Who has nuclear weapons?
The vast majority—some
91 percent—of the world’s
13,400 nuclear weapons are
owned by the U.S. and Russia,
which each have the power to
render Earth an uninhabitable
nuclear wasteland. The other early
developers of nuclear arsenals were
the U.K., China, and France. In an
attempt to prevent further spread,
the Non-Proliferation Treaty
(NPT) was adopted in 1970,
pledging those five powers to even-
tually disarm in return for other
states promising not to pursue the
bomb. But more than 50 years
later, all four of the countries
that aren’t party to the treaty—India, Pakistan, Israel, and North
Korea—have nuclear arsenals (although Israel has never confirmed
it), and at least one signatory, Iran, has taken steps to build its
own. Another treaty, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear
Weapons, just came into force in January, but none of the nuclear
states signed it. Though public concern about nuclear war has
faded since countries became preoccupied with terrorism, climate
change, and now, viral pandemics, the threat remains very real.
Potential triggers of nuclear conflict include India’s border disputes
with both Pakistan and China, Iran’s threats to destroy Israel,
Israel’s pledge to prevent Iran from getting nukes, China’s designs
on Taiwan, and North Korea’s threat to South Korea.What about arms control treaties?
Few remain. During the Reagan era, the U.S. and the Soviet
Union agreed to slash their nuclear arsenals, but most arms con-
trol treaties since then have lapsed.
The Bush administration pulled out
of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in
2002, which sparked an arms race
in missile-defense systems (see box),
and President Trump yanked the
U.S. out of the Intermediate-Range
Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019, say-
ing that Russia had violated it. So the
only remaining arms treaty the U.S.
observes is New START, a pact with
Russia negotiated under the Obama
administration. That treaty cut the
number of deployed nuclear warheads
that each side can have by more
than half, to 1,550. Former President
Trump was planning to let the treaty
expire this month. But just after tak-
ing office, President Biden agreed with
Russian President Vladimir Putin to
extend the treaty for five more years.
Biden also will try to revive the Iran
nuclear deal.What is Iran’s capability?
Israeli intelligence says that the assas-
sination of Iran’s top nuclear scientistin November set Iran’s nuclear
program back, and that it would
need two years to build a nuclear
weapon. In the early 2000s, the
International Atomic Energy
Agency discovered that Iran
had been cheating on the NPT
with a clandestine program to
enrich uranium. Under the 2015
treaty negotiated by the Obama
administration, Iran agreed to
radically slash its stockpile of
uranium and limit the number
of centrifuges that it can use for
enrichment. But since the Trump
administration pulled out of the
deal in 2018 and hit Iran with
new sanctions, Iran has resumed
production of 20 percent enriched uranium, getting nine-tenths of
the way toward weapons-grade fuel.What happens if Iran goes nuclear?
It would set off a chain of proliferation. Saudi Arabia, Iran’s
enemy, has said it would seek nukes if Iran got them, and Turkey
and Egypt could follow. The threat from North Korea, meanwhile,
is alarming to Japan and South Korea, where factions have argued
for the development of their own nuclear weapons as deterrents.
Since it first tested a nuclear weapon in 2006, North Korea has
built dozens of bombs and hundreds of missiles, and it now has
intercontinental ballistic missiles that can reach anywhere—
including the continental United States. Our allies are now won-
dering, says Ivo Daalder of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs,
“Will you sacrifice us for you? Will you save Seattle at the price
of Seoul?” The more nuclear weapons there are in the world, of
course, the more likely it is that
one could be fired by accident or
fall into terrorist hands.What comes next?
The next nuclear summit—the
NPT review conference held
every five years—takes place in
August. That will be a chance
for the Biden administration to
reassure allies and to open nego-
tiations with rising power China.
China is planning to double its
arsenal to 200 warheads over
the next decade, and it has been
pouring money into new missile
designs. Adm. Charles Richard,
head of the U.S. strategic com-
mand, says China will soon be
a nuclear peer of the U.S., just
as Russia is. “For the first time
ever, the U.S. is going to face two
peer-capable nuclear competitors
who are different, who you have
to deter differently,” he said.
“We have never faced that situa-
tion before.”Briefing NEWS 11
China shows off nuclear ICBMs during a 2019 ceremony in Beijing.The forgotten nuclear threat
Ge
tty
The trouble with missile defense
Missile defense is a system designed to shoot down
incoming nuclear missiles before they hit. But if a coun-
try can shoot down, say, 100 enemy missiles, the enemy
has an incentive to fire 200 to overwhelm the defense,
leading to an offensive and defensive arms race. So in
their arms control treaty, the U.S. and Soviets banned
most missile defenses, relying instead on deterrence—
the threat of mutual assured destruction. The U.S. pulled
out of that pact in 2002, saying it needed the ability to
defend against a launch by a terrorist or a rogue state
such as Iran or North Korea. Since then, it has deployed
defense systems in South Korea and sold anti-ballistic
Patriot missiles to more than a dozen countries. The
danger with missile defense is that if a country believes
it can reliably defend itself against retaliatory nukes, it
loses the deterrence of conducting its own first strike.
But so far, despite billions in expenditures, missile
defense is more of a fantasy than a reality. Patriot mis-
siles failed to knock down most missiles fired by ene-
mies in the Saudi-Houthi conflict and the 1991 Gulf War.
In fact, says arms control expert Jeffrey Lewis, there is
no evidence that a Patriot “has ever intercepted a long-
range ballistic missile in combat.”Constraints on nuclear proliferation have lapsed or been loosened in recent years. How great is the danger?