Commentary 24/09/23 The Vatican and the persistent threat of nuclear crises

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The Vatican and the persistent threat of nuclear crises

The world will be poorer without a nuclear arms control pact between the US and Russia

World leaders pose for a photograph during a wreath-laying ceremony at the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima on May 21, 2023, on the sidelines of the G7 Summit Leaders' Meeting. (Photo: AFP)

By Ben Joseph

Published: September 23, 2024 11:35 AM GMT

Updated: September 23, 2024 12:23 PM GMT

The Vatican Dicastery For Integrated Human Development will have to press into service its troubleshooters yet again as the US and Russia are militarily moving poles apart with less than two years to go before the expiration of the last remaining treaty limiting their nuclear arsenals.

The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) will expire on Feb. 5, 2026. Inked in 2010, the treaty limits each side to a maximum of 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads and a maximum of 700 long-range missiles and bombers.

Currently, the vital treaty is on life support and its fate hangs in the balance as Russian President Vladimir Putin announced his country's withdrawal from it on Feb. 21, 2023.

Subsequently, Putin ruled out its revival as long as US military aid to Ukraine continues, which amounts to asking for the moon.

Together, Russia and the US account for about 90 percent of the total global inventory of an estimated 12,121 warheads as of January this year, according to the Sweden-based Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

Around 2,100 of the deployed warheads are kept in a high operational alert (‎hair trigger alert) on ballistic missiles — most of them by Russia and the US.

Since the Ukraine war started on Feb. 24, 2022, Putin has repeatedly threatened a thermonuclear exchange in response to actions of the US and its NATO allies in the East European nation.

Meanwhile, the US has made its nuclear policy a trilateral game by citing China’s growing military might. Congress has authorized a program to develop more “lower-yield” nuclear munitions to provide the president with further “options” in case of conflicts with Russia and China.

China and Russia are all-weather allies, which can include a nuclear North Korea and an Islamic Iran, whose nuclear ambitions are resisted by a nuclear-powered Israel, considered an extended arm of the Western nations in the Middle East.

China, the second biggest military spender, currently possesses up to 500 nuclear warheads.

The Pentagon believes that the communist Asian nation is planning to deploy as many as 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030 and 1,500 by 2035 — equivalent to the number set under the New START norms.

The US, the largest arms spender, has a mammoth nuclear arsenal, numbering 5,400 nuclear weapons, 1,744 of which are deployed and ready to be delivered.

The current US President Joe Biden’s neglect of disarmament means that whoever steps into his shoes will live with a threatening and volatile nuclear landscape more serious than the Cuban missile crisis 62 years ago.

Thus, it would be a tough choice for the next president, whether it is Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, regarding the future of the New START.

The treaty’s dim prospects started after the US accused Russia of violating the pact by not allowing inspections — 18 in number per year to ensure the other has not breached the limits.

However, since the talks between Moscow and Washington on resuming inspections hosted by Egypt were canceled in November 2022 neither side has set a fresh date to meet.

Signed by President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev, the New START faced a similar threat in 2021. At the time, the Dicastery for Integrated Human Development came to its rescue and launched a backroom diplomatic drive to save it from oblivion.

The Holy See through nongovernmental channels brought US and Russian negotiators together.

According to Cardinal Silvano Tomasi, the troubleshooters included “a small group of Russian and American experts” who were “very close to the two administrations and this issue of atomic weapons.”

The effort then included outreach to the Russian Orthodox Church, which Putin holds in high esteem.

“There is the backing of the Church, the Vatican,” Tomasi said while visiting US universities to explain Pope Francis’ vision of nuclear disarmament, human development and just peace in January 2020.

The Italian cardinal worked with the Dicastery for Integral Human Development as an archbishop in 2021.

Taking a cue from global nuclear powers, Asian nations like India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel have given a makeover to their nuclear stables to stay tuned to the changing times where weapons of mass destruction are figuring prominently in all five dominions of war, including cyber warfare.

In the most populous continent, nuclear polarization has already taken place after the US and Russia started to drift away from the New START following the start of the Ukraine war.

On the one side, there is the US and its allies — Japan and South Korea — and on the other, there is communist China and a recalcitrant Kim Jong-un’s North Korea. Then there are arch-rivals India and Pakistan and the unpredictable Israel.

If the US and Russia dispense with the New START limits after the 2026 deadline, a new nuclear arms race would start with no end in sight due to increased suspicion and hostility fueled by the ongoing war in Ukraine and the genocide-like strife in Gaza.

Without its extension, the world will be desperately poorer with no nuclear arms control pact between the US and Russia in place for the first time since 1972.

The ball is in the court of the dicastery’s Prefect Cardinal Michael Czerny who could prevent another nuclear escalation on the plea of deterrence by the US and Russia.

*The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCA News.