 August 6 marks 76 years since the horrific US atom bombing of the city of Hiroshima. Over 80,000 people died that day and tens of thousands of people died in the coming years, millions of lives were affected. Three days after August 6, that's on August 9, 1945, around 40,000 people were killed in Nagasaki. The impact of these atom bombs really shocked the entire world. People realized that no one was safe anymore. A number of campaigns grew to prevent this kind of disaster. But in the decades that followed, humanity came very close to nuclear war again and again. Even to this day today, we are in a very difficult situation. Welcome to News Clicks Mapping Fortlines and in today's episode, we are going to be talking about the situation of nuclear weapons. We are going to be talking about the treaties that prevent their use, the latest talks on this, as well as the new arms race that is developing. We have with us, Prabir Prakash. Prabir, thank you so much for joining us. So I think the first question that a number of us have today when we think about nuclear weapons is that we know the history, how close humanity in the last 75 odd years has come to destruction once again. So right now, what are the provisions, what are the treaties in place that even may come close to preventing a disaster like this again? The question is, as long as nuclear weapons exist, are in the armory of now number of countries, we are at the threat of a nuclear exchange. Even if it takes place at a local level, it has global consequences and we all know that. So it's not a question of, can we coexist with nuclear weapons? How do you prevent nuclear weapons from being used? But should we be having nuclear weapons at all? And that's the really, the primary question that people have raised for decades now. And when the non-proliferation treaty was signed, the understanding was it's the first step for dismantling of the nuclear weapons. Instead, the nuclear power said, this gives us the mandate as a sole proprietor of nuclear weapons and nobody else should have it. And that has obviously not held, though it has still only number of countries which have built nuclear weapons after that have not done that many. We have unequivocally Israel, then we have India, we have Pakistan, we have North Korea. So that consensus has held in large number of countries, but the existence itself is the issue. So you talk about what are the treaties. The treaties are not disarmament treaties. The treaties are really controlled treaties, control the nuclear weapons treaties. And in that, there were missile agreements that we should not have anti-ballistic missile shields, which was dispensed with by the United States. The other treaty was the intermediate range treaties, which is basically for Europe. Now these two treaties, United States walked out of them at different points of time. First was with George Bush. The second was Trump. Now what they do is they make the risk of nuclear weapons even more. The basic missile treaty is that we will not build shields. Why is that something which prevents nuclear war? Because it allows you to think you can do a first strike, defeat the coming strike that will be much weakened because you have taken out most of the nuclear weapons. And if you do that, then the only way that the other party then would defend itself is by building more nuclear weapons. So shield effectively becomes an incentive to build, have more warheads and the number of warheads destroying the world 20 times over kind of numbers that we have even today is really a consequence of that period of the nuclear arms race. First strike should be made prohibitive by having a return second strike capacity. Now in this process now, particularly after the fall of Soviet Union, we have discussed in our discussions here that how NATO has marched towards Russian borders and has set up anti-ballastic missile shields over there. They've got out of the treaty, but once they got out of the intermediate range missile treaty as well, what they have is the ability to do from those missile shields, they can double up also as not only taking down warheads which are coming and as anti-missiles they can take them down, but they can also be used as missile launchers on again nuclear sites or any other sites for that matters. So this means that what was an intermediate range ballistic missile treaty was a protection against at least a European theater of war that has been taken out because the United States walked out of it. Now the only final treaty which is left is what's called the new start which fortunately after Trump left, Biden has extended now by five years. They're also talking about what to do and the old positions that the United States had. China should also be brought into this. Russia has now said well that Britain and France should also be brought into it because they have more weapons than China has. Nobody's talked of India, Pakistan and Israel being brought into it at the moment, but this is where the situation is. But the fact that it's been extended by five years, okay, we have got something. But the essential instability is still very much there and what we have is a new arms race that you talked about which is the hypersonic missiles. And of course the anti-ballistic missile, I don't think that's going to work. The space war scenario of putting lasers in space, I don't think that's going to work either. But hypersonic missiles unfortunately can work. And effectively what it gives you a much higher first rate capacity. And the reason that Russians have started focusing on this because of the anti-ballistic missile treaty being dismantled, intermediate range missile treaty again being dismantled by the United States. And therefore their feeling that if this happens, how do you protect ourselves? We need that improved missile capacity and therefore new generation of missiles. As we know, Russia, China and United States, all three are now building hypersonic missiles. So I think that is a much more dangerous scenario today than we have had ever before. Prabhu, we'll come back to the arms race, but before that wanted to ask you something about an issue you had flagged, which is the recent talks between Russia and the US. We know that their representatives met towards the end of July. It is a very preliminary conversation, lot of issues to be finalized. But how do you see these talks proceeding and what are really the major issues are lying there? You know, the first thing is they have at least agreed to start the talks. Extension of the new start by five years gives at least the breathing space to work out what can be the architecture of a new set of arms treaties. If the world goes down the path we are going now, I think we are going to enter into a far more dangerous situation. I think the United States has realized that a strategic victory over the Russians or the Chinese is not on the table. It's not on the cards. That's not what's going to happen. So if they want to take this brinkmanship further, which is what they have been doing, as I said, the