(MENAFN- Daily Outlook Afghanistan) Until just a few yearsago, it looked as if the problem posed by nuclear weapons had been successfullymanaged, if not solved. American and Russian nuclear stockpiles had beenreduced substantially from their Cold War highs, and arms-control agreementswere in place that limited both intermediate- and long-range systems. But allof this now could come undone.
Progress over thelast generation was not limited to the United States and Russia. Libya waspersuaded to abandon its nuclear ambitions, Israel thwarted Iraqi and Syriannuclear development, and South Africa relinquished its small nuclear arsenal.Iran signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which constrainedits ability to acquire many of the essential prerequisites of nuclear weapons. Mostrecently, the UN Security Council imposed tough sanctions aimed at persuadingNorth Korea to give up its still modest and comparatively primitive nuclearweapons program, clearing the way for high-level talks between North Korean andUS officials. And, of course, no nuclear weapon has been used in combat forthree-quarters of a century, since the US dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan tohasten the end of World War II.
This past summer,however, the US withdrew from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treatyafter it concluded Russia had violated the INF's terms. The treaty limitinglonger-range US and Russian nuclear weapons will expire in 2021 unless it isextended, and it is not clear that it will be: both countries are committingsubstantial resources to modernize their existing arsenals.
Moreover, by exitingthe JCPOA the US has heightened the risks stemming from Iran. The accord,concluded in 2015, was imperfect. In particular, many of its most significantconstraints would last only 10-15 years, and the agreement did not limit Iran'sballistic-missile development. But it did place a ceiling on Iranian nuclearactivity and allowed for international inspections. By all accounts, Iran washonoring its provisions.
Now, however, Iranhas begun a slow but steady process of getting out from under many of theagreement's limits. It may be doing this to persuade the US and Europe to easeeconomic sanctions. It may also be calculating that these steps coulddramatically reduce the time it would need to produce nuclear weapons withoutbeing attacked. But it is at least as likely that Iran's actions will lead theUS, or more probably Israel, to undertake a preventive strike designed todestroy a significant part of its program.
Such a strike couldlead several other regional powers, including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt,to develop or acquire nuclear weapons of their own. Turkey, increasinglyestranged from many of its allies, has suggested that it may choose to developnuclear weapons regardless of what Iran does.
North Korea is farahead of Iran: it already has several dozen nuclear weapons and missiles, hastested missiles that can reach the US, and is developing submarine-launchednuclear weapons. The notion that North Korea will agree to give up its weaponsand 'denuclearize is fanciful. Its leader, Kim Jong-un, believes that onlynuclear weapons can ensure his regime's survival, a belief understandablystrengthened by the experience of Ukraine, which accepted security guaranteesin exchange for giving up the nuclear weapons it inherited from the SovietUnion, only to be invaded by Russia 25 years later.
One risk is thatNorth Korea will over the next few years come to possess a significant arsenalthat will pose a meaningful threat to the US. Another is that North Korea'sneighbors, including South Korea and Japan, will determine that they, too, neednuclear weapons given the North Korean threat and their diminished confidencein the reliability of the US and its guarantees to protect them with its nuclearforces.
The danger in bothregions is that a race to acquire nuclear weapons could trigger a preventivewar. Even if such a war were avoided, the presence of multiple nuclear arsenalswould increase the temptation for one or more countries to strike first in acrisis. 'Use them or lose them has the potential to become a recipe forinstability and conflict when capabilities are not sufficiently robust toabsorb an attack and still be able to mete out the sort of devastatingretaliation essential for effective deterrence. As if all this were not enough,India and Pakistan, two countries with a long history of bilateral conflict,are both nuclear powers. Nuclear deterrence cannot be assumed. It is all tooeasy to imagine a Pakistani-supported terrorist attack leading to Indianretaliation, which in turn could prompt Pakistan to threaten using nuclearweapons, because its conventional military forces cannot compete with those ofIndia. There is also the possibility that the command and control of weapons couldbreak down and one or more devices could find their way into the hands ofterrorists.
It is close to 60years since a young presidential candidate named John F. Kennedy predicted thatas many as 20 countries could achieve nuclear-weapons capability by the end of1964. Fortunately, Kennedy was proven wrong, and the number of countries withnuclear weapons is still nine. The 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty hasproven quite robust, in part because it is buttressed by efforts to prevent theexport of critical technologies, arms control, sanctions, and the strength ofalliances, which reduces the need for countries to become self-reliant.
But with nucleartechnology increasingly available, arms control unraveling amid renewed greatpower rivalry, weakened alliances as the US pulls back from the world, andfading memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we are entering a new and dangerousperiod. Nuclear competition or even use of nuclear weapons could again becomethe greatest threat to global stability. Less certain is whether today'sleaders are up to meeting this emerging challenge.
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