Five of the world's most powerful nations have agreed that a war that can never be won and must never be fought in a rare joint pledge to reduce the risk of a conflict ever starting.
The pledge was signed by the US, Russia, China, the UK and France, the five nuclear weapons states recognized by the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty NPT, which are also the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. They are known as the P 5 or the N 5.
At a time of increasing friction between Russia, China and the West, such a common statement on a major issue of global security has become a rarity. With Russia threatening to invade Ukraine and China signaling its readiness to use military force against Taiwan, the joint statement shows its commitment to prevent any confrontation turning into a nuclear catastrophe.
A senior US state department official said the wording had been hammered out at P 5 meetings over several months despite the high-tension environment.
The official said that this is something that we want to avoid at the base level to be able to say that this is how we think about these risks, and this is an acknowledgement that it is something we want to avoid during a difficult time.
The statement was scheduled to coincide with the five-yearly review conference of the NPT, but the conference was postponed because of the spread of the Omicron variant of Covid 19, and disagreements on whether or not the session could be held virtually.
The statement said that a nuclear war can't be won and must never be fought, a statement said. It was a joint declaration by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev at a summit in Geneva in 1985.
The NPT was a deal between states with no nuclear weapons who pledged not to acquire them, and the five nuclear-armed states that promised to disarm. The review conference, originally planned for 2020, was expected to be contentious due to the stalling of momentum towards disarmament and the moves made by the five weapons states to modernise their arsenals.
Four other countries with nuclear weapons that are not recognised under the NPT, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea have shown no signs of reducing their stockpiles.
The 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran and the deadlock in an attempt to save it have raised the risks of nuclear proliferation, particularly in the Middle East.
Monday s joint statement was intended to improve the atmosphere at the NPT review conference. Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin had reaffirmed the Gorbachev-Reagan declaration at a summit in June, and the move was welcomed by China.
China's vice foreign minister Ma Zhaoxu welcomed Monday s statement as positive and weighty, saying it would help increase mutual trust and replace competition among major powers with coordination and cooperation. It took several months of negotiations over the wording of the declaration before all five powers were ready to agree. France had concerns that such a statement would undermine the deterrent effect of its arsenal.
Oliver Meier, senior researcher at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy, said France has a nuclear doctrine reserving the right of a pre-strategic use of a nuclear weapon to warn of the aggressor or even to a state sponsor of terrorism.
It is a way to win a war with a limited use of nuclear weapons to end a conflict. Meier believes that the UK's reservations were not so clearly expressed, but he believed that they were similar.
A line in the joint statement said that nuclear weapons for as long as they continue to exist should serve defensive purposes, deter aggression, and prevent war, and were added to address French concerns.
The five nuclear weapons powers also stated that their priority was to work with all states to make sure global tensions never lead to nuclear conflict.
A senior US official said: This is a substance-heavy document that goes beyond just the reaffirmation of the idea that a nuclear war cannot be won and should never be fought. There is additional content that is reflective of a good and constructive conversation about how to reduce nuclear threats and eventually eliminate them. Heather Williams, a senior lecturer in defence studies at King's College London, said that "I am pretty shocked that the P 5 could agree to this much given the security environment."
Williams and other nuclear experts have urged nuclear weapon powers to improve their channels of crisis communication as one of the ways of reducing the risks of an unplanned clash that escalates into nuclear conflict. She said she hoped that discussions on risk reduction would continue despite the postponement of the NPT review conference.
Arms control advocates welcomed the declaration, but they also called for it to be backed up by a return to disarmament.
With nine nuclear arsenals currently being enhanced, and Covid problems besetting nuclear-armed submarines and facilities, this statement from five nuclear-armed leaders is welcomed, but does not go far enough, said Rebecca Johnson, vice president of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and the first president of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.
Of course, leaders need to avoid military confrontations, increase mutual understanding, and recognize that nuclear war cannot be won and must not be fought, but these words are nothing without concrete disarmament and diplomatic actions to eliminate nuclear arsenals and dangers. As long as nuclear weapons are advertised and wielded by some, we are all at risk of nuclear war.