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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.  

The Challenge of a Multi-Polar Nuclear Age

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By

Vice Admiral (retd) Vijay Shankar

The article has been published in the IPCS Web Journal in the authors column The Strategist and is available at http://www.ipcs.org/comm_select.php?articleNo=5819

Of Parity, Assured Destruction & Mistrust

For the last 77 years, since the USA first detonated nuclear weapons and annihilated the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, an eerie ambivalence has prevailed concerning their use. On the one hand some scholars and practitioners are convinced of the myth of usable nuclear weapons; while on the other, governments are devising policies for use . In the meanwhile, Russia toys with the idea of escalating to nuclear warfare in order to de-escalate on-going conflict; while China designs a strategy to provide greater flexibility in the use of nuclear forces.

Significantly, the first nuclear attacks also defined the basis of nuclear stability. Relationship between bellicose nuclear armed states was marked by three characteristics: quest for parity in arsenals, certitude of mutual destruction and a bizarre level of mistrust that drove states to adopt grotesque stratagems. Just how abominable nuclear war plans could be was pointed out by Noam Chomsky (the renowned pacifist). US nuclear posture, he said, called “for the delivery of 3200 nuclear weapons to 1060 targets in Russia, China, and allied countries,” all together impervious to the fact that nuclear weapons destroyed political purpose. General Butler, a former Commander-in-Chief of US Strategic Command put it succinctly when he renounced the current nuclear programs and systems as a death warrant for humanity.

 Flawed New START

The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) was signed 08 April, 2010, by the US and Russia. The instrument was a continuum of a bipartisan process to reduce nuclear arsenals. The two parties agreed in 2021, to extend the Treaty by five years. The key provision of the agreement limits nuclear warheads, delivery vectors and launchers and institutes a system of verification.

The Accord is, however, amiss both conceptually and in its substance. Conceptually it is neither inclusive of all nuclear armed states nor does it identify “mistrust” as a key factor that stokes scepticism. While in substance it fails to recognise that all nuclear weapons, including tactical, are weapons in the same category; for when used they have the potential to escalate to mass destruction. In addition it pays no heed to the fact that warheads held in reserve can very quickly be deployed. But where the treaty is fatally flawed is its inability to institute measures that diminish intent “to-use” by demanding all nuclear armed nations to abjure “First Use” of nuclear weapons as an essential doctrinal-point that allays perils of nuclear devastation.

Nuclear Weapons an Umbrella for Conventional War

Just how consequential this last consideration can be has been demonstrated In the course of the Ukraine conflict. Russia has obliquely threatened use of nuclear weapons to provide an umbrella for its war. This has turned the Cold-War idea of deterrence on its head as Moscow uses the deterrence value of its nuclear arsenal not to protect Russia but rather to provide space for conventional action. The Kremlin introduced an explicit nuclear dimension through its various declarations. On 18 February 2022, Russia conducted manoeuvres of its nuclear forces prior incursion into Ukraine. The event left little doubt that choice of timing was linked to the impending crisis. On 24 February, Moscow warned NATO in a declaration that there would be unprecedented consequences should a third state attempt to “obstruct” Russia’s designs. The Russian president went further on 27 February, announcing that Russia’s nuclear forces had been placed on “special alert”. Such public announcement regarding nuclear forces was last proclaimed by the United States during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov later noted, cryptically, that a third world war would be “nuclear”.

The Bluff of Extended Deterrence

In this milieu, the very idea of “extended nuclear deterrence” takes an outlandish turn. The logic of guarantee against a nuclear attack on a third nation implies that the guarantor launch a retaliatory nuclear strike and accept the consequences irrespective of circumstance, extent of convergence of interests or degree of mutuality. This, as recent events in Ukraine has exposed, is not rational.

Extended nuclear deterrence demands both guarantor and beneficiary accept the same conditions of nuclear use, magnitude of response, norms for escalation and share the same strategic interests. Since none of these propositions are indubitable, the substance of extended nuclear deterrence is ultimately dependent on the guarantor accepting catastrophic consequences on behalf of a third party. Nations under this canopy might want to re-consider the credibility of extended nuclear deterrence in the contemporary strategic circumstance. Reliance on the nuclear deterrent capabilities of a major power is much more an “act of clutching at a straw” than a reflection of reality. This is the dilemma of extended nuclear deterrence.

Prospects of Nuclear Stability – A Revisit

Many factors that deterred military conflict during the Cold War and after have weakened. The growing parity of arsenal, absence of moderating pressures and power imbalances between states have exposed the underlying stresses within the global system and increased the probability of conflict.

Russia’s case is symptomatic of the current anarchic state of affairs. Having lost its economic, technological, and political heft of the Soviet era; it retains great power aspirations, demands exceptionalism and clings to nuclear superpower status. Its nuclear arsenal is a key component of leverage, for it endows immunity from military pressure and the leeway to pursue an independent foreign policy.

