"The Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) treaty was established after the learned horrors from World War Two and the torturous knowledge acquired after the United States dropped nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki," Bennett explained.
"It produced a healthy degree of fear and reverence, for the other nations which had nuclear weapons and a clear understanding that nuclear weapons could easily destroy the world, nature, human civilization, and indeed end mankind in a single day," he added, continuing to state that the actions of successive US administrations undermined the very idea of peaceful co-existence and cooperation for the sake of geopolitical dominance.
Halting Nuclear Race: Not by NPT Alone
The treaty was opened for signature on July 1, 1968, in the USSR, the US and the UK and came into effect on March 5, 1970. In 1995 the treaty was extended indefinitely.
Back in 1970, the accords did put the brakes on the potential nuclear adventurism, but it did not stop the arms race. The US and the USSR had been growing their nuclear potentials after Washington defined the Soviet Union as a potential target in 1945.
In order to de-escalate tensions, the USSR and the US inked a series of other treaties, including the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) of 1972, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) of 1987, and START I (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) of 1991.
Simply put, the treaties envisaged reducing the number of rockets capable of carrying a nuclear load and limited Moscow and Washington’s ability to build ballistic missile interceptors, to prevent either country from trying to gain an advantage over the other which would upset the global strategic balance.
Collapse of USSR & US Dominance
Nonetheless, after the collapse of the USSR, George W. Bush shredded the ABM treaty in 2002 which restrained the deployment of strategic defensive armaments, despite Moscow's protests.
"The reality is the United States has commandeered NATO in the European Union as a proxy army, and a slave economic force, and made Europe to be puppets and pawns of American foreign policy," said Bennett. "The American government's agenda, and specifically the banks, globalists and military-industrial complex, and the CIA have all pursued an agenda to drive the break-up of Russia and the theft of its resources since 1990."
In 2012, the Obama administration established an Aegis Ashore anti-missile defense complex in Romania which became operational in 2016; the construction of a similar site started with delays in Redzikowo, Poland. Russia has repeatedly signaled that the deployment of anti-ballistic interceptors was upsetting the strategic balance, but the US claimed that the missile installations were aimed against Iran. In 2022 the US Missile Defense Agency signaled that the long-delayed Aegis Ashore system in Poland would be ready in 2023.
Remarkably, one of the provisions of New START of 2011 (the successor of START I and START II limiting the number of nuclear warheads) specifically stated that Russia reserved the right to withdraw from the treaty if the US missile defense reaches the stage of development when it becomes a threat to Russia's security.
In 2019, the Trump administration pulled out from the INF while simultaneously starting to provide Russia's neighbor, Ukraine, with lethal weapons, including Javelin anti-tank weapons, light weapons like sniper rifles, and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.
In January 2022, the US and NATO snubbed Moscow's draft security agreements aimed at guaranteeing NATO's non-expansion eastward, Ukraine's neutrality as well as the demilitarization of the NATO-controlled regions in close proximity to Russia's borders.
In response, Russia launched a special military operation to demilitarize and de-Nazify Ukraine in February 2022. For their part, the US and its NATO allies proclaimed the goal of imposing a strategic defeat on Russia, bleeding it white and making it incapable of waging active military actions. To that end, the collective West imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia and provided multi-billion military assistance to the Kiev regime.
21 February 2023, 17:29 GMT
Freezing of New START
Under these circumstances, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced in February that Moscow would freeze the New START treaty as NATO sought to inspect Russia's nuclear installations at the same time providing Ukraine with intelligence and sophisticated military equipment.
"President Putin gave a speech in which he informed the Russian people, Duma, and a variety of other players, in the Russian nation, that because the United States was pursuing such aggressive action against Russia, through its proxy war in Ukraine, that Russia could not guarantee the survival of its people and culture by maintaining a treaty and degree of trust with the United States," Bennett noted.
"It is precisely because the United States has become so untrustworthy and unstable and indeed deceitful in everything it says and does, and in every document it claims to sign and promise, it has forced President Putin to act in certain ways. In order to preserve and protect Russia Putin understands he must have the flexibility and maneuverability to guarantee the West does not attempt to secretly undermine or exploit the vulnerabilities that Russia might have as a result of its futile hope in the United States being honorable," the security analyst continued.
In late February Putin also emphasized that Russia is forced to return to the discussion of the issue of the nuclear potential of the UK and France, since NATO has demonstrated that it is an active military bloc, not a political one. Russia's previous bilateral nuclear agreements with the US did not take into account nuclear arms stockpiles of Washington's NATO allies.
West Overlooked Kiev's Nuclear Bragging
To complicate matters further, the US and its NATO allies completely overlooked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's threats to drop Ukraine's non-nuclear status made at the Munich Security Conference on February 19, 2022.
The Ukrainian president's "nuclear" remarks contradicted both the NPT agreement and Ukraine's own Declaration of Sovereignty of July 16, 1990. The document clearly says that Kiev would never "accept, produce, or acquire nuclear weapons" and would maintain permanent neutrality.
After Zelensky's speech, Ukraine's media enthusiastically weighed up Kiev's capabilities of creating nuclear arms. On February 21, 2022, the Ukrainian media cited national experts saying that the nation had enough spent nuclear fuel that could be used to produce weapons-grade plutonium to create the bomb.
Another option envisaged extracting natural uranium at the Eastern Mining and Processing Plant near Dnepropetrovsk and its further enrichment. Ukrainian experts suggested that if Kiev launches a nuclear weapons project it could take 5-7 years with annual funding of $200-$300 million. However, the bomb could be done in half a year, they said, if Kiev acquires a reactor for the production of weapons-grade plutonium. This reactor would allow Ukraine to obtain 100 medium-yield nuclear charges within 15 kilograms in a limited time.
Western politicians and media did not react to the Ukrainian media speculation and later tried to ridicule the Russian Ministry of Defense's warning about Kiev's false flag plot to make use of a dirty bomb - a radioactive explosive device.
Likewise, the US and NATO ignored Kiev's continuous shelling of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) taken by Russia. When Russia invited the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors to the plant to study the situation on the ground, the IAEA admitted that the atomic plant was subjected to shelling but fell short from calling out Kiev for bombarding the nuclear site.
Multi-Polar World as Remedy Against Double Standards
According to Bennett, the aforementioned examples require the international community to revise the situation with nuclear non-proliferation which has fallen victim to the double-standard approach.
To illustrate his point he referred to the ambiguity surrounding Israel's nuclear arms program. "Israel has nuclear weapons and the West knows it, and it simply plays a game of hypocrisy and lies by claiming otherwise," he noted.
While the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) requires the nuclear-weapon states to "pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament," one shouldn't expect that Washington will demonstrate goodwill, de-escalate the situation over Ukraine, NATO expansion and ballistic missile build-up in Europe anytime soon, according to the security analyst. The only hope is that the rise of the multi-polar world order will create a level playing field for international players, making them comply with common security rules.