 We have crossed the one year mark of the war in Ukraine, and this has been a war that has changed the world in so many ways, politics, economics, military science, diplomacy. In any country, wherever you are, the impact has been felt in various ways. And one of the ways in which it might continue to be felt came with President Vladimir Putin's announcement last week that Russia would suspend participation in the New START Treaty. Now on mapping fault lines and news click, we have talked about many of these treaties multiple times before. The important role they play in keeping us relatively safe from the threat of nuclear annihilation. In today's episode, we'll be talking more about what this announcement means, what generally is happening with disarmament, with the war, and how it's impacting the whole of Eurasia. So President Putin's announcement once again bringing the focus back to the New START Treaty. Now we've talked about each of these treaties multiple times on the show, but their relevance and importance seems all the more significant now. We have a war going on, you know, there's a lot of this threat of escalation has been a serious concern for an entire year now. So let's first maybe go through why this treaty is especially relevant now, and you know, in the absence of New START, what happens for instance? Well, Putin has said that this will be somehow frozen, stopped, but he hasn't suspended participation. But he hasn't said withdrawn from the treaty. And there is no really clause of a suspended animation for a treaty like this. So what it means is essentially the two sides have the right to inspect each other, each other's facilities. Already Russia was finding it difficult post-COVID, when it had all stopped anyway, to do inspections in the United States because of sanctions by US and its allies. So therefore getting to the United States for a team to do inspection itself was proving a problem. And therefore the inspection in the United States is still hamstrung. So in that context, Russia has said, we will not also let you inspect. Now that's a tit for tat. Is it escalation? That's something else. But what is important is the announcement that we will not increase the numbers till 2026, when the new start actually has to be renewed. Biden just came into power when it was about to end. So he extended it. The extension was almost without any changes. So no change, extension up to 2026, which might come to an end, in which case you might get a renewed arms race of increasing both the launch vehicles and the warrants. Both of these could be involved. And also new kinds of viziles already have been put into operation. The ABM treaty has, as you know, expired long back. It was supposed to have been really ratified and so on. It should have happened. So it sort of died in 2002 when Bush said, that's it. And then of course we had the Intermediate Rage Ballistic Vizile Treaty, what's called the INF Treaty. That also trump withdrew from that. So that was the Intermediate Rage Viziles, which was the one which Trump withdrew from. And then this is the last treaty. This was signed in 1972. So that has been extended a number of times. This is also ending. And if this ends in 2026, then there is no nuclear arms treaty that will be there between Russia and the United States, which are the two pre-eminent nuclear powers in the world. They have many more warheads than everybody else put together. So that is the threat that we'll see, therefore, new weapons coming up, numbers as well as new types of weapons coming up. And what does it really portend, particularly when already we have a war scenario going on. Absolutely. It's actually paint quite a really scary picture, it's about 10,000 odd missiles actually. So these are the warheads that both sides have. So roughly about five and a half to 6,000, each of them have that, that is a number. So you can see about 6,000 for Russia and about five and a half thousand for US, really about five to 6,000. But the other part of it, I think which is what is important, is there are two types of issues involved in the expiry of the new start, which is that there are launchers on which there are restrictions and the number of warheads on which also there are restrictions. Now what we see, we have is if we look at roughly the parity is between the warheads and also the launchers. You can see, roughly there is a parity which is there and at the moment, so roughly about 1,600 and if you take the launchers also about 600 or so. Now the launchers will not increase by that much. But if you look at what the warheads are, then you will see the possibility of a huge increase of the warheads on both sides, the US even more than Russia because they have more multiple warheads mounted on the same launcher. They also have the what is called the strategic bomber force, which is quite a large number of bombers, which of course can carry nuclear weapons. So if you take the warheads, number of warheads and the number of warms put together, then you will see almost, well almost a doubling in the case of the United States and adding from 1600 warheads, 1700 warheads, another thousand. So not doubling, but about 70-75% of what the current number of warheads is. Now you know all this is also taken in the context that they have a large