Sanaullah
Russian President Vladimir Putin, in his state of the nation address, issued a blunt warning to the West that Russia is ready to use nuclear weapons if its sovereignty is threatened. He dispatched the threat to NATO, which inducted Sweden on March 7, 2024, the second after giving membership to Finland in the previous year.
Formerly, the Russian president suspended diplomatic talks on the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty for the next episode. Regrettably, the reaction of the competitive powers to this avowal is not attuned to the amount of the threat. During the Cold War era, Russia shared a major role with its adversary the United States in contributing to designing a nuclear regime characterized by the creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1957 and 1968, respectively.
Besides that, Russia not only prudently engaged with the United States in bilateral nuclear arms limitation and reduction treaties but also played an instrumental role in congregating nations under the umbrella of peaceful use of nuclear technology. Presently, the following radical budge in Russian demeanor to deal with the anticipated challenge indicates a distressing pose for the nuclear regime.
The terror attacks on the World Trade Centers in September 2001 subsequently spurred a terrible response driven more by power and security interests than by normative considerations. It multiplied the attribute of national security of states to the extent that it stimulated the intimidation to the stability and safety of the existing armed regime. A full-scale US invasion of Iraq based on forged charges of building weapons of mass destruction demonstrated the test case of overlooking institutional and diplomatic approaches in achieving national security preemptive measures.
The repercussions of this strained malfunctioning by impulse are revealed in the form of appalling steps by North Korea and Iran, who overtly pursued their impetus to widen nuclear programs for armed purposes. North Korea departed from the NPT in January 2003, stating, “We can no longer remain bound to the NPT, allowing the country’s security and dignity of our nation to be infringed upon.” Kim’s legacy announced enrichment of uranium for the production of nuclear arsenals. North Korea carried out its first nuclear test in 2006 and continued the exercise in 2009, 2013, twice in 2016, and in 2017. Another NPT signatory country, Iran, attracted attention in 2002 as well when its undeclared nuclear facilities became the subject of an International Atomic Energy Agency inquiry.
As an expression of international concern about the evident progress of the nuclear programs of North Korea and Iran, the most promising way to keep both states from developing nuclear weapons was the effective, forceful, and determined use of the full range of nonproliferation tools, security guarantees, ranging from diplomacy to the threat of international sanctions and the use of force.
A series of negotiations held intermittently with North Korea by China, Russia, South Korea, Japan, and the United States, known as Six Party Talks, for the purpose of dismantling the program. The talks were hosted in Beijing and chaired by China. The negotiations lasted six years with five major rounds but failed to reach a resolution. North Korea remains one of the most unstable nuclear powers today.
In the case of Iran, negotiations took a tangible turn. Starting from 2013, Iran’s talks with the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany, known as P5+1, came into full fruition in July 2015, with the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The agreed action plan limited Iran’s centrifuge construction, heavy water-related activities, and weapons-grade plutonium and uranium production and possession.
This landmark agreement puffed up an important progress in the history of arms control endeavor in the post-September 2001 period. Nevertheless, the Trump administration pulled out of the agreement in May 2018 and enforced stringent sanctions on Iran. Consequently, the agreement halted to become a model of diplomatic achievement for the non-proliferation world in the future.
Even so, there is a need to tackle the root causes, including the rapacious military and industrial practices that drive to harm the nuclear regime in the contemporary world. Powerful military, industrial, and bureaucratic establishments in the nuclear states play disproportionate roles in justifying the destabilizing activities for achieving the national security interests framed in a regional balance of power. For instance, Russian aggression against Ukraine, in February 2022, is enshrined with the apprehension of growing intervention of NATO in its so-called sphere of influence, shoving simultaneously with other border-connected states to join NATO. Violent guided policy exacerbating the conflicting atmosphere to the extent that it arrived at the menace of using nuclear arsenals.
Nuclear proliferation has remained a major global challenge for more than six decades, but the nature of the issue changed after the start of the 21st century. The interplay of the security threat environment and the reshaping balance of power dynamics has greatly changed, and that necessitates reorganization in the existing nuclear non-proliferation regime. This regime is the one in which the main actors, Russia, France, China, the United Kingdom, and the USA (N-5), have not changed much and maintain legitimate nuclear arsenals. The lack of consensus among these great powers means greater disputes about promoting and sustaining non-proliferation norms.
It has essentially hampered the process of strengthening the regime, which has ultimately resulted in regional conflicts escalating to the level of extreme retorts of nuclear warfare. The nuclear regime requires constant vigilance, resources for compliance, and collective implementation. While dealing with dissenting nihilists, the right strategic and diplomatic policies can go a long way toward stopping the worst forms of occurrences.
This suggests the need to expand the circle of stakeholders beyond the N-5, considering the fact of post-Cold War modernization of challenges and opportunities.
The expansion, in one expression, to revisit difficulties and mechanisms is likely to be made if two hundred countries attempt to negotiate progress of the non-proliferation to the common risk they all face, and the potential solution is required to be integrated with practical, diplomatic, legal, and institutional steps that can contribute to deterring dangerous behavior and building security interests.
This might also have included the extensive role of Japan, Germany, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, and Australia, representing peaceful, stable countries of various regions. Such an effort probably has a better chance of generating a fresh perspective on the non-proliferation order.
The author is a Freelance Researcher and a graduate of International Relations, University of Karachi.
