International arms control system faces multiple challenges

First test flight of the US B-21 Raider.

Russia announced that it had completed all procedures for withdrawing from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) on November 7, and NATO also declared an official halt in fulfilling relevant contractual commitments on the same day.

In recent years, due to declining strategic mutual trust, the US and Russia, two nuclear powers possessing more than 90% of the global nuclear weapons, frequently withdrew from the Treaty, posing grave threats to the sustainability of their mutual supervision and transparency mechanism in the nuclear arms control and further severely impacting the international nuclear arms control system. Meanwhile, with the old nuclear arms control mechanism already shattered and the new one not yet in place, the two sides are still accelerating the upgrading of nuclear forces. Not only that, the US works with its allies to actively expand or upgrade extended deterrence. For example, it carried out nuclear submarine cooperation with the UK and Australia, acquiesced in Japan’s stockpile of massive nuclear weapon materials and gradually relieved the restrictions on ROK’s missile development.

The proliferation and use of nuclear weapons, capable of extinguishing human civilization, have been consistently under the world’s scrutiny. And the increasingly prominent conventional arms control issues also pose serious challenges to global security and development. At present, frequent regional conflicts and violence have provided a hotbed for the illicit conventional weapon trades, of which the discovery and traceability of light and small conventional weapons are particularly challenging. The application of cluster munitions, white phosphorus bombs, depleted uranium bombs and other specific conventional weapons has not only exacerbated the intensity of conflicts in relevant countries and regions, but also triggered serious humanitarian crises. Moreover, some countries’ irresponsible export and management of common or special conventional weapons have also aggravated the contradictions and conflicts. What’s particularly worrisome…