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 Fomenting a Trackless Nuclear Arms Race

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(Or The Dying Throes of American Exceptionalism)

By

Vice Admiral (retd) Vijay Shankar

Insanity in individuals is something rare – but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Madness of an Epoch

The fragile set of agreements and understandings that falteringly oversaw the stewardship, purpose, utility and proliferation of nuclear weapons which evolved during the Cold War, are today being recklessly breached. Notwithstanding that these very protocols came about as a direct consequence of the many nuclear catastrophic near-misses, false alarms and fortuitous circumstances – instances so unsettling that even a deranged nuclear theology could not dismiss them.

Nuclear policy maker’s world-wide are today in a tizzy on account of the inability to come to grips with the US President’s 30 October 2025 statement of having ordered his ‘Department of War’ to commence immediate resumption of testing nuclear weapons ‘on an equal basis’. This has put strategic planners in a quandary; after all, when has America since the Cold War, ever considered their strategic posture or policies predicated on ‘equivalence’? Should nations hasten to open the doors to a nuclear arms race through explosive testing, and then risk being accused of Tilting at Windmills or, are they at an inflection point when Cold War nuclear theology gives way to a far more ominous, volatile and uncertain nuclear destiny that could leave them forever lagging in a trackless nuclear arms race?  

Are we then witness to the disintegration of an ephemeral unipolar world and the dying throes of American exceptionalism?

The Nobel Laureate Assembly Declaration for the Prevention of Nuclear War of July 2025, is  significant for drawing the worlds focus on the unprecedented risk of nuclear conflagration that may be sparked of by the resumption of explosive nuclear testing, which in turn may lead to the abrogation of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, both of which have thus far have been the cornerstones of  the international nuclear arms control architecture. The Nobel Laureate Assembly requested “…every nation to publicly recommit to all nonproliferation and disarmament objectives and obligations in the treaty and reject and condemn nuclear proliferation by any state…” and for that matter asserted, “…we call on all states to reiterate their commitment to a moratorium on nuclear explosive testing…”. Clearly the Nobel laureates saw any unilateral declaration would signal the start of a nuclear arms race afresh.      

What was the Trump Declaration?

The President of America on the eve of his summit with President Xi Jinping of China at Busan, South Korea stated, on his social media site Truth Social “…because of other countries nuclear testing programmes, I have instructed the Department of War, to start testing on an equal basis”. Two anxious questions arise in the absence of explication or of any annotation; was it implied that the US was to recommence explosive testing? And what was the need? Or indeed, was it more symptomatic of a nuclear age not only troubled with strategic uncertainty, but also by a disintegrating nuclear theology and control norms; leaving perils of unintended nuclear conflagration on a razor’s edge?

No nuclear weapon armed state has conducted nuclear explosive testing in over a quarter-of-a-century barring North Korea, and even they declared a self-imposed moratorium in 2017. In a curious follow up statement, President Trump alleged that countries including Russia, China, Pakistan and North Korea have conducted underground nuclear explosive tests unknown to the public. All four countries were quick to deny the allegation.

Indeed, Russia on, 21 October, 2025, test flew a ‘nuclear powered’ cruise missile the “Burevestnik” and on 28 October, test launched an autonomous ‘nuclear powered’ torpedo the “Poseidon”; the former, intelligence indicates, has been under trial since 2019, while the latter since 2016 ; these therefore are neither new nor can the tests be classified as explosive nuclear testing. As far as the other three countries are concerned there is no evidence to support the allegation that they have conducted explosive nuclear test since the moratoriums announced by them. It is equally well known that nuclear armed nations periodically conduct sub-critical or inert testing of their stockpile in order to modernise or service their arsenal along with delivery systems.  As a matter of fact, the USA in August 2025 conducted an inert air launched nuclear weapon system from their advanced F-35 fighter aircraft. However what remains unanswered is the assertion by the President of the USA, of ‘secret underground explosive testing’.   

Explosive Nuclear Tests

To come to grips with the magnitude of global explosive nuclear testing since the first atomic bomb test on the morning of July 16, 1945, the world must note that nuclear-armed states have conducted 2,056 explosive nuclear tests. The reported individual tally of tests is as follows: United States with a current stockpile of over 5,225 war heads led the way with 1,030 explosive nuclear tests; second is the former Soviet Union with a stockpile of 5,580 warheads conducted 715 tests, France with an arsenal of 290 warheads has carried out 210 tests, Britain with an arsenal of 225 warheads conducted 45 tests while China, North Korea, India, Pakistan and Israel with an estimated stockpile of 500-50-180-170 and 90 warheads respectively, carried out 45-6-3-2 tests (data for Israel is not known). Globally, nuclear tests culminated in a cumulative yield of over 500 megatons, which is equivalent to 500 million tons of TNT.  

Studies indicate increased rates of life threatening cancer have been associated with nuclear testing along with other fatal ailments linked to radionuclides. While the land remains radioactive for centuries after the test making it noxious for human habitation. That, the impact of testing on the human anatomy is devastating and has immediate and long-term effects caused by radiation and radioactive fallout is well known. However, our immediate concern is with the strategic impact of resumption of explosive nuclear testing.      

Strategic Significance of Resumption of Explosive Nuclear Testing

A resumption of explosive nuclear testing (RENT) would not just put in disarray the New Strategic Arms Restriction Treaty (START), which is the only current and existing arms control agreement between the USA and Russia that puts a cap on the number of deployed nuclear warheads and places verifiable limits on all arrayed intercontinental-range nuclear weapons; but would also, potentially, pull down the whole edifice of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The demolition of the most widely adhered to treaty in this field would in consequence pave the way for other nations to start or resume nuclear testing, nullifying the urgency of the nuclear taboo and increase the risk of nuclear carnage.  A crisis of credibility would be fuelled among non-nuclear states and amidst members of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The collapse of the NPT and the termination of the new SALT agreement would, in short, result in nuclear anarchy and in a way, to the erosion of the political idea of American leadership and exceptionalism in geopolitics.   

Moribund Nature of Exceptionalism

A less understood impact of RENT is the beginning-of-the-end of American ‘exceptionalism’. For most American politicians and officials, exceptionalism is the conviction that the United States is different from, superior to and not subject to conventions that bind other nations. There are distinctive strands within this exceptionalist belief that is shared by Americans of all hues particularly those in public positions and that is; the unshakeable conviction that America is not only qualitatively unique, but that this distinction has providential character. This understanding is at the core of the American nationalistic outlook.  

The concept traces its origin to the ‘Pilgrim Fathers’, founders, authors and American philosophers of the 17th and 18th centuries when they declared that the New World was to be seen by the rest as a “shining city on a hill” (originally a Biblical quote) and a “beacon to the world”. These phrases were bandied about by Presidents, puritans, scholars and charlatans over the years making it a part of their civilizational folklore drawing links with the Omniscient for their global deeds and indeed, misdeeds (never mind that the nation’s history is dark – built on stolen land, genocide and enslaved labour). So it was “in God we trust”; ideology of “Manifest Destiny” to rule from the Atlantic to the Pacific coasts; George HW Bush’ “Line in the sand” in Iraq 1990 (again Biblical); to vanquish “evil empires” and their acts were a “model of Christian charity” that worked a divine plan.  

The idea of exceptionalism, admittedly, resists empirical evaluation but the theme has played a role throughout U.S. history, shaping an imperious and overweening understanding of its station in the comity of nations and motivating actions that placed the state above international scrutiny. Exceptionalism proposed three characteristics to the American people; to establish a myth of origin, to build a Providence-ordained heroic cut-out for identity and thirdly, to provide justification for their global deeds; how-so-ever feral and crude they appear to the observer.

