The escalating nuclear arms race between the US and China, coupled with the fragility of international nuclear treaties, presents a serious existential threat to humanity
By Shailendra Kumar
- Forget global trade and FDI; the US-China military rivalry has now accelerated into a dizzyingly fast nuclear race
- President Putin threatens to amend Russia’s nuclear doctrine and use nuclear weapons if NATO or America join the Ukraine War
- North Korea aims to develop long-range ballistic missiles capable of targeting Seoul, Tokyo, and American cities like San Francisco
- China is striving to achieve nuclear triad capability by adding more nuclear submarines and an airborne element to its land-based launch capabilities
PLAYING with a fireball! Passion for ghoulish infernos – certainly more soul-chilling than the ones referred to in Dante’s Divine Comedy! Many global political leaders are fast turning into pyromaniacs! And our planet is being reduced to a combustible substance. This is one of the horrific consequences of the rapidly splintering geopolitical order. Forget about global trade and FDI, the growing canyon between the two powerful military powers, the US and China, has now swerved towards a dizzyingly accelerated nuclear race. Though the tenuous threads of trade between them may survive in size-zero format for some more years, the collapse of the international nuclear order would pose a serious existential threat to the human race! Goosebumps-moments are on the cards!
Though history is replete with parables of such threats a la Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, but one distinguishable difference is – unlike in the past when there were only two fire-spitting pugilists, we have many today. What makes a seismic difference between the past and the present is the advancement in nuclear technology platforms. With AI flying into our world, it lends deadly precision and helps in ballooning the geographical impact of nuclear warheads! More scaringly, the controlling superpower has lost its hegemonic appetite and looks vulnerable and weakened by bizarro wokism and internal culture wars on its domestic turf.
THE RUSSIAN FACTOR
Let’s avoid flirting with qualms of any sort and admit that our geopolitical world now formally stands split into two dangerous blocs in terms of nuke-index. What emerged as a trade war has now pejoratively deteriorated into a nuclear arms race. After the Second World War, owing to assiduously designed arms control and nuclear proliferation treaties and technical mechanisms to curb the number of warheads, the threats of nuclear strikes had become vanishingly rare. What used to be a taboo, even talking about nukes, has almost become a loose ‘cannon’ for a drawing room jaw-jaw.
Though enriching one’s stockpiles of nuclear weapons may have been a secret operation for some countries, none used to talk about them so explicitly – and without a shade of remorse! Of late, known for loose tongue, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been, without mincing words, threatening to amend Russia’s nuclear doctrine and use nuclear weapons if NATO or America gets embroiled in the ongoing Ukraine War.
As per the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute report, there are over 12000 nuclear warheads around the world. About 9600 are in silos and 2100 are kept in ‘high operational alert’ on ballistic missiles. Though America and Russia account for about 88% of such stockpiles, China has, of late, been seen putting its warheads on operational high alert
Russia has even gone too far by undertaking tactical drills of nuclear warheads on the Ukrainian border. In response to Russia’s lengthening silhouette of incendiary rhetoric and also threat to Europe, when NATO’s Secretary General talked about the deployment of more nukes on standby, the Kremlin not only dubbed it as an escalation of tensions but also issued a sinister warning – “The US and its European allies are pushing the world to the brink of nuclear confrontation by giving Ukraine billions of dollars worth of weapons, some of which are being used against Russian territory”.
A GLOBAL DIVIDE
Statistics indicate that as many as 31 countries, including Sweden and Brazil, flirted with nukes at one time or another and 17 of them also attempted a formal weapons programme but only 10 succeeded in engineering deliverable missiles. At present, nine countries possess nuclear warheads, including the rebellious child North Korea, which was sanctioned by the UNSC on many occasions.
North Korea has been struggling to develop long-range cruise and ballistic missiles and it keeps flight-testing them periodically. Putin recently visited North Korea’s capital Pyongyang and signed a defence treaty. Though the content of this treaty is not known as yet, my insight is that Russia is most probably committed to supplying some of the critical technical know-how to develop nuclear weapons, including bombs, and delivery toolkits. Immensely supported by China, of course furtively, in the past, North Korea has been desperate to develop long-range ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. North Korea has set its eyeballs not only on Seoul and Tokyo but also on some of the American megapolis like San Francisco.
CHINA’S MULTI-PRONGED STRATEGY
From the days of the Ukrainian invasion, China has been forging closer alliances with Russia, North Korea and Iran to build a stronger geopolitical bloc. To counter and destabilise the United States, China has been working on a multi-pronged strategy. One of them is to forge closer trade relations with all those who have been sanctioned by the West. The second is to identify and shield all those countries which see nukes as effective deterrence even if their economic status does not support such expensive luxury.
North Korea’s growing belligerence has prodded Japan and South Korea to think hard about acquiring nuclear weapons. Tokyo has not only spiked its budget but is also bracing up to go nuclear if Donald Trump comes to power and backslides on the American pledge to stand by Japan. South Korea is another angst-ridden worried state. Its President did some loud thinking publicly and said that it has the necessary scientific wherewithal to go nuclear in no time.
Iran is another problem child which is only a few inches away from realising its goal of enriching weapon-grade uranium and increasing the number of working centrifuges. With China and Russia mentoring it, Iran has been quite evasive about renewing the Trump-era agreement with the West. Once Iran officially goes nuclear, Saudi Arabia and Turkey are sitting on the fence to acquire nuclear warheads. And if not the West, China would support them to enhance its radar of geopolitical heft. Similarly, China has been helping Pakistan which has been trying to upgrade its nuclear weapons. As per various reports, Pakistan today possesses 165 nuclear warheads as against 160 of India.
