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| Image: Wiki Commons |
By Rory Medcalf
Will Asia’s worsening strategic uncertainty mark the end of President Obama’s nuclear disarmament quest? Are the elements coalescing for exactly what the Obama Administration does not want to imagine – a nuclear pivot to Asia?
With the United States beginning drastic further cuts to its defense budget, while China seems likely to boost its military spending yet again, these are vital questions, not alarmist ones.
Indeed, the interaction of Asia’s strategic uncertainty with the future of nuclear deterrence is one of the most critical and difficult security questions the world faces.
Track back to 2009, when President Obama announced a diplomatic push to reduce reliance on nuclear weapons globally, to pursue deep cuts in the U.S. and Russian arsenals, and to strengthen the foundations of non-proliferation. The Prague agenda was a noble one, inspired by the bold fusion of idealism and realism inherent in the high-profile disarmament campaigning of elder statesmen George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger and Sam Nunn.
That was also the year of Obama’s failed bid to engage China as a constructive partner across the board, from maritime security to non-proliferation and climate change.
Much has changed. Obama’s efforts to engage China foundered, notably during China’s maritime assertiveness from 2010 through the present.
Meanwhile, analysts have kept revisiting their assessments of the U.S.-China conventional military balance. Even a year or two ago, many in the American disarmament community still held the comforting view that a world without nuclear weapons would automatically favor America and its allies, in every theater.
Read the full story at The Diplomat