number of already nuclear warhead inventory. So the inventory also can be brought out and then activated, which means we are going back to something like 10,000 nuclear warheads each. So those are the kind of things. It's not just what we can see immediately in the near future, three, four, five years, this is what's likely to happen. But if the inventories are brought back, we're looking at 10,000 nuclear warheads each. So that's a very frightening scenario as you have said because even with the current number of nuclear warheads, if you take the current inventory into account, 1600 odd nuclear warheads, you can really blow up the whole world four times, five times over. So this is already overkill. Now if all of that happens, then the question is, we may have a nuclear by design, but we can also have a nuclear war by accident. Because both sides go on hair trigger alert and we have a number of cases where by accident a nuclear war could have been triggered, we're lucky that it has not happened. So we're going to go back to those kind of days again. And that is the risk when the last nuclear agreement falls in 2026. It's now in de-freeze and we have to see what happens over the next three years. Absolutely. And Prabir, actually we have seen some of the possibilities of what could have happened even with the existing strength that is because there's all these missile developments and military developments that have taken place around Russia over the years. And this was actually one of the factors that led to this current conflict. There was this slow creeping deployment and mobilization that took place, ABM missiles for instances. So we already have an example with a limited number what the possibilities are. This is an interesting map because it shows also how the missiles were positioned initially. It started really with the smaller range missiles, battlefield weapons will not be used and so on, which actually would have meant that you would have had at the time Western Europe and then you have of course Eastern Europe and Russia. This was the battle that could have taken place. And at that time, if you remember, the idea was that smaller range missiles should not be used. Therefore, battlefield nuclear weapons should not be used. And then after the ABM treaty, the difference that happened is that we should not use intermediate range missiles. If you take the intermediate nuclear missiles, range missiles, that is what is called the INF treaty that had a range of 1,000 to 5,500 kilometers and banning that that this should not be used meant that both sides in Europe would then not have a exchange over Europe. The idea was that let's leave Europe out of it. Interestingly, over naval, there was no such restriction. You could go to intermediate range in the naval missiles, but in land-based missiles this should not be used. This coupled with the ABM meant that Europe would not become the battlefield. What happened after the fall of Soviet Union when first the ABM treaty was discontinued George Bush would do out of it? And what happened is, as you can see, this is the parts which then joined the NATO. And once they joined the NATO, then not only are there military missiles put all over, but you have these two centers, which have essentially the capability to also use anti-ballistic missile as well as use what would be called intermediate range missiles, which even before withdrawing of Trump withdrawing from the INF treaty, both of these Russia had objected to. Of course, Russia had certain missiles, which also had the possibility of being used both on the naval side as well as on land. So the argument was, you are developing missiles which can be used both on your ships as well as used on the ground. And in fact, these are called what is called AGES ashore batteries. They can be used for anti-ballistic missile purposes, but also can launch with just a change of cartridge. They can also launch essentially intermediate range missiles. So that has been the issue. But what happened is, instead of the battlefield becoming Western Europe and Eastern Central Europe, now the battlefield is really moving over to Russia and Ukraine. If you see it, parts of Poland, I'm not going to count Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, really small countries. They are like tail trying to wag their larger dog. So if you leave that out, what's happening increasingly is the battle is shifting to this area. And therefore, an intermediate range ballistic missile, ABM shields, all of these means you come closer to war. And that means that you think a first strike against Russia, for example, followed by ABM missiles which you have will therefore take out the missiles that Russia might launch, which will be much less because the first attack would have taken most of their missiles out. Therefore instead of being shields, they all in fact become more likely to be in fact building up to war. So this is the whole reason that anti-ballistic missiles were given up, that if you start building shields, then the one way to counter this shield is that more missiles saturated. So that is still the possibility in Russia sees that is why this whole battlefield, particularly now centering on Ukraine, has all these issues which is coming up. And of course, as we know, the two most