Armed to the teeth during the pandemic

The international community cannot become so preoccupied with the Covid-19 pandemic that enduring global challenges go overlooked — especially nuclear non-proliferation or arms control. Covid-19 already forced cancellation of this spring’s Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference and suspension of the Russian-US arms-control dialogue. A recent US State Department report on global arms adherence warns that North Korea continues nuclear-weapons development, the Iranian government has declined to resume nuclear talks with Washington, and China and Russia may have resumed low-level nuclearweapons testing.

Global arms control is at a crossroads. The New START Treaty, adopted in 2011, will expire in less than 10 months. Moscow and Washington remain divided on how to proceed on the treaty and beyond. Besides the pandemic, the US presidential election, Vladimir Putin’s proposed constitutional rewrites and other issues could impede the need for timely measures to reinvigorate great power arms control. The priority should be including more countries and strategic capabilities. If this is not possible, countries should at least sustain some limits on various nuclear-weapons systems, means of delivery and practices that could lead to nuclear crises.

Failing renewed global arms control, the international order could become characterised by an absence of formal legal limitations on nuclear force modernisation.

For now, Moscow, Beijing and Washington differ on many key arms-control issues. These include Russian and Chinese concerns about US conventional superiority; the US desire to reduce Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons; and mutual unease pertaining to each other’s artificial intelligence, cyber, space and other emerging capabilities. Nonetheless, the nuclear powers could commit to a grand compromise in which they accept that they can achieve additional security through asymmetrical advantages and equivalent capabilities.

For now, Moscow, Beijing and Washington differ on many key armscontrol issues, which includes Russian and Chinese concerns about US superiority.

Nuclear weapons experts can help the nuclear powers advance toward the more positive scenarios, such as by developing means to better distinguish between missiles armed with nuclear or conventional warheads. Nonetheless, the fundamental challenge for global leaders is not to drop the ball on these enduring concerns.