Matthew Bunn, a professor specializing in nuclear arms control at Harvard’s Kennedy School, tells NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe about concerns over a new nuclear arms race as the U.S. looks increasingly inward.
AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
The United States’ support for Ukraine is wavering. On Friday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said of the flagging peace talks between Russia and Ukraine…
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MARCO RUBIO: We’re not going to continue with this endeavor for weeks and months on end. So we need to determine very quickly now, and I’m talking about a matter of days, whether or not this is doable in – over the next, you know, few weeks.
RASCOE: This is a shift in tone and gives mixed signals to allies, not just Ukraine, about America’s security guarantees. That uncertainty extends to the reliability of the American nuclear umbrella. Increasing worries for some of a new nuclear arms race. Matthew Bunn is a professor specializing in nuclear arms control at Harvard Kennedy School and joins me now. Welcome to the program.
MATTHEW BUNN: Happy to be here.
RASCOE: Let’s start with the big picture in Europe. Could the war in Ukraine and continued Russian aggression push more countries to develop nuclear weapons?
BUNN: So Russia’s dismemberment of a country that gave up the nuclear weapons that were on its soil when the Soviet Union collapsed in return for promises that it would not be attacked in that way is definitely making countries around the world think again about whether they may need nuclear options. And you couple that with President Trump publicly raising doubts about whether the United States will defend its allies, and you have a lot of American allies sort of scrambling. I will say the leaked security guidance from the Trump administration suggests that the United States would remain the nuclear backstop. If we can convince our allies of that, that will be a step in the right direction.
RASCOE: President Trump is trying to improve the relationship with Russia, the only other nuclear superpower. We should note that the New START treaty, a 2010 nuclear arms reduction agreement between the U.S. and Russia, expires in less than a year. Like, is Trump right to be trying to work on that relationship?
BUNN: Well, I do think Trump is moving in the right direction on wanting to reduce nuclear arms. He’s talked about deals with both Russia and China. Unfortunately, the radical changes that President Trump has been making in U.S. foreign policy, seeming to side with Russia, questioning whether the United States would live up to its commitments to its allies have been creating risks that adversaries might think that U.S. commitments to our allies were a bluff and therefore it was OK to attack an American ally and risks that American allies might pursue nuclear weapons themselves to provide for their security if they didn’t feel they could rely on the United States.
RASCOE: Iranian and U.S. officials are in talks over a new nuclear deal, aimed at keeping Iran from developing a nuclear weapons program, but it was President Trump who, in his first term, pulled out of the deal that had been in place since 2015, which, you know, Iran had complied with. What are you watching for in those talks between Iran and the U.S.?
BUNN: Well, I’m definitely looking for whether they can make progress toward a reasonable and durable deal. The kinds of things that Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel has demanded that Iran dismantle every aspect of its nuclear program are simply not going to happen. And so if the United States insists on demands of that kind, then I think we’re going to be at an impasse, and we might quickly transition to some kind of military attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, either by Israel or by the United States or both. There’s a real danger that at that point, Iran pulls out of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, kicks out inspectors, starts rebuilding at secret sites. The odds that Iran would have nuclear weapons 10, 20 years from now would probably be higher.
RASCOE: As of right now, Israel is believed to be the only nuclear power in the Mideast. But given the current climate, are you worried that other states like Saudi Arabia might also choose to develop their own weapons?
BUNN: There’s always that risk. Saudi Arabia has said that if Iran gets nuclear weapons, Saudi Arabia will be forced to do so as well. I think there are other countries in the region that would be under pressure. But again, there are more states in the world today that started nuclear weapons programs and then decided to give them up than there are states with nuclear weapons. So our efforts to stop these programs succeed more often than they fail.
RASCOE: What role should America play in global nonproliferation efforts, if any?
BUNN: Well, the United States worked together with the Soviet Union to build the nuclear nonproliferation treaty in the first place and has been one of its most strong supporters throughout the decades. Right now, there is a bipartisan task force of high-level people on the future of nuclear nonproliferation that will be making its recommendations in the coming months. I’m one of the members of that task force. I’m hopeful that we will be able to make a convincing case that it remains in the United States’ interest to prevent nuclear proliferation. The more fingers there are on the nuclear button, the more danger it is that that button’s going to get pressed someday.
RASCOE: That’s Professor Matthew Bunn from Harvard Kennedy School. Thank you so much for speaking with us today.
BUNN: Thank you.
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