NUCLEAR arms race is an inevitable eventuality in a world where mistrust and conflict supersede dialogue and the collective appreciation for convivial global co-existence.
Two examples of current international conflict – Ukraine and the Middle East – provide a textbook example of how and when to ignite a nuclear arms race.
At the height of the Cold War, the constant military threat between the former Soviet Union and the US and its allies kept the threat for nukes a mere click-of-a-mouse away.
Sadly, after a long period of relative global peace and stability, geopolitical differences continue to push nations of the world apart rather than closer.
The failure to prioritise a peace settlement in Ukraine, marked by heightened Western war-mongering, brings the international community closer to the brink with each passing day of brinkmanship.
The rise of a unipolar world order in the last decade or two, marked by naked imperial foreign policy goals that seek to retain the status quo at all costs – all these are a recipe to trigger a nuclear arms race in 2024.
The Russian Federation sees the unfettered expansion of Nato eastward as an existential threat to Russia. Attempts or efforts by the Kremlin to engage with Nato about Russia’s security concerns have fallen on deaf ears. Many geopolitical scholars who are unaffiliated believe that this factor alone has been a major causal factor to the Ukraine conflict, which Russia described as a special military operation.
On the other hand, Nato and the US see the Ukraine conflict, or “invasion”, as some opportunity to finally get rid of the last vestiges of the Soviet Union.
To this end, the West is enthusiastically engaged in what President Putin has described as the US-led “proxy war”.
Washington has invested billions of dollars in arms supply to Ukraine, and has also led the global support for Kyiv, which has seen President Volodymyr Zelensky treated like royalty at the multiple international platforms where invitations flow on a weekly basis.
Therefore, Ukraine has become all but a pawn in a grand scheme of competing geopolitical interests. To keep Kyiv interested in the role, the West promises Kyiv an expedited ascent to the Nato membership.
There are countries in the Nato military bloc that are opposed to Ukraine’s membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. They include Slovakia, Hungary, and Türkiye.
To gain full membership in Nato, all member-states must grant their consent. Any dissenting voice, no matter how lone it could be, warrants a halt to the acceptance or ascension into Nato.
Ukraine is therefore a major conundrum that no amount of spinning can conceal the hazardous path ahead to the Nato membership.
In the meantime, the astronomical loss of Ukrainian lives on the battlefield continues by the day, with Russia’s military supremacy unleashed at various strategic intervals to effect maximum damage.
The issue of the nuclear arms race keeps rearing its head, particularly at this moment of increasing pressure on the international governance architecture.
The UN system has not been spared blushes, particularly in so far as the Middle East is concerned. Israel, completely insulated by the US from the UN Security Council and international scrutiny, enjoys impunity from accountability for its actions in Gaza, where the Palestinians are facing extinction.
Israel is currently destroying the neighbouring Lebanon, too, and its US-supplied bombs are destroying lives and infrastructure alike in places such as Yemen and Syria.
Through it all, the US weapons of mass destruction supplied in abundance and without restrictions to the Israel Defence Force do untold damage in the Middle East, threatening a wider regional war.
Israel is so emboldened that it publicly declared the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres a persona non grata in the Jewish state in a public outburst a fortnight ago.
Notably, although the US and its allies are regularly quick to warn Iran against developing nuclear weapons, and imposing unilateral sanctions, Israel’s nuclear arsenal is, on the other hand, shrouded in complete secrecy and silence.
Such are the double-standards that characterise the current unipolar world order, dominated by the US and its allies, which is at odds with the spirit of the UN Charter.
Through it all, the international community is experiencing a surge in the nuclear arms race as the US and its Western allies seek to annihilate Russia before turning their collective attention on the People’s Republic of China.
China is the world’s second-biggest economy, whose meteoric rise in international affairs has not sat too well with the West.
The US has imposed trade restrictions on Chinese goods and services and the EU has typically followed, targeting the hugely popular Chinese Electric Vehicles, among others.
China’s “no-limits” relations with Russia are also a cause of major anxiety in the West. Given that both Russia and China are nuclear powers of note, the West is much aware that any direct military confrontation with Russia or China, or both – will result in the demise the entire planet Earth as we know it.
The nuclear arms race in 2024 is, in my view, the world’s most alarming development. It happens at a time when history has taught us that in all wars there are no victors. Secondly, all wars end with negotiations. The Ukraine war, in particular, has all the hallmarks of pending talks to end the conflict sitting around the table.
Hopefully, this will take place before Ukraine runs completely out of the fighters, misguided by Washington’s public pronouncements such as open-ended material support for as “long as it takes” when no American soldiers are in the perilous frontline.
There are many grounds that could trigger a nuclear arms race, grounds too many to mention one by one.
And, if you think Russia is at fault for the Ukraine conflict after Moscow was dismissed like a nonentity when President Putin raised security concerns in relation to Nato’s expansion next-door to Ukraine, just imagine the following scenario: Russia moving to establish a military base say adjacent to the US – in Cuba or Mexico – how would the US react? There is no prize for guessing that Washington would never tolerate any such move.
One example that comes easily to mind is the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. This was a dangerous confrontation between the US and Soviet Union the two superpowers came closest to nuclear conflict.
Today, unless and until the factors behind the outbreak of the Ukraine war are addressed, the world appears once again to be teetering on the brink on of yet another possible nuclear war.
That would inevitably lead to a World War III, and the end of our universe. Sad, if not tragic, because it is all so avoidable.
* Abbey Makoe is the founder and editor-in-chief: Global South Media Network. The views expressed here are his own.