Friday, March 29, 2024
HomeNEWSNuclear conflict? Arming Russia from China? New Cold War fears are growing

Nuclear conflict? Arming Russia from China? New Cold War fears are growing

Moscow has put a nuclear arms pact on hold. the potential for Chinese military armament of Russian forces.

Even as the United States and its allies rejoiced this week that Russia’s attempt to seize control of Ukraine has thus far failed, certain developments might have effects beyond whether Kyiv remains standing.

For the first time since the 1970s, there would be no restrictions on U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons if the last surviving arms deal between the two most considerable nuclear powers in the world were to fail. An unintentional nuclear launch would carry higher hazards.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated, “a world without nuclear arms control is a considerably more dangerous and unstable one.”

Furthermore, it would mark a significant shift in China’s foreign policy strategy if it expanded its economic and diplomatic support for Russia to include full-fledged military assistance. This would intensify the already high tensions between the United States and China and increase the global danger.

Brian Hart, who researches the changing nature of Chinese power at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, warned that it will also bring us back to “the kind of things we saw in the Cold War where you have all these large countries intervening in conflicts and proxy wars.”

What you need to know is as follows:

What action took Russia?

The last remaining nuclear armaments reduction agreement between the U.S. and Russia, known as New START, has been suspended, according to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who announced on Tuesday. It places a cap on the number of long-range nuclear warheads that both the US and Russia are allowed to possess, including those that can reach the US in under 30 minutes.

What is the issue?

According to the Federation of American Scientists, the size of the nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russia might double in the absence of arms control. According to Hans M. Kristensen, director of the federation’s Nuclear Information Project, each country may significantly and swiftly increase the number of nuclear weapons that are prepared to be launched at a moment’s notice.

With a full-scale war raging in Europe and Russia falling under the weight of unprecedented sanctions, Kristensen argued last year that such an escalation would be extremely unstable and hazardous.

Is it time to freak out?

No. Putin hasn’t yet canceled the deal.

Putin declared that Russia won’t take part in the inspections or other processes designed to impose the restrictions on nuclear weapons. Yet, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry, Moscow would abide by the treaty’s arms restrictions. According to Joe Cirincione, an expert in arms control and member of the Council on Foreign Relations, there is no indication that Putin will suddenly start manufacturing new weapons.

Cirincione believes Putin is using the threat of nuclear war to frighten Ukraine’s allies away.

Cirincione stated on AP that “he is aware that he is losing this war.” He needs to persuade Western audiences that continuing to support Ukraine puts the world at risk of nuclear war.

Putin has done this before, right?

Yes. Shortly after invading Ukraine in February of last year, Putin ordered the Russian nuclear forces to be on maximum war alert. He stated in December that Russia would keep up and enhance its nuclear weapons’ ability to be launched from land, air, and sea.

In a recent research, Heather Williams, an expert on arms control at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, stated that Russian President Vladimir Putin “has come to rely on nuclear weapons for coercion and intimidation and will continue to make nuclear threats.” Putin’s threats to use nuclear weapons may not be able to be stopped by the West, but nations can try to deter him from acting on them.

Ben Rhodes, a senior national security adviser to President Barack Obama, said that even if Putin’s most recent action is a gambit, it “just points to the reality that we’re in this kind of era of escalation with Russia where we don’t quite know where it’s going to finish.”

What is happening in China?

China has supported Russia’s economy since the invasion by acquiring it’s oil and gas. Drones, electronics, and other technologies with both industrial and military uses have also been sold to Russia by China. But, China has prohibited Russia from purchasing weapons including armed drones, artillery, and ammunition.

That might alter. Senior Biden administration officials issued a warning this week after receiving information that China may be considering giving Russia lethal support.

China’s Foreign Ministry responded by accusing the United States of “chasing shadows and slander China.”

The warnings, though, are reminiscent of the administration’s pre-invasion information on Putin’s plans, even though the White House hasn’t made any supporting documentation public.

What would prompt China to directly assist Russia?

According to Hart of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, China has benefited from the conflict in Ukraine in several ways. It has increased Russia’s reliance on China and distracted the United States, Beijing’s major adversary. But, China does not want the war to harm Russia, its most important ally on the international scene.

“Overall, Beijing’s alliance with Russia is mostly motivated by shared worries about the United States and rivalry with it. Beijing will be more prepared to deepen its ties with Russia, he said, the more direct competition there is between Beijing and Washington. The triangle they are confronting is that one.

How would America respond?

If China aids Russia in restocking its weapons supplies, the Biden administration has threatened “grave consequences.”

Ned Price, a spokesman for the State Department, stated that “We won’t hesitate to punish Chinese organizations or individuals that violate our sanctions.”

The Chinese economy is already having trouble. Yet harsh sanctions against China, which has a far larger economy than Russia, would also have repercussions for the United States and other countries.

What impact would it have on the geopolitical system?

China specialist Oriana Skylar Mastro said she would “have to reconsider all I know about China” if China were to directly participate. This would represent a significant change in China’s foreign policy strategy.

China views the United States military actions abroad as expensive ventures that haven’t increased the U.S.’s might. They’ve adopted a different strategy.

“If we’re dealing with a China now that engages in intervention and foreign conflicts, which is a key thing that they have argued for decades and decades is the reason for the U.S. decline, is a stupid thing to do, something that they would never do,” she said. “I would be much less concerned about what it means for Ukraine and much more concerned about what it means for the world.”

The globe would “certainly” become more hazardous if China did make that drastic change, according to Mastro, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute at Stanford University.

She asserted that while China hinders American efforts to impose sanctions on autocrats, for example, “that’s very different from them providing support.”

An updated Cold War?

With China, which the United States views as its main geopolitical and economic rival, tensions have been on the rise. China and the United States have been at odds over some topics, including Taiwan, technology, human rights, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and others, even before the Biden administration shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon off the coast of South Carolina this month.

Building “guardrails” as it normalizes interaction, the Biden administration has been working to calm the situation. Yet that can get harder and harder.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke on the potential danger on the Associated Press’s “Face the Nation,” saying, “We have to make sure that the rivalry that we’re engaged in does not veer into war, into a new Cold War.” Our interests are not served. Even though it isn’t in ours, I won’t speak about theirs.

China called for an end to “Cold War mentality”—its traditional term for what it sees as U.S. hegemony—and the maintenance of alliances like NATO in a loosely worded statement it made on Friday calling for peace talks between Ukraine and Russia.

RELATED ARTICLES

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Most Popular

Recent Comments