Belief in the very idea of American exceptionalism has taken a mortal beating over the last three decades since the curtains came down on the Cold-War. The reasons for its decline may be attributed to the following arguments:

  • Political misuse of the theory of exceptionalism to justify foreign policy decisions that placed the United States “above international law”. America invoked exceptionalism not as a model of global leadership but as a rationale for unilateralism; so apparent in the fabrication of the narrative of weapons of mass destruction and consequent invasion of Iraq, the twenty year war in Afghanistan, sponsoring regime changes in Libya, Ukraine and the many other countries; while deploying armed forces for over 251 military interventions between 1991 and 2023; this is according to a report by the Congressional Research Service, a U.S. government institution. The instances of use of military power differ greatly in magnitude, purpose, extent of hostilities, and legality of intervention. The persistence of armed expansion into somebody else’s territory, and dealing harshly with people who resist that occupation is a recurring theme in American history whether it was their belief in the policy of ‘Manifest Destiny’, occupation of Mexican territories, invasion of the Philippines, the atomic bombing of Japan, war in Vietnam, the invasion of Iraq or indeed the bombing of Iran, the many regime changes brought about in South and Central America; evidently, God’s permission ‘disavowed’ the need for any semblance of morality. The recent 03 January 2026, abduction of the Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro Moros that America executed using overwhelming military power on Venezuela is a stark declaration of the end of any need for a divine fig leaf to cover military action. Quite brazenly, the US administration has stated its incentive was commercially motivated centred on control of the largest known oil reserves in the world of 303 billion barrels of oil. No advancement of democracy, no human rights safe guards, no intention of upholding any ‘rule-of-law’ or even providing a bulwark against global security breaches; just an action model based on old fashioned 19th Century imperialism.      
  • From the socio-economic standpoint, belief in ‘the American way’ was mortally eroded, first during the recession of 2008 and then again during the economic chaos that the COVID-19 pandemic wrought globally. What the world witnessed was rapacity in place of benevolence, paralysis in global response in place of leadership to tackle what was an existential challenge to humankind; and when a dawdling riposte emerged the wretched relief it offered was not only disjointed, selfish and selective in approach but was woefully inadequate. America accounted for over one million fatalities and, incidentally, had amongst the highest toll per million population (3,642/mill pop).
  • The surrender of captaincy in world affairs became apparent when the US opted for an insular and transactional approach towards trade, tariffs, and the superintendence of global order; of significant note is the current move that America has made to monetise security of its alliance commitments. Traditionally, national security policy aimed to mitigate threats; now it seeks to profit from them, transforming international security and order to a negotiable commodity.  Policies that pre-empt and mitigate threats serve as stabilizers against the spread of extremism, criminal networks, and influences that tend to disrupt world order. They prevent the very crises that later demand costly military intervention. Yet under the logic of monetization, their worth is measured only by immediate returns. The deeper contradiction lies in the state’s perceived conflict between profit and protection. Security, in its broadest terms, means safeguarding national interests, economy, critical infrastructure, public welfare, ensuring sustainable prosperity and maintenance of an order based on rule of law. Monetization reverses this logic; it transforms security into tradeable merchandise and chattels. Geopolitical stability requires balancing competing interests, recognizing the strengths of other states, cooperating with partners, and maintaining a long-term strategic horizon. Movements such as the “Make America Great Again” are more of an admission of failure to be deserving of the mantle of world hegemon or to be worthy of exceptionalism.
  • The canard of promoting democracy which has been a primary goal of US foreign policy since the First World War from the time when President Woodrow Wilson embarked on his “visionary internationalism”. While some administrations in America pursued it with missionary zeal, others gave it lip-service and still others weaponised it as a tool to dispose off inconvenient regimes as a rigour of a doctrinal system that portrays the ‘current autocratic enemy’ as diabolical by nature. In these instances the pursuit of enforcing “democracy” by pre-emptive action was neither unlawful nor illegal (from the US perspective) and if it involved casting aside multilateralism in favour of naked power, then that strategy was preferable (The Bush Doctrine). Did such dogmatism in policy stimulate anarchy? Questions will persist; in what way did ‘Agent Orange’ promote democracy, or the carnage in Iraq, Syria Gaza and Afghanistan?  Or the propping up very corrupt dictatorships in Latin America and prolonging the war in Ukraine? And what of Africa which has become a strategic focal point for major power play leading to the worst kind of savagery in the Sahel, Libya, Mali Ethiopia, Sudan, and Congo?  
  • Then there is the global financial mayhem that has thrown monetary institutions across the world in a downward spiral leading to a breach in fiscal trust between nations across the board. This has been caused by the coming together of three events; the war in Ukraine, the Western world’s ill-advised decision on 12 December 2025 when the EU indefinitely froze Russian central bank assets and transforming temporary sanctions into a permanent financial instrument to support Ukraine. The decision departs from established legal and institutional norms of sovereign asset protection. This illicit blockage of pecuniary assets undermines global financial trust and provokes fragmentation in the international monetary order. In the meantime Russia determined to fundamentally counter financial sanctions through developing an alternate stable and failsafe arrangement called the “System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS)” to the existing world-wide interbank inter-bank transacting order. This is their response to the “fiscal law of the jungle”.
  • Perhaps the last nail in the coffin of American exceptionalism was hammered home in the recently concluded World Economic Forum 2026. The Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney, addressing the forum in the context of the US demand for annexation of Greenland, brought into sharp focus that the “Rupture” in the current World Order was not a transition. In a candid confession, he emphasised that “great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion and supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited.” He went on to suggest that nations must not live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration when alliances become the source of subordination and timidity. He then called upon the ‘middle powers’ to unite at a time when “great powers abandon rules and values for their own interests, middle powers, he declared, have a choice: compete with each other for favour (of the Hegemon) or act together with impact”. And then warned that “if you (middle powers) were not at the Table you were on the Menu”. Leaving little doubt that the World Order of the past had given way to Disorder.     

The Overwrought Mantle  

There is no doubting the fact that American exceptionalism boosted national identity and pride but it also generated a misplaced sense of entitlement that has developed into ignorance and mistrust of contrary perspectives. The consequence is, paradoxically, insecurity and hostility towards nations that have found it difficult to swallow the idea of duplicity in standards of international relations and that America’s armed interventions and wars are endorsed by and for Providence; particularly when one notes the graveyard of nations that chose to “heel” to American decree.

The failure to neither shore-up American socio-economic global sway in recent years nor globally promote democracy without equivocation or hidden agendas has had a corrosive triple effect on its image as a unique hegemon. First, its global influence as an anchor for trade and financial relations, which besides giving it critical influence also provided it with unparalleled monetary control; second, it’s overseeing of global security, and diplomacy (however partisan it may seem) endowed it with the status of a global policeman, and thirdly, it has quite awkwardly dropped the overwrought mantle of exceptionalism in favour of transactional vainglorious benefits. This last fact has hacked away at its standing amongst the concert of nations and withered its role as a global superintendent of order. Notwithstanding how much harder it may drive sanctions, twist resistance to its writ or raise the decibel level on the crusade for supposed democracy, the actuality of the end of unipolar dominion and the emergence of a multipolar world order will not change.   

The loss of the ‘license’ to dominate was never more apparent than when President Trump, in frenetic reaction, scuttled to declare resumption of testing nuclear weapons “… on an equal basis.” Which raises the question; has anything for the USA, even vaguely related to international relations, in recent years been on equal basis?   

Shredding of the Cold War Nuclear Theology

In developing nuclear postures, historically, there appeared to have been an obsessive shadowy urge to find ways to use the weapon. After all, the first reaction to strategic military revision is to find ways of defeating it, and in the process upsetting the existing equilibrium. The past will suggest that the cold-warriors with each doctrinal attempt to enhance kill-capability, credibility and survivability of their nuclear arsenals only achieved in pushing the world closer to the brink.

In the wake of the first Soviet atomic test in 1950, the US tabled a report titled National Security Council – 68 (NSC-68). This report was to become the mantra that guided world order till the end of the Cold War, and in particular defined and drove doctrines for use and proliferation of nuclear weapons. The report contrasted the design of the ‘authoritarian’ with that of the ‘free state’ and the inevitable nuclear clash that would ensue. In this scheme of things, the crises in Berlin, the Korea peninsula, and Vietnam appeared logical, while the threat of mass destruction was even justified. In these circumstances the urge-to-use remained palpable.

NSC-68 came at a time when the previous 35 years had witnessed the most cataclysmic events of that century; two devastating World Wars, two revolutions that mocked global status quo, and the collapse of five empires. Change also transformed the basis of power; key determinants were now a function of ideology, economic muscle, military prowess, and the means of mass destruction. Power had decisively gravitated to the USA and the USSR. The belief that the Soviets were motivated by a faith antithetical to that of the west and driven by ambitions of world domination provided the logic that conflict and violence had become the order of the day. Nuclear theology was consequently cast in the mould of armed rivalry and its nature characterised by friction. The scheme that carved the world was ‘containment of Communism’. In turn, rationality gave way to the threat of catastrophic force as the basis of stability; with ideology now backing nuclear action the tension-to-use was tangible despite acknowledging that there was no way in which escalation could be predicted or controlled.

