The second arrival of US President Donald Trump has been a roller coaster ride, which is pulling everyone and everything in his class. In recent times, including China. Following the US President’s proposal for ‘atomicization’, which he clearly discussed with an interested Vladimir Putin, Trump indicated that he would also make a weapon control proposal in front of China. Beijing responded with clear positivity but originally said, ‘You go first’. There is no doubt, Russia and America are much higher than Beijing, but China is no longer far behind.
This is Trump’s second attempt under arms control, and if it stops, it will eventually have to pull China. His first attempt was meaningless. In fact, that practice had made things worse and left arms control deals in tatters. This time may be different, but may also be more dangerous.
Talking to reporters at the first Oval office, Trump pointed to the ‘useless’ spending of billions of dollars on nuclear weapons by both Russia and the US, which could be placed to use it somewhere else. He also said, quite correctly, that Since China must have been catching soon, weapons were necessary. He probably also made a remarkable movement in the Pentagon, where he called for a cut in the military budget in half. Trump rather a radical himself as a conversation; He even offered to be a major dialogue in the talks during the Reagan administration, which implemented the Treaty of 1987 (INF) landmark intermediate nuclear forces, which withdrew an entire class of missiles which America had withdrawn Had kept in Europe. He was like a gun for Moscow’s head. Reagan also signed Start -1 (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty), not only the first practice for the real shortage of nuclear weapons but also a comprehensive process of technical verification. It was when the Soviet Union was close to a collapse. timing is everything.
Weapons for control
Trump has his own feeling in starting arms control exercises. The irony is that, during his first term, he withdrew from INF, citing Russian non-transportation, and hesitant to expand a new beginning. Both these steps were due to an attempt to push China into reducing its nukes at the time when Beijing had an estimated 280 warheads, while in the US arsenal compared to some 4,000. Not only this, by then the US had already launched a huge space-based defense effort, Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). In the event, Beijing was busy trying to multiply its ability, not limiting it.
Today, it can be said that the cases are different, but at the same time, equally similar. Trump has announced an ambitious nationwide ‘Iron Dome’ program, signed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and distributed in 60 days. The US is in the midst of a complete change of all three legs of its nuclear arsenal, in the next three decades, at the cost of $ 1.7 trillion, even beating the splash of Reagan’s ‘Star Wars’. This means that the new Warheads who open the door for re-testing, and the development of ‘usable’ atomic warheads such as W76-2, was first envisaged in Trump’s first tenure nuclear review. All this, with Trump’s idea that nukes should be used, is likely to ring alarm bells.
Meanwhile, there is an operational need to switch to the US with ICBMS that targets Russia in an arsenal that can be carried on China, which the Defense Department has referred to as a ‘pacing challenge’. The current missiles will hardly be able to fly to kill Beijing in Russia, and it is risky. So, a re -organizing is required. And what is better than couples with such a shifting and arms control ‘deal’. This is the final transaction- weapons for the new, where China and Russia can be discouraged by going for more modernization, even the US retires its old arsenal.
Moscow can Parle
It is not that Russia is very modernized. It still lasts its beginning boundaries and even continued the data exchange, except for the bilateral counseling commission after the Ukraine invasion.
Russia was described by the Biden administration as a ‘acute danger’ in the 2022 nuclear posture review. By 2024, Moscow had expanded its nuclear theory to incorporate nuclear powers, or even non-atomic states supported by traditional aggression, which could affect its reaction; This was a clear reference to the rising NATO danger.
Trump has now changed all this, it is clearly more than that the US was paying the bill for the war launched by the “dictator” Zelancesi, and NATO should never move towards Ukraine. Was. With this, he liked Putin very much.
However, while Russia retains its formidable capacity, its actual modernization has been more on paper with significant delays in major areas like the Sarmat Missile System. Soviet era systems still dominate. Moscow requires more time and resources for severe R&D for new weapons. Therefore, there will be no qualifications about the deficiency interaction, which will open a dialogue with the West after a decade, and will also buy it more time. If it draws China in it, it is even more attractive.
Beijing’s ‘minimum’ preventive
Meanwhile, China’s reaction to Trump’s atomicization plan was specific. A spokesman for the Ministry of External Affairs earlier announced that Russia and the US should make a lot of cuts in their arsenal before joining other powers. In addition, he said, China only keeps the “minimum level required by national security” and is ready to work all the sides to strongly support the multilateral weapon control regime at its origin with the United Nations “. In other words, it does not want a bilateral treaty or even a multilateral, but is an essential by the United Nations. This means bringing all the powers to the table, including possibly, India, Pakistan and North Korea. This is virtually an impossible task.
According to the US Department of Defense, Beijing is also on a large -scale expansion plan and has created some 300 new ICBMS silos, many of them have focused deeply inside the country in Xinjiang and Internal Mongolia, which is a sebourne US missiles Is far from While the US Defense Department often goes to eliminate Chinese threat and quotes it as the world’s largest navy when it is more and more sophisticated as the US and its colleagues, especially in submarines, the fact Is that China is building at a fierce speed. Beijing has always been a weapon control negotiations and usually tries to stop them in any way. Nevertheless, in 2023, a rare discussion took place in 2023, between the Chinese Director General of Arms Control, and the Malori Stewart, US Assistant State of Arms Control. Sun described the meeting as clear, depth and creative. Nothing seems new, even though the Biden administration was insisting on the level of transparency. The last serious negotiations were in 2018.
Don’t wait
In short, things are changing due to the ‘disruptive diplomacy’ of the Trump administration. New Delhi should expect later, Washington will push to include all nuclear powers in a dialogue that does not go anywhere. Both China and India will know that transparency does not benefit weak powers. India also has a special problem, which is looking at the triangular nature of the danger facing it. True, Trump had very little success in his last term to influence the control of weapons, but this does not mean that he would not try, especially since he wants to leave a ‘heritage’. There may be a need to construct ‘to bring Delhi down’, as said. Do not wait for the whistle.
(Tara Kartha is a former director of the National Security Council Secretariat)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
