Ivo Daalder, former U.S. ambassador to NATO, is CEO of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and host of the weekly podcast “World Review with Ivo Daalder.” He writes POLITICO’s Across the Pond column.
While attending a virtual transatlantic seminar on burden sharing recently, I heard two Americans arguing that Washington needed to prioritize military engagement in Asia over continued engagement in Europe — a view closely aligned with the incoming administration.
But my ears perked up when one of them said the U.S. “would maintain its extended nuclear deterrent,” even though Europe would need to defend itself against Russia’s military threat. This was reassuring, for America’s nuclear arsenal has been the cornerstone of NATO’s nuclear security for decades.
However, I have my doubts. NATO’s nuclear history consists of one long effort to reassure nonnuclear European allies that the U.S. would risk the destruction of New York or Washington to defend Berlin or Warsaw. One way it has done so is by deploying nuclear weapons in Europe and offering some European allies to fly their own aircraft carrying U.S. nuclear weapons.
The more important reassurance, however, has always involved the deployment of U.S. troops on the front line, which guarantees America will be involved in any war from the very first shot. It is those troops that make America’s security commitment, including its nuclear deterrent, very real — both for Russia and for NATO allies.
When I pointed this out, though, the presenter suggested that European countries may want to consider getting nuclear deterrents of their own then. After all, they argued, Washington had supported “good proliferation” before — just look at France and the U.K. But while this view isn’t all that far removed from what President-elect Donald Trump has been saying, it’s also a very slippery slope.
Indeed, back in 2016, then-candidate Trump argued that Korea and Japan might want to get nuclear weapons to deal with North Korea’s arsenal. He then offered them little reassurance that the U.S. had their backs. And later, as president, he was more concerned with getting allies to “pay up” than defending them in the event of an attack.
Of course, worries about nuclear proliferation are nothing new. In 1963, then-U.S. President John F. Kennedy warned of a “world in which 15 or 20 or 25 nations may have these weapons.” But while Washington did help some allies with their nuclear programs, its longer-term effort was to stem the desire for acquiring nuclear weapons through a combination of arms control and alliance building.
Together with the Soviet Union, the U.S. negotiated the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which committed nonnuclear states to remain so, and nuclear states to work toward nuclear disarmament. Washington also bolstered its nuclear commitments to allies in Europe and Asia, sharing nuclear information and inviting some allies to participate in nuclear missions.
These efforts have been extraordinarily successful. Since the NPT was signed in 1968, only five other countries developed nuclear weapons — and one of those, South Africa, dismantled its small arsenal in the 1990s. Over the past few decades, arms control agreements— as well as stronger alliances — reduced nuclear inventories by nearly 90 percent.
But now, this strategy is under severe stress. New START, the last remaining U.S.-Russia strategic arms control agreement, will expire in little over a year. Moscow has already made clear it doesn’t seek another extension, and Washington is now concerned that Beijing’s rapidly expanding nuclear arsenal means future negotiations will mean trying to pull off a more complicated and difficult tripartite agreement.
Meanwhile, Russia’s military aggression in Ukraine and its shadow war against Europe have created the most threatening security environment the continent has seen in decades, putting alliances under increasing strain. Plus, China’s rapid expansion of its armed forces, coupled with its growing willingness to use military muscle across its borders and in the waters of the Pacific, now challenge America’s longstanding predominance in the region.
All this, at a time when the U.S. is sowing doubts about its own global staying power. Lest we forget, during his first term, Trump’s “America First policy” had a tendency to put allies last — weakening alliances long vital to combatting the desire for proliferation.
But it’s not just Trump — America’s actions have been running counter to Washington’s nonproliferation interests for longer than that.
When Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, for example, the U.S., Britain and France did little to counter the effort, even though all three nuclear powers, along with Russia, had signed the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. That agreement was meant to guarantee Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty in return for its transfer of the nuclear weapons and missiles deployed on its territory when still part of the Soviet Union.
The same can be said of America’s more recent actions in Ukraine and the Middle East too. When Iran fired hundreds of missiles and drones against Israel in April and October last year, a beefed-up U.S. military in the region was critical to Israel’s defense. But when Russia shoots hundreds of missiles and drones against civilian targets in Ukraine almost every day of the week, all Washington does is promise more air defense missiles.
The difference is clear: As a nuclear power, Russia deters the U.S. and its allies from directly defending Ukraine, but as a nonnuclear power, Iran can do little to prevent the U.S. and its allies from directly defending Israel. No surprise, then, that the International Atomic Energy Agency recently announced Tehran had “dramatically” accelerated its uranium enrichment efforts.
In a world less constrained by international norms and rules, and increasingly governed by sheer power, the strictures that long constrained nuclear proliferation are now in danger of loosening — if not untangling altogether. And in such a world, even “good” proliferation can soon lead to very bad results.
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