There is an inherent limit to how precisely predictions can be made, let alone prognosticate impact particularly when polity, power, ideology and people are involved. The historian Michael Howard cautioned against those who would play the oracle: “Doctrinal stasis is not a bad thing when the alternative is to match an opponent’s mistakes” – which implies that understanding and responding to a military doctrine is in the main a futile exercise in crystal-ball gazing. Howard’s conception of doctrinal stasis, when applied to nuclear-armed states, is critical for stability primarily when destructive capability is not in question but intent is. This suggested making the best of a disastrous situation. It thus became the wisdom-of-the-time that nuclear weapons constitute a powerful deterrent against a nuclear attack. However, an interstate relationship is often equally influenced by historical biases, irrational leadership, unintended events, and hostility. As arsenals developed to the extreme, antagonists were compelled to the acceptance of a nuclear strategy that aimed at deterring war rather than fighting it. Even so, the quest for doctrines that acquiesced to nuclear war-fighting were advanced, almost as if control of escalation was a given, and yet, it was precisely here that all the uncertainties lay. For, the essential claim of deterrence theorists, that the probability of an intentional nuclear exchange is low, may be acceptable as long as arsenals are survivable, capability of retaliation is assured and there exists belief in the lack of political purpose in its use. Unfortunately, this core premise is flawed on two perceived counts: firstly, the vulnerability of arsenals and secondly, that there is no seeming political purpose in the use of nuclear weapons.

Also, the frailty of theory lurks in the unspoken part of it. That is, can a deterrent relationship hold in the face of persistent nuclear doctrinal changes? Noting that military doctrine of the post-World War II era began with intentional “first use of the nuclear weapons” which progressed to multiplying nuclear capability to overwhelm an adversary. All the while debates raged on the morality of nuclear weapons it even led to flights of complex theological contradistinctions, of whether humanity was usurping a divine role by possessing such destructive power? This persuaded a perverse doctrine that impelled the idea of a “balance of terror” (Albert Wohlstetter) predicated on the threat of “mutually assured destruction”; and then followed the notion that nuclear escalation could be controlled by adopting a policy of “flexible nuclear response” introducing the absurd belief that there could be proportionality once a nuclear exchange began (JFK) before all else, the concept was unsound in its assumption of ‘mirror imaging’ both the process and content of strategic decision-making. The Cuban nuclear crisis of 1962 highlighted that in a strategic nuclear war there was going to be no winners. However, despite this obvious lesson, planners were adamant in their quest for logic to accommodate their burgeoning arsenals. Solutions only masked the atrocity of a nuclear war; for they did not answer the central issues of, what political purpose was served? And, did credible means of control exist?

The period between 1968 and into the 1990s was a period of easing of Cold War nuclear tensions and fostering of détente. It witnessed several arms control agreements that promoted an easing of nuclear anxieties that took the form of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1968, Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty I, Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (1972), SALTII (1979), Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF, 1987), Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty of 1991 and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty of 1996.  But these détente measures did not prevent the intrusion of dangerous paradoxical short-lived doctrinal precepts into nuclear theology; they included: the 1974 ‘Schlesinger doctrine’ that suggested a wider array of nuclear options (!); ‘the Dead Hand’ a Strangelovesque doomsday machine that could launch an all-annihilating retaliatory nuclear strike automatically; development of new nuclear war-fighting capabilities, and the move away from strategic arms limitation. Even more bizarre nuclear postures were to emerge such as “escalate to de-escalate” (the Kremlin’s alleged military doctrine released in 2000) and the return of the “pre-emptive” nuclear first strike.

The crumbling of the Soviet Union brought down the curtains on the NSC-68 basis of global stability. In its trail, some scholarly works suggested the emergence of one globalised world and an end to the turbulent history of man’s ideological evolution. Some saw a benign multi-polar order. Yet others saw ­- in the Iraq Wars, the invasion of Ukraine, the continuing war in the Levant, Afghan imbroglio, and the splintering of Yugoslavia – a violent clash of civilisations shaped by religio-cultural similitude. However, these illusions were dispelled and found little use in understanding the realities of the post-Cold War world as each of them represented a candour of their own. The paradigm of the day (perhaps) is the tensions of the multi-polar; the tyranny of economics; the anarchy of expectations; and polarisation of peoples along religio-cultural lines, all compacted in the backwash of a technology rush. An uncertain geopolitical brew as the world has ever seen seethes under the looming shadow of continued nuclear weapons proliferation.

At Cold War’s end, leaders, recognising how often and how close to a nuclear catastrophe decentralising control of nuclear weapons had brought the world to, made reciprocal pledges to substantially retain control and cut-back on tactical nuclear weapons. Collectively, the pledge was to end foreign deployment of entire categories of tactical nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, this lofty vow today lies in tatters to the extent that there is the absurd belief that one could escalate into the nuclear dimension in order to de-escalate a conflictual situation.

The US National Security Strategy (NSS) of December 2025 read in conjunction with their “prospective” Nuclear Posture as outlined in the document titled “The next administration’s nuclear posture” places perplexing demands on the analyst. It necessitates the ability to maintain several contradictory viewpoints at the same time which serves more to confuse than provide clarity of intent. While the thrust of NSS 2025 is the act of an “Atlas” unburdening the weight of playing global hegemon, it maintains condemnation of predatory state-directed subsidies, perceived unfair trading practices and threats to supply chains as it seeks to establish world-wide commercial domination. The strategy has, in a baffling way, sought pre-eminence through nationalism and economic coercion. Inexplicably, it also commits to maintain the “world’s most powerful, lethal, and technologically advanced military,” and “the world’s most robust, credible, and modern nuclear deterrent” in order toprotect interests, deter wars, and win them, if necessary quickly and decisively, with the lowest possible casualties to our forces.” How this is going to be achieved is also puzzling particularly since most of the Pentagon’s major weapons programs over the last quarter of a century have not fulfilled expectations, if not being outright failures. The failure of the Zumwalt-class destroyer due cost-overruns, F-35 stealth combat aircraft , Littoral Combat Ship, failure of the Future Combat System, and Ford-class aircraft carrier are just a few of the systems that have cost a fortune yet failed to deliver capability. The latest tranche of weapons program is now showing signs of repeated mistakes. The Sentinel ballistic missile program saw 81% cost growth and the project teeters on the brink of closure, while the Navy recently cancelled the Constellation-class frigate. Does the aggregate of these setbacks and cancellations suggest the paucity of R&D and industrial competency to meet strategic security objectives? And this muddled state of the nuclear mire comes at a time when the only nuclear arms control treaty the “New SALT” is due to expire on 26 February 2026.

Indeed the Cold War nuclear theology, over the last 8 decades, has in its encounter with the irrationality of global leadership and the sightlessness of untameable science and technology, been unable to reconcile the contrary demands of survival, growth and competition; each in turn being seized and reconstructed by powerful nations leaving existing nuclear theology in a deranged state without an alternative as world order degenerates to disorder.

Conclusion

The concept of self-ordained exceptionalism stands never more exposed and vulnerable than when it runs into opposition, made up of middle powers that choose to withhold acknowledgement of any form of exceptionalism on grounds of its malfeasance. And when this dynamic is backed by power, then the concept becomes decadent. And so it is with such ‘providentially’ ordained mantles. The period after the break-up of the Soviet Union saw the short lived emergence of a unipolar world in which the USA ascended the throne of global hegemony and saw in it not just victory of an ideology but also the confirmation of its self-anointed station of exceptionalism. With it the Hegemon transcended circumscription and sought control of world order conjointly with the wheels that moved global economics; with neither accountability for outcomes nor any legal restraint as we saw so vividly in America’s wars post the collapse of the USSR. Some social scientists and other pretenders predicted that globalisation and the unipolar situation would produce a stable society in which “man may be said to be, at last, completely satisfied”. But in the wings of geopolitics there were rumblings; optimism waned as new conflicts, terrorism, disruptions and the rise of competition for power, economic growth, technology and resources became the order of the day.

The Hegemon and the unipolar world are woefully ill prepared to cope both in terms of power and to balance the inequities that the economic structures of the post-cold war spawned. The chemistry of inadequacy added to the diffusion of global power and the retreat of the Hegemon from engagement to the adoption of a muddled strategic posture of the day which has precipitated a self-serving anarchic and often nepotistic strategic posture. This narcissistic deportment has released forces of change that challenge existing international order in a quest for a more nuanced multipolar world. All of which suggests the growth of multiple power centres, as we note in contemporary times, each with significant economic, military and political clout.

While, undoubtedly, the risks of unintended conflict are much more due complexity of relationships; the distribution of power provides the necessary balance and affiliation between actors will provide a persuasive thrust to equilibrium of the system. That is, as the system moves away from unipolarity/bipolarity towards multipolarity, the frequency and intensity of conflicts may be expected to diminish. Theoretically, instability in unipolar and bipolar systems appears to be substantially greater. It seems rational, then, that in  multipolar circumstances if the spread of nuclear weapons is slowed down as is the case, the transition of the international system to the latter system where the increased number of independent yet powerful actors influence, positively, the likelihood of international stability. This will set the Dooms Day clock back and buy humankind some valuable time to seek a more dependable premise for world order other than the one extant in which the ‘threat of catastrophic force is the basis of stability’.     

