Time to Bring Nuclear Arms Under Control

The issue of nuclear weapons just might lead us to new forms of governance from regional powers and international institutions.

Iran’s new administration, headed by President Ebrahim Raisi, has stated it will engage in negotiation with world powers on reviving the nuclear deal that was agreed to in 2015, but has been caught in a state of limbo since 2018 with Donald Trump’s withdrawal of the US from the deal.

The Middle East is just one sphere that should concern those who are concerned about nuclear proliferation. The Korean peninsula is another hot spot. Both North and South Korea are testing ballistic missiles, one living under the United States’ nuclear umbrella and another being a nuclear weapons state. Australia, wanting to counter the power of the People’s Republic of China, will acquire nuclear-powered submarines because of a deal with the US and UK. In the same neighborhood, India and Pakistan, historic enemies, are also nuclear-armed states.

Complicating matters, tensions between the PRC and India have grown worse, and the PRC is expanding its nuclear arsenal. India, surrounded by so many nuclear armed states, shows no interest in coming to terms with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, a late 1960s treaty that commits all signees to drawing down the number of nuclear weapons in the world, and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, a 2017 treaty that abolishes nuclear weapons. However, the TPNW has only been signed by countries that have no nuclear weapons.

The US and Russia possess 90% of the world’s nuclear arsenal, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The extension of the 2010 New START Treaty by the Joe Biden Administration is a positive step in the right direction as far as nuclear arms control is concerned. However, the 10% stockpile in the hands of seven other states represents a real danger, especially when a rogue state like North Korea owns some of that stockpile.

There are examples where nuclear diplomacy has worked in the past. When the Soviet Union fell, Ukraine dismantled its nuclear arsenal in 1994, the world’s third largest at the time. South Africa ended its nuclear program in 1991 and joined the NPT. In today’s world, there needs to be a certain amount of nuclear governance at the regional and global level. The TPNW is just a dream if only non-nuclear states sign it.

We must start the nonproliferation journey with cooperation amongst regional rivals, as stated by Bejoy Sebastian in his story “The Unending Dilemma of Nuclear Deterrence and the Global Nuclear Governance,” at ModernDiplomacy.eu. Organizations such as the East Asia Summit or the SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) will be key as well as non-regional organizations such as the United Nations, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), or ICAN (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons).

Sebastian addressed the progress made in certain regions on nuclear deterrence and security in general: “of all the nuclear regions today, North America and Western Europe have evolved into a trusted security community and remains largely at peace, unlike Eurasia or West Asia, where people live in the shadow of a nuclear-edged sword of Damocles that dangles over their everyday lives. Being nuclear-weapons zones, Southeast Asia and Central Asia can act as role models for the rest of Asia and the world, so do the South Pacific, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.”

It will take diplomatic leadership to bring adversaries like China, India, and Pakistan together. This would be a good project for our country and our State Department. We must start the process now or simply watch things spiral out of control in certain regions of the world.