Daily Times

Recently, the Moscow Nonproliferation Conference (MNC) was held in Russia where delegates from around 40 countries met to discuss the rising threat of using nuclear weapons in the potential interstate conflicts.

The diplomats contemplated on the goals of denuclearisation and disarmament at a crucial time when the nuclear non-proliferation has received severe and numerous adverse blowbacks. For instance, the US and North Korea’s talks on denuclearisation, in exchange of the lifting of sanctions, have stalled; Russia and the US have abandoned the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty and lastly, in the wake of the US’s withdrawal from 2015 Iran nuclear deal, Iran now plans to move towards enriching its uranium. Given the contemporary dark scenario, was the nonproliferation conference in Russia meant to reduce nuclear weapons? Can the nuclear non-proliferation be achieved in an era when nations are ruled by the fervour of nationalism and nationalistic tendencies? Is there a political will to abolish nuclear weapons? Is the Nuclear Nonproliferation treaty (NPT) still relevant?

Currently, there are around 14,500 active nuclear weapons round the world, according to the UN, in the hands of nine countries. Five of them are de jure nuclear states and signatories of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT). They are the US, UK, China, Russia and France. While the other four, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea, are de facto nuclear states and not the members of the NPT.

Under Article VI of the NPT, “All Parties undertake to pursue good-faith negotiations on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race, to nuclear disarmament, and general and complete disarmament.”

Principally, as per the signatories of the NPT, the actual goal of denuclearisation and disarmament was laid on five nuclear states. But under Trump’s current “pull back from every past agreement,” it seems nuclear nonproliferation is a lost goal.

Trump has continued his streak of slashing all the past accords irrespective of how beneficial they may look. The US and Russia are the only two countries in the world with 4,000 active nuclear warheads each. During the Cold War, they had nuclear warheads in thousands, which have been reduced over time by successive bilateral treaties of numerous types. INF was one such treaty aimed to limit down nuclear weapons. Under the treaty, the US and Russia had destroyed around 2,692 missiles. Sadly, the US President Donald Trump pulled back from the INF treaty on August 2 on the pretext that Russia was secretly violating the accord.

Perhaps, in this age when the world is ruled by an egoist, narcissist, nationalist and ultra-nationalist disarmament, a complete dismantling of nuclear weapons has been reduced to nothing

Where does this retreat from an age-long pact barring nuclear arms race between the US and Russia leave the goal of disarmament and complete annihilation of nuclear weapons?

In this new world order, where the US fears a rising China as well as its cold-war-era foe Russia, perhaps, this US’s move is a harbinger of the new geopolitical scenario of the world where she believes that the limitation and disarmament are divergent to its national interests. It seems that the nuclear disarmament has come to end and a new era of the arms race is likely to start.

Ironically, the moment the US officially backed away from the INF treaty, the pentagon conducted its very first test of the new missile system on August 18 by firing a ground-launched ballistic and cruise missile (GLCM) with a range of above 500 km. It seems the US is hell-bent on exceeding their nuclear arsenals as the US Defense Department had requested for a sum of around $100 million in the upcoming fiscal year of 2020 from the White House to uplift and develop three brand new missile systems which will surpass the range set down by the INF. What is more concerning to the general disarmament goal is the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty between US and Russia “START” is also set to expire in February 2021 and news is it might not be renewed further. If that happens then there will be nothing legal to bar countries from an impending arms race.

Besides, the US-North Korea nuclear talks have also stalled. Since the stalemate North Korea has continued its trajectory of testing new missiles; the latest being its super large multiple launch rocket system. Apart from that, the US unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and subsequently imposing severe crippling sanctions have hurt the Iranian economy adversely. With no strong measure to back the 2015 Iran nuclear deal by the rest of the members, Iran is also sliding towards a point where it could renew enriching its uranium. Not to forget that India and Pakistan have come neck to neck threatening the other with nuclear weapons over Kashmir’s problem.

Perhaps, in this age, when the world is ruled by egoist, narcissist, nationalist and ultra-nationalist disarmament, a complete dismantling of nuclear weapons has been reduced to nothing.

The writer is a freelance columnist