Nuclear deterrence today can only work in conjunction with agreements, limitations and transparency. Without which, it brings antagonistic powers to the brink of nuclear war in a crisis. In the present fragile condition of deterrent relationships the prospects of nuclear stability amongst the nine nuclear armed nations will remain forlorn.

The Challenge

Cold-War nuclear paradigms can no further be tweaked to provide an illusion of stability to the nine nuclear armed states. Priority should be given to identifying methods to dispel ‘mistrust’, while advancing the idea that globally, nuclear surety is neither served by ‘parity’ in arsenals nor ‘assurance’ of total devastation. The former has brought into play a multi-polar encore of an arms race, while the latter is a return to barbaric times when extinction was propagated as a solution.

Global affairs of-the-day is a paradox. Economics and interdependence are the engines of power and yet there is reluctance to step back from military situations such as what we see in Ukraine. Nuclear weapons cannot be reduced to a gamblers game of “dare”. But to remove it from arsenals is neither practicable nor are nations ready to wean themselves from an instrument of power that nurtured them. The answer lies in transparency shadowed by withdrawal from this calamitous obsession through a general adoption of a policy of ‘No-First-Use’ of nuclear weapons. This is a first step towards disarmament.

Nuclear Crises in the Time of Orwellian Wars

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This article was first published in my column on the Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies http://www.ipcs.org/article/south-asia/nuclear-crises-in-the-time-of-orwellian-wars-5314.html. A longer version of the article can be found here.

[…] The consciousness of being at war, and therefore in danger, makes the handing-over of all power to a small caste seem the natural, unavoidable condition of survival.               

 – George Orwell, 1984                           

 The Stalin-Churchill Exchange

In 1946, a fustian exchange of rhetoric between Stalin and Churchill was to set the stage for incessant crises in international relations since. It would take countries to the brink and often over it. In assessing the state of the world and character of relations between nations, Stalin, on 9th February, declared to a Moscow audience, “[…] development of world capitalism does not proceed smoothly and evenly, but through crises and catastrophic wars.” His point was that inequities lead to instability; as perceptions of insecurities in access to raw materials and markets provoke the impulse to redistribute favourable “spheres of influence,” often by employing armed force. The awkward irony is that this state of affairs of an uncertain world fragmented into hostile economic and military camps on the brink in perpetuity is the reality, with the effects of climate change being the only sobering moderator. The inelegant skepticism of the US in the climate change context makes for a deranged future. While Churchill (the former Prime Minister), on 5th March 1946, responded by condemning Soviet policies in Europe and declared in a speech at Westminster University Missouri, “A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Allied victory. From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.”

There was a self-fulfilling prophecy in these words as the world knuckled down to the ideological declaration of war by the two belligerent blocs. Stalin’s words were taken to mean the inevitability of conflict between the two; while Churchill’s speech is considered one of the opening volleys of the ‘Cold War.’ With each passing year, heightened tensions between states retreating into the idea of closed dominions, the rise of nations that promote revisionist ideologies, and to add to it all the disrupting role of non-state actors and nuclear proliferation thrust new elements into the cauldron, deepening and making more catastrophic the probability of a global crisis spinning out of control.

Nuclear Crisis Group

Recognising that peril lay in the inability of formal establishments to monitor potential situations of nuclear conflict and that contemporary nuclear security had introduced dynamics vastly dissimilar to the two-bloc confrontation, a crisis group was formed as a sub-sect of the Global Zero Commission. Its mission is to analyse these predicaments, develop proposals for de-escalation and consult with appropriate agencies to diminish the danger of a nuclear exchange. The Group, an international assemblage of experts from nuclear armed countries and supporters, met for the first time on 5th-6th May 2017 in Vienna. (Details of proceedings may be found here. https://globalzero.org/files/nuclear_crises_group_urgent_steps_june_2017.pdf)

Wink-and-Nod Perils: Proliferation, Non-State Actors and Orwellian Wars

Dangers of nuclear proliferation and the deranging role of non-state actors accessing nuclear technologies has been well acknowledged but more often acted upon with a “wink-a facetious rebuke-and-a nod.” This selective look-away has consequences. The imbroglio in US dealings with Pakistan in the Afghan war exemplifies the penalties. Pakistan, an acknowledged dishonest American partner was, the US establishment asserts, “living a lie.” Pakistan’s military played “both ends against the middle.” It provided logistic conduits for money, while giving financial, material, intelligence and weapons to the jihadists. Indeed, there have been tactical gains but these pale to insignificance faced by the most conspicuous strategic failure: Pakistan providing sanctuary and sustenance to jihadis.  Combat, over the last 16 years (or 38?) in the absence of genuine strategic impetus, has morphed to an “Orwellian” war. And as war rages, Pakistan remains a haven to the highest concentration of terrorist groups while its nuclear fervour advances undiminished.

