I have always been told that nuclear armed states like Russia – one of the three founders of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) – are “responsible” nuclear weapon states, and that nuclear weapons exist only for defensive reasons; that nuclear weapons are political, not for being used; that they yield deterrence, stability, security, and peace. Today, we see a huge nuclear weapon state attacking a smaller non-nuclear weapon state, a neighbour, behind a wall of 6,000 nuclear weapons. Very cowardly. And explicitly threatening to use nuclear weapons, more than once. I call this instability instead of stability, insecurity instead of security, and war instead of peace. 500,000 soldiers have been killed or wounded. Just the opposite of what the proponents of nuclear weapons, including most experts in the nuclear weapon states, always claim.
Interestingly, most advocates of nuclear weapons do not see it that way. They are reinforced in what they see right now on the battlefield: that nuclear deterrence works. Opponents tend to disagree. I will skip this ideological debate. But if critics of nuclear weapons cannot win the debate by referring to the war-inducing and extremely dangerous role of nuclear weapons in this war, this is going to become a very difficult issue to resolve.
Nuclear arms control, nuclear disarmament, and nuclear non-proliferation are in crisis. Nuclear arms control is in shatters. Since 2001, but especially in recent years, the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty, the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, and Open Skies Treaty have been ditched. In 2026, New START – the last bilateral arms control treaty – will likely disappear; from then onwards, we can call it ‘Old START’. For the first time since the beginning of the seventies, there will no bilateral nuclear arms control treaty left.
What about nuclear disarmament? For the first time since the 1980s, the overall number of nuclear weapons is not decreasing anymore but going up. The latter is a violation of art. 6 of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that at the very least wanted to stop the nuclear arms race.
Let us shift our focus to non-proliferation: after the entry into force of the NPT (1970), the six existing nuclear-armed states were joined by another three: India, Pakistan, and North Korea. That means a fifty percent rise, and more proliferators are cuing up. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – better known as the Iran deal – was dumped by President Trump in 2018. Iran’s current break-out time is zero days. If Ayatollah Khamenei and his cronies decide to go nuclear, we end up for the first time with a double-digit number: 10 nuclear-armed states. If so, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern states may follow; think Turkey, maybe Egypt.
Last but not least, new technology like cyber, AI, hypersonic missiles, and autonomous weapon systems, will further degrade strategic stability amongst the nuclear powers. The risk of attacks on nuclear command and control systems increases, which will push the nuclear-armed states to keep their nuclear weapons on high alert. In addition, the oceans become more transparent thanks to Big Data and AI. The ideal delivery vehicle for a secure second-strike – submarines – becomes less reliable, which may further increase instability.
In short, the picture looks very dark. Have a look at the Doomsday clock of The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. The clock has never stood this close to midnight: 90 seconds.
The only light in the dark is the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) (negotiated in 2017 and entered into force in 2021), better known as the Nuclear Ban Treaty, which is indeed revolutionary. For the first time, nuclear weapons were declared illegal, including their possession, use, and threat of use, the deterrence doctrines. That of course only applies to those states that adhere to the treaty, but the norm is strengthened for all states. Also new is that for the first time, the Global South and other middle powers (like Austria) are at the steering wheel, which reflects the changing balance of power in the world.
Now comes the less positive news. While the TPNW was in the first place supposed to be a signal to the nuclear weapon states and their allies, a signal to take the nuclear disarmament obligations under the NPT seriously, the nuclear weapon states reacted very defensively, even dismissively (with the US, the UK and France saying that they will never sign the treaty), and others arguing that the treaty comes ‘too soon’.
What about the future? The international community has basically three options: either muddling through, which means trying to save as much from the existing arms control and non-proliferation regime as possible. But in all likelihood losing even more, and seeing more states going nuclear, and maybe ending up in more wars in which nuclear weapons are threatened to be used, and in the worst-case being used. This scenario carries enormous risks. Under this first scenario, the most one could aim for are risk-reduction measures, the entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the start of multilateral fissile-material cut-off negotiations, and hope for a better geopolitical environment in 25 years’ time, and then start doing classic arms control again. That is the most likely scenario.
The second option corresponds to fundamentally delegitimizing nuclear weapons, so that it becomes visible in the force structure, operational and declaratory policies of the nuclear-armed states. This reform must to come from inside the nuclear-armed states. That said, the outside world can help. Here, we can distinguish the non-allied and allied non-nuclear weapon states. First, it would be helpful that all non-allied non-nuclear weapon states that have negotiated the TPNW (more than 120) adhere to the treaty as soon as possible. We are far from there: 93 states have signed; 69 of them are state parties. After that, the focus will move to the allied non-nuclear weapon states.
