Global Outlook

Russia’s repeated references to nuclear weapons since it started the war in Ukraine have put nuclear weapons back at centre stage of the strategic discussions. This has raised anxieties about a possible nuclear war in Europe and it is a set-back for nuclear arms control. Unfortunately, the Russian mind set has had a fall-out effect: NATO re-emphasises the need for nuclear deterrence, particularly its nuclear sharing programmes in Europe.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it’s fair to say, has already profoundly shaped the global discourse on nuclear weapons. In the deliberations at the inaugural meeting of the states parties of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Vienna last month, the Ukraine war cast a long shadow over the utility and limits of nuclear weapons as a deterrent and as a tool of coercive diplomacy

World politics has reached an ominous phase of polarisation. The struggle between the US-led democracies and the Russo-Chinese-led autocracies primarily underpins this development. Yet there’s also another dangerous dimension to it: the emergence of close relations between the autocratic powers and such extremist theocratic forces as the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Seikyo Shimbun has generously allowed republication of their interview with Ambassador Alexander Kmentt, President of the First Meeting of States Parties to the TPNW which was held in Vienna from 21-23 June 2022. Ambassador Kmentt gave this interview to Seikyo Shimbun on 24 June 2022 and it was first published on 6 July 2022.

The Pacific Islands security narrative is often dominated by voices and interests from outside of the region. At the recent Shangri-La Dialogue, among the hype surrounding geo-strategic competition in the Pacific, Fiji’s Defence Minister Inia Seruiratu said that the “single greatest threat to our very existence is ... human-induced, devastating climate change.”

The nuclear scenario today appears confusing. On one hand, the nuclear taboo has held, the NPT is a near universal treaty, and nuclear weapon stockpiles are a fourth of what they were at the height of the Cold War, and yet, on the other hand, there is a perception that nuclear risks are higher than before.