Nuclear Weapons--The Good News and the Bad News

We are at a tipping point and its not clear which way this is going to fall

Hello All,

The issues of nuclear war and nuclear weapons have ratcheted up significantly in the last few weeks—and signs of where this is all heading are contradictory. There were the well-covered nuclear threats of Vladimir Putin to end life on earth if European troops found their way to Ukraine. On the other hand, there was another example of the Chinese state going out of its way to slap down its Russian partner on the nuclear question—in a rather pointed way that I don’t think has received the kind of attention it deserves.

We really are confronted with two possible nuclear worlds in the future. One is where the other main nuclear powers (not named Russia) redouble efforts to keep the non-proliferation world intact. The other is a wild-west world of nuclear proliferation where a US abandonment of Europe coupled with the success of the Russian nuclear-threat policy leads to a rapid nuclearization of a number of other states and a transformation of the nuclear world. I thought it would be worthwhile to discuss both possibilities, as the signs are conflicting.

Keeping the nuclear genie in the lamp: Chinese policy.

Sometimes people seem to overlook important international signals. That was the case this week. As many people lost their head reacting to Putin’s nuclear threats, very few mentioned that the Chinese government slapped Putin down quite publicly just a few days before. That happened