The allied non-nuclear weapon states – the NATO member states, the Asian allies of the US, and Belarus – have to get rid of their dependence on the nuclear-armed states in the form of extended nuclear deterrence, including nuclear sharing. Most experts believe that the nuclear-armed states help hide the allies, but it is the other way around: the allies help hide the nuclear-armed states. The best example is Japan that was able to convince the Obama administration in 2016 not to switch to a no first use or sole purpose declaratory policy.
The geopolitical situation of some allies is not ideal. But – and this is fundamental – the nuclear weapons of their patrons (more in particular the US or Russia) are not going to protect them. Experts like Henry Kissinger and Patrick Morgan told the Europeans already during the Cold War that extended nuclear deterrence was not credible. In the meantime, it has not become more credible. For those who prefer empirics instead of theory, in the war in Ukraine, President Biden has already made clear that if Ukraine – a de facto allied state – is attacked with a Russian tactical nuclear weapon, the US in all likelihood is not going to respond with nuclear weapons. President Macron was even more explicit. Similarly, that reasoning probably also applies to an attack against a de iure NATO member state: because nuclear retaliation is too dangerous. It may end up in a global nuclear war and is therefore not in the interest of the US. Instead, the odds are that the US will respond with conventional means, and therefore basically threaten with conventional weapons, which is also much more credible because these weapon systems can be used. A democratically-elected president like in the US is not going to use nuclear weapons in support of allies thousands of miles away. Extended nuclear deterrence is a myth. The problem is that the foreign policy establishments of most allies full-heartedly believe in this myth. Extended nuclear deterrence also helps the US nuclear weapons establishment to legitimize new nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles domestically. So, a huge education and awareness project is needed to better inform the allies, and especially the East Europeans and the East Asians, about the usefulness of extended nuclear deterrence.
If that education project fails and if the allies do not take up their responsibility with respect to nuclear disarmament (conform to the NPT that is legally binding), then it is easy to predict that more states will go nuclear (also because that is the natural trend), and that we will end up with more conflicts and wars in which nuclear weapons are explicitly threatened to be used, and de facto are used. If the NPT has not imploded before that time, it will certainly slide into irrelevance. More NPT Review Conferences have failed than succeeded to produce a consensus document, including the last two. The last one was supposed to be a party, 50 years after its entry into force. It was not; it was again a gigantic failure. Even if Russia would not have vetoed the final document in August 2022, the lowest common denominator document would not have been strong enough to breathe new life into the regime. Strangely enough, most nuclear weapon experts do not share this analysis. They believe in the myth of the NPT.
If the NPT implodes – a nightmare scenario for most experts (certainly those of the nuclear weapon states) – then we end up with nuclear anarchy. That does not sound very good. In that case, however, we end up with a world without a discriminatory treaty that divides the world in ‘haves’ and ‘have not’s’. We will end up in a world in which each state that has not yet signed the TPNW and that wants to copy paste the nuclear-armed states can legally do so. This is exactly what the world needs as a wake-up call. The end of the NPT will focus the minds of those in Washington DC, Moscow, Beijing, Paris, and London, who now ridicule the position of states like Brazil, Indonesia, Egypt, Argentina, Mexico, Turkey, Nigeria, South Africa, the Philippines, and others. Maybe some of the nuclear weapon experts in some of the think tanks in the capitals that I have just been mentioned will think twice and come up with new ideas like taking the TPNW a bit more serious or coming up with the idea of a Nuclear Weapons Convention, similar to the Chemical Weapons Convention and Biological Weapons Convention.
In short, the world will first have to see more proliferation, maybe much more proliferation, in order to build down to zero. I understand that this is not a popular stance. But business as usual is not going to save the regime either.
Luckily, there is a third and last scenario possible that may prevent the previous “nightmare” scenario: the current nine nuclear-armed states gather around a table and set concrete deadlines for nuclear disarmament and elimination (with 2045 as the ultimate deadline, one hundred years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki). They could take the initiative right after the UN Summit of the Future in September 2024, a year from now, regardless of what the geopolitical situation is at that moment. The New Agenda for Peace, the UN document that was published last July in preparation of that Summit, lists twelve actions: the first one is to eliminate nuclear weapons. Only under this third scenario, the NPT will remain alive, the TPNW will have played the role it was supposed to play, and the threat of a global nuclear war will finally be eliminated.
A business-as-usual approach on the other hand carries the possibility of a conventional war – in Ukraine or Taiwan – that escalates to the nuclear level with the risk of annihilation of large parts of the planet.