Opinion

Russia vetoed a draft resolution in March 2024 to extend the mandate of the Security Council’s 1718 Committee, a panel of experts that oversees sanctions against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider

NEW YORK, July 22, 2024 (IPS) – Hot on the heels of Russia and North Korea announcing a new alliance this summer for a pact promising mutual defense, with China’s support, South Korea is now shockingly proposing to review its security policy with the US and stop relying on the US guarantee to use US nuclear weapons on South Korea’s behalf as part of its “nuclear umbrella.”

The “umbrella” is being offered to all NATO states and the Pacific states of Japan, Australia and South Korea. Such questions are evidence of the growing chaos in the world over the failure of the United States to meet its legal obligation under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) for good faith efforts toward nuclear disarmament.

The nuclear umbrella, to the extent that it includes the stationing of nuclear weapons in five NATO countries (Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Turkey), is in itself an illegal violation of the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty, in which five nuclear-weapon states, the US, Russia, the UK, France and China, pledged to make “good faith efforts” for nuclear disarmament, while all other countries of the world agreed not to acquire nuclear weapons.

Everyone, including South Korea, signed the NPT, except Israel, Pakistan and India, which developed their own nuclear arsenals. The NPT had a Faustian bargain that if a country promised not to acquire nuclear weapons, it would have an “inalienable right” to so-called “peaceful” nuclear energy.

Because every “peaceful” nuclear power plant produced the material needed to make nuclear weapons, the NPT gives those countries the keys to the bomb factory. North Korea walked out of the NPT and used its nuclear power to produce a nuclear arsenal. Iran enriched its nuclear materials, but has yet to build a bomb.

The fact that Russia is now allying with North Korea and China is the result of the failure of American diplomacy and the drive of the American military-industrial-congress-media-academic-think tank complex (MICIMATT) to expand the American empire to over 800 American military bases in 87 countries.

The US is now surrounding China with new bases recently established in the Pacific and forming AUKUS, a new military alliance with Australia, the UK and the US. The US is breaking the agreement made with China in 1972 because we are now arming Taiwan, despite Nixon and Kissinger’s promises to recognize China and remain neutral on the question of the future of Taiwan, where anti-communist forces retreated after the Chinese Revolution.

The US withdrew from the AMB Treaty in 1992 after the end of the Cold War in 1989 with Russia, and established missile bases in Poland and Romania. It also withdrew from the 1987 Intermediate Missile Forces Treaty, negotiated by Reagan and Gorbachev in 1972. It expanded NATO to the Russian border, despite promises to Gorbachev that NATO would not be expanded further east than a united Germany.

Putin was shocked by the expansion of NATO and at one point asked Clinton if Russia could be invited to join NATO. This was refused. In the years leading up to the war in Ukraine, Putin repeatedly and emphatically stated that including Ukraine in NATO was a “red line” for Russia!

The Empire was indifferent and continued to expand until we reached this sad and dangerous moment we are experiencing now. In retaliation, Putin has just placed Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus – a first example of Russian nuclear division!

Ironically, the underlying reason for Nixon and Kissinger to make peace with China was to prevent a more powerful alliance from developing between Russia and China.

The US will reap the whirlwind if it does not fulfill its nuclear disarmament obligations and does not take the path to peace. More nuclear-armed countries like South Korea could emerge. Saudi Arabia is currently pursuing “peaceful” nuclear energy without safeguards for its use.

As our planet faces nuclear destruction or catastrophic climate crisis, it is time to work together with other countries: make peace, not war!!

Alice Slater He is a board member of World BEYOND War and the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space and is a UN NGO representative for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

IPS UN Office