Having revoked its ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), Russia is in line with the US and China which signed but did not ratify CTBT. This UN treaty was signed by 187 UN members and was until now ratified by 178 signatories, but it still has not yet come into force. Russia's now de-ratification of the CTBT makes it more unlikely than ever to become legally valid.
| Russian President Vladimir Putin. Photo: AFP/VNA |
This Russian move doesn't automatically mean that Russia will soon resume nuclear tests. It will certainly lead to a new level of deterioration in the US-Russia relationships which is at present already as bad as never before since the Cuba missile crisis in 1962. It is surely in direct connection with the still ongoing conflict in the Ukraine between Russia and Ukraine. Since the break-out of this military conflict, Russia's President Vladimir Putin has several times issued threats to use Russia's nuclear weapons. Russia has already deployed some of its tactical nuclear rockets in Belarus. All of that happened in the circumstances that both Russia and the US practically ended the validity of their bilateral agreements on nuclear disarmament and control.
A new "nuclear constellation" in the world is now being shaped. Its first pillar is the legal equilibrium between the US and Russia concerning nuclear tests and disarmament. Nuclear tests and races will likely happen in some places and between some countries in the world in the future. The results would be more nuclear risks for the world. The CTBT isn't dead but becomes more dead than alive. And nuclear disarmament between the US and Russia is for the foreseeable time unlikely to be resumed.
The second pillar of the world's new nuclear constellation is the US and Russia have a new conflict field and the US will have more troubles and dilemmas in dealing with Iran's and North Korea's nuclear programs. The nuclear issue will be more present and actual in world politics and will profoundly affect international relations and debates on nuclear security in the world. The shadow of a nuclear ghost will be darkening over the war in the Ukraine between Russia and Ukraine.
Russia has just finished the shaping of a new security game in Europe and a new world political game with the US in the world. Playing its "nuclear card" in this way, Russia aims at reserving for itself all possible alternatives to decide what, when, and how to do things considered by Russia as necessary to successfully deal with the US and the West not only relating to the war in Ukraine and not only in Europe.
