The world faces an increase in nuclear proliferation

Thirty-one countries, from Brazil to Sweden, have flirted with nuclear weapons at one time or another. Seventeen have launched a formal weapons program. Only ten produced a bomb. Today, nine states possess nuclear weapons, no more than a quarter century ago. However, the long fight to stop the spread of the world’s deadliest weapons is about to get more difficult.

In the past 20 years, most countries with nuclear ambitions have been minor geopolitical enclaves, such as Libya and Syria. In the next decade, the threat is likely to include heavy economic and diplomatic burdens whose ambitions would be more difficult to contain. China’s growing regional dominance and North Korea’s growing nuclear arsenal haunt South Korea and Japan, two of Asia’s biggest powers. Iran’s belligerence and its nuclear program loom over countries like Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Proliferation is not a chain reaction, but it is contagious. Once the limitations begin to weaken, they can quickly fail.

Nuclear omens are bad. Arms control between the United States and Russia, which saw 38,000 warhead cuts in its arsenal, a 79% drop, in 1991-2010, has declined. On January 26, Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin agreed to extend the last agreed pact, the New start treaty, for five years. That’s welcome, but the prospects for a follow-up are slim. China, India, North Korea and Pakistan are expanding and modernizing their nuclear forces. There is poor progress towards global disarmament, the ultimate goal of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the cornerstone of the nuclear order. A new bomb ban treaty, signed by 86 countries and which came into effect on January 22, channels frustration among those who do not have nuclear weapons. Accomplish little else.

If nuclear weapons don’t go away and security threats worsen, some states will be tempted to find a bomb of their own. In past decades, the United States has kept nuclear hopefuls at bay, threatening to withdraw security guarantees from friends, such as Taiwan, and using sanctions and military force to deter enemies, such as Iraq. However, the acceptance of American power is weaker today. The stormy Donald Trump’s mandate has sown doubts about America’s desire to defend its allies and enforce the rules. They will stick, no matter how much Biden seeks to restore an orthodox foreign policy.

Consider the nuclear umbrella that the United States extends over Asian allies. It amounts to a promise that if North Korea or China attacked Seoul or Tokyo, the United States would retaliate against Pyongyang or Beijing. For decades, the United States was able to issue that threat with confidence that their own cities were out of range of North Korean missiles. Now they are not. An American attack on Pyongyang would put San Francisco in danger. That can make Biden reluctant to act, a calculation that could embolden Kim Jong Un to attack Seoul. Not surprisingly, particularly in times of crisis, most South Koreans say they would like to see a return of US tactical nuclear weapons withdrawn from their territory in 1991 or, failing that, an indigenous South Korean bomb.

In democracies like South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, nuclear ambitions are tempered by political reality. Middle East is different. The nuclear deal restricting Iran’s nuclear program is failing. Even if Biden revives it, many of its provisions expire in a decade. If Iran at any point appears to be contemplating going nuclear, Saudi Arabia will not want to be left behind. Muhammad bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, has few internal controls over his authority and ambitious plans for nuclear technology. Turkey could well follow.

If the nuclear order begins to crumble, it will be almost impossible to stop it. Hence the importance of acting today. The United States, China, Europe and Russia share an interest in stopping proliferation. Russia does not want a nuclear Iran any more than the United States. The prospect of a nuclear-armed Japan would be among China’s worst nightmares. The 2015 Iranian nuclear deal showed that rivals can provide a response to proliferation.

Nuclear states should start with the basics. The United States and Russia still have 90% of the world’s nuclear warheads, so any effort starts with them. Now that New start is being rolled out, they should start work on a successor that would include other weapons, such as hypersonic gliders and low-performance warheads, which Russia has in abundance. More radical ideas should also be discussed. U.S operates a triad of nuclear forces: missile depots on land, submarines at sea and bombers in the air. Withdrawing the ground missiles would demonstrate genuine progress towards disarmament, without eroding deterrence.

Arms control between the United States and Russia could persuade China that its existing arsenal could survive an attack, helping to avoid a destabilizing surge in its forces. Chinese restraint, in turn, would reassure India and Pakistan.

America’s most important role in defusing the tension over North Korea and Iran remains your value as an ally, and here Biden already promised to repair the ties. Even if a presidency is not enough to fully restore confidence, Biden should start by reasserting and strengthening America’s nuclear umbrella over Japan and South Korea. That includes the role of American troops on the ground, serving not only as a line of defense, but also as a guarantee to allies and a warning to enemies that the United States cannot stay out of a conflict.

Stopping proliferation also requires detecting it. It is understandable that intelligence agencies have focused on “axis of evil” states such as Iran. His gaze should be broadened to include early warning of changes in nuclear technology, public opinion and political intentions in places like South Korea or Turkey. The International Atomic Energy Agency, the world’s nuclear watchdog, does a commendable job of monitoring civilian nuclear sites and policing Iran’s program with the strongest inspection regime ever instituted. Nevertheless, the agency is overloaded and underfunded, and you need to keep up with technological change.

The world has a lot on its mind. Still, it cannot afford to downplay the dangers of nuclear proliferation. Today’s nuclear diplomacy may seem like laborious work, but it is nothing compared to the deadly instabilities that arise when regional nuclear-armed rivals battle each other. There is no time to lose.

© 2021 The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved. From The Economist, translated by F. Philippart de Foy under license. The original article in English can be found at www.economist.com

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