Geneva Monday, January 3, 2022: “We reaffirm that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be waged,” write the five official nuclear-armed powers in unison. They present a communiqué to the public that raises hopes. Hopes that the leaders of Russia, the US, China, France and the UK could ban nuclear warheads. Hopes for a “world without nuclear weapons”.
Three months later, the document looks like it is from another world. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war of aggression in Ukraine and his statements about possible nuclear strikes are a crucial test for the international system of nuclear arms control and non-proliferation.
“A new nuclear arms race is a real possibility,” warns Sarah Bidgood, director at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in California. The West must now find answers to Russia’s provocations “without pushing the world closer to the nuclear abyss”.
As early as 2018, the US government wrote about Russia’s nuclear doctrine “that the threat of nuclear escalation would de-escalate a conflict in Russia’s favor”. According to Bidgood, a Russian strategy of “escalation to de-escalation” or even a strategy of “escalation to win the war” would be the end of the existing nuclear order.
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This order is based on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and respect for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which is not yet in force. There is also a single arms control agreement between the US and Russia. According to the Stockholm Sipri Institute, both rivals have over 90 percent of the more than 13,000 nuclear warheads worldwide.
Existing nuclear order in jeopardy
Central to the nuclear order has been the balance of terror. As in the heyday of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the USA, the oppressive logic of deterrence of nuclear weapons still applies: A first strike leads to apocalyptic scenarios – on the side of the attacker and on the side of the attacked.
Even before Putin sent his troops to Ukraine, experts had doubts about the stability of the nuclear regime. In 2020, Wolfgang Richter from the Science and Politics Foundation judged that it was “in crisis”. The entry into force of the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty in 2021 did not bring about a change for the better. So far, only nuclear have-nots have joined the pact. The nuclear-armed states reject the ban on the bomb with rare unanimity.
A new nuclear arms race is a real possibility. Sarah Bidgood, director at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in California.
According to international observers, Putin has now destroyed what little trust the West has left in his policies. And not just with his brutal actions in Ukraine. He has also destroyed trust by threatening the West with consequences “greater than anything you have seen in history”. And he has destroyed confidence by publicly stating that he has upgraded the state of alert for his nuclear arsenal.
>> Read also: Russia – What does “nuclear forces on alert” mean?
As a result, negotiations between Washington and Moscow on new nuclear arms control treaties are a long way off. Actually, it is in the American, but also in the Russian interest, “to cap the nuclear armament of the world,” says the director of the nuclear project at the “Federation of American Scientists”, Hans Kristensen. But Putin apparently threw the principles of a rational government overboard.
According to Russian disarmament expert Petr Topychkanov, credibility is an essential raw material for successful negotiations, especially when it comes to a highly sensitive issue such as nuclear weapons. “The parties must trust each other to negotiate, sign agreements and implement treaties in good faith.”
The Russian President has alluded to Russia’s nuclear potential several times in the recent past.
(Photo: AP)
The only arms control treaty between Russia and the United States, the New Start Treaty on Intercontinental Arms, expires in 2026. If Moscow and Washington fail to renew the agreement, there will no longer be any treaty limits on the development, production and deployment of nuclear weapons of mass destruction.
At its core, New Start limits the strategic nuclear arsenal of the Russians and Americans to 1,550 deployed warheads and 700 deployed delivery systems each. Furthermore, the parties may have a reserve of 100 carrier systems.
Other bilateral agreements on nuclear weapons are history: the Americans and Russians tore a particularly large hole in the disarmament architecture when they terminated the INF treaty in 2019. In the agreement, the contracting parties had agreed on the destruction of all land-based medium-range systems.
Russians and Americans are investing heavily
In other words, the two nuclear superpowers already have only a very limited contractual obligation to limit their nuclear armaments. Where Russians and Americans are allowed to, they invest heavily – from even more powerful intercontinental systems to tactical weapons.
“Both have launched comprehensive and expensive programs to replace and modernize their nuclear warheads, delivery systems and production facilities,” wrote the Sipri disarmament experts as early as 2021. “The prospects for additional bilateral nuclear arms control between the nuclear superpowers remain poor.”
And the situation is getting worse. In particular, Moscow’s unproven claims that Ukraine intends to acquire nuclear weapons is causing tremendous collateral damage in the non-proliferation system. The background is the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1968.
An Iskander-K missile being launched at a military training area during a military exercise.
(Photo: dpa)
The NPT only allows a privileged circle to possess nuclear weapons: the US, Russia, China, Britain and France. In return, the five states take responsibility for ensuring that the bomb does not end up in other countries’ possession. They act as guarantors of the system. After the hoax about Ukraine, Russia is now “no longer a credible guarantor of the nuclear non-proliferation regime,” says expert Topychkanov.
In any case, the system of non-proliferation has been crumbling for years. Three countries never joined the NPT: India, Israel and Pakistan. North Korea announced its withdrawal from the pact and launched a nuclear weapons program. All efforts to stop the North Koreans in their grip on the devastating war machines were unsuccessful. The international negotiations to contain the Iranian nuclear project are also dragging on.
Robert Malley, US special envoy for Iran, said a few days ago about a possible upcoming agreement: “I cannot be confident that it is imminent.” Russia has an important say in the Iran negotiations – regardless of whether it is Washington and the other participating western states Germany, France and Great Britain like it or not.
Putin’s nuclear muscle flexing towards the West should now also strengthen the leadership in Tehran in their long-term striving for nuclear armament. And a nuclear-armed Iran would then very likely drive other states in the region to reach for the bomb.
More: How many nuclear weapons does Russia have?