ordered a modernisation of China's entire military but particularly its missile and nuclear capabilities, reportedly after details emerged about the decay of its missile silos.
The modernisation appears to be working. The Sipri report says 350 new intercontinental ballistic missile silos have been completed, or are near completion, as of January this year.
However, its total number of warheads remains a fraction of those possessed by either America or Russia: together they hold nine in ten of the world's nuclear weapons.
As their relations have worsened since 2000, and an aggressive new breed of American strategists have questioned whether US choices should be restrained by international treaties, their existing arms control measures have fallen away.
The so-called 'New Start' (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) agreed by Presidents Obama and Putin in 2010 expires next February with no sign that it will be renewed in any form.
Until now, the disposal of old nuclear warheads has meant that the total arsenal has declined rapidly since the fall of the Berlin Wall. That trend is now over, the report suggests.
'The sizes of their respective military stockpiles seem to have stayed relatively stable in 2024 but both states are implementing extensive modernisation programmes that could increase the size and diversity of their arsenals in the future,' it says.
The Sipri report raises the case of Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov, the Soviet officer sometimes heralded as the man who saved the world from nuclear Armageddon. In 1983, Petrov decided unilaterally but correctly that a computer which told him five American nuclear missiles were on their way to strike Russia was wrong.
Jeffrey Kaplow, who researches nuclear security at the University of William and Mary in Virginia, said AI , if programmed well, could be used to assess risk in such circumstances better than humans.
'There's this idea that human decision-making in a crisis is not that great,' he said. AI could help leaders navigate the cultural context and goals of their 'opposition' more clearly, he said.'The signs are that a new nuclear arms race is gearing up,' Smith concludes. 'Compared to the last one, the risks are likely to be more diverse and more serious.'