‘Extremely dangerous’ nuclear weapons arms race needs to be confronted, says Austrian diplomat

With the world "smack in the middle of a nuclear arms race again," Canada should engage in the disarmament debate, says the Austrian president-designate for an upcoming meeting of nations party to a treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which came into force in January, bars countries from possessing nuclear weapons with the goal of their complete elimination. It has 86 signatory states and 56 states parties. “Everybody sees the global trends going very much in the wrong direction. We are smack in the middle of a nuclear arms race again. And it’s not just how it was in the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union—it’s multiple actors,” said Alexander Kmentt, director for disarmament, arms control, and non-proliferation at the Austrian Ministry for European and International Affairs. “It’s multiple deterrence relationships—everybody’s deterring one another. There are new technologies coming into play to further exacerbate these nuclear risks. The overall trajectory is extremely dangerous.” “The famous doomsday clock is now standing at 100 seconds before midnight, which is actually closer to midnight than at any time during the Cold War,” he said, during a Nov. 29 interview in Ottawa. During the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, the clock was positioned at seven minutes to midnight. Canada, as well as all other members of NATO, has not signed on to the treaty that has the backing of international law. All nuclear weapon-producing states boycotted the negotiations of the treaty. Just prior to the TPNW coming into force, NATO outlined its opposition to the treaty, noting that it does “not reflect the increasingly challenging international security environment,” and is “at odds” with other non-proliferation agreements. Mr. Kmentt said there are a lot of assumptions in the debate over nuclear weapons, and whether deterrence works or not. “If that doesn’t work—if there is even the slightest flaw in that logic—the consequences are unacceptable.” Austrian diplomat Alexander Kmentt received the Simons Foundation Award for Distinguished Global Leadership in the Service of Peace and Disarmament while in Ottawa. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade Canada is one of the 191 parties to the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which bars non-nuclear weapon states from acquiring the technology. While in Ottawa, Mr. Kmentt met with Global Affairs officials where they spoke about a wide range of issues, including the TPNW, the NPT review conference, chemical weapons, biological weapons, lethal autonomous weapons, and the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT). The first meeting of the parties of the TPNW is set to take place from March 22 to 24, 2022, but Mr. Kmentt noted that could change due to COVID-19 issues. Canada has been invited to take part as an observer. He said for countries that face political difficulty in joining the TPNW, it should not stop them from engaging on the humanitarian issues. ‘A lot of arm twisting’ against TPNW support Mr. Kmentt said there has been “a lot of misinformation” spread about the TPNW, especially by those who say that it isn’t compatible with the NPT. “But this prohibition is built on top of a very, very solid set of arguments about humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons,” he said, noting that his message to Canada and all countries is if they don’t like the legal dimensions of the TPNW, it should be no reason not to “engage very strongly on the very profound arguments on which the TPNW rests.” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is pictured on Parliament Hill in 2018 with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. NATO has said that the TPNW does 'not reflect the increasingly challenging international security environment.' The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade Mr. Kmentt said there are “extremely strong, if not to say aggressive efforts” by powerful states against the treaty. “There is a lot of arm twisting of smaller countries not to join the treaty,” he said. While nuclear arms holders look at their competitors in the arms race for not making more progress on reducing their arsenal, Mr. Kmentt said the TPNW looks at the weapons themselves and the security architecture that’s based on having the weapons. “It is a treaty that’s being pushed by countries that are not necessarily involved in these arms races, but that very clearly have legitimate security interests as well and are very concerned about the overall trends that are out there,” he said. He added that there is a “cognitive dissonance” with nuclear weapon holders saying to others that they don’t want them to have the weapons but saying for themselves that they are “indispensable.” In comparison with the focus on climate change, Mr. Kmentt said there is a long way to go to bring the attention to nuclear weapon prohibition as it was in the 1980s when it was viewed as a more apparent threat. “It’s probably difficult for people, or maybe for us as a human race; we don’t want to imagine the end of the world,” he said. “So we tend to screen these things out. But if you speak to people who spend their lives trying to calculate existential risks, the three existential risks that we face is catastrophic climate change, is a pandemic, and is nuclear war.” “The risk of nuclear war is absolutely there. We do not know when and we do not know how, but we know that it is there, and we cannot wait until it happens—with nuclear weapons we have to be able to solve this preventively, otherwise it’s too late.” nmoss@hilltimes.com The Hill Times

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‘Extremely dangerous’ nuclear weapons arms race needs to be confronted, says Austrian diplomat

'The famous doomsday clock is now standing at 100 seconds before midnight, which is actually closer to midnight than at any time during the Cold War,' says Austria's Alexander Kmentt.

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‘Extremely dangerous’ nuclear weapons arms race needs to be confronted, says Austrian diplomat

'The famous doomsday clock is now standing at 100 seconds before midnight, which is actually closer to midnight than at any time during the Cold War,' says Austria's Alexander Kmentt.

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