As Israel launches a new front in its year-long hot war on Palestine, the risk that the conflict, backed by the United States, could become nuclear is a frightening possibility.
Israel and the US have long had nuclear capabilities and neither has signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).
This attempt to limit the spread of nuclear weapons entered into force in the United Nations in 2021, but no country with nuclear weapons has signed up.
The states that have signed and ratified, such as Palestine (recognised by about 75% of UN member states), are largely those that fear being caught up in the crossfire of a nuclear war they did not start.
No other countries in the Middle East have signed on.
September 26 was a UN-declared International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.
The previous day, President Vladimir Putin announced Russia had modified its policy on the use of nuclear weapons, saying attacks on it by non-nuclear powers that have the support of nuclear-armed states would now also be considered legitimate targets.
China carried out a test of an intercontinental ballistic missile in late September — its first in more than 40 years. It carried a dummy warhead and landed in the South Pacific. Specialists told the BBC it typically tests its weapons internally.
Russia, the US, India, Pakistan and North Korea have all tested nuclear-capable missiles in recent months, according to International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). France, with 290 warheads, is running its third nuclear strike exercise this year.
According to UN Secretary General António Guterres, “nuclear posturing and new weapons cast a dark shadow. We are edging towards the unimaginable — a powder keg that risks engulfing the world.”
ICAN said that nine “nuclear-armed states put everything and everyone at risk with these actions”, which is “why they are all waging public relations campaigns to paint their rivals as the irresponsible nuclear powers”.
“The reality is that the only way to end the risk is to get rid of nuclear weapons altogether.”
Small states, such as Indonesia, Sierra Leone and the Solomon Islands, concur. They are the latest states to sign on to the treaty, which now includes 73 states parties and a further 25 signatories.
Indonesia’s parliament unanimously approved the ratification last November and Indonesian foreign minister Retno Marsudi concluded the process recently in New York.
Muhadi Sugiono, from the Institute of International Studies at Gadjah Mada University, an ICAN partner organisation, said “Indonesia is asserting its right to exist in peace, free from the shadow of nuclear threats”.
“It’s sending a strong message to other states, especially in the Asia-Pacific region, that nuclear weapons are totally unacceptable and illegal.”
Indonesia is the seventh member of the Association of South-East Asian Nations to ratify the treaty, after Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia, Cambodia and the Philippines.
The representative of Sierra Leone, the 17th African state to ratify the TPNW, said on September 26 that nuclear weapons are “weapons of mass destruction with catastrophic humanitarian consequences”, offering “ no safety to any State, including nuclear-weapon-free zones, given the borderless impacts”.
“It is on this premise that we all should be united and determined to save humanity and planet earth from catastrophic consequences by taking the deliberate step to totally eliminate nuclear weapons.”
Solomon Islands foreign affairs minister Peter Shanel Agovaka signed up his country on September 24. The Solomon Islands participated in the negotiation of the TPNW in 2017 and is the 11th Pacific Island state to join.
Maverick Peter Seda from the Malaita Provincial Youth Council, an ICAN partner organisation in the Solomon Islands, and Reverse the Trend, a youth initiative of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, said, “This is amazing news for all the young people in the Solomon Islands who have worked tirelessly to promote this outcome. We are committed to the goal of a nuclear-free Pacific and world.”