This year marks the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And it has been 50 years since the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty set out to halt the spread of the deadliest weapon mankind has devised. The anniversaries might have been a moment to take some comfort that the horror of August 1945 has never been repeated. Instead, the pillars of restraint are crumbling. We are heading for a nuclear free-for-all.
The fading of memories has had the perilous effect of making the nuclear threat seem almost fanciful. Forget weapons of mass destruction — the future of conflict, strategic fashion now has it, lies in weapons of mass disruption in the realms of cyber space and artificial intelligence. Arms control pacts belong to the cobwebbed cupboards of the cold war.
Donald Trump says that the US will never permit Iran to acquire the bomb. Even as the US president threatens the Tehran regime, his administration is dismantling the international architecture that has kept the nuclear peace. Washington’s repudiation of the great power deal to halt Iran’s nuclear programme, the so-called JCPOA, has been followed by its withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which for three decades barred the US and Russia from deploying short- and intermediate-range missiles. The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, limiting strategic nuclear forces, expires in 2021. Mr Trump has told Russian President Vladimir Putin he has no interest in replacing it.