The hope for humankind is the belief that the value of nuclear weapons lies in non-usage; its futility is in attempting to use it to attain political goals. And as long as none of the individual Poles of the Multipolar system or a combination thereof believes no benefit is to be had through use of nuclear weapons or through revision in doctrinal underpinnings, there is an absence of anxiety in the collective cognizance; setting into motion a more certain or positive chain reaction dampening calamitous risk. Indeed, in this context, nuclear doctrinal stasis, for starters, and a “No First Use” doctrine is a great idea; while this may not assure happy endings, it provides a footing for a historical quest to do away with the obscenity of a nuclear war.            

The 1984 Archetype: China’s New Form of Human Civilization

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By

Vice Admiral (retd) Vijay Shankar

Interminable Wars

George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four” depicts a dystopian society in which the super-state of Oceania is steeped in totalitarianism and perpetual war. In Oceania’s state of ceaseless conflict with either Eastasia or Eurasia, the ruling Regime holds a monopoly on violence and its unending wars are a part of a mechanism to maintain control over its citizens. This persevering condition unifies the population in the face of a common enemy, justifies unquestioningly the need for strict government regulation and diverts resources away from bringing about changes in the lives of the people. Reality itself is pliable, in a fluid sense, and exists only in the mind; and therefore the core axiom of the state was bending and manipulating the mind. Additionally, the regime’s efficient use of the secret ‘thought police’ for guileful suppression of its citizenry, structuring a bureaucracy that not only monopolises facts but also determines the past to model a present and a future of its fabrication while its agencies desensitise generations of citizenry to accept a reality of its making by continuously changing it. As George Orwell put it, “by a lack of understanding they (the citizenry) remained sane”. As for the interminable wars; there never was intended to be any winner or loser, no pitched battles, no blunders, no surrender; just an instrument to enable a miserable war economy and a reason for mind-bending oversight.

By constantly altering historical records and presenting false information as fact; a world is created in which the objectivity of truth ceases to exist. This manipulation allows the regime to shape citizens’ beliefs and perceptions according to their agenda. The theme of language-engineering and therefore constriction of ideas is enforced by the creation of “Newspeak” that highlights the power of language and rhetoric to shape perceptions and control thought. In the novel, ‘Newspeak’ is designed to limit expression and eliminate dissent by restricting vocabulary and simplifying grammar. Similarly, in contemporary politics, language can be used to manipulate public opinion; through the ubiquitous tweet, frame debates, and obfuscate the truth. Politicians and public figures may employ euphemisms, Doublespeak, and carefully crafted messaging to influence people’s dogmas and actions. The novel underscores the manner in which these linguistic tactics can shape the mind of the listener.

Reality, censorship and control of information in 1984 strike a dangerous harmony with contemporary issues of media management and peddling “fake news.” In the novel, the establishment constantly bridles facts to create and maintain its current version of reality. Similarly, in today’s world, the spread of misinformation, biased reporting, and outright falsehoods through social media and other channels can mould public opinion, undermine trust in institutions and indeed, change the idea of actuality itself. Transformation of reality, as E.M. Forester put it, was “at the turn of the kaleidoscope”; much as leadership of a current superpower has so vividly shown.   

In Nineteen Eighty-Four, propaganda and indoctrination are central to the Government’s ability to maintain control and suppress dissent. The State uses various methods, including controlling media, and promoting an overarching ideology that justifies its actions. This portrayal is relevant to contemporary concerns about the influence of ideologies and radical beliefs on society. Today, we see the rise of various extremist groups and the spread of their beliefs through online platforms and social media. These groups often employ spin-doctoring and brainwashing techniques to recruit members, gain influence and motivate them even to the extent of suicide bombing.  

War and the perversion of its significance from “extension of politics by other means” is refined to denote a stable state of conflict that ensures the perpetual churning of the wheels of military industry in Oceania’s interminable yet finely tuned wars against the other two super states of Eurasia and Eastasia. The aim is to achieve a balanced condition of disorder that neither seeks gains nor strives for victory; but pursues relentless power and control of their citizenry. The goal is to impress upon the populace the persuasion that “War is Peace”.  The concept of perpetual war in 1984, serves as the prime mechanism for the Regime to maintain its sway over the populace. In today’s world, we can see parallels with on-going global conflicts and the manner in which war is used as a means of control and manipulation by those in power.   

In order to understand the complicated foreign relations between Oceania, Eastasia and Eurasia; one has to note the tacit agreement between the states not just to keep the public immersed in the war effort to destroy any surplus generated by their economies but to ensure that the inhabitants are suspended in a mind numbing, wasteful yet enduring circle of want. While alliances shift, like dunes in a desert, what remains steadfast is the motivation for perpetual war to not just maintain the status-quo, but to uphold the promise of security and the preservation of the hierarchical society. Disputed expanses formed by the equatorial region provide the necessary resources of expendable material and manpower to power the war making effort.    

Two plus Two Will Make Five: the Piety of Order

Nineteen Eighty-Four, borrowed generously for its belief in control of a state’s citizenry from the rise of Fascism in Europe and from Cold-War Soviet Union for its dystopian description of a future three and a half decades after the author had penned his novel. Yet, it is not the year of its setting that is significant; what is – is, how often authoritarian and so too ‘democratic’ leaders alike; have since emphasised the central theme of the book that by convincing the citizenry through their “lack of understanding they remained sane”; for it is understanding which brings with it an acute sense of responsibility and the urge to defy. It has been the object of contemporary oligarchs to contradict and mask this very sense of responsibility till all feeling for it is abandoned; this is the state when ‘two plus two will make five’.

Historical conclusions that are drawn, redrawn and again recast from contrived struggles of the past provide the canvas for composing principles, beliefs and ideals that are fluid in their interpretation and form. And since these endeavours were achieved through, “naturally”, extreme hardship and at monumental cost, they provide the right path to realize not only greatness, but also give to the Regime legitimacy and the right to control and perpetuate for society a rosy vision of the status-quo.

At the heart of Nineteen Eighty Four, is the tragic menace of not just the totalitarian State but even so called democracies that place power above the citizen. Tragic, for its universally terrifying influence on the other nations; and menacing, for the crimes of the State masked in the piety of order.      

Contemporary Conflicts through the Prism of 1984 

Major conflicts and crises, in recent times, are incessantly unfolding around the world with West Asia and Europe being particularly affected. The Russia-Ukraine war and the on-going conflict in Israel, Gaza and Iran are significant drivers of global instability. Additionally, conflicts in Sudan, Syria, Myanmar, Pakistan, Sahel, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo are causing widespread anxiety over their purpose and the motive of the sponsors thereof. So much so that the unremitting conflict level is at it’s highest since World War II. Not only have these wars caused major humanitarian crises through their barbarity but their complex nature suggests complicity of the major players of the day. The purpose is clearly, for power, control and pecuniary benefits. One notes the bedeviled fact that the source of munitions that fuel these conflicts and indeed profit from them are the same few promoters of the wars. After all, the most successful corporate enterprise in contemporary times is the arms industry; underscoring the monetary mainspring for interminable wars. Shades of 1984?

The conflict in Vietnam brought into sharp relief the West’s institutional outlook towards war and peace when haloed establishments like the Norwegian Nobel Committee stood up to recognise the talent of the likes of Henry Kissinger in 1973 for waging “peace” on that hapless peninsula. War and Peace, to the lofty standards of the Committee, were astoundingly, seen as occupying the same domain that marks humanity, in other words the cycle of arms production is consistent overall with the logic that more military expenditure equals more arms exports and therefore more wars resulting in more peace!? While others would suggest how on earth the Committee could hold two such contradictory ideas simultaneously unless they were doing an exercise in “Double Think”. The script is out of 1984.

When Nineteen Eighty-Four is viewed from a historical distance leaving Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and the Cold War behind, we see the novel and its ideas of interminable wars, omnipresent-surveillance, Newspeak, Thought Police and Double-Think take form in any ideology or system of governance.

