In early January 2022, the five official nuclear weapons powers agreed on a remarkable communiqué. The document raised hopes that the heads of state and government in Russia, the US, China, France and Great Britain want to avoid using nuclear warheads. “We reaffirm that nuclear war cannot be won and must never be waged,” it said. The five states even affirmed their desire 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 nuclear blackmail 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 expert Sarah Bidgood, director at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in California, in Foreign Policy magazine. The West must now find answers to Russia’s provocations “without pushing the world closer to the nuclear abyss”.
Russia and the US own 90 percent of the nuclear weapons
But the constant intensification of the confrontation seems to be exactly Putin’s strategy. And that would be the deathblow for the existing nuclear order. It is based on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, respect for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which is not yet in force, and a single US-Russia arms control agreement. According to the Stockholm Sipri Institute, both rivals have over 90 percent of the world’s more than 13,000 nuclear warheads.
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 brought no 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.
Putin has thrown the principles of a foreign policy overboard
Now, with his threats and invasion of the neighboring country, Putin has lost all trust in the West. As a result, negotiations between Washington and Moscow on new nuclear arms control treaties are a long way off. At least as long as the Kremlin boss is in power. Actually, it is in the American, but also in the Russian interest, “to keep a lid on the structures of the world’s nuclear armament,” says Hans Kristensen, director of the nuclear project at the “Federation of American Scientists”. But Putin has evidently thrown the principles of foreign policy overboard.
Credibility and trust are essential elements in negotiations, especially when it comes to nuclear weapons. The “parties must trust each other in order to negotiate, sign agreements and implement treaties in good faith,” says Russian disarmament expert Petr Topychkanov.
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, treaty limits on the development, production and deployment of nuclear weapons of mass destruction will no longer exist.
Wherever Russians and Americans are allowed to invest, they invest heavily
At its core, New Start limits the strategic nuclear arsenal of the Russians and Americans to 1,550 deployed warheads and 700 delivery systems. In addition, both countries may have a reserve of 100 carrier systems. Other bilateral agreements on nuclear weapons are already history. For the two nuclear superpowers there is already only a very limited contractual obligation to practice abstinence when it comes to nuclear armament.
Wherever Russians and Americans are allowed to invest, they invest heavily. “Both have extensive and expensive programs underway to replace and modernize their nuclear warheads, delivery systems and production facilities,” the Sipri disarmament experts wrote back in 2021. “The prospects for additional bilateral nuclear arms control between the nuclear superpowers remain poor.”
Things are also looking bad at the multilateral level. 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) from 1968. This only allows a privileged group . the USA, Russia, China, Great Britain and France . to possess nuclear weapons.
In return, the five states commit to complete nuclear disarmament – and take responsibility for ensuring that the bomb does not end up in other countries’ possession. But 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. 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 – whether the US and the other participating Western states Germany, France and Great Britain like it or not. Putin’s nuclear muscle flexing towards the West is likely to strengthen the leadership in Tehran in their long-term quest for nuclear armament. A highly armed Iran would also drive other states in the region to reach for the bomb themselves.