The third nuclear age

The Hindu

9 hours ago

The world has entered a third nuclear age. Israel's bombing of Iran, supposedly to address the nuclear threat posed by the regime, contravenes diplomatic norms, tests international law to breaking point, and goes against the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which seeks to control proliferation through negotiations and treaty obligations. Yet no major power has criticised Israel's actions.
After the first nuclear age of the Cold War and its terrifying bipolar logic of mutually assured destruction between the U.S. and the USSR, followed by the relative optimism of the post-Cold War second nuclear age that assumed nukes could be pushed into the background until somebody figured out how to achieve total nuclear disarmament, we appear to have entered a third age where nuclear weapons and deterrence are back in focus.
Attitudes towards proliferation and deterrence began to harden with China's nuclear build up in the mid-2010s, which coincided with deteriorating relations between Russia and the West. Since then, Russia has threatened nuclear use over Ukraine, Europe is reconsidering how to deter Russia in the wake of waning American support for NATO, and some, including U.S. President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, perceive a nuclear element to the recent hostilities between India and Pakistan. However, it would be a mistake to think that the third age reprises the first: this one is messier and more unpredictable.
The first nuclear age
The first nuclear age was consumed by superpower rivalry, epitomised by massive American and Soviet nuclear arsenals on hair-trigger alert. The other three nuclear powers played supporting parts as the superpowers first furiously increased their arsenals and then sought to create a nuclear regime that could accommodate their rivalry and achieve stability at lower levels of nuclear possession. After negotiating the NPT, the USSR and the U.S. engaged in bilateral arms control treaties that required reductions in their stockpiles from a peak of almost 70,000 warheads between them. The last of these, the New START, which limits deployed warheads to 1,550 each, expires in February 2026 and there are no negotiations for a successor treaty or extension.
The second nuclear age
At the same time, Russia and the U.S. are modernising their arsenals. America's 30-year, $1.5-2 trillion upgrade started under President Barack Obama soon after he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 in part for his efforts 'to create a world free from nuclear weapons'. China (at 600 warheads) is believed to have the fastest growing arsenal. Even if the U.S. and Russia were willing to discuss arms control, China's nuclear ambitions are likely to overshadow the conversation.
These nuclear modernisation programmes began during the second nuclear age. A negotiated test ban and talk of a fissile ban treaty were attempts to freeze the status quo and prevent new nuclear entrants. Even India and Pakistan's nuclear tests did little to change the idea that nuclear use was beyond the pale. It was the age of lofty proclamations of Global Zero (though Mr. Obama was quick to caveat his 2009 speech and say it might not happen in his lifetime) — a concept being valiantly promoted by the signatories of the Nuclear Ban Treaty that was negotiated in 2017 without a single nuclear weapons state supporting it.
In hindsight, it was an age of cynicism. Despite hailing Global Zero, the overriding achievement was the extension in perpetuity of the NPT and with it, the status of the five nuclear weapons states. It made a mockery of the NPT's Article 6, which called on nuclear possessors to 'pursue negotiations in good faith' to achieving nuclear disarmament. Instead, extension of their status combined with counter-proliferation appeared to be making the world safe for their continued possession of nukes. This age normalised nuclear possession. We are now reaping the dividends of that, as possession appears to be yielding to nuclear use.
A messier age
The third nuclear age is messier because the renewed salience of nukes is superimposed on a global order in flux. China views its aggressive nuclear build up as providing a 'strategic counterbalance' to shape the global balance of power. The U.S.'s apparent retreat under Mr. Trump has prompted NATO's European allies to look to France and Britain to deter a resurgent Russia. Britain is reconsidering an airborne deterrent 25 years after scrapping it and has budgeted £15 billion for warhead development and modernisation in its 2025 Strategic Defence Review. France is modernising and reopening old bases; it may consider basing nuclear assets with its neighbours, at their request. After the consolidation of the 1980s and '90s, nuclear weapons are moving out once again. Last year, Vladimir Putin transferred tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus.
Overshadowing these developments is the real fear of nuclear use. During the Cold War, the risk was that the two adversaries could slide into a nuclear war through accident or miscalculation. Deterrence was the ultimate guarantor of the status quo. However, Mr. Putin's nuclear threats over Ukraine show that nuclear weapons are being used to change the status quo. He is believed to have contemplated some nuclear use in 2022.
After Hiroshima, nuclear deterrence has been based on nukes being the final resort. If thinking on deterrence shifts in this nuclear age at a time of global realignment and potential instability, then we are entering a period of self-inflicted nuclear insecurity.