The post-Cold War era witnessed the war in Iraq that began in 1991 continued through that decade in various forms sometimes euphemistically called enforcement of the no-fly zone; non-compliance of UN sanctions; UN Resolution to destroy Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD); western media worked overtime to, first convince themselves and then the world, of the imminence of the use of WMDs by the ruling dispensation in Iraq. A narrative was spun of the looming threat of release of biological, chemical and nuclear carnage. A case for invading Iraq in March 2003 was built on three basic premises: that Iraq had WMDs; that it was developing more of them; and that it was failing to comply with its disarmament obligations under a series of United Nations Security Council resolutions. All of these premises were based on scraps of unreliable and fabricated information. None of them was true. The web of chicanery culminated in full scale invasion of Iraq in 2003 only to expose the falsehood of the very premise of the existence of WMDs. There were no stockpiles of WMDs nor was there a programme to produce WMDs. Nevertheless the country was occupied; the existing dispensation was toppled while a vicious insurgency developed. American and coalition forces eventually withdrew from this “interminable war” in 2011 with nothing to show other than over half a million casualties, a demolished nation and a festering insurgency; the only end it seemed to have served was to keep the wheels of the Western arms industry in motion to fuel a war that filled the coffers of several corporate entities.  Concurrently, a war on terror was announced post the appalling terror attack on the World Trade Centre in New York and two other locations in Washington DC and Pennsylvania on 11 September 2001. The war took America, along with a coalition of forces to invade Afghanistan and topple the existing dispensation of the Taliban. The conflict meandered through the next two decades as objectives of the invaders kept changing without tangible outcomes. It ended with an ignoble withdrawal of the coalition force and ironically the Taliban back in power. There is also a network of security think tanks located in the main decision-making centres of the world (In Brussels alone) there are hundreds of arms industry lobbyists, who influence politicians and officials globally as they develop policies related to the logic of ‘more arms translates to more peace’ . Their objectives include pushing for arms manufacturing, sale, promotion and publicity to respond to a seemingly limitless number of threats. 

A New Form of Human Civilization

When Premier Xi Jinping addressed the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) at the centennial of the Party on 01 July 2023, he took a page out of 1984 as he institutionalised the manipulation of reality in order to build a “new form of human civilization”.  For humanity, it has pretensions of being the new world order; based on value assertions of the CCP’s leadership and, importantly, the aspirational beliefs that serve China’s strategic interests internationally. It is significant to observe that the claim made for the “new” refers singularly to the supposed difference between China’s value propositions and those of the rest of humanity.

Civilizations do not evolve by decree. Rather, the growth, expansion and, in some cases, the eventual waning of civilizations follow a long process comprising elements beginning with individuals who through proximal circumstances and necessity, form cultural groups and societies. Members of the group applied their intellect to make viable economic existence and prosperity of the community. Often this led to a division of labour and the time it afforded, to some, gave rise to beliefs that evolved and were institutionalised in the form of cultural practices unique to that community. Through adaption and intercourse with peripheral societies across geography and belief systems these cultural practices were codified into religions. From this stage to politics and the evolution of security structures was a natural development. With further expansion the civilization encountered new communities and even civilizations at various levels of development; this either resulted in assimilation and the creation of a larger universal empire or the challenge brought about decline and disintegration (as Arnold Toynbee has suggested). The process of civilization is slow; its development, growth, flourish and decline, takes several millennia.

Premier Xi’s call for his ‘new form of human civilization’ stressed the deep historical strengths of the “Sinic Civilization”, and also upheld and defended the contemporary relevance of Marxism against the backdrop of problems in current global affairs. How the strengths of the Sinic Civilization and Marx’ theories were to be reconciled, is clearly another futile exercise in ‘Double Speak’; for ultimately, China’s “new form of human civilization” only makes sense if the CCP leadership hopes to pack a set of value claims that legitimize its totalitarian leadership at home, and project a coherent set of aspirational values abroad that serve China’s strategic interests.

The Paradox of Reconciling Contradictory Values

In sum what is suggested, claim Beijing scholars (who have since burnt midnight-oil to make sense of the ‘new civilisation’) is that China had improved its hard power, such as the economy and the military, but was weak in soft power. By soft power was meant ideals such as a cultural value system that from the CCP’s stand point was the moving force of ‘the new form of human civilization’ add to that was the need for a legitimate political system  widely recognized by the international community. For its cultural values, Beijing has dug deep into its history to the period of the ‘Warring States’. Yet in order not to lose sight of the fact that Communism in China is a far more recent importation, classical values had somehow to be fused with Marxist beliefs to introduce modernity and legitimacy to the muddle.  

The period of the Warring States, that was to source ‘classical values’ extended from 425 BCE to 221 BCE; it was an era of derangement, war and transformation that led to the establishment of the Qin Dynasty and a partial unification of the seven major antagonistic states. Significant in that era were the proliferation of thought and the development of ideas such as Confucianism, Daoism (Taoism) and Legalism or the fa tradition through the works and oral teachings of philosophers of the likes of Confucius, Mencius, Laozi and Sun Tzu. These three schools of thought were the wellspring of Chinese classic values. Beliefs that may be distilled from the teachings of Confucius and Laozi of the period are those that are common to civilizational states; they include social order along with the natural order of things, morality, harmony with nature, virtue, education and the importance of knowledge; Taoism complements and enriches Confucianism. While both these philosophies were denounced by Chairman Mao’s dispensation, they remain a dormant and arcane part of Chinese life.

In contrast to Confucianism and Taoism, the fa tradition was a philosophical principle that sought to bring a harsher order of governance. It was developed by a Chinese thinker of the same period named Han Feizi and suggested that human actions were, in the main, driven by selfish motives and had a propensity to choose wrong over right unless deterred by strict laws; significantly, it ushered in a preference for centralised control and the subservience of the individual. The insistence was on rule-by-uniformity as advantageous over reliance on human factors in politics. The far reaching effects of this tradition through history to this day appealed more to the mandarin’s sense of order and manifested in the modern day resurrection of Legalism and the fa perspective on power and control.     

Marxism, in the meanwhile, justifies and predicts the emergence of a classless global society without private property. This global society, as Marx predicted, would be preceded by the violent seizure of the state and the means of production by the proletariat, who would rule in an interim dictatorship. Its values are marked by the tendency to relate the abstract to material significance; therefore values in the Marxist ideology with a sprinkling of “Chinese characteristics” are restricted to the labour value, utility value and exchange value with emphasis on patriotism at its core.  

Values, therefore, from the CCP’s perspective, are a reflection of labour, utility and transactional significance of an undertaking as modified by the “spirit-of-the-times”. Reforms and innovations may be deemed necessary by the Party when it chooses to bring about changes. Variations are determined by the threat posed by the vicissitudes of time, technology and circumstances.  The eventual validity of transformation is subject to four critical features; the collective over the individual, negation of the profit motive, adherence to the laws of the CCP and abhorrence of hedonism. Put together this engineering of elements, ideas and behavioural characteristics constitute the basic contents of the Party’s core value system. In all this is the absence of the idea of culture that permeates soft power, defined as a “Country’s ability to influence others without resorting to coercive pressure. In practice, that process entails countries projecting their values, ideals, and individual discernment across borders to foster goodwill and strengthen partnerships” (Joseph Nye, 1980).

Given the inherent confutations that erupt when developing soft power in repressive conditions, the creation of a political system that is both legitimate and acceptable to the larger mass of humanity appears an arduous ask.   

Whole-Process Peoples Democracy

In an effort to bring about reconciliation of such vastly contradictory value systems, the CCP in 2019, developed a perplexing concept of governance called “whole-process democracy”, which by 2021 was re-christened whole-process people’s democracy, the introduction of the word ‘people’s’ was more to retain the Maoist flavour of the masses. Under this design, Premier Xi suggested that democracy was an ethical view by which the morality of an act is judged by the intrinsic value of the outcome, in which the most important criterion for evaluating the success of democracy is whether democracy can “solve the people’s real problems. Real and effective socialist democracy, he declared, was to be removed beyond dogma to an instrument of positive consequences; its litmus test was whether it enabled the people to follow the guidance and will of the CCP “. More than anything else, this ‘new’ conception serves to establish the absolute authority of the Party on all political, social, civic and matters of international relations the supremacy of the Party over all else was assured; democracy, as Chairman Xi goes on to proclaim, “is not an ornament to be put on display, but an instrument for addressing the issues that concern the people”.

‘Whole process people’s democracy’ in the Chinese political lexicon, integrates law-based elections, consultations, decision-making, management, and oversight through a series of regulations and institutional arrangements; the controlling elements of this characterisation are italicised to underscore the paramountcy of the Party. Power and Control at the centre is very suggestive of the 1984 archetype.  

In the World to Come

The world, through the lens of the CCP, is a “competition between two ideologies and two social systems”; between Marxist Communism and democratic ideology that has embraced capitalism. History, Xi Jinping suggested, should be interpreted through “the fundamental point of view of historical materialism”; that is, all institutions of human society are the product of its economic activity. Consequently, social and political change occurs when those institutions cease to reflect how the economy functions. The problem arises when we note that history is not solely the function of economic activity but a complex outcome of human actions, events both natural and man-made, international relations, technological changes, social dynamics, nature of demography and a host of other factors and forces that make the overall course of human history unpredictable rather than a foreseeable discipline.

