Global Nuclear Order Unravels Amid Power Shifts

“I made one great mistake in my life – when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made; but there was some justification – the danger that the Germans would make them.” — Albert Einstein, 1954.

The unraveling of the post‑Cold War restraints

For six decades a network of treaties, export controls and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) underpinned a global bargain: a small set of states would hold nuclear arms while disarmament and safeguards opened peaceful nuclear technology to non‑nuclear states. That architecture is now under strain. The last of the US‑Russia limits, New START, “expired with no replacement in February,” and the Comprehensive Nuclear‑Test‑Ban Treaty, the Nuclear Non‑proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the IAEA are being weakened “by blocking, dilution and fracturing efforts conducted from within by Russia, China and their proxies,” the source reports.

More warheads, new suppliers, and next‑generation threats

Today the permanent five UN Security Council members — the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France — plus North Korea, India and Pakistan, “have nuclear arsenals and sophisticated delivery systems. All are expanding or modernising their arsenals.” China’s rapid build‑out is singled out as a central fact any successor to New START must address. The source also highlights next‑generation technologies — artificial intelligence, “proliferation‑proof machinery” and space‑based systems — as necessary elements for new arms‑control frameworks.

Regional crises: Iran, North Korea and the spectre of breakout

Prior to Israeli and US attacks in 2025 and 2026, Iran “was on track to obtain nuclear weapons,” and the source cautions Tehran “may still be on this track.” North Korea has “moved quickly to build its own nuclear weapons and long‑range strike capabilities,” and is “believed to have enough weapons grade material and delivery systems for 70 warheads.” Pyongyang has renewed a defence pact with Russia and, the source says, “gained Russian nuclear technology and tacit Chinese acceptance as a nuclear weapons power.”

These developments feed a widening fear: allies and non‑aligned states increasingly question whether extended nuclear deterrence — the promise that one state’s nuclear arsenal will defend another — is credible. The piece notes that “some of these countries could be contemplating indigenous nuclear capabilities,” and that front‑line states such as South Korea, Japan, the Baltics, Poland and Saudi Arabia are under renewed scrutiny for possible moves toward nuclear breakout.

Deterrence tested: coercion, credibility and historical cautionary tales

The report frames deterrence as a “mind game” that requires far more credibility to reassure allies than to deter an adversary. It points to Russia’s war in Ukraine as evidence that a smaller state can withstand threats — “including nuclear coercion” — through conventional and asymmetric methods, and notes Iran’s leverage over the Strait of Hormuz and its ability to strike US regional bases and Israel. The piece also reminds readers of historical lessons: Ukraine, Libya and Iraq are cited as “historic cautionary examples of what can follow when smaller states give up nuclear weapons or accept security guarantees that prove fragile.”

What this means for South Korea, Japan, and Saudi Arabia

• South Korea: About 1,000 US nuclear weapons were removed from the Korean Peninsula in 1991. Under a 1972 agreement with the US, South Korea is “prohibited from uranium enrichment and plutonium processing” and thus denied an essential ingredient for weapons. Washington “has not altered that agreement and is unlikely to, for fear of being drawn into nuclear war with North Korea.”
• Japan: The source notes that if South Korea did not move to obtain nuclear weapons, “Japan wouldn’t, either,” implying that allied security arrangements and non‑proliferation commitments continue to shape Tokyo’s choices.
• Saudi Arabia: The outlines of the reported US–Saudi nuclear power technology deal “are not clear.” The source warns that concerns about the Trump Administration providing technology “without the IAEA Additional Protocol” are “well founded,” and that such a deal would “dilute an essential element of non‑proliferation machinery.”

Only China and the United States, the report argues, can realistically build a new nuclear consensus. Beijing’s movement “towards strategic nuclear parity with the US and Russia” may make it more willing to discuss transparency and risk reduction. The US, for its part, must “show it remains capable of shaping the nuclear rules and willing to use its military and political power to enforce them.” In an era the article calls “unstable,” the prescription is stark: assurance and guardrails are “no longer optional” — they are the minimum conditions to avoid the next nuclear crisis.

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/nuclear-weapons-the-global-outlook-in-an-unstable-new-era/