Last Thursday, the world lost its last agreement on a regulatory framework for containing global nuclear proliferation.
US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev signed the New START agreement in 2010, agreeing to restrictions on their respective strategic nuclear arsenals and reinforcing international security.
Was the state of the world in need of even more chaos and seasoned with nuclear threats?
New START coming to end necessarily raises fears for humanity. It heightens doubts and fears for survival, especially in light of the recent threats to use nuclear weapons - whether the traditional strategic nuclear bombs or the tactical versions, both have death on their wings.
With the treaty expiring, nuclear threats approach the danger zone, and the Doomsday Clock approaches the ominous threshold of 85 seconds to midnight.
On the global nuclear landscape, we find that Russia has expanded its intermediate arsenal, such as its Oreshnik ballistic missile, which it has used against Ukraine. Meanwhile, China is diligently pressing ahead to double its nuclear arsenal, aiming to reach around 1,000 nuclear warheads by about 2030.
And what about the United States? One could go on and on: from President Donald Trump’s vision of resuming nuclear tests to the allocation of trillions of dollars to maintain the United States’ aging nuclear arsenal, some of whose weapons are approaching 50 years of age, and the development of new nuclear systems, some of which have been made public, such as the Sentinel nuclear missile and the Columbia-class nuclear submarine. And there are, without a doubt, many programs under wraps - American enigmas that are difficult to decipher.
Last September, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered the United States a one-year extension in a good will gesture that came with the caveat of banning inspections, which undermined the credibility of the proposal in Washington.
Trump gave the United States’ response in an interview with The New York Times, saying: “If it expires, it expires. We’ll make a better agreement.” Although his statements are normally brimming superlatives, many US officials expressed displeasure at their administration’s readiness to abandon the agreement simply because it would include China.
For their part, the Chinese said they hoped Washington would agree to Moscow’s proposal. In truth, however, they have little faith in nuclear treaties, especially since they are watching the tsar in the Kremlin continue to impose his terms in negotiations over Ukraine, thanks to his hellish ballistic missiles tipped with the most lethal nuclear warheads. In contrast, after voluntarily relinquishing its nuclear arsenal in 1994 in exchange for a pocket change, Ukraine seems powerless in the face of nuclear threats.
Will the world slip into nuclear chaos with proliferation beyond nuclear powers known since the Cold War?
All signs point in this direction. Tsar Putin has called for including France and Britain in any subsequent nuclear treaty, on the grounds that Paris and London are capable of launching nuclear missiles from submarines or deploying nuclear weapons from fighter aircraft, even if they do not possess intercontinental ballistic nuclear missiles.
The Europeans, for their part, will not stand idly by. For the first time in decades, it is becoming clear that countries of the Old Continent are planning to join a new arms race and seeking to build or enhance their nuclear capabilities. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz made this extension clear the week before last, when he noted that the time had come for allies to discuss establishing a shared European nuclear umbrella.
There is little reason to doubt that humanity appears to be sliding toward a new nuclear arms race that deepens uncertainty. Observers warn that the treaty’s expiration, and no alternative seems to be on the horizon. That is, we could well enter a new phase of nuclear tension and a new arms race following the collapse of the last remaining mechanism of verification and trust between Moscow and Washington.
The most terrifying question remains: what are the consequences of a new revolution in nuclear weapons in an age of quantum computing, microchips, and artificial intelligence - a terrifying tectonic triangle that had not been part of the calculus during the Cold War?
In sum: without shared values that can lead to decisions that reinforce the common good, humanity seems to be slowly but steadily marching to an inferno.