The declarations emanating from Beijing are amply clear of what their global ambitions are. Whether it is Premier Xi’s persistent reference to the China Dream or its goal of Rejuvenation and the realisation of a ‘new human civilisation’; CCP’s clear goal is a systemic change of the international order with China at its centre.” World leaders are unanimous on one count; China’s diplomacy and military posture demonstrate a “determination to promote an alternative vision of the world order”. 

The USA as leader of the western world, in the meantime, has unhinged the very institutions that it had created to put in place the idea of global order and has unilaterally rejected the post Second World War system that governed global trade and adopted a protectionist approach to economics declaring trade wars against all its partners. These measures encompassing tariffs, export controls, and strong-arming strategic investments by allies aimed at ‘reversing decades of industrial decline and restore American pre-eminence in technology and manufacturing’. However, economists predict that the long term effect of these protectionist measures would serve only to shrink the overall size of the global economy rather than give it a fillip. While on the international security front, an irresolute America has been reluctant to stabilise the situation in the protracted Russia-Ukraine war or bring an end to the genocide in West Asia. In this geopolitical climate marked by the absence of competent global guardianship, it is difficult to portray China as the main disruptor of stability, despite the CCP’s vision of a “New World Order” as a unified system with China’s “superior” civilization in leadership role.  

Sensing its time is nigh, Beijing, on its part, has seized the opportunity to make known its intentions to don the mantle of global stewardship; in March 2023, China surprised the world by achieving a rare and unexpected diplomatic breakthrough. Chinese leader Xi Jinping brokered an agreement between long time antagonists Iran and Saudi Arabia to restore diplomatic relations that could reshape the Middle East. On the economic front, President Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), whose scope and scale is staggering, recorded over $70 billion in construction contracts and $5 billion in investments in 2024, setting a new peak for the program. Since its inception in 2013, the BRI has facilitated $1.18 trillion in funding worldwide, primarily through loans from Chinese banks and development institutions directed toward infrastructure projects. Last year, West Asian countries were the biggest recipients of BRI investment and lending at $39 billion, followed by Africa at $29.2 billion and Southeast Asia at $25.1 billion. Perhaps most significant when looking forward, China has positioned itself as a leading force in AI through a distinctive approach to vertical innovation.

It was also this instant that was chosen to unveil two Chinese initiatives; the Global Security Initiative (GSI) and the Global Development Initiative (GDI). The former aims to guide discourse on global governance; while GDI’s goal is to arrogate the international dialogue on global development, place it under the CCP’s sponsorship and infuse it with Chinese ‘Values’. These twin initiatives are China’s “blueprint” for transforming the global order. They form a part of a body of ideas meant to reinforce Premier Xi’s concept of the ‘New Form of Human Civilization’. In this world-to-come, the CCP will be in the lead and the democratic value system, hitherto at the centre of the rules based order, will be given an insignificant role in global governance.    

Clash of Disquieting Policies

The White House, in the face of Beijing’s relentless urge for control and domination, appears inadequate from all perspectives, to come to grips with the impending challenge that China poses. Whereas the need of the hour is to strengthen existing economic and military partnerships;  the inexplicable protectionist policies adopted, the on-going war in Ukraine and the unending carnage in Gaza have come together to derange global trade  and put the international security system in disarray. The US from a guarantor of the global trade system has, overnight, morphed to operating a global protection racket! While global trade and commerce may well find alternatives at the expense of economic growth; it is the latter turmoil in the international security system that has an enduring impact on global stability. The lack of focus on Beijing and its geopolitical manoeuvres even suggests an arguable reliance on the CCP’s military and economic overreach to bring about a, knock-on-wood, collapse in its global designs and an implosion within that society.  

A significant economic move that China has made is to decouple its supply chains from dependence on the west, rather than the other way around. Chinese policymakers have doubled down on their commitment to become technologically independent, especially in strategically critical sectors like semiconductors.  It also works to Beijing’s advantage in realising its vision of ‘rejuvenation’ and the creation of a ‘new human civilization’ driven by ‘Chinese Values’. We may remind ourselves that there is nothing benign about Beijing’s vision for it has not been reluctant to coerce, use military force and use all its ‘agencies’ to back its diplomacy and shape global governance. The agencies alluded to are the United Front Work Department (UFWD) and the International Liaison Department (ILD) that provide teeth to realise China’s foreign policy objectives and to influence the will of people to conform to China’s point of view. This is done through the instrument of distortion of facts, disinformation, indoctrination and indeed manipulating and falsification. It not only shapes narratives about China in foreign media, targets Chinese government critics abroad and co-opts influential overseas figures; but also indulges in clandestine operations. As Sun Tzu in his treatise on “The Art of War” suggested: “the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting”. This is just what the UFWD and the ILD are all about.  

Indo-Pacific littorals and in particular the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) partners are perplexed by the capricious US policies on regional security commitments raising lingering doubts over the integrity of their defence structures, and fears  that Washington may well barter off the objectives of the QUAD for a grand deal with Beijing. While Pacific allies of the US were swayed by the thought of their strategic importance in the region in the face of an assertive China would naturally place them in a more favourable position than their NATO counterparts; this has proven to be a false premise. On the contrary, precisely because of their role in the US–China competition, it is amply clear that the former’s assurances to its Indo-Pacific partners now come with a higher price tag and inconsistent demands.  

Questioning the Credibility of Extended Nuclear Deterrence  

Driven by a desire to deter China and preserve the balance of power in favour of the US, the ‘transactional nature’ of Washington’s misshapen policies makes apparent that it now gauges collaboration with partners on the basis of two questions: in what way does the alliance benefit the US and how does the partnership enhance America’s security interest? And, will military entanglement serve to deter China? While the real question ought to be; what is the credibility of extended deterrence and what if in a crisis it is breached? Will the US take the next step? Particularly if the ‘next step’ is to raise the crisis to the nuclear dimension; will the US balk at the prospect of taking action that runs contrary to their own strategic interests? Contemporary global nuclear circumstances are marred by deep fissures in both; nuclear disarmament structures and the absence of rationality in nuclear postures of nuclear armed states. Add to this is the escalating global tensions; the re-emergence of a nuclear arms race; the heightened risks of proliferation; the aggressive spread of terrorism and  retreat from globalisation that have catalysed the breakdown of the existing rule of international law. Seen together these factors have enhanced the probability of a nuclear exchange.   

Challenges to the nuclear deterrence security framework take various forms. One notable problem is increasing multi polarity. The US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War were for the most part principally concerned about each other. However, the contemporary geopolitical balance is skewed as the number of nuclear-armed states has increased to nine, and yet nuclear doctrines have remained stratified in the Cold War mould. Strategies have to adjust, instead of an assumed binary confrontation; this has led to affected nations doubting whether in a situation between a non-nuclear state and a nuclear armed one, is there any reliability that a third power is likely to intervene on the side of the non-nuclear state with nuclear weapons and in doing so invite a nuclear confrontation?

There are today potential strategic chains of nuclear-armed states. With other technologically advanced nations such as South Korea, Japan, Germany, Indonesia and others contemplating the acquisition of nuclear weapons. The Anglo-French Northwood Declaration of July 2025 puts the final nail in the coffin of the US sponsored commitment to assurances of protection against a nuclear attack. Unfortunately the first casualty in this new multipolar circumstance is the diminishing credibility of the very idea of “Extended Deterrence”.  

Making Light of the Use of Nuclear Weapons: Enhanced Case for “No First Use”

Most countries long held the view that nuclear weapons are exceptional and represent a dramatic type of escalation if used, and that such use would drive a distinctly different and unpredictable set of responses compared with the use of non-nuclear assets. The inability to predict or control escalation in nuclear war was held as an article of faith and was a critical aspect of nuclear weapons’ deterrent effect.

There is, however, a growing perspective that the use of low yield nuclear weapons is integral to large scale conventional war-fighting as it is at the lowest rung of the nuclear escalatory ladder. From this standpoint the blurring of conventional and nuclear deterrence that involves integration of conventional and nuclear war-fighting in concepts throws up an absurd solution as to how specific conflicts may be resolved, and therefore what constitutes effective deterrence in such scenarios. “Integration of low yield nuclear weapons to further a conventional campaign, or increasing reliance on nuclear weapons, implies that conventional operations be planned and executed in a manner that factors the possibility of the adversary resorting to a first strike with nuclear weapons”.  This statement made in 2016 by the Assistant Secretary of Defence, Robert Scher, before the US Senate Armed Services Sub-Committee on Strategic Forces is irresponsible, since the policy claims to be able to forecast the response of the adversary. Unfortunately the release of a weapon of mass destruction sets into motion an uncontainable chain of events that rapidly overwhelms the very purpose for which conflict was fought.