China has been central to nuclear proliferation in the region and the Pakistan weapon program; from blueprint of a nuclear device, through testing, to the AQ Khan enterprise and now, to tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs). The reasons for China’s profligate orientation may have originally reflected balance-of-power logic. However, the costs are perilous. Are we living another wink?

In strategic persuasion, Pakistan’s military is convinced that the US withdrawal from Afghanistan will leave a devastated, warring Afghanistan and an enfeebled insurgency-wracked Pakistan. They envisage a lonely and losing confrontation against the growing economic and military influence of the avowed enemy, India. This had to be countered by persisting with jihadis as the sine qua non of military strategy. While some have suggested that terror organizations may not be under their control, this is denial of the internals of that state where the nexus between the Army, intelligence service and jihadists is as old as the state. Unmistakably, the Islamic State (IS) has been seduced into the sub-continent; can the world, China and indeed this Group now be blind to the looming jihadist access to a nuclear arsenal?

Technology Intrusions and the Cyber Dimension

Nuclear weapons have put us on a razor’s edge, in part because of our powerlessness to control how political events and technology are driving policy. While technology invites covertness; lethality, precision, stealth and time compression that accompanies it demands transparency. This is the dilemma faced by planners: to balance the impact of technology with the need for openness. In the cyber domain, transparency will reduce hazards of unintended actions as nations prepare to use this arena to manipulate command networks.

The Road to Abolishment

The only way to eliminate the risk of nuclear weapons is through abolition. If this is the leitmotif, NFU posture is its first handmaiden backed by reduced reliance on nuclear weapons and the removal of battlefield and tactical nuclear weapons. This proposition, in toto, was unanimously welcomed by the Nuclear Crisis Group (NCG).

Flash Points.  Nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists is the biggest global concern. Discriminating between terror groups and making them instruments of state policy had to be rejected collectively. In addition to this overarching perspective, the Group identified four priority geopolitical dynamics that risked escalation to nuclear conflagration: the Korean Peninsula predicament, US/NATO-Russia meltdown in relations, South Asia conundrum and U.S.-China confrontation.

Korean Peninsula. The NCG aimed for complete denuclearization through negotiations with North Korea balanced against a calibrated end to US military exercises and provocative deployments in the Republic of Korea and easing of sanctions. China’s role in the North Korean problem had to be leveraged (not only has China fought a war on its behalf but provides existential sustenance).

US, Russia, NATO. Crisis instability between the US, Russia and NATO has taken a dangerous turn, triggered by Russian nuclear war fighting doctrine and statements that the US has neither obligation to limit nuclear-arms nor testing. In this circumstance, the impending US nuclear posture review (NPR) will likely cause disquiet given the current turbulence in West Asia, confused war on the IS in Syria, the ‘perpetual’ wars in Iraq and the AF-Pak region, Russia’s annexation of Ukrainian territory, recalcitrant Chinese activities in the South and East China Sea and increased nuclear activity by North Korea. But the real discounted problem in the entanglement is how to device measures that will prevent a slide back to the early Cold War era.

South Asia Situation.  India has a declared nuclear doctrine; at its heart is NFU and generation of a credible minimum deterrent. India does not differentiate between tactical and strategic nuclear weapons on the grounds that use of nuclear weapons introduces an uncontrollable development. To suggest that ambiguity and First Use provide options, is to suggest that nuclear war fighting, in conventional terms, is an option. This is a denial of the nature of nuclear weapons. With Pakistan there are foundational complications; it has no declared doctrine, while the hold of the “deep state” (the military-intelligence-jihadi combine) on the nation is so smothering that dialogue is confounded by the question “who to dialogue with?” Duplicity and denial on issues related to state support, sanctuary and complicity with terror organisations makes confabulations with civilian government a sterile exercise. Continued collusion with China on nuclear weapons production and proliferation is an area that must be seized. If multilateral constraints are not in place then the probability of these technologies falling into jihadi hands is high.

US-China Relations. US-China relations remain fragile as the latter’s growth and aspirations come in conflict with America’s global influence, as is apparent in the sporadic friction that flares in the South and East China seas. China’s revisionist drive in this expanse and its military modernisation plans and policy has not helped to pacify matters. Rather it has increased the probability of escalation. Its surreptitious nuclear proliferatory enterprises have further exacerbated the situation. While China has, over the years, quite steadfastly adhered to its NFU nuclear policy, it is its support of states such as North Korea and Pakistan that is worrisome.

A Half Way Conclusion 

Fragmentation in geopolitics, rise of bigoted revisionist ideologies, nuclear perfidy of authoritarian dispensations and the end of an overwrought global order makes for fragility in nuclear affairs. As nations see themselves besieged by forces beyond control, it is timely that the Group has raised its collective voice to temper the idealistic nuclear agenda of abolition with a dose of realism that first charts a course across two pragmatic way points: No First Use and removal of tactical nuclear weapons.