Lewis A. Dunn
As Donald Trump prepares to begin his second term as U.S. president, he is faced with a world sliding into nuclear anarchy. Brinkmanship among major nuclear powers is rising: China is relentlessly expanding its nuclear forces but rejecting serious engagement with the United States on arms control; U.S.-Russian cooperation on nuclear matters, already in a dire state, has deteriorated further with President Vladimir Putin’s repeated nuclear threats in the course of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Recent reports based on information from senior U.S. officials indicate that the United States, too, could modify its posture and expand its arsenal to strengthen deterrence of coordinated Russian, Chinese, and North Korean nuclear adventurism. All these developments have eroded critical pillars of the nuclear order and raised the risk of nuclear warfare. The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which was signed in 1968, is the only remaining major, legally binding mechanism to uphold that order. But the actions of nuclear weapons states that are party to the treaty, the disillusionment of many nonnuclear parties, and the consideration by other countries to build their own nuclear programs have placed the NPT’s future in doubt.
Responding to this continuing breakdown in a recent Foreign Affairs article, Doreen Horschig and Heather Williams called for the United States to “uphold existing nuclear norms” by establishing closer relationships with countries in the global South, fortifying partnerships with allies, and creating regional engagement between nuclear and nonnuclear countries. But such efforts are insufficient on their own. At this point, the United States must instead try again to directly engage China and Russia not only as nuclear adversaries to be deterred but also as potential collaborators in a final attempt to head off nuclear anarchy.
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