Regardless of one’s posture, it is undeniable that contemporary geopolitical circumstances cast doubt on the overall credibility of nuclear deterrence in its Cold War manifestation; and that there is a strong case for re-examining and reviewing existing assumptions and approaches to nuclear deterrence; a first step is global adoption of a “No First Use” irrespective of weapon yield. After all war is an extension of politics by other means, and it can be no nation’s case to pursue it to destruction of the very purpose of polity!

A Return to Interminable Warfare: The Principle of Universality  

Stepping back for the moment to take a long view of the globe from the standpoint of on-going major conflicts we note with some alarm that there are more than 50 armed struggles currently playing out that cover the entire spectrum of conventional warfare ranging from territorial annexation to anti-terrorist operations and wars against drug cartels. The co-existence of these conflicts, some destructive in the extreme, that girdle the globe in a wide belt of unabating violence poses a credibility problem vis-a-vis large geographic masses of material prosperity. In some cases we defend what is termed as fundamental principles of humanity being transgressed; while others we view by double standards based on clashing interests and the revenue these very wars generate for a politico-military-industrial complex. We note, with some disillusionment, countries that make up the NATO alliance have been ordered to increase their defence expenditure quite summarily by the White House to 5% of their GDP, at a time when their defence expenditure is less than 2%.  At the same time other countries like Pakistan, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Mali, Libya, Yemen and Sudan wilfully cultivate and sponsor terror groups as instruments of policy; and all the while the UN looks on. Murderous Conflicts that have raged on over the years particularly in Africa, and West Asia; for ‘known’ reasons, do not register on the global conscience. The wars in Gaza and Ukraine have been characterised by the fact of not only their protracted nature, intensity, intractability and their mass casualties but also being internationalised to an extent when many nations have had to take sides; all along the wars are fuelled by a steady supply of munitions just enough to sustain the purposeless wars. The reader will not fail to note the likeness to the wars in 1984.

New forms of technology, political narrative-control and cyber warfare threaten a country’s chosen path of governance, manipulate entire populaces and indeed beguile people into doing the controller’s wishes. Hegemonic powers have accorded themselves the right to wage wars at will under a self-professed doctrine of “anticipatory self-defence” with unstated bounds as exemplified in the conflicts in Ukraine, West Asia, Africa, Central America and the Indo-Pacific. International laws, treaties, rules of world order are militarily coerced on other nations with much self-righteous posturing, but the same laws are dismissed as irrelevant to the hegemon on account of their self-appropriated ‘exceptionalism’; the USA’s continued support for the war in Gaza despite being declared as genocide by the UN and Beijing’s scant regard for the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) while making sweeping claims of sovereignty over the South China Sea within its contrived ‘Nine-Dash LIne’ and arrogating rights to the sea’s abundant resources, despite the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague rubbishing the Nine Dash Line entitlement. China, however (having ratified the UNCLOS); rejects the Court’s authority.

These are some of the many cases in point. And as Naom Chomsky points out “the most elementary of moral truisms is the principle of universality: we must apply to ourselves the same standard as we apply to others”.    

A Conclusion: The Refusal to Understand

There are many malevolent geopolitical crises currently confronting humanity. Not forgetting effects of climate change which most of the world, including China, is squarely confronting while the White House is in denial of it. It is in such tempestuous times that the world is being presented an escape in the design of Beijing’s ‘new form of human civilization’; an egress from the nature of contemporary reality and the impact of overwhelming power on the growth and development of nations and its people. Political views, notwithstanding no differentiation can be made between conservative autocracies and the authoritarianism of the Left when exercising unqualified power as we note the effects of an elected overlord sitting in the White House upending an established world order without a thought given to an alternative or an authoritarian in the ‘Forbidden City’ shaping a ‘new form of human civilization’. And yet, in this unsettling world, we see no evidence of societies or global institutions, confronting the forces of anarchy that the very same order placed on the seat of power; if it is because modern society and the systems it put in place are far too grounded in the short term partisan pre-occupations, then must it also be said of these institutions: By the refusal to understand they remain sane?    

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6

The Merz Declaration

By

Vice Admiral (Retd) Vijay Shankar

Scramble for the Nazi Atomic Bomb: A Stunted Programme

In the years leading up to World War II, Germany was at the forefront of theoretical and experimental physics pertaining to atomic energy. By the winter of 1938, German physicist Otto Hahn had discovered the physical reaction of nuclear fission after bombarding Uranium with neutrons. This discovery showed the Nazi government that weapons of mass destruction could be created from relatively small matter, leading them to recognise the awesome potential for devastation of nuclear chain reactions when engineered for military application. Werner Heisenberg (a contemporary) regarded as one of the most important nuclear physicists in history calculated that nuclear fission chain reactions when slowed down and controlled in a “uranium machine” (nuclear reactor), generate energy; when uncontrolled, the outcome was a “nuclear explosion” many times more powerful than conventional explosives. After Heisenberg reported that the enrichment of U-235 in Uranium was the best and only way to create explosives exponentially stronger than any every seen before, Hitler launched his atomic weapon programme. However, months later Heisenberg told the Nazi Weapons Bureau that an atomic bomb could not be built until 1945 and even then would demand a massive amount of critical resources and investments be diverted to the project. The uncertainties involved and the strategic situation in 1942 relegated priority of the programme.  

Despite availability of core intellectual theoretical resources, the failure of Germany to weaponize an atomic device may be attributed to three causes: the absence of a dedicated team of nuclear engineers resulting in the inability to rapidly realise the accessories; paucity of industrial support and significant investment to drive the project at the desired pace; lowering priority of the programme.

Restraints on German Nuclear Weapons Programme Post World War II  

As part of the accession negotiations of West Germany to the Western European Union at the London and Paris Conferences, the country was forbidden (by Protocol No III to the revised Treaty of Brussels of 23 October 1954 and Article VII of the Brussels Treaty of 1948) to possess or manufacture nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction, with the proviso that the USA would stand guarantor of that nation’s  security. However, West Germany was plagued by doubts of whether they would in fact be left defenceless should a nuclear threat arise from the USSR.

By 1967, relations between the United States and West Germany were difficult because Washington was urging Bonn to support the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), which many conservatives in the ruling coalition opposed on grounds that the treaty was discriminatory by permanently denying West Germany the nuclear option. Then Chancellor Kurt Kiesinger was troubled that even if Moscow did not “intend to use threats or blackmail against Germany, the situation could change” and Germany “must consider how we could defend ourselves.” Against West German protestations of their need for nuclear weapons was the determined stand of the USSR that “we will not allow the Federal Republic of Germany to possess nuclear weapon”.

Germany since the onset of the Cold War has been under the “Nuclear Umbrella” provided by the  NATO Alliance, specifically by the USA. And Germany, on her part, has participated in the NATO nuclear weapons sharing arrangements and trains for strategic preparation and launch of nuclear weapons. United Germany is also restricted by the “Two plus Four Treaty” that supplanted the Potsdam Agreement of 1945. The Treaty prohibits nuclear rearmament of reunified Germany.

The Leaky Nuclear Umbrella

In February 1947, an exhausted, broke and heavily in debt Britain conveyed to the US State Department two diplomatic messages: one on Greece, the other on Turkey. Confessing that it could no longer continue its support for the Greek government forces that were fighting an armed Communist insurgency, Britain had announced plans to pull out of India and to wind down its presence in West Asia. The United States perceived an immediate threat of Greece and Turkey falling into Soviet control; and with it, potentially, the Suez Canal.

Almost overnight, the United States stepped into the vacuum left by the departing British. Declaring, “it must be a policy of the United States, to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressure.” It was the start of what became known as the Truman Doctrine. On the face of it was the idea that helping to defend democracy was vital to the United States’ national interests; however, the significance was, transition of leadership of the Western world from Britain to the United States, and so Europe has been protected by an American nuclear umbrella  since the atomic blasts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was the United States that promised NATO allies that any nuclear threat or aggression by the Soviet Union, and later, by Russia, would be deterred and, should the need arise, answered by the U.S. in kind. Today that partnership teeters on a razor’s edge as Trump’s America seeks rapprochement with Moscow. For with reconciliation between the two nuclear super powers comes a commitment to bring the Ukraine conflict to immediate closure, deny that hapless country membership of NATO; and in its wake stimulate a potential break-up of the post-World War II and post USSR order in Europe.   

Reports are today emerging that Ukraine had survived the three years of a sapping war on account of an American partnership that was intricately enmeshed at the operational level and involved continuously in the planning process, providing real time intelligence and the movement of massive logistic support. The partnership at every stage not only controlled the progress of operations but also extended to clandestine specialised backup. In addition the Partnership also suggested that “Armageddon” would ensue should Russia contemplate nuclear use.

With the current US administration, the nature of the Partnership and with it, the bonds that held together NATO’s common posture towards the conflict, now lie cloven in tatters. The rift in the transatlantic security relationship has today ruptured to what appears an unbridgeable chasm.

