Rolling back nuclear protocols

A new nuclear weapons race would be a complete disaster for a world already on fire. However, due to the rising mistrust between Russia and the US, which has been stoked mainly by the Ukraine crisis, cooperation on the reduction of nuclear weapons has all but halted, with both countries viewing the other with distrust. The State Duma of Russia’s decision to rescind Moscow’s ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was a noteworthy recent event in this regard. The 1996 agreement aims to stop atomic weapon tests everywhere, as its name implies. With the exception of North Korea, which tested devices in 2017, all nuclear countries have mainly accepted the current situation, with no tests conducted in decades. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has refrained from testing nuclear weapons. However, there is a chance that either Moscow or Washington will change their nuclear posture in light of the rising hostilities between them. Russia is thought to have the greatest nuclear arsenal in the world, with the United States coming in second. Washington, however, has a moral basis for criticising Moscow’s CTBT decision because it never ratified the agreement. Additionally, earlier this year, Russia pulled out of the bilateral New START deal it had signed with the United States. It is important to maintain the status quo in terms of nuclear weapons, even though there is no need for alarm. Eventually, both the US and Russia should aim to reduce their enormous stockpiles. An excessive number of nuclear exchanges were narrowly avoided during the Cold War. The current state of affairs worldwide is equally precarious, if not more so, so the international community should step up its efforts to prevent the restart of nuclear testing and to manage weaponry. Renewing weapons testing might worsen the situation in South Asia, as Pakistan is likewise located in a “nuclear neighbourhood.” Thus, it is imperative that all states improve nuclear protocols rather than reversing them.