III. Arms control and nuclear non-proliferation

Chapter:

1. Introduction: International stability and human security in 2022

Source:

SIPRI Yearbook 2023

Author(s):

Dan Smith

The year began with a bright moment. The five permanent members (P5) of the UN Security Council—China, France, Russia, the UK and the USA—issued a joint statement on the need to prevent nuclear war. Essentially repeating the epochal joint statement by the Soviet and US leaders Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan in 1985, the P5 statement, issued on 3 January 2022, affirmed that ‘nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought’.⁵⁸ The logic flowing from that statement implies that its five signatories would steer away from behaviour that might lead to nuclear weapons use by design or accident. It is not in logic possible to both forswear nuclear war and be willing to start one. Yet of all the P5, only China has a policy affirming it will only use nuclear weapons to retaliate to a nuclear attack—a ‘no first use’ policy. Equally, the statement included the wish to avoid a nuclear arms race among the five signatories, which must raise questions about the path of nuclear modernization and upgrades on which all are set.⁵⁹