China's monkey wrench

China's monkey wrench

By tweeting US will expand nuclear forces, Trump may be targeting not Russia but China.

Last Friday, Donald Trump tweeted, “The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.” This has led to articles claiming the world is about to end, as well as more sensible pieces that play with all the possible permutations and combinations his tweet could imply (संकेत करना) . The general consensus (एकमत/सर्वसम्मति) seems to be that he is starting a new arms race with Russia, given that a few hours before Trump's tweet, President Putin of Russia had made a similarly worded statement. The reality is however much more complicated. The problem with accusing Trump of triggering an arms race is that an arms race has been going on for the last decade or so ¬ with two nuclear triangles feeding into and destabilizing the other.

The first is the US-Russia-China triangle and the second is the Pakistan -India-China triangle. In the first set both the US and Russia have mutual restraint and control treaties dictating the maximum number of warheads each can have. These restraint regimes factor in the fact that both countries have nuclear first strike doctrines (मत/सिद्धांत) and logically therefore need to have enough warheads not just to take out each other's cities but also their nuclear and conventional force concentrations.

The complicating factor in this equation has been China. Given that China is viewed with suspicion both in the Pentagon and Kremlin, both US and Russian arsenals (शस्त्रागार/हथियारघर) have to account not just for each other but also for China. However, since the end of the Cold War, the Chinese nuclear arsenal is the only one that is both expanding and modernizing across the board while those of the US and Russia have dropped dramatically. Just in the last decade, the number of Chinese missiles that can reach the continental United States has more than trebled. This begs the question that if China felt safe for 30 years with a stable arsenal, what is prompting this sudden expansion especially given the massive reductions in the arsenals of Russia and the US?

While US missile defence plans are almost certainly a causal factor in China's buildup, this doesn't cover the whole story. Many believe the nature and scope of the Chinese expansion indicates a change of posture from No First Use to one of pre-emptive strike. There are many reasons for this belief including the production of new submarines armed with a new generation of missiles each of which carries multiple nuclear warheads, as well as a plethora (प्रचुरता/बहुतायत) of new weapons like the nuclear capable DF-21 anti-ship ballistic missile. These only feed the impression that China does not just believe in nuclear weapons for deterrence (शक्ति संतुलन) but also for nuclear warfighting.

This Chinese expansion has also been wreaking (उत्पन्न करना/कारण होना) havoc (तबाही) in the other nuclear triangle it's a part of ¬ the Pakistan India-China one. Here India has had to confront a massive Chinese modernization and expansion on one side, as well as a Pakistani expansion on the other side. Pakistan claims that its expansion is directed at India, a claim that most commentators laugh off. They point out that American pressure on Pakistan to join the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT) and US “Plan B” to seize Pakistan's nuclear arsenal has a much more direct causal relationship with Pakistan's expansion.

Clearly then the nuclear situation is anything but static and China and Pakistan are the most identifiable drivers of this destabilizing behavior. In such a context it is far more likely that Trump's tweets were aimed at China ¬ a country he seems to enjoy baiting (परेशान करना) publicly, rather than Russia. In fact there is historical evidence for this assessment (आंकलन /निर्धारण) .

A Trump interview far back in 1987, in a now dead magazine called Manhattan Inc, complains bitterly about the myopia (अदूरदर्शिता) of Washington's nuclear policy makers, saying “I believe they're sort of fools ...they only think about Russia, Russian and our weapons”, before pillorying the French for playing footloose and fancy-free with their nuclear technology. But perhaps the most important part of that interview was his views on Pakistan and the US-Russia relationship. He believed that the only solution was “for the Big Two to make a deal now to step in and prevent the next generation of nations about to go nuclear from doing so. By whatever means necessary”.

His views get better on Pakistan: “I think the solution is largely economic. Because there are so many of these countries that are so fragile (कमज़ोर (not tenacious)) and we have a vast power that's never been used ...You do whatever is necessary so these people will have riots in the street, so they can't get water. Because that's the only thing that's going to do it ¬ the people, the riots.”

France was a pale (अप्रभावी/inferior) third in the proliferation (प्रसार/फैलाव) field compared to what we now know about China and Pakistan. Transposing the 1987 Trump to today we still find a peer respect for Russia, the contempt for China that he once had for France and the deep suspicion of Pakistan that has never left him. Trump wrong-footed every pundit on November 9, 2016, and there is every possibility he's wrong-footing the nuclear pundits now. At least for India Trump's policies may be an unexpected bonus, or as South Block might say “happy days are here again”.