Has the second wave of nuclear proliferation begun? | policy

The expansionist ambitions of the world’s three most powerful countries—China, the United States, and Russia—undermine the current global order.

Since its founding, the People’s Republic of China has shown interest in Taiwan, and Beijing may now be on the verge of attempting to invade the island. On a less serious note, US President Donald Trump announced after taking office in January his intention to annex Canada and Greenland to the United States.

German political analyst Andreas Omland – an analyst at the Stockholm Center for Eastern European Studies, affiliated with the Swedish Institute for International Affairs, says in a report published by the American magazine “National Interest” – that the most influential factor in the erosion of the post-war system over the past 11 years is Russian behavior.

Since 2014, Moscow has waged a campaign to seize territory, before engaging in war with Ukraine since 2022. As a former Soviet republic, Ukraine was a founding member of the United Nations in 1945. It has been a non-nuclear weapons state under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty since 1996.

For more than 3 years, politicians and strategists from other retaliatory forces monitored the course of the Russian attack and evaluated the reactions of other countries and international organizations.

Difficult education

Relatively weaker states are learning from Ukraine’s experience that they cannot rely on international law, international organizations, or international solidarity, and that they should not make the mistake that Kiev made, by trusting in “security pledges,” “guarantees,” “treaties of friendship,” “strategic partnerships,” and the like.

Such agreements are not important, as was evident from the lack of importance of Ukraine’s agreements with Russia in the years (1994 and 1997), China (2013), and the United States in the years (1994 and 2008).

Omland believes that the typical solution to the security dilemma for smaller powers is to join defensive alliances, and it is preferable for the alliance to include at least one nuclear-armed country.

But as Tbilisi and Kiev, among others, have learned the hard way, gaining full membership in a strong defense alliance is neither easy nor without risks. NATO received an application from Georgia and Ukraine to join the alliance in April 2008, and the alliance informed them that they “would become members.”

Omland points out that despite this response, what happened next is that they did not join NATO and the alliance did not begin the process of accepting them. Instead, Russia has been dismantling Georgia since 2008, and has been dismantling Ukraine since February 2014.

Perhaps the only consolation for the two countries is that Moldova – also a former Soviet republic, but a constitutionally neutral state – does not aspire to join NATO, and has also been subjected to dismantling at the hands of Russia for more than 30 years.

However, the fate of Finland – which has a long border with Russia – was the opposite. In contrast to Georgia and Ukraine, Finland succeeded in starting the process of joining NATO in 2022, which culminated in its official accession to the alliance in 2023.

Omland believes that the examples of Finland and Moldova show that the intention of a former Russian colony to join NATO is neither a sufficient nor a necessary condition for a Russian invasion. All other factors being equal, it is likely that Georgia and Ukraine would have been targets of Russian expansionism, like Moldova, even without the ambition to join NATO.

He says that the two countries could have avoided losing parts of their territory to Russia only by submitting to the Kremlin, by joining the Moscow-dominated Eurasian Economic Union and the Collective Security Treaty Organization. Ukraine was likely to be pressured to sign the Union State Treaty between Russia and Belarus in 1999.

The experiences of Ukraine and Georgia with NATO, and Russia’s reaction to them, demonstrate the risks associated with trying to join a strong international alliance, given that the external balance is complex and can cause interventions that were intended to be prevented. This applies in particular to countries most in need of security guarantees.

Analyst Omland points out that the current geopolitical turmoil results from the rivalry between Russia, China and the United States, the three most powerful countries, permanent members of the UN Security Council, and the largest countries that officially possess nuclear weapons under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

This undermines confidence in the future behavior of relatively stronger states, and in the continued importance of international law and international organizations in protecting relatively weaker states from major powers.

Concern of non-nuclear states

It may seem that the current transformations do not raise any problem from the perspective of Beijing, Washington, and Moscow. However, it is more likely to concern states that do not possess nuclear weapons and have limited international integration.

Countries that have neighbors that may seek expansion, and that operate outside NATO or other appropriate defense alliances, should reconsider their national security strategies.

The leaders of China, the United States, and Russia may ignore, reject, or take seriously reactions to their expansionist ambitions. If they do not take proactive steps to confront it, it is expected that there will be a backlash from smaller powers sooner or later.

Omland considered that one possible reaction to the end of the post-war order might be to increase the possession of weapons of mass destruction for the purposes of deterrence and defense.

These decisions, in turn, may lead to similar steps by their neighbors, who do not trust the stockpiling of weapons of mass destruction on their borders. This could lead to regional arms races and the domino-like spread of weapons of mass destruction. The influx of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons into states’ arsenals in turn increases the possibility of these weapons falling into the hands of non-state actors.

Omland concluded his analysis by saying that changes in global security policy, resulting from Russia’s territorial expansion and the multiple war crimes it has committed in recent years, raise existential questions for smaller powers.

This effect becomes more severe with each day that the war continues. This effect will increase significantly if Russia achieves a military victory or imposes an unjust peace (victor’s peace) on Ukraine. This may lead relatively weaker states neighboring potential expansionist states to doubt the value of their commitment to non-proliferation.