North Korea’s growing belligerence has prodded Japan and South Korea to think hard about acquiring nuclear weapons. Tokyo has not only spiked its budget but is also bracing up to go nuclear if Donald Trump comes to power and backslides on the American pledge to stand by Japan
China tactfully uses Pakistan as its geopolitical shoulder to attack India which has, going by its fathomable posturing, sided with the West a la Quad and strategic partnership with the US. China’s other goal is to annex Taiwan by resorting to conventional warfare but is keen to keep the American military at arm’s length by demonstrating its scary nuclear posturing. All global efforts to sensitise China to respect the independent identity of Taipei have proven
to be caviar to the general!
MODERNIZATION OF CHINA’S NUCLEAR ARSENAL
To this end, China has been quietly piling up and fortifying its nuclear arsenal. As per the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) report, there are over 12000 nuclear warheads around the world. About 9600 are in silos and 2100 are kept in ‘high operational alert’ on ballistic missiles. Though America and Russia account for about 88% of such stockpiles, but, China has, of late, been seen putting its warheads on operational high alert. A case of canary in the coal mine! Why does a country go for an operational alert of one’s good part of the nuclear arsenal? Certainly not for posturing alone! If creating perception alone is the goal, its stockpiles have proven powerful enough to create the much-needed deterrence. So, why to put a part of one’s arsenal on ‘high operation alert’ which means scaffolding the warheads not only on ballistic and cruise missiles but also in bombers and submarines? In most recent cases, China has been the aggressor a la the recent episode of clashes with the Philippines, shoulder-rubbing with the US Destroyers in the South-China Sea and also India on its land borders.
No country is today seen as the one preparing to annex any territory from China. So, what is China’s ultimate goal? Mere posturing is a poor fig leaf. No more red herring is working for it! The real answer is Taiwan. Its defence forces have been planning and strategizing for years besides undertaking multiple naval drills closer to Taiwanese waters. Xi Jinping is on steroids to realise his lifetime dream of integrating Taiwan with the mainland like Hong Kong. The only bump he faces is the closer diplomatic ties between Taipei and Washington. Jinping is terribly upset and perturbed by the American posturing which is thus far unmistakable and clear-eyed – Washington will defend Taiwan under all circumstances!
However, Xi Jinping knows it well that with a change in the hot seat in the White House, a MAGA-obsessed new incumbent may reverse all such foreign policies of the Biden Administration.
So, SIPRI notes that Beijing has been furiously modernising and expanding its nuclear stockpiles in recent years. It has been erecting silos for nuclear warheads, away from its coastal cities. In the past 12 months, China has upped its arsenal from 410 warheads to 500 and eyes 1000 by 2030.
IMPLICATIONS FOR GLOBAL STABILITY
Such expansion by China starkly stands out when the total number of nuclear weapons has been declining, globally, because of the phasing out of Cold War-era weapons. Secondly, for the first time, China has been seen putting its warheads in a state of high operational alert. Such behaviour is inextricably linked to war preparations and using them as a mighty deterrence. Traditionally, China has been keeping 200 warheads in its arsenal but, post-Covid, it has been accelerating its production.
More critically, China has been endeavouring to achieve nuclear triad capability – more nuclear submarines and injecting an airborne element besides its land-based launch capabilities. Even if the Chinese stockpiles peak at 1000 by 2030, it would be substantially less than the US arsenal of 5000 warheads, including 1800 in a ready-to-launch state, and 5600 in Russia. So, most experts believe that China is merely racing to hit the parity threshold with America. Whatever could be the motive but the tricky question is – If Russia and China together launch a future war, is America capable of dealing with two formidable fronts?
Even if one adds the stockpiles of 500 warheads of the UK and France, it would be a serious gauntlet for the ill-prepared US, which has also begun pumping in oodles of resources in strategic nuclear warheads. Although it is equally true that nuclear warheads are only political instruments and not ‘usable in war’, but, such a maxim sounds hooey if one goes by the frequent use of the expression and, more worryingly, the presence of thousands of ultra-low-yield nuclear weapons which are not regulated by any global treaty and a nuclear state may not think twice to use them even before do-or-die situations.
Iran is another problem child which is only a few inches away from realising its goal of enriching weapon-grade uranium and increasing the number of working centrifuges. Once Iran officially goes nuclear, Saudi Arabia and Turkey are sitting on the fence to acquire nuclear warheads
To impress upon China not to trigger a nuclear armament race, the US last week resumed a dialogue with Beijing but it is a Track-II meeting and the outcome is that China is not keen on Track-I Summit i.e. government to government talks. Let’s also not forget that despite a ban on the use of chemical weapons, the Russian weapons were used by Syria and the military custodians of the planet preferred to play possum over this gory episode! The thin blue line has completely receded. So far as India goes, it needs to re-allocate its scant resources for improving and modernising its nuclear arsenal, even if it is only for military posturing or demonstrating to Jinping’s soaring panjandrum but a threat from China is more real than the one for Taiwan. And when the assault would be on India’s territorial sovereignty, we cannot expect the US, Japan and Australia to fight our war. If I go by my strong premonitions, bad omens are piling up fast and are clearly hinting at the possible conflagration of the Ukrainian War engulfing a large part of Europe.
And, I am equally cocksure that China would exploit such a radioactive period of global chaos to invade Taiwan, which may drag the planet towards the soul-freezing Third World War! Hoping against my depleting optimism, I wish that the US acts more responsibly to douse any fire which may pop up in the South China Sea and even the Korean Peninsula in the coming years and save the world from being caught in a ‘heat dome’! Amen!
