The nuclear arms race, Simon Tisdall writes, is back. The latest reminder of that grim reality occurred a week ago:
It was five days before officials confirmed a blast at the Nyonoksa range had killed several people, including nuclear scientists. No apologies were offered to Severodvinsk residents. There is still little reliable information. “Accidents, unfortunately, happen,” a Kremlin spokesman said.
According to western experts, the explosion was caused by the launch failure of a new nuclear-powered cruise missile, one of many advanced weapons being developed by Russia, the US and China in an accelerating global nuclear arms race.
Vladimir Putin unveiled the missile, known in Russia as the Storm Petrel and by Nato as Skyfall, in March last year, claiming its unlimited range and manoeuvrability would render it “invincible”. The Russian president’s boasts look less credible now.
Whatever the wrinkles, Russia is re-arming. And so is the United States:
The renewed nuclear arms race is a product of Trump’s America First outlook and that of comparable ultra-nationalist and insecure regimes elsewhere. Trump’s emphasis on defending the “homeland” is leading inexorably to the militarisation of US society, whether at the Mexican border, on inner-city streets or in its approach to international security.
“We have far more money than anybody else by far,” Trump said last October. “We’ll build up until [Russia and China] come to their senses.” Outspending the opposition was a tactic employed by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. And Trump is putting taxpayers’ money where his mouth is. Overall, annual US military spending is soaring, from $716bn this year to a proposed $750bn next year.
Add to that the threat from China, and the clouds get very dark:
With a much smaller arsenal than the US and Russia, China, too, is “aggressively developing its next generation of nuclear weapons”, according to a major Chinese weapons research institute. Nor, given Moscow’s and Washington’s behaviour, has it an incentive to stop, despite Trump’s vague proposal for a trilateral disarmament “grand bargain”.
Like the US, China – while historically pledged to “no first use” – wants potential enemies to believe it may actually use tactical nukes. As Dr Strangelove would doubtless appreciate, this, perversely, increases the chances that it will.
Meanwhile, Trump lectures Iran on producing nuclear weapons. We may yet see the day when another Slim Pickens rides the bomb down to oblivion.
Image: Pinterest
2 comments:
I wish "war studies" wasn't such a niche, esoteric field. We have skewed notions of how wars happen, motivations or in some cases the lack of any casus belli.
Some today believe that the closely integrated "global economy" makes major war unthinkable. Those people have no grasp of how closely integrated the economies of the major parties to WWI were right up to the outbreak of hostility. Russia and Germany were each other's largest trading partners.
None of those nations wanted war. They backed into it. WWI was a creature of inadvertence as much as anything else. Many of the top academics still contend that the greatest risk we face today is another colossal blunder. That's bad enough but when you factor in a profoundly ignorant, narcissistic president, a guy who doesn't read, that raises the risks massively. And there's no Mattis around to tame him. His influence is gone, replaced by the likes of Pompeo and Bolton. What could possibly go wrong?
Precisely, Mound. Barbara Tuchman's "The Guns of August" is still a timely read. History may not repeat itself. But it rhymes. And, if you're listening, you can hear the rhymes everywhere.
Post a Comment