Deepening Rift in Transatlantic Security Relationships

The Chancellor-in-waiting, Friedrich Merz government, rattled by the prospect of America  withdrawing security guarantees in the wake of a possible Russia-Ukraine peace treaty, is preparing a fundamental readjustment of Germany’s defence posture. Declaring the US indifferent to the continent’s fate, Merz “questioned the future of NATO and demanded Europe boost its own defences. German’s sense of deep domestic insecurity prompted him to suggest that he’d look to France and Britain to form a European nuclear umbrella, to replace US guarantees”; despite knowing full well that both countries sorely lacked capability, commitment and control to provide such a shield.

In truth, no alternatives exist ever since both France and the UK disavowed the deployment of land or air based vectors outside their borders. Even their existing sea-based deterrent lacks credibility without US surveillance and support infrastructure; as a matter of fact the UK deterrent, based on the “Trident D5” SLBN, is critically dependant on arsenal and vital infrastructure located in the USA and the platform the 4xVanguard class of SSBNs were due for retirement by 2024; their replacement the “Dreadnought” class is not expected in service for another decade (first of Class keel laid in March 2025). As for the French Deterrent Force, it is based on 4xTroimphant class SSBNs and Rafale fighter bombers. It is therefore, a mistake for Merz, to assume that the Anglo-French nuclear arsenal could replace American guarantees.

Clearly, the suggestion was that the weight of the German economy could lend leadership and control to a potential joint nuclear deterrent. The indications are more than discernable that Merz is counselling a limited shared nuclear deterrent. Are we on the threshold of witnessing the emergence of Germany as the latest in a looming string of nuclear armed nations?

Collapse of a Nuclear Theology

Since 1946, a nuclear theology crafted on the argument, that “atomic weapons were useful only as a deterrent to prevent war” (Bernard Brodie, The Absolute Weapon: Atomic Power and World Order); a canonic conviction that laid the foundation of the nuclear deterrence theory is, today, in the throes of collapse. Is deterrence no longer a milestone on the road to nuclear disarmament? Is Germany embarking on the resurrection of a long buried programme that could sound the death knell for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and in its fallout expose the hypocrisy of “Extended Deterrence”? And what becomes of the assurance to non-nuclear allies, who having abjured nuclear weapons, find themselves denuded of U.S. nuclear security guarantees? What is equally astounding is the naïveté of the allies to hold faith in the belief that America would shoulder the responsibility of putting its own forces, population and territory, at risk on behalf of an ally with neither a quid-pro-quo nor castling arrangement. Are we missing something here?

Was the upholding of ‘extended deterrence’ the price of leadership and indeed, the ‘exceptionalism’ that the USA enjoyed since the end of World War II? Has the global hegemon abdicated its responsibility?

‘With NATO or With Nuclear Weapons’: Ukraine’s Delusional Defiance

Post the controversial tongue lashing that the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky received in the White House on 28 February 2025 along with the stipulation that neither was there place for Ukraine in the NATO nor would there be a continuation of US weapons supplies; Zelensky has, reportedly, returned to his  defiant  declaration, ‘Ukraine in NATO or nuclear weapons’. Ukraine possesses the capability to build a nuclear bomb. It could utilise spent plutonium fuel from its civilian nuclear power reactors, estimated at approximately seven tons together with its longstanding expertise in nuclear physics dating back to Soviet times, Ukrainian scientists would face minimal technical barriers in developing nuclear weapons. However, the country lacks the necessary reprocessing facilities to extract and weaponise this material. Adapting existing Ukrainian missile platforms for nuclear delivery would, however, pose minimal technical challenges, as the country already manufactures several missiles that could be modified to carry a nuclear warhead.

An indigenous Ukrainian nuclear programme would face critical ramifications from its allies and expose strategic vulnerabilities. Loss of strategic support will be a reality if Ukraine pursues nuclear weapons; jeopardising both military and financial aid. There is also the near certainty of the Kremlin’s pre-emptive retaliation due to its stated hypersensitivity to nuclearisation of a bordering state.   

Amidst this confounding situation, Poland stands out as Ukraine’s staunchest confederate. Is there a possibility that a nuclear axis builds between the two to generate an independent nuclear deterrent?  After all, such a move involving a NATO member not only compounds nuclear risks but also holds the promise of invoking the principle of collective defence, dragging a reluctant Alliance into the conflict.

One of the possible fall-outs of the deepening rift within the transatlantic alliance and the collapse of the American strategic nuclear umbrella is the “folding up” of NATO.

End of a Nuclear Heresy

Alarmingly, as nuclear armed nations toy with the idea that, the hitherto doctrines of a limited nuclear war and nuclear coercion  are no longer heretical policies; they fail to note the perilous impact it has on potential target nations. In the quest for security against nuclear coercion or the incipient menace of a looming ‘limited’ nuclear war, it will not be unusual for non-nuclear weapon states to consider developing arsenals of their own. Such action would undermine longstanding non-proliferation efforts and not only increase the chances of stumbling into a nuclear holocaust but, the absence of a credible nuclear hegemon would stimulate incessant anxiety of looming devastation.    

In a chilling statement that captured sensitivity to the ominous signs of a breakdown of the existing nuclear order, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists in January 2025 declared that the Doomsday Clock had moved by a second from 90 to 89 seconds to midnight. The Clock is a universally recognized indicator of the world’s vulnerability to global catastrophe caused by man-made technologies. Will the breakdown of extended deterrence and consequent nuclear proliferation be the tipping point that makes the likelihood of nuclear catastrophe not just a possibility but a probable reality?

America’s Liberation Day: Has Atlas Shrugged?

To add chaos to an already dangerously confused nuclear development; the early April 2025 pronouncement of Liberation Day in America sounded more a declaration of trade war against virtually the entire world. The notion of American exceptionalism that the US is a global exemplar of democracy, security and a convincing global nuclear regulator; is today precariously poised on very thin ice.  

America’s “Liberation Day” may be seen from two perspectives; the first is that decades of open U.S. markets has provided an incentive for unbalanced foreign tariffs and other protectionist measures that prevented the import of U.S. goods. “Only aggressive retaliation can reverse the damage and bring manufacturing back to American shores” is the battle cry declared by the Trump administration; some countries have retaliated by corresponding increase in tariffs on American imports, while others have been more subtle in their response; such as Japan which is the largest holder of US treasury bonds and its largest investor, has transferred a large bulk of their capital investments from the US to markets in China, India and the ASEAN countries. And more importantly, it has also chosen to trade with other partners in bi-lateral currencies; renouncing the USD.

The second perspective is founded on the faulty premise of the first, that manufacturing will, in fact, return and as a natural consequence permit tax cuts within the US. Unfortunately what is being sought is a denial of the reality that, the deliberate move-out of labour intensive manufacturing to China and the other developing economies, was the primary cause of the dazzling growth of the US economy over the last half century. To illustrate, in 1970 the American GDP was $1tr and by 2023 rocketed to $27tr. It was this very reality that won America the Cold War; caused the collapse of the Soviet economy; propelled the surge of its economy as it rapidly transited from an industrial to a service and technology driven economy. To turn back the clock and reinvent a manufacturing economy will only result in the diminution of the world’s sole hegemon. The macro downside to “Liberation Day” as the US administration attempts to completely turn the world trading system topsy-turvy in order to bring about , what it perceives as reciprocity and justice; is the  shrugging off  the burden of world leadership.

 An Understanding as a Conclusion

The ability to retract from the idea that nuclear weapons are a useable coercive tool of the state is linked to three larger concessions: the State will not be the first to use nuclear weapons; the State will neither aid nor abet the proliferation of nuclear weapons and lastly a firm belief in the larger idea of global nuclear regulation. The first two are based on the conviction that the weapon is an ultimate resort of dissuasion; while the third places a demand for ‘nuclear order’. This understanding flows from Brodie’s postulation that, the only purpose of nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear war. However, the global impact of recent policies relating to the on-going war in Ukraine and the emergence of new nuclear armed states; appear aimed at instilling fear and a willingness to persistently push the adversary to the nuclear brink. At a time when the end of an era of US led nuclear regulation signals the breakdown of the current nuclear order and a quick march forward of the Doomsday Clock.  

Policy makers do not appear to recognise the need for avoiding a nuclear conflagration. Simultaneously the meltdown of a world economic order that gave space for a global hegemon lies vacant. This throws up a paradoxical question; will the possession of a nuclear arsenal make the world a safer place? It is true that the balance of nuclear arsenals have deterred a global scale catastrophe (thus far at least); yet it is equally true, that its coercive effect and the absence of a regulatory regime increase the probability of proliferation that may push nuclear war from catastrophic loss of life to existential closure.

The choice is clear.