important issue for Russia has been the missile bases in Poland and Romania, where these kind of dual-purpose ages, what's called ages of shore batteries are there, which can do both. They can fire ABM missiles, they can anti-ballistic missiles, but they can also launch intermediate range missiles. Therefore, take out the whole of, what shall we say, whole of western Russia out. And that is the reason why Ukraine was such a red flag for Russia, because it means these missiles could come to Ukraine and therefore shorten the distance to, say, Moscow. And this is something that meant that it puts directly the most industrialized central parts of their economy under the gun of the United States of NATO. And in fact, that is one of the reasons that Ukraine has been such a red line for Russia. Absolutely. And Praveen, of course, finally, the last week also marked one year of the war. And it's profoundly changed the world in so many ways. And I think its echoes are felt in multiple conflicts that have already been going on for years. So it's not just, like you said, just about Ukraine over here. But I mean, one year down the line, we see NATO continuing its expansionist surge, which has proved the Russian allegations right along with especially Finland and Sweden. But we also see that generally many of the conflicts have had this impact from the war. So could you maybe also just go through what's happening there as well? A lot of people are saying the world has changed. This war is not a war between Russia and Ukraine. It's really a war between NATO and Russia. We've been saying that for quite some time, but it's also a part of other wars. What are the other wars we are talking about? One is, of course, that apart from what we've already seen, which is really this is a war zone already. This is really Western Europe, Russia on centering around Ukraine, where NATO forces, let us put it, they are if not directly participating but indirectly participating in the war. We have now reports from Ukrainians saying all the guided bombing, missiles, Haimar or other such shelling is being done with the coordinates being given by NATO. And if they give the coordinates, we just press a trigger. That's all. But all the acquisition of the target, two firing of the target apart from pressing the button through Ukraine has no role. This is what we seem to find also in what's emanating from the newspaper reports, which have started becoming a little more less one-sided than it was earlier. But that was a battlefield that is still active. But what are the new battlefields sharing about? One is, of course, China. If you take China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan. This is obviously what the US is now slowly ratcheting up. And there is a possibility that at the moment it is only a technology and an economic war, so war of sanctions. And we want to discuss sanctions today. We are really looking at the geo-strategic aspects. This is another war, which is not caught into a shooting war, but you have vessels going, aircraft flying, and you also are trying to, you are seeing the Japanese budget, military budget being ramped up. And of course, what will be the missiles, what will be posted there, Aegis ashore is also being talked about in Japan. So all of these are happening. Taiwan, of course, is a big open question. How much of the US would invest militarily into Taiwan or use it essentially to put pressure on China? So this is one center that is heating up. But there is others. We have seen, for instance, this region, I'm not counting Syria as yet, I'll come to that later, but Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, all these are also in the crosshairs. Of course, oil is a key issue. But we know Iran has been under sanctions. It's still under the military sanctions, no chance of lifting those anyway. I don't think there's any chance of reviving the nuclear agreement. There's 84% now purity of the uranium that this is fissile material, they seem to have already done. So they're pretty much close to what the bomb grade, weapons grade, which is really 90%, but 84% also you get fission. So that's really not too far away. And as we know, this is just one or two more cycles and from 84, you get to 90%. So this is another area, Saudi Arabia is now going to buy and sell, looks like sell to China in Reminbi. So which means that their link to dollar might still stay for other exports, but for a large number of exports they seem to be getting off the dollar. What will happen with India, Saudi Arabia, oil we don't know, but we already know that for instance, between Russia and India, they have been doing the trade in dirhams, which is United Arab Emirates currency. So all this is slowly going off the dollar. Iraq of course is a known battle point. Saudi Arabia as I said, it shifts all its oil trade with China into Reminbi, that's a huge blow to the United States. But we also have other areas, for instance, you have Syria over here, there's already a battle going on between Syria in Syria with Israel. And Israel regularly bombs Syria recently, even bombed it very recently, bombed the capital very recently. So this is another area where already conflicts are there, in which Israel is a major party. So Israel, United States is the axis over there. And then of