Nuclear restraint for a new world

The albatross of controlling the energy contained within an atom – capable of annihilating human civilisation in mere moments – was seared in history when J. Robert Oppenheimer said, “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” In 1945, the detonation at Alamogordo marked the beginning of the nuclear age, a new epoch in which humanity crossed the threshold of both technological possibility and unprecedented responsibility.

The terror unleashed by Fat Man and Little Boy, which claimed around 200,000 lives and left generations scarred by radiation, made it clear that weapons of mass destruction could not be left unchecked. In 1968, seeking to avert a nuclear Armageddon, the international community came up with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which formally acknowledged five nuclear-weapon states while committing all others to refrain from developing such arsenals.

Surprisingly, the world has so far maintained a degree of nuclear stability. While nuclear technology has reached numerous countries, only a few have chosen to weaponise it.  John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, predicted in the 1960s that there would be around 25 countries with nuclear weapons by the 1970s. Yet today, there are only nine of them – largely because of concerted global action to curb proliferation.

Almost six decades have passed, and the world has benefitted from an effective non-proliferation regime – one with an established set of rules, institutions, and norms that have, to a large extent, discouraged nuclear armament. Yet, in an era of rapid geopolitical shifts, where Fiona Hill, the policy analyst and adviser to the UK government on its imminent strategic review, argues that “the third world war has already started”, will this global non-proliferation framework survive, or will we witness greater proliferation instead?

Following World War II, Japan and Germany, along with many NATO and East Asian allies, relinquished their pursuit of nuclear weapons under the protection of America’s nuclear umbrella. This extended deterrence was deemed sufficient for decades. However, the increasing unpredictability during Donald Trump’s second presidency has shaken confidence in US commitments. As a result, analysts now warn that several allies, equipped with the requisite technology and capital, could potentially develop nuclear weapons within a relatively short time frame, and hence consider them as de facto nuclear states, though significant legal, technical, and political barriers remain.

The memories of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum remain fresh in their minds, where Ukraine received only non-binding political assurances from the US, the UK, and Russia, and surrendered a massive Soviet-era nuclear arsenal. Those assurances, however, failed to prevent the invasion, triggering a re-evaluation of nuclear disarmament decisions. Today, countries such as Japan, South Korea, Germany, and Poland are reassessing their strategic options, in part out of fear that relying on political guarantees could leave them vulnerable.

Flawed but indispensable

According to some analysts, nuclear proliferation could paradoxically benefit global politics. Just as nuclear weapons sustained a fragile prudence between the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, similar arsenals today could, in theory, help stabilise regional power balances. But this approach of “more nuclear weapons equals more stability” depends on crucial conditions, like having leaders who are patient, risk-averse, and uninterested in expansionist ambitions. Unfortunately, the current international climate is marked by territorial disputes, revisionist agendas, and unpredictable leadership, making such stability far less likely than in the bipolar era.

The war in Ukraine, the conflict in Gaza, escalating tensions in the Middle East, and persistent hostility between India and Pakistan all point to the fact that the post-Cold War order is fraying, with geopolitical rivalries multiplying rapidly. These developments are testing the resilience of treaties such as the NPT and arms-control agreements originally crafted for a bipolar US-Soviet rivalry. Such frameworks are ill-suited to the realities of a multipolar world marked by shifting alliances, emerging nuclear-capable states, and the blurring of conventional and unconventional warfare.

Yet, even with their flaws, these treaties remain indispensable pillars of global stability. The acquisition of nuclear weapons doesn’t always elevate a state’s political stature, and decades of non-proliferation efforts have shown that the spread of nuclear technology remains a persistent challenge. These realities highlight the urgency of strengthening, rather than abandoning, the non-proliferation regime, modernising it to meet the threats of the 21st century. In an international system defined by anarchy, as realists argue, adherence to such treaties is not optional but essential because once their foundations begin to crumble, restoring trust and strategic stability could become exceedingly arduous.

(The writer is a research
student affiliated with the
Department of Political Science at St Stephen’s College, Delhi)