A ludicrous war of words is going on about which country plans to test its nuclear weapons for the first time in three decades and what, if anything, this might tell you about how big, bad and bold Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin might be.
That is a somewhat pathetic distraction from the much more important nuclear issue that the so-called great powers need to address. This is the rapid build-up being made by Russia’s “strategic partner,” China, of its nuclear arsenal and its refusal to hold any serious talks about arms control or transparency.
Threatening to test nuclear weapons is just a display of braggadocio, which shows that the current leaders of the two biggest nuclear states have lost the sense of seriousness and responsibility that helped keep the world safe during the four often tense decades of the Cold War.
The Partial Test Ban Treaty signed in 1963 by America, the Soviet Union and Britain banned all tests in the air, outer space or under water. The last underground test was conducted by the United States in 1992. Then in 1996 the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was agreed upon at the United Nations with an aim of banning all tests. This treaty has, however, never come into force – although most countries have signed it.
The resumption of nuclear tests by either Russia or the United States would signify the discarding of such collective agreements and, in effect, the rejection of the whole idea of agreed restraints. It would be a sign that relationships between the nuclear superpowers were breaking down and that long-held norms of behavior and transparency could no longer be relied upon.
This would carry the risk of encouraging other countries to seek nuclear weapons and would imply that if there was any real crisis between Russia and America it could become as dangerous as was the stand-off over nuclear missiles in Cuba in 1962 that gave rise to the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty.
Complacency is never justified when the world’s most destructive weapons are involved. However, for the time being this bout of braggadocio between Putin and Trump does not look capable of turning into anything truly dangerous. After all, during his second term of office Trump has shown no willingness to confront Putin over his war crimes in Ukraine. Just the opposite: He has mainly made life easier for Russia.
One of the main risks posed by this noisy debate about nuclear testing is that it distracts attention from the relationship in which a crisis is all too easily imaginable: the relationship between the United States and China. These two economic powers have agreed to a one-year truce in their tussle over trade. But meanwhile both sides know that they have a fundamental difference of opinion over Taiwan, and thereby also over the strategic control over the whole of the western Pacific ocean that Taiwan would provide.
There is no sign that China is preparing an invasion of Taiwan or a naval blockade. But the fact that China is engaged in a project to at least double the size of its own nuclear arsenal over the next five years must be taken as ominous.
Ever since China emerged as a nuclear-weapons state in 1964, it has adopted a strategy known as “minimum deterrence.” This means that China, just like Britain and France, chose to possess enough nuclear weapons to be able to convince any potential adversary that it would be able to retaliate if attacked, but not enough to imply that it might be a direct danger to other countries.
The size of its nuclear arsenal remains a state secret, but until about five years ago it was thought to be holding about 250 nuclear weapons, compared with the 5,500 held by Russia and 5,100 by the United States.
According to annual reports to Congress from the US Department of Defense, in the past five years China has more than doubled its nuclear arsenal to an estimated 600 weapons – and based on satellite surveys of new missile silos being built is thought to be planning to increase this number to between 1,000 and 1,500 by the early 2030s.
There has been no official statement clarifying the reason for this expansion. It could simply be that China believes that to be a true superpower it needs to have an arsenal equivalent in power to that of Russia and America, even if never reaching those countries’ somewhat absurd level of stocks of what are essentially unusable weapons.
That may well be true but it needs to be seen against the background of the Taiwan issue. Given China’s declared desire to regain control over Taiwan for the first time since the islands were ceded to Japan in 1895, it needs to prepare for a potential conflict over Taiwan, not just with Taiwan itself but also potentially with the United States.
There can be no certainty that such a conflict will ever take place, nor that the United States will choose to get involved. But what China’s nuclear build-up implies is that part of the Chinese strategy is to make sure that it has sufficient nuclear capability to act as a deterrent against American involvement, not just through the threat of nuclear retaliation but through the implication that in a conflict China would be able to mount a nuclear attack on America or American assets itself, if it chose to do so.
Undoubtedly, China will continue with its nuclear build-up for as long as it sees advantage in doing so. But the danger posed by that buildup is the classic one from the early years of the Cold War: that because there is no exchange of information there is a risk of mutual suspicion and misunderstandings, especially at a time of crisis, misunderstandings that could prove catastrophic. Successive US administrations have tried to engage China in arms control negotiations to reduce those suspicions, but so far China has refused.
A rupture between America and Russia over nuclear testing carries the further risk that it could close the door on future arms control negotiations among all the superpowers.
Putin and Trump will no doubt flex their muscles in whatever way makes them feel good. But it would be far better if both Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping were to draw the conclusion that – at least between the two proper, most modern superpowers – a more mature and responsible approach would be beneficial.
Alongside their trade talks, they should start a serious discussion about arms control and about transparency. It could even provide a useful opportunity for Xi to differentiate himself from Putin.
Formerly editor-in-chief of The Economist, Bill Emmott is currently chairman of the Japan Society of the UK, the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the International Trade Institute.
First published on his Substack newsletter Bill Emmott’s Global View, this is the English original of an article published in Italian by La Stampa. It is republished with kind permission.
