The likelihood of a nuclear war “goes up a little bit every year,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Tuesday, warning that the amount of conflicts now raging across the globe coupled with the sheer number of nations equipped with the world’s deadliest weapons constitutes a uniquely dangerous dynamic.

Speaking at “The Washington Brief,” a monthly forum hosted by The Washington Times Foundation, Mr. Gingrich said the Russia-Ukraine war is one of several theaters where a nuclear weapon could come into play. He said Russian President Vladimir Putin could resort to such extremes if faced with near-certain defeat, though such an outcome looks unlikely, at least in the short term, as Russian troops gain ground in eastern Ukraine.

Still, Mr. Gingrich said, it’s a possibility that can’t be dismissed.

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“I think if Putin thought he was going to be decisively defeated, he might be tempted to use tactical nuclear weapons,” Mr. Gingrich said. “I think if he thinks he’s only going to be hurt marginally, then he’ll just sacrifice more people.”

Top Russian officials have repeatedly threatened to use such weapons if the West continues backing Ukraine and, from the Kremlin’s point of view, keeps meddling in Russian affairs.

Russia has the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear weapons. The Federation of American Scientists estimated this year that Russia has about 4,380 nuclear warheads. The U.S. has over 3,700 nuclear warheads, according to most estimates.

But Mr. Gingrich said Russia’s nuclear arsenal is far from the only reason for concern.

“Russia has a lot of nuclear weapons. We have a lot of nuclear weapons. China is now third, but they’re building more,” he said at Tuesday’s forum, which was moderated by former CIA official Joseph DeTrani.

“They’re a long way from parity, but they’re certainly big enough [that] they could cause unimaginable damage,” the Georgia Republican  continued. “But Britain and France have nuclear weapons. Israel has nuclear weapons. Pakistan and India have nuclear weapons. North Korea has nuclear weapons.”

“The danger and the likelihood of a nuclear war somewhere, I think, goes up a little bit every year,” Mr. Gingrich said. “And it’s something you have to take into account. We may need to study how to survive a nuclear war, not just how to avoid one.”

Some analysts fear that the other side of the Russia-Ukraine war could also be a danger. While Kyiv gave up its own nuclear stockpile in the 1990s, some wonder whether the U.S. could eventually decide it makes strategic sense to put such weapons back in Ukraine.

“We may end up actually talking about the sharing of tactical nuclear weapons with the Ukrainian side. That’s a scary, scary dynamic,” Alexandre Mansourov, professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Security Studies, said at Tuesday’s event.

The U.S. has given no indication it would ever consider such a step. The Biden administration has often appeared reluctant to provide Ukraine with traditional weapons such as long-range artillery, missile defense systems and other capabilities throughout the course of the war. 

Ukraine’s decision 30 years ago to give up its nuclear weapons when it gained its independence is still reverberating today, Mr. Gingrich said. North Korea, for example, may have concluded that its nuclear program guarantees its own security. And even if North Korean leader Kim Jong-un wanted to give up such military programs, Mr. Gingrich said, it may be virtually impossible.

“Even if Kim Jong-un got up one morning and said I’d like to find a way out of this, the odds are pretty good he’d get killed,” Mr. Gingrich said. “There are so many people who are so deeply invested in sustaining their system.”