course you have also North Africa and here as we know Libya is something that we have seen battles going on. Libya was destabilized by NATO, it's removed Qaddafi, but after that there is no really no government in Libya, we have only opposing factions, the battle still goes on. But if we take the other big issue over there, there is this whole area of Central Asia which is there and not including Afghanistan, Afghanistan is a special case, I'm not talking about South Asia, but if you see the Central Asia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, all of these, Mongolia over here, all of these are in a three-way play. You have Turkey, there's an old relationship between Turkey and this region because a lot of the tribes and the language is spoken are Turkic tribes and Turkic language, Turkic ethnicity, the tribe is the wrong word in this context. And then of course China is also a player over here and of course Russia is very much a player in Central Asia. So all these players are there and the United States of course has a stake in Central Asia if nothing else to see that Russia and China and Turkey do not dominate over this area that they are also able to put their foot in. The problem is they don't seem to have any countries bordering this anymore and Iran is not a fendery country. Turk is not exactly under the umbrella though they're trying to bring it. Syria is not with them. So there is no really player. India is, as you know, South Asia, this side of the Himalayas, they're not a player there. So what happens over here is that they can square the pitch, but there is not much that they can do to play over there. So their play over there might be just a spoiler, but it also means entire the Eurasian landmass, including North Africa, which is not really Eurasia in this sense, are all now open to more geo-strategic players and multiple players than what was seen post-1990 when the US dominated over the whole world, even if they couldn't break up Russia or make Syria's indoors into China. But all this area, they had far more influence. So it is not just Europe that is changing. We focus too much on Europe because then the world sort of tends to take it as the much more shall be seen important place in the world. If you take the area with this an equal area projection, then you'll find Western Europe is not that important. Even the whole of the Europe is not that important. But if you take, for instance, Africa, yes, it's emerging. North Africa is not very far away from this field. So and of course, West Asia, Central Asia, all important. So if we move our eyes away from just Europe and Ukraine, you will see much more is in play, including of course, what's already in the news, East Asia. So I think we are seeing really the emergence of a multipolar world far more strongly today than we ever did. And the Ukraine war is at the moment, if we don't end up in a nuclear exchange is only accelerating the creation of this multipolar world. And lot more players will actually have a play here, including India. As you can see with the G20 summit, India is trying to become a player in this. But I think what we are likely to see is that you are going to see multiple what shall we say, multiple arenas over which the struggle who is going to influence, who is going to control and what will be its economic relationships with different countries. I think that's all coming to play, particularly those is not the topic today. The economic power of the United States and Europe is now weakening. All that we can say is one thing we can say as a net loss in this war is of Western Europe, because I think they are going to lose far more than any other country because they more or less have hitched their wagon to the United States, which whose ability today to support Europe may be there militarily. But when it sells oil, as you can see, it has made really huge profits. So Western Europe's dominant position as an industrial power in Europe and even large parts of the world is going to weaken. And I think not only the rise of China, but the weakening of Europe it also means that you are going to see a geo-strategic balance in the world changing. And I think that is what the Ukraine war is heralding, that it is not just about Europe, it's not just about Ukraine. It's really over a global change that it's going to bring about. And unfortunately, we have, of course, nuclear weapons in the background and given the way it's moving doesn't seem to be between Russia, China and the United States or other European powers. There is a possibility of a reapproach to at least keep peace and move away from war. And we do not think there is any other country in the world today which can take that kind of position, which for instance even the Korean War, India and others could do. So I think that is the downside of it. Yes, good if hegemon's power breaks, but if it is accompanied by more wars, more failed countries, which also may happen, then we are in for a much harder time for the world. Absolutely. Thank you so much for being here. And that's all we have time for today. We will be covering more of the war, more of similar issues, more of the issues we talked about regarding Eurasia, the various conflicts in future episodes of Mapping Fault Lines. Until then, keep watching NewsClick.