https://www.scmp.com/rss/325066/feed Will Saetren (@WillSaetren) is a project lead at CRDF Global, where he specialises in nuclear security. He previously worked at the Institute for China-America Studies where he directed the organisation's portfolio on nuclear weapons policy. He is the author of Ghosts of the Cold War: Rethinking the Need for a New Nuclear Cruise Missile, and an alumnus of the Roger Hale fellowship at the Ploughshares Fund. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com August 20, 2020. That was the day the US Secretary of state Michael R. Pompeo swaggered up to a podium at the United Nations, proclaimed that up was down, unicorns were real, and that he could really go for some curry fish balls right about now. I am, of course, exaggerating. But not by much. What Pompeo did was argue that the United States is legally entitled to enforce the technical provisions of an international agreement that it abandoned more than two years ago. If that sounds confusing to... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3098640/global-outcry-against-us-call-sanctions-snapback-iran-was-long-time?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3098640/global-outcry-against-us-call-sanctions-snapback-iran-was-long-time?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 25 Aug 2020 17:00:21 +0000 When things go wrong, the United States likes to be able to point the finger of blame at others. Devastation and civil war in Syria? Russia’s fault. North Korea not giving up its nuclear weapons? China must do more to enforce sanctions. This time, it is different. The Trump administration is quietly letting the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start) die. If it does, the US will have no one to blame but itself for making the world a more dangerous place. Beyond an arms control treaty between... https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3051641/why-trump-should-extend-nuclear-arms-treaty-russia-now-and-worry?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3051641/why-trump-should-extend-nuclear-arms-treaty-russia-now-and-worry?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 21 Feb 2020 17:00:14 +0000 Last month, when much of the world was distracted by the US-North Korea summit in Hanoi, one of the most dangerous crises in the post-cold-war era quietly unfolded.  When Indian warplanes conducted air strikes against a terrorist training camp in Pakistan on February 26, it marked the first time in history that a nuclear-weapons state has conducted air strikes against another. The stand-off quickly spiralled out of control. Pakistan responded to India’s air-assault with heavy artillery strikes... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/3001305/nuclear-weapons-are-dangerous-never-tactical?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/3001305/nuclear-weapons-are-dangerous-never-tactical?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 13 Mar 2019 02:00:07 +0000 For months, the United States and China have been exchanging blows over trade. What began with the Trump administration imposing tariffs on a handful of goods earlier this year has ballooned into a list that includes thousands of items. In July, Trump announced that he is prepared to impose tariffs on all US$500 billion of imports from China.  The showdown between the world’s two economic powerhouses has shaken the global financial system to its core. Over the summer, the World Bank warned that... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2164221/us-cold-war-containment-strategy-against-china?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2164221/us-cold-war-containment-strategy-against-china?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 16 Sep 2018 18:01:57 +0000 Arms control isn’t dead, but it is dying and the process has been slow and painful. The death spiral began long before Donald Trump became president of the United States. The last major arms control treaty, New START, which limited Russia and the US to 1,550 deployed nuclear weapons each, was signed in 2010. Since then, the arms control agenda has ground to a halt. In 2013, then president Barack Obama sought additional reductions, one-third beyond the limits of New START. But the Russians... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2160177/trump-killing-nuclear-arms-control-or-can-he?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2160177/trump-killing-nuclear-arms-control-or-can-he?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 19 Aug 2018 07:30:45 +0000 Last month, the Trump administration unveiled its nuclear policy review. As expected, the document significantly departed from Donald Trump’s predecessors. Every American president since Richard Nixon has cut the role and number of nuclear weapons in US strategy, but Trump called for new low-yield nuclear weapons and expanded the circumstances in which they can be used. This is a dangerous development. In regions where superpower tensions already run high, the United States has significantly... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2139163/will-us-new-nuclear-policies-spark-arms-race-china?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2139163/will-us-new-nuclear-policies-spark-arms-race-china?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 28 Mar 2018 05:00:30 +0000 Last weekend, Donald Trump celebrated the one-year anniversary of his presidency. The 45th president of the United States entered office vowing to get tough with China, cut better deals and reassert America’s position as a Pacific power. But one year later, Trump’s incoherent foreign policy has brought the US closer to “bending the knee” on the global stage than since the second world war. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Asia-Pacific, where Trump has left the strategic stability of the... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2130298/how-trumps-incoherent-foreign-policy-promotes-uncertainty?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2130298/how-trumps-incoherent-foreign-policy-promotes-uncertainty?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 25 Jan 2018 10:30:15 +0000 Few people realise that Donald Trump, as the American president, has total control over the US nuclear arsenal. Every last one of America’s nuclear weapons is at the US president’s disposal 24/7 and can be launched at any time, for any reason. It’s one of the few processes in the American political system where there are no checks and balances. That is not just an American problem, it’s a global problem. The United States possesses thousands of nuclear weapons, more than enough to end human... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2121376/irrational-trump-office-nuclear-power-us-president-must-be?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2121376/irrational-trump-office-nuclear-power-us-president-must-be?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 26 Nov 2017 01:15:50 +0000 The North Korean nuclear crisis is escalating out of control. North Korean foreign minister Ri Yong-ho recently declared that US President Donald Trump’s comments about destroying his country were a “declaration of war”, and that, in response, North Korea would shoot down US bombers, even if they were not in its airspace. Last week, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un issued an even more dire threat: to conduct an atmospheric test of a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific Ocean, a nightmare scenario for the... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2112889/real-reason-us-hasnt-tried-shoot-down-north-korean-missile?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2112889/real-reason-us-hasnt-tried-shoot-down-north-korean-missile?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 27 Sep 2017 10:13:46 +0000 Using nuclear weapons against North Korea is a terrible idea. More than 70 years after the first and only use of nuclear weapons in combat, it seems odd to have to put this in writing, but the past several weeks of heightened tensions with North Korea have made it a necessity. As the crisis on the Korean peninsula deepens, voices calling for military action to halt North Korea’s nuclear programme have grown stronger and bolder. Last week, Kevin James, a research fellow from the London School of... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2108876/why-us-military-strike-against-north-korea-would-be?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2108876/why-us-military-strike-against-north-korea-would-be?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 30 Aug 2017 09:19:38 +0000