ABOUT POWER AND RIGHT

Will the war in Ukraine be a contributing factor to nuclear proliferation?

While it is tempting to think that Ukraine would have remained secure if only it had retained its Soviet-era nuclear warheads, that view is too simplistic. All countries would benefit more in the long term from a strong non-proliferation regime than from having their own arsenals

6470 views 0 comment(s)
Photo: Reuters
Photo: Reuters
Disclaimer: The translations are mostly done through AI translator and might not be 100% accurate.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine inherited part of its nuclear arsenal. However, in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine agreed to return these weapons to Russia in exchange for "assurances" from Russia, Great Britain and the US that they would respect its sovereignty and borders. In 2014, Russia brazenly broke this promise by annexing Crimea, and completely destroyed the Memorandum with its invasion of Ukraine on February 24. Many observers concluded that Ukraine had made a fatal mistake by agreeing to surrender its nuclear arsenal (once the third largest in the world). Are they right?

In the early 1960s, US President John F. Kennedy predicted that at least 25 nations would have nuclear weapons by the next decade. But in 1968, member states of the United Nations agreed to join the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which limited nuclear weapons to the five states that already had them (the US, the Soviet Union, Britain, France and China). Today, only nine countries have it - the five aforementioned signatories, plus Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea, but there are other "frontier states" (countries with the technological ability to quickly build nuclear weapons) that are considering the possibility.

Some analysts suggest that proliferation could be a boon because a world of nuclear-armed 'prickly piglets' would be more stable than a world of nuclear 'wolves' and unarmed 'rabbits'. In their opinion, Russia would not dare attack Ukraine armed with nuclear weapons. Moreover, they ask why some states should have the right to nuclear weapons and others should not.

Others advocate the elimination of all nuclear weapons, a goal enshrined in the 2017 UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which entered into force in 2021. It is currently signed by 86 states and 66 parties (although none of the nine nuclear-weapon states have ratified it signed).

Skeptics of this approach argue that while the abolition of nuclear weapons may be a worthwhile long-term goal, efforts to achieve this goal too quickly can lead to instability and increase the likelihood of conflict. In their view, the real ethical problem is not the existence of nuclear weapons, but the likelihood of their use. Perhaps it would have been better if mankind had not learned to control the power of the split atom in the 1930s; but this knowledge cannot be undone, so it is better to focus on reducing the risk of its use for military purposes.

Let's say you live in an area where devastating break-ins, robberies, and assaults happen all the time. One day, some of your neighbors decide to rig their homes with huge explosive devices and cables, as well as put up warning signs to scare away intruders. The problem is that if these devices are used, your home will also be damaged. At the same time, attempts to dismantle this system in the short term also carry significant risks.

How would you act? You can ask your neighbors to use the system only to protect against intruders, without threatening others. You can encourage them to install devices to reduce the risk of accidents and claim compensation for the risk they have exposed you to by extending their warning signs to your home. And you could convince them to take steps to dismantle the system sometime in the future, when a relatively safe remedy can be found.

If we make a crude comparison, these are the same conditions contained in the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) of 1968, which is why the Russian invasion of Ukraine is so devastating. Russia has not only violated its direct security guarantees from the Budapest Memorandum; she also hinted at nuclear escalation to prevent others from coming to Ukraine's aid. In doing so, it weakens the taboo, the ban, on treating nuclear weapons as conventional weapons of war, an agreement that Nobel Prize-winning economist Thomas Schelling has called the most important global norm since 1945.

But it would be a mistake to exaggerate the damage that the invasion of Ukraine did to the non-proliferation regime. First, those who think that the invasion will teach other countries a lesson that they would be safer if they had nuclear weapons are oversimplifying history. Nothing would have happened if Ukraine had kept its Soviet-era nuclear weapons.

After all, such weapons are not delivered "off the shelf", ready for use. The fissile material in Soviet long-range missiles stationed in Ukraine was supposed to be removed, processed and repurposed. This would not only require time and experience, but could also hasten Russia's intervention. When states approach the nuclear threshold, they fall into a "valley of vulnerability," which can reduce their security and increase overall instability. Even in cases where stable sustenance can be imagined in this or that region, it is very risky to try to get from here to there.

Some theorists argue that—just as nuclear weapons have fostered prudence among great powers by giving them a "crystal ball" with which to foresee the devastation that would accompany nuclear war—nuclear proliferation would similarly provide stability among smaller regional rivals. Nuclear 'prickly piglets' will act like 'rabbits', not 'wolves'.

But not all regions are equal in risk of escalation, and it cannot be assumed that all leaders will be wise and use their “crystal balls”. Regions differ in the number of civil wars and overthrown governments, civilian control of the military, communications security, and arms control protocols. If the new proliferators face a greater risk of using nuclear weapons - even unintentionally - they and their neighbors will become even more vulnerable in the "valley of vulnerability".

Finally, as nuclear weapons proliferate, the chances of their inadvertent or accidental use tend to increase, the management of potential nuclear crises becomes more complex, and the controls that could one day help reduce the role of nuclear weapons in world politics become more difficult. In short, the more widespread the supposedly defensive weapons, the greater the risks of demining the entire area. The real lesson of Russia's war in Ukraine is that we must strengthen the existing NPT and refrain from actions that undermine it.

The author is a professor at Harvard

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2022.

Bonus video:

(Opinions and views published in the "Columns" section are not necessarily the views of the "Vijesti" editorial office.)