In the final year of the U.S.S.R.’s existence, Mikhail Gorbachev pronounced that “The risk of a global nuclear war has practically disappeared,” writes Robin Wright of The New Yorker. This statement was delivered in the speech Gorbachev made accepting the Nobel Peace Prize. The Prize was apportioned, according to a press release by the Nobel committee, for Gorbachev’s “Leading role in the peace process which today characterizes important parts of the international community.” Gorbachev was recognized for bringing to a close the final lingering stages of the Cold War and instituting negotiations and other civil relations between East and West.
The global community imagined the end of the Cold War as a new era for geopolitical stability, establishing precedents for diplomacy and writing them into international law. “Historians imagined that the end of the Cold War would lead to the demise of the nuclear age amid new diplomacy and arms-control treaties,” Wright continues.
Now, with the conflict in Ukraine reaching a pitch, nuclear possibility once again looms in the global consciousness. A novel nuclear threat also tests the durability of long-standing wartime accords. “Given the potential desperation of President Putin and the Russian leadership, given the setbacks that they’ve faced so far militarily, none of us can take lightly the threat posed by a potential resort to tactical nuclear weapons or low-yield nuclear weapons,” William Burns, the C.I.A. director and a former ambassador to Russia, warned.
The reality of a nuclearized Russia has implications that extend beyond Ukraine. This war, Wright opines, “has imperiled a long-standing premise of deterrence,” where having a bomb is insurance against being bombed. This parallels a paradoxical trend in security policy, which proposes that “To escalate to de-escalate,” Richard Burt, a negotiator on a pact outlining the limits of nuclear deployment, described to The New Yorker. At the Cold War’s end, this principle was borne out by the US, which boasted a stronger nuclear arsenal than the Soviet Union; now, capacities are reversed, and Russia exceeds the US in nuclear stores—“And has more options to deliver them,” writes Wright.
Putin’s war poses a threat to treaties that have existed since the end of the Cold War, outlining rules of engagement and establishing limits on deployments of conventional and nuclear force. The war, Wright writes, “Undermines the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the cornerstone of international arms control since 1968.” This treaty represents a multilateral agreement for global nuclear non-proliferation, a pact upon which Russia has loudly defected.
The repercussions of this defection are large. Not only is Russia empowered by its nuclear stores despite pledges to de-arm, but Russia compromises the mutual commitments of the signatory nations to renounce nuclear engagements. “The agreement explicitly acknowledges that preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons cannot be achieved by individual states but requires the dedication and collaboration of the global community,” offers analysis by Foreign Policy. Now, this compact is breaking up.
Powerful member states like France and the United States are defecting on security guarantees to nations that, Ukraine among them, renounced their nuclear armaments. Russia’s aggressions have severely compromised the faith of the international community in treaties—even those that are ratified, sanctioned and supported by the world’s most powerful governments. In the wake of violated global trust and violently rented cities, new treaties and covenants are required, with international relationships strengthened by trade, mutual aid, and cultural exchange, to bolster global security systems. Pacts made at the end of the last world war, and the Cold War are outmoded and ineffective and offer policy packages that do not map on to evolving international relationships. Now, an update of global security architectures is desperately needed to restore trust and ensure diplomatic stability.
