By : Karni Pratap Singh Shekhawat
The threat of annihilation has never been greater due to a mix of factor ,namely ,trade wars and termination of cold war era treaties.The Doomsday clock for 2018 stood at 2 minutes to midnight : closest since 1953 when the first hydrogen bomb was tested by U.S. , with a combination of factors ; the U.S. north area conflict , threat and go-easy attitude towards climate change where midnight stands for annihilation.
The dismantling of "arms control." a cold war mantra ,is now heightening the risks of a new era when nuclear powers like India and Pakistan are clashing over Kashmir, and when nuclear Israel feels threatened by Iran,North Korea is testing new missiles ,and other countries like Saudi Arabia are thought to have access to nuclear weapons or to be capable of building them.
There is a lack of will for arms control and disarmament even when the treaties keeping the peace are either being killed or made to expire deliberately such as the U.S. pulling out of INF treaty in august 2019 which banned the use of land based ballistic missiles ,cruise missiles and missile launchers of range 500-5000 km .[Both short and intermediate-range].
The lack of effort from the trump administration to renew New START (which Mr.Trump is a critic of ) is on life-support and its termination would usher the world into a new arms race.This treaty limited the number of deployed nuclear weapons to 1550 for both countries.Letting this treaty expire would increase the number of nuclear weapon possessed by Moscow and Washington to an unknown number, acting as an invitation to the Chinese to build up their arsenal.
There are also fears that the U.S. could withdraw from the treaty on open skies which lets the party states send unarmed UAV surveillance fights into other party states' airspace ,which acts as an incredible confidence building measure (CBM) playing right into the hands of the Russians having done so before with the INF treaty.
The unsettling point for the U.S. in such issues is that nations like India, Pakistan and particularly china are not a party to such framework and the exclusion of tactical nuclear warheads (for battlefield use) for New STRAT. The U.S. stated China not being a party to INF, as one of the reason for its exodus.
Although, america military may have a lot of reason to see China's growing conventional strength as an offensive threat to U.S. assets and allies one can't say the same thing about China's nuclear arsenal.
The Trump idea of a trilateral arms control agreement is not realistic. The Chinese are not going to codify an inferior number of weapons compared to the United States and Russia, and the U.S. won't give china equal status. Moreover, missiles banned in INF, form 95% of the Chinese inventory of 2000 missiles.
The war-mongering nature of showcased by the Islamic Republic of Iran after U.S. pullout from the landmark 2015 Iran Nuclear deal by creating tensions in the strait of Hormuz, launching attacks on Aramco refinery in Saudi Arabia, attacking U.S. naval ,diplomatic,and marine corps assets with drones and missiles , brought the world to the brink of another war in the middle East amidst a highly publicized pullout of U.S. troops from the region opposed by Kurd and Peshmarga who felt betrayed . This all has led to the Weaponisation of cyberspace as the U.S. retaliation using cyber attacks on Iran.This withdrawal has left a void in a region as volatile as the middle east . The void is being rapidly filled by the Russian , Iranian , Saudi and Turkish military .The arm control architecture of the cold war , involving tens of thousands of nuclear weapons , was laboriously designed over years of hard-fought negotiations between two superpowers -- The United States and the soviet Union . These elaborate treaties keep the world from nuclear annihilation.
Today , those treaties are being abandoned by the United States and Russia just as new strategic competition not covered by the cold war accords - like china, North Korea and Iran- are asserting themself as regional powers and challenging american hegemony.
There is heavy military build up by china and Russia which they believe keeps them competitive with America , making this a three way arms race.
Russia has been waging both direct and indirect war against Ukraine which bought NPT and Budapest Memorandum into questions and increased NATO and U.S. boots on the ground and military assets in Eastern Europe especially Poland and the Baltic states.
The Chine-United States trade war is an ongoing economic conflict between the world's two largest national economic ,China and the United States. President Donald Trump in 2018 began setting tariffs and other trade barriers on china to force it to make changes to what the U.S. says are "unfair trade practices".Among those trade practices and there effects are the growing trade deficit , the theft of intellectual property and the forced transfer of American technology to China.
the Indo-Pak stand-off in February and march 2019 following Pulwama Attack and Balakot airstrikes bought the world on the brink of a real exchange of nuclear weapons with global repercussions.
With 26 conflicts going on around the globe, we ironically enough, live in peaceful times highlighting mankind's love of wars. With the conclusion of many of these conflicts not in sight and some more and new conflicts emerging, we are set for gruelling times ahead.
The situation between national-states has been made to escalate further by non-state players and rogue states such as Hezbollah , Hamas, ISIS, Taliban, Boko Haram, North Korea, Iran, etc. With many of the ongoing conflicts having been the brainchild of these organizations.
But all is not lost and there are a few instances of the willingness of peace from nations. These include Afghan Peace talk in Qatar between U.S. , Afghanistan, and the Taliban for a peaceful end of the 41-year-old conflict in the region . First-ever U.S.- North Korea talk in Singapore followed by one in Hanoi and another one at DMZ making Trump the first-ever U.S. President in North Korea. The Panmunjom Declaration tried to mark the end of the Korean war (1950-53), technically still going on, by proposing a peace treaty, proposed denuclearization (highly unlikely) and reunification of the peninsula.
The killing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, commander of ISIS by the U.S. Delta Force under JSOC ON 26th October 2019 was the most landmark event following the killing of the Bin-Laden Navy SEALs in 2011, in the global war on Terror.
The entry of the Turkish military forces into Northern Syria is something that can help bring stability to the failed state or could lead to deterioration of the situation further.
The eagerness shown by Russians to renew the New START which is set to expire in 2021 with no replacement in place has raised hopes that the world would be spared a new arms race and trillions of dollars of money which can be put to better use.
There has been a sudden and sharp rise in the number of hostilities and possible conflicts with aggressive stances of nations and the emergence of non-state actors with a little desire or no desire for peace from any side. This makes our world one press of a button away from apocalypse. The rare instances of willingness for peace are not enough to reduce fears of war.
Diplomatic avenues are not being explored and there has been massive militarization from every side with Two states even pursuing a nuclear weapon program (Iran and Saudi Arabia).
THE SITUATION LOOKS QUITE BLEAK.
Kommentare