Making nukes great again: How Trump buried non-proliferation forever

As Donald Trump throws Ukraine under a T-90 tank, threatens to grab Greenland from Nato (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) ally Denmark, and brings the Europeans literally to tears, telling them they are on their own to face a rampant, “escape to victory” Vladimir Putin, it is time to raise some questions. 

The first is what we asked in the week the invasion began (February 26, 2022, National Interest). Ukraine gave up its nuclear stockpile following the Budapest Memorandum in 1994 in return for security guarantees from Russia, Europe, and the United States (US). It must regret it. The first of the three invaded it, the second was running for cover and even ruing the loss of cheap Russian gas, and the third looked helpless as Mr Putin’s tanks probed Kyiv’s outskirts.

  This story has now moved. Now the third, the US, wants Ukraine to concede one-fifth of its territory and forget Nato membership or any other security guarantees — unless, of course, it signs away half its mineral wealth.

  As the billion-plus Sholay fans in India will see it, it’s a deal from Gabbar Singh’s playbook. In fact, in its crudity, it sounds more like a street or mohalla thug, or who you would call a “paada mastan” in Kolkata, “bhai” in a Mumbai slum, and “Kaleen Bhaiyya” or some such mafioso in Mirzapur or elsewhere in the Hindi heartland. 

In his first month, Mr Trump has only targeted his allies while bringing succour to adversaries. To Russia directly, and China indirectly, by pretty much indicating that it is entitled to its own zone of influence. 

In this new Trumperial worldview, to each their own is the principle. Then, might is right, or “jis ki lathi, us ki bhains”. Do watch on loop the Trump video addressing Europe/Nato where he says their security problems are not America’s as “we have a big, beautiful ocean as separation”. 

Every country with any geopolitical stakes, especially in Europe and around China, is watching this with great concern. This includes India, irrespective of the celebration within the Bharatiya Janata Party base over this downsizing of Europe and wokeism. The good thing is, India’s political and strategic leaders are way smarter than their fan base. 

How will this new world work? Thomas Friedman says in The New York Times that if Mr Trump takes Greenland, Xi will take Taiwan, and Putin parts of the Baltics. I might add to that more of Georgia too.  

Europe apart, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and other American allies will review the comfort they’ve found in its security guarantees: What if Mr Trump told Japan “gift me Okinawa or Hiroshima, or sought a fifth of Australia’s mineral resources as a price for the US guarantees”. 

I haven’t even mentioned Canada, because the country has entirely different challenges. Now, the question isn’t even whether Mr Trump will carry out all of these threats. It is just that sovereign countries can’t dismiss these as empty rant. The trust has been broken. If one Trump can demand protection money or part of your territory, the next, worse Trump might want you to become a vassal and pay tribute, or be at Beijing or Moscow’s mercy. This raises a critical question. 

I speak as somebody who has been a combatant on “this” side of the nuclear debate. The “other” side in this debate isn’t the Indian peaceniks, who opposed nuclear weapons ideologically or morally. That was an arguable point, whatever my disagreement. The “other” side here is the formidable American non-proliferation lobby, which kept relentless pressure on India to not nuclearise. 

In the 1987-97 decade, they also found economic, political, and strategic vulnerability and fault lines in India they could run their knife into. India then had several weak and unstable governments that often looked like they working on daily wages. It was then that this eminent group, its arguments fuelled by the entitled nuclear powers’ arrogance mixed with overwhelming east coast liberal morality, believed they could force India, which was dealing with the Punjab and Kashmir insurgencies at their peak, to bury its nuclear weapons dream. The advice we heard often at that point was, cap, roll back, and eliminate. This was also the period of some warlike situations between India and Pakistan and the warning was “what would happen if both of you had the nukes and came to fisticuffs?” Or your next war will be like a communal riot with nukes. So, understand what’s good for you, stay within your limits — “apni auqat mein raho”. At one of these non-proliferation conferences, we also heard a former US ambassador to Pakistan say “don’t worry if there is a nuclear threat. Our fire-truck will be there”. If I still had his email, I would’ve considered writing to him to consider sending it to the Palisades in California. 

This was also the decade when the other initials dropped in our lives: CTBT (Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty). There were multiple high-powered visits from Washington to persuade India to sign it. This, when the US itself hadn’t ratified it. Double, or multiple, standards did not originate with Mr Trump. He is merely, to use that much abused word, weaponising them for sovereign rent-seeking. The eminent editor and the author of the brilliant “Rear View” column in The Indian Express, the late Inder Malhotra, also coined a brilliant description for those American fundamentalists: “Ayatollahs of anti-proliferation lobby.”

India’s leaders were wise to stay the course. The baton passed seamlessly from Nehru down (there was that one genuine Homi Bhabha-Vikram Sarabhai disagreement on whether the nukes should be for deterrence or peace), to a stage when Indira Gandhi could test a device in 1974, and then Atal Bihari Vajpayee closed the issue with Pokhran-II. It is to all of these leaders, whatever their power, that we Indians and our future generations owe a big debt of gratitude. Did they have the foresight to know that security guarantees won’t matter someday? They didn’t even care. They were strong, and prescient. 

Kim Jong Un must be laughing his guts out at Ukraine and Europe. Would the Americans let him survive if he did not threaten to nuke either South Korea or Japan in retaliation for the US crossing its red line? Iran is watching this resolutely. Would Bush senior or junior have invaded Iraq if it actually had any weapons of mass destruction? Its missiles didn’t need to reach America. Just a credible threat to Israel or even Saudi Arabia would have done it. 

Free trade, globalisation, Ukraine, and Gaza aren’t the only issues of the greatest future implications. It is the fact that Mr Trump has killed and buried the idea of non-proliferation. Nukes are back as a deterrent. Iran, Saudi Arabia, and, who knows, Egypt and Azerbaijan will all be thinking in terms of nuclear deterrence. Turkey and South Africa too. What would you be thinking if you were a leader in Tokyo, Canberra, Jakarta, or Manila? Nukes are today a fairly low-tech option and inexpensive deterrent. If the Pakistanis could build them in the 1980s, anybody could do so now. In fact, the Pakistanis might want to revalue their nuclear reserves and let the Ummah know. Donald Trump may or may not change tack in the course of time. We don’t know what he will achieve for America. We can only list his first achievement: He has made the nukes great again. 

By special arrangement with The Print