International•10 Sep ’23 13:05 Author: Thijs Baas
If resistance among allies had not been so great, the Netherlands could have developed nuclear weapons itself in the 1950s and 1960s. The question is whether that would have been to our advantage in the longer term, says Paul van Hooft, strategic analyst at the The Hague Center for Strategic Studies.
The international nuclear future is currently quite uncertain. Much depends on the future role of the United States in the world. Nowadays, countries such as Japan, South Korea, Australia and Saudi Arabia are seen as ‘latent nuclear states’, says Van Hooft. ‘They have come quite a long way in developing a nuclear weapon and they have the means to do so safely.’
Taking the last sprint
Many US allies refrained from developing nuclear weapons during the Cold War. Only the United Kingdom and France continued at the time. But that loyalty to the US seems to be increasingly wavering, says Van Hooft. “If a Trump 2.0 comes to power and no one believes in the American promise to protect others anymore, you can imagine that they will take that last sprint.”
If resistance among allies had not been so great, the Netherlands could have developed nuclear weapons in the 1950s and 1960s. The question is whether this has been to our advantage in the longer term, says Paul van Hooft, strategic analyst at the The Hague Center for Strategic Studies. EPA/Maxim Shipenkov (ANP / EPA)
According to Van Hooft, the nuclear state of affairs in the world is difficult to explain. North Korea uses the threat of nuclear weapons to break all kinds of rules more or less unhindered. The country is on the verge of disintegration, but no one dares to give the final push, for fear of a North Korean attack with nuclear weapons. “There is a big difference between developing the weapon and actually having a nuclear deterrent.”
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Most likely, the US will be able to eliminate North Korea’s nuclear arsenal before it can be fired. According to Van Hooft, this is a disincentive for many other countries when they consider the development of nuclear weapons. ‘Your security may improve if you have nuclear weapons, but the road to nuclear weapons is a lot less safe than if you don’t have them at all.’
Uneasy relationship with nuclear weapons
There is another specific moral aspect for Japan. Generations of Japanese have had an uneasy relationship with nuclear weapons because the country was the first to be hit by a devastating nuclear weapon, says Michal Onderco, professor of international relations at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. ‘In Japan there is a prevailing feeling that nuclear weapons are something terribly objectionable that you should never develop.’
That is why the country is looking for other ways to maintain deterrence against, for example, Russia and China. For example, Japan recently signed a new treaty with the US and is investing heavily in its conventional deterrent, Onderco says. ‘They want more cooperation in the field of security and defense. But developing our own nuclear weapons is a real taboo.’
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It is different in South Korea and Australia, where the discussion about nuclear weapons leans much more towards ‘yes’. Australia buys new submarines from the US with the same equipment as US nuclear submarines. Van Hooft: ‘It differs from country to country. I have no illusions about Saudi Arabia’s moral compass. But I doubt it has the right technical knowledge at this point.”
2023-09-10 11:05:00
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