northward, the eastward march of NATO, coming up to the borders of Russia, if that is to continue, and they ring Russia around with more nuclear batteries or missile batteries, and then you have, of course, the US Navy, which is probing between Taiwan to South China Sea. So that is the attempt to squeeze strategically these two competitors as they see it. I think that is something that now they're realizing that's not going to happen. Not that things are going to change on the ground, but the strategic discussion that have started is an indication that at least can be dealing the strategic meaning the nuclear issues from at least the other issues. And of course, the missile are going to be an important element of that, particularly what US calls as ABM batteries, which as we know can be useful offensive purposes as well. So I think that is very much there. So one of it is that how do you set a agenda where you want to control the other side that they shouldn't do anything new, at the same time, you should be able to do things that you want yourself. That this is the jockeying that is now in progress. Of course, the United States would like to bring China into it, just to make it another target to talk about. But at the same time, if you look at the Chinese stock of nuclear weapons, it's less than France and Britain. So rightly, the Russians have said, well, in that case, whatever France and Britain, whatever France and UK. So that is, I think, that's a kind of jockeying for position, I would say. But the real issue would be what you do about the arms you have, particularly 6,000 odd nuclear warheads both in Russia and in United States. How do you bring it down to, say, 3,000, 2,000, that's enough to destroy the world, still 10 times over? So how do you bring that down to at least lesser numbers? Do you start saying we want to build better nuclear bombs? Is that what you do? Or do you still start continuing to dismantle your nuclear bombs? That's one set of issues. Second set of issues are going to be, of course, how do you restart what was the anti-ballistic missile issues or the intermediate range ballistic missile issues? How do you do that? And will you do that? Or you will say, no, that's off the table completely. Third is, of course, what the United States is raising about cyber weapons, what they call hacking. But Russia and China have always raised the issue of cyber weapons, not just simple hacking. And if that is so, this is something that needs to be then also brought to the table. Now, the difference between hacking and cyber weapons, as far as technology goes, is really not there. So what you call hacking means you control somebody else's computer resources. That means you have the possibility of turning that into something else. And of course, take out the grid, take out various other things besides. So that is really weaponizing software. And what we've seen in Pegasus is also cyber weapons. So I think those are things which are going to be brought onto the table. But is there a will on both sides to do something different? We have to see. What Russia has shown, that if they do what is called the first strike capacity with the desired batteries on the borders of Russia, then the kind of weapons that they have now are displayed, the hypersonic weapons. And they seem to have at least developed certain weapons which are functional. And they are now installing it even in some of the missile silos. If those are really there, then I think the arms race has gone to a different level, which is what they always have said, that if we do all of this, this is the only response we can make. And secondly, if we really get this kind of missile, what it does is it reduces the strike time to such a short interval that you can't really do anything but respond almost mechanically. And I think that is an extremely dangerous issue, because what some points people will say, let's turn it over to computers. Human beings can't handle this. And then you have got an automated destruction of the known world, known to us at least, by virtue of certain, maybe, a software glitch. So I think that's the direction which we need to prevent the world from traveling. And let's hope that at least these discussions can pave the way for such an outcome. And from it finally coming back to the hypersonic weapons, could you maybe quickly take us through why hypersonic weapons are about missiles specifically are really an issue and what kind of, say, transformation or change it brings to the battle scenario, so to speak? Well, that perhaps needs a much longer discussion. But the very quick summary, we have the intercontinental ballistic missiles which are actually hypersonic. They travel at Mach, Mach 20, 25 speeds. So why are these more dangerous? Or why is it called a new class of weapons? Because they have the capacity also maneuvering. Unlike a ballistic missile which once you let it go, you don't really have too much maneuverability on that. The do you do have some maneuverability. But if it has to evade other sides, missiles coming in, anti-ballistic missiles, then that capacity is limited because the trajectory for a certain part is really fixed. In the case of hypersonic weapons, they have the ability to come down, they go up and come down and swerve in different directions. They have much more flexibility in deciding their own trajectory. And then you have, apart from the hypersonic weapons that we are talking about, there are also what are called scramjets so that you can also again reach Mach 5 speeds and you can also have them do what, for instance, the cruise missiles do, which do it at a much lower speed. We also know that the so-called anti-missiles don't really work. We had great victory of supposedly the scud over scud missiles by the Israeli Patriots, by Patriots against the scud missiles that Iraq had fired. And it was finally shown that very few of them really were brought down by the Patriot batteries. So given that, what we have is a scenario where the offense is being strengthened if the US wants to build ABM batteries, okay? And that is, as I said, destabilizing because it means much faster strike times. And that's where the hypersonic missiles are going to be destabilizing for everybody because once a country builds it, others will follow. And the fact that Russians have shown that they can deploy it, that is a huge, huge new element in terms of what's happening. And I think if the Americans don't step back, then we are going to see really much more unstable strategic balance. If you talk about nuclear balance being a strategic balance, then you're talking really going to see much more unstable strategic balance. And this is something that on August 6th, we need to think about that what did it do? What is the message it gave to the rest of the world? And what is it that we need to think about again? And I think each generation has to find this battle over and over again as long as these weapons exist. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Praveer. That's all we have time for today. Keep watching NewsClick.