Russia-United Kingdom Diplomatic Crisis over Salisbury Nerve Agent Attack: An Analysis

Abstract

Russia-United Kingdom Diplomatic ties have been banter of ally-crises-ally relations and have not fared well since its first diplomatic contact in 1553 during the era of Tsardom of Russia, and currently at its most tensed point occasioned by the alleged poison attack on Sergei Skripal in Salisbury. While it remains unclear which exactly of the Novichok variants were used to poison Skripal and his daughter? The medical effect of the poison is well understood and Britain with their allies points at Russia as the culprit. This single act has turn sour the diplomatic relations of these great powers. However, it raised multiplicity of arguments among scholars and analysts, who try to highlight and analyse views on who seeks to gain from the cold war between the power megalomaniacs. It is on this ground that the paper looks at the diplomatic crisis between Russia and United Kingdom over the attempted poisoning of Skripal and his daughter. The paper employed a combination of Psycho-Cultural Theory of Conflict and Conspiracy theory as it framework, using a qualitative analysis which relies on secondary data as its source of information to explore the problematic. It further examined if there were any similarities between the Salisbury attack and other attacks carried out in United Kingdom. The paper concludes with the implications of the attack, notes that despite Russia-United Kingdom crisis prone diplomatic relation over Salisbury nerve agent attack, they have an obligation to cooperate in the United Nation should an international conflict arise, as they encompass two of the five permanent members in the UN Security Council giving them the power to veto the approval of UN Security Council resolutions should any quick decision be required. Hence, the pronged disagreement is an interruption to the adoption of quick resolutions, particularly with the emergent danger of conflict and crises on the Korean headland and the on-going civil turbulence in Syria. The paper recommends among others; for Putin to take the opportunity of a new term to start afresh and rebuild ties with the United Kingdom, following the full dictates of diplomatic principles.

The lesser evil? Experimental evidence on the strength of nuclear and chemical weapon “taboos”

“…Similar to the authors of this study, we suggest that the stronger retributive tendencies among the American public, previous use of US nuclear weapons in military conflict, as well as a more general willingness to approve of the use of military force to achieve foreign policy goals can help to explain the lower strength of the nuclear nonuse norm in the USA (Dill, Sagan and Valentino, 2022: 5–7). 9 Moreover, while we cannot support it with empirical evidence, the relatively higher aversion of British citizens to the use of chemical weapons could have also been reinforced by the more proximate direct experience with chemical agents in the infamous Salisbury attacks of 2018 (Chinonso Mark, 2018).…”