Can we stop nuclear proliferation?
No. Ukraine and North Korea prove why.
A long-term goal of the UN and much of the world has been to roll-back or stop nuclear proliferation. It would be an extra safeguard to world safety. Will it happen?
No. And it has become decidedly less possible in the past few years.
What Type of Countries Want Nuclear Weapons?
We will put off, for now, the details about the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council – China, France, Russia, United Kingdom and United States.
With going too much going into to details, reasoning fall into two main buckets.
Countries hoping to deter their enemies.
Israel and North Korea fall into this category. And it has worked as deterrence. NO political state actor has seriously threatened or invaded either Israel or North Korea since they acquired nuclear weapons. The same cannot be said of declared enemies of the United States like Iraq of Libya, both of whom attempted to acquire nuclear weapons, but failed. And both countries have suffered attacks and conquests with the United States or its allies.
The United States and its allies fear “rouge” states like Iran or Syria getting nuclear weapons. The perceived threat is greater than the cost of deterrence. And the continued grudging acceptance of North Korea derives, at least in part, to their nuclear arsenal has kept them relatively safe.
Countries that fear military adversaries
The most obvious example of this are the countries of India and Pakistan. For decades military skirmishes characterized the Indian – Pakistani border. Military technical development escalated repeatedly and both powers sought to keep pace with the other. The end state resulting in both countries testing and then building a stockpile of nuclear weapons. Oddly, this occasionally hot war has since turned into a kind of cold piece between the two advisories since the advent of nuclear weapons.
This situation, a more peaceful outcome between the two has been another “reason” that countries cite to rationalize their pursuit of weapons. And there seems to be some truth in that line of thinking. The world’s focus and threat from these two countries has subsided substantially since they acquired weapons. If you remember the perceived threat when they first tested these weapons, fear of war plagued the world. I managed a team of workers in India at this time. I took trips to India and Southeast Asia for work and had to accept warnings from my company and the United States on travel to the region. It was both scary and normal somehow.
The Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty
Nearly all countries suspended nuclear weapons’ programs starting in 1970. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons is based on a central bargain (Wikipedia has a great entry on this):
the NPT non-nuclear-weapon states agree never to acquire nuclear weapons and the NPT nuclear-weapon states in exchange agree to share the benefits of peaceful nuclear technology and to pursue nuclear disarmament aimed at the ultimate elimination of their nuclear arsenals.
So nuclear power details would be shared with those countries that signed the treaty, and they would stop building the infrastructure for and the construction of nuclear weapons
The Moral of Giving Up Nuclear Weapons - Don’t
Four countries have given up nuclear weapons. Three of them, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan (in green below) inherited them from the breakup of the Soviet Union. In fact, Ukraine had the third largest arsenal in the world, that had been staged in Ukraine from the Soviet Union. In 1994, Ukraine agreed to give them back to Russia as the successor state of the Soviet Union. In return they received a guarantee to not be menaced or attack by other countries, and this was promised by the United Kingdom, the United States and Russia.
If you look at the map of countries above, this would be equivalent of the United States breaking up and Belgium, Turkey, Italy and Germany keeping the US missiles based in their countries.
But the attack and takeover of Ukraine’s Crimea breached this treaty and guarantee. And it was greeted with zero repercussions from the UK and the USA, despite Russia’s aggression and attack. Russia took the response as proof that the two other powers would not move against Russia in dealing with Ukraine. With disastrous results since.
The moral of the story is to never give up your weapons. Think about the United States, would our country give up our weapons if France, China and Russia promised not to attack us? That was a rhetorical question.
Note that one other country that gave up nuclear weapons - South Africa. These weapons were created with no threats accept from the internal Black African citizens. South Africa destroyed them before handing over power in free elections.
Alliances Prevent Proliferation
Many countries are in alliances that promise nuclear support against another nuclear power. Japan, South Korea and the implied inclusion of Taiwan are the examples of this. And should this equilibrium change, many countries could quickly construct weapons.
The New and Terrifying Threat of Nuclear Weapons
A key in the assumption about nuclear weapons is that they would never really be used since both sides of a nuclear war would suffer unimaginable consequences. It is called the threat of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). And, if even one side used weapons against its adversary, the resulting destruction and radioactive fallout would affect their attacking country as well. So nukes would never be used. Or so the thinking went.
But Russia has changed this assumption in Ukraine. Russia has repeatedly threatened Ukraine to use weapons if Ukraine responds by attacking inside Russia. Or if NATO officially enters the conflict with military force.
Rewarding these threats, by abandoning Ukraine to the whims of Russia, would simply magnify the threat of use worldwide. China could threaten Taiwan. North Korea could threaten South Korea and Japan.
The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons would become an empty promise. And now, many countries are equipped to produce weapons as nuclear power has spread around the world.
What the Future Holds
(Again, only my opinion) We will not see a reduction of nuclear powers in my lifetime. We may even see battlefield use of nuclear weapons designed for limited conflicts. The United States government has prepared very little for what this would mean in real life situations like Ukraine. And most other powers ignore this possibility as well.
Hiding our heads in the sand will not be enough - see pandemic response.