Econ_May_05

The Economist

May 5th 2018

ARELY do optimism and

North Korea belong in the

same breath. However, the

smiles and pageantry in April’s

encounter between Kim Jong

Un and Moon Jae-in, leaders of

the two Koreas, hinted at a deal

inwhich the Northwould aban-

don nuclear weapons in exchange for a security guarantee

from the world, and in particular America. Sadly, much as this

newspaper wishes for a nuclear-free North Korea, a lasting

deal remains as remote as the summit of Mount Paektu. The

Kims are serial cheats and nuclearweapons are central to their

grip on power (see Asia section). Moreover, even as optimists

focus on Korea, nuclear restraints elsewhere are unravelling.

By May 12th President Donald Trump must decide the fate

of the deal struck in 2015 to curb Iran’s nuclear programme.

ThisweekBinyaminNetanyahu, Israel’s primeminister, gave a

presentation that seemed designed to get Mr Trump to pull

America out. He may well oblige. Worse, within three years

current agreed limits on the nuclear arsenals of Russia and

America are set to lapse, leaving them unconstrained for the

first time in almost half a century (see Briefing).

In the cold war a generation of statesmen, chastened by

conflict and the near-catastrophe of the Cuban missile crisis,

used arms control to lessen the riskof annihilation. Even then,

nuclear war was a constant fear (see Books section). Their suc-

cessors, susceptible tohubris and facedwithnewtensions and

newtechnology, are increasing the chances that nuclearweap-

ons will spread and that someone, somewhere will miscalcu-

late. Acomplacent world is playingwith Armageddon.

STARTworrying

One problem is that the critics of arms control overstate its

aims so as to denigrate its accomplishments. Opponents of the

Iran deal, such as John Bolton, Mr Trump’s newnational secu-

rity adviser, complain that it has not stopped Iran fromwork-

ing on ballistic missiles or from bullying its neighbours. But

that was never the intent of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of

Action (

JCPOA

), as it is formally known. Instead, for at least ten

years, the pact cuts offIran’s path to a bomb andmakes any fu-

ture attemptmore likely tobe detected early.WhateverMrNet-

anyahu implies, Iran has kept its side of the agreement despite

not gettingmany of the economic benefits it was promised.

Wrecking the Iranian deal has costs. Iran would be freer to

ramp up uranium enrichment, putting it once more in sight of

aweapon. The nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (

NPT

), still the

best bulwark against the spread of the bomb, would be under-

mined: other countries in the region, such as Saudi Arabia and

Egypt, may well respond by dusting off their plans to become

nuclear powers; and America would be abandoning a fix that

shores up the

NPT.

Mr Trumpwould have towork even harder

to convince Mr Kim that he can trust America—especially as

Mr Bolton compares North Korea to Libya, whose leader gave

up a nuclear programme only to be toppled by the West and

butchered a fewyears later.

A second problem is mistrust, heightened since the revival

ofgreat-power competitionbetweenAmerica andRussia after

a post-Soviet lull. That ought to give arms control newurgency;

instead it is eroding it. Take New

START

, which caps the num-

ber of strategic warheads deployed by Russia and America at

1,550 each. It will expire in 2021 unless Vladimir Putin and Mr

Trump extend it, which looks unlikely. Instead Mr Trump

boasts that America’s nuclear arsenal will return to the “top of

the pack”, bigger andmore powerful than ever before. That re-

pudiates the logic of successive strategic-arms-control agree-

mentswithRussia since1972, whichhave sought toholdback a

nuclear arms race by seeking to define parity.

Fix it, don’t nix it

Or take the insouciance withwhich the likes ofMr Bolton and

his Russian counterparts condemn the Intermediate-Range

Nuclear Forces (

INF

) Treaty. Struck in 1987 by Ronald Reagan

and Mikhail Gorbachev, this deal dismantled 2,700 ground-

launched nuclear missiles with a range of 500-5,500km that

put Europeandeterrence on a hair-trigger. Todayeach side says

the other is violating the

INF

. Mr Bolton et al argue that it is

worth keeping only if it includes countries such as China—

which they knowwill not happen.

Last comes the problem of technology. Better missile de-

fence could undermine mutually assured destruction, which

creates deterrence by guaranteeing that a first strike triggers a

devastating response. Speaking on March 1st, Mr Putin bran-

dished exotic newnuclear weapons he would soon deploy to

counter future American missile defences. A new nuclear

arms race, with all its destabilising consequences, is thus likely.

A cyber-attack to cripple the other side’s nuclear command

and control, which could be interpreted as the prelude to a nu-

clear first strike, is another potential cause ofinstability in a cri-

sis. Verifying the capabilities of software is even harder than

assessing physical entities such as launchers, warheads and

missile interceptors. New approaches are urgently needed.

None is being contemplated.

Extending New

START

, saving the

INF

, creating norms for

cyber-weapons and enhancing the Iran deal are eminently do-

able, but only if there is sufficient will. For that to gel, today’s

statesmen need to overcome a fundamental misunderstand-

ing. They appear to have forgotten that you negotiate arms-

control agreements with your enemies, not your allies. And

that arms control brings not just constraints onweapons ofun-

imaginable destructive force, but also verification that pro-

vides knowledge of capabilities and intentions. In a crisis, that

can reduce the riskof a fatal miscalculation.

Cherish the scintilla ofhope inNorthKorea, and remember

howarms control needs shoring up. The alternative is a future

where countries arm themselves because they cannot be sure

their enemies will not get there first; where every action could

escalate into nuclear war; where early warnings of a possible

attack give commanders minutes to decide whether to fire

back. Itwould be a tragedy for theworld if it tookan existential

scare like theCubanmissile crisis, orworse, to jolt today’s com-

placent, reckless leaders back to their senses.

Disarmageddon

Even as America tries to strike a dealwithNorthKorea, arms control elsewhere is unravelling

Leaders

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