The return of great power competition between the United States, its peer competitor China, and its regional adversary Russia continues to test the robustness of existing frameworks for regional security cooperation within the Indo-Pacific. Nowhere is this truer than within the existing non-proliferation and disarmament (NPD) regime—a once notable point of agreement in Asia.
The Evolution of the Global NPT Regime
The global non-proliferation regime dates back to the Cold War with the signing of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1968. Throughout the Cold War non-aligned nations in the Global South—notably in Latin America and the Pacific attempted to insulate themselves from the global nuclear arms race by the formation of regional nuclear weapons free zones.
Overshadowing these regional developments was a wider international order that encouraged this regional NPD process. The signing of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) in 1991 between the United States and the Soviet Union at the tail-end of the Cold War initiated further agreements between the United States and Russia to reduce armaments with the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty signed in 2003 and New START signed in 2010. That provided a strong bilateral basis to put forward more ambitious proposals for a global NPD regime at the 2010 United Nations NPT review conference, such as fostering a world free of nuclear weapons.
It also created a bilateral basis to isolate rogue regional proliferating states. In Asia, this concerned North Korea, which withdrew from the NPT in 2003 followed by a successful nuclear weapons test in 2006. The United States–in cooperation with China, Japan, South Korea, and Russia pursued a negotiated settlement with North Korea in the “Six Party Talks” from 2003-09 offering food and energy aid in exchange for an end to its nuclear program. China’s economic ties and Russia’s diplomatic influence over Pyongyang were crucial to keeping North Korea at the table, but this failed to deter further tests and North Korea withdrew from the talks in 2009.
However, this increasingly robust international NPD regime has changed dramatically with the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Unfortunately, this ensured the 2022 UN NPT review conference—postponed since 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic—was dead on arrival. Not only that, it became a new battleground for an increasingly tense competition between the United States and Russia. As the fighting in Ukraine escalated, in 2023 Russia unilaterally withdrew from the New START treaty—upending the bilateral basis which the NPD regime rested upon.
Already this breakdown in US-Russia relations over events in Europe has had a serious impact on the security architecture of the Indo-Pacific. Notably, in March 2024, Russia surprisingly vetoed a United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) extending the mandate of the Panel of Experts assisting the Sanctions Committee pursuant to UNSCR 1718 over North Korea. Effectively, Russia is encouraging a breakdown in the NPD regime and overall stability of existing international security institutions in East Asia as a means of obtaining support from North Korea and greater leverage against the United States for its war in Ukraine. While it is not clear that China is comfortable with Russia’s security alignment which North Korea agreed to in 2024, Moscow’s veto within the UNSC means it can render the NPD regime moribund.
Thinking Through Issues Facing the Indo-Pacific
These realities weighed heavily on the proceedings of the 2024 Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific NPD Study Group meeting in Bangkok. For one, no delegation from Russia, China, let alone North Korea was present—nor have they been for years. In other words, even at the level of Track 2.0 Dialogue there is little in the way of communication over the wider NPD regime. Moreover, the conference raised two major questions: First, in the absence of unified great power engagement, what can still be done to advance the NPD? Second, how have new technologies transformed both the dynamics of NPD and its verification regime in Asia?
The good news is that despite the breakdown in US-Russia relations there does remain a consensus on the most baseline elements of the NPD regime—that is the prohibition of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons for non-state actors. In fact, three months after the 2022 UN NPT review conference, the UNSC extended the Committee pursuant to UNSCR 1540 until 2032 tasked with the prohibition of weapons of mass-destruction for non-state actors. There has been gradual implementation of the requirements of the 1540 Committee by member states since its formation in 2004. However, more needs to be done, especially to harmonize national legislation and to appoint official points of contact to implement this level of the NPD regime.
The greatest concern that remains unaddressed is the likely near-future expansion of civil nuclear technologies across the Indo-Pacific. The refinement of Small Modular Reactor (SMR) technologies by Chinese, Korean, Russian and other nuclear powers offer to fundamentally transform developing Asian economies while achieving a reduction in carbon emissions pursuant to the 2015 Paris Agreement of the UN Climate Change Conference or COP 21. While no ASEAN member is currently a nuclear power generating state this is already changing—notably in 2023 Thailand began operating Takamak-1, an experimental nuclear fusion research reactor built and operated in collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
In other words, the proof of concept already exists for public-public cooperation between nuclear powers and non-nuclear states made only more attractive with the promise of SMR technologies. The question remains whether such developments will grow within the framework of the NPD regime in the absence of sustained great power cooperation to preserve the NPT’s processes.
An Opportunity for Regional Solutions?
Given the absence of a great power consensus on advancing NPD—it is worth considering whether Asian nations should welcome this as an opportunity to advance their own regional or sub-regional mechanism aligned with the principles of the UN NPT process. One option is a “coalition of the willing” of Asian countries like Japan and Korea in cooperation with the United States and its European partners which have the technical expertise to advance an NPD process.
But without buy-in from Russia or China this may only exacerbate tensions with the United States and further normalize the NPD regime as a legitimate space for great power competition.
A less divisive proposal would be to expand the role of existing institutions—principally the relevant organs of ASEAN. The member states are already party to the 1995 Treaty of Bangkok which established a nuclear weapons free zone in 1997, as well as a commission of the ASEAN foreign ministers responsible for implementation. There also exist multiple bodies under the aegis of the ASEAN Senior Officials’ Meeting on Energy. These institutions or more could be used to pursue various NPD goals. That includes everything from the harmonization of national legislation pursuant to UNSCR 1540, or more robust cooperation over UNSCR 1718.
Ultimately, it is up to the rotating ASEAN chair—currently Malaysia—to implement such a program for ASEAN to fill the gap in the NPD architecture in Asia. Barring this or a coalition of regional states taking the lead, it is likely the current stagnation in the NPD regime will continue.
However, there is a third possibility. The surprise meeting of US and Russian foreign ministers in February may herald a possible détente and thaw in relations, and potentially even a ceasefire over Ukraine. Were that to happen it certainly increases the possibility, however remote, of a renewed consensus among the great powers to strengthen the existing NPD regime in Asia.
Moez Hayat is an Ax:son Johnson Institute for Statecraft and Diplomacy Pre-doctoral Fellow at Cambridge University’s Center for Geopolitics, pursuing doctoral studies in the Department of Politics and International Studies with a particular focus on regional order and small state diplomacy in Southeast Asia. Previously he was a United States Fulbright Scholar and Visiting Researcher in the Academy of Brunei Studies at the Universiti Brunei Darussalam. Moez holds a master’s in Asian studies from Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service. He writes on Southeast Asian and world affairs with articles in The East Asia Forum, The Strategist, The Diplomat, 9DashLine, and The National Interest. His contact: [email protected].
Photo: This handout picture taken July 26, 2023, and released by the Russian Defense Ministry shows Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu meeting his North Korean counterpart, Kang Sun Nam, in Pyongyang. Source: Voice of America
