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The head of the British military has warned the world is on the brink of a third nuclear age with an “almost total absence” of guardrails to keep it safe.
Admiral Sir Tony Radakin said this new era, which followed the first nuclear age of the cold war and the disarmament efforts that followed it, was “more ambiguous and more dangerous than we have known in our careers”.
The central question, Radakin said, was whether western countries were “able to recognise that one era has ended and another has begun”.
“Do we understand what is at stake? And are we sufficiently motivated to respond?” Radakin said at a lecture he delivered on Wednesday at the Royal United Services Institute think-tank in London.
“We are at the dawn of a third nuclear age . . . defined by . . . proliferating nuclear and disruptive technologies, and the almost total absence of the security architectures that went before,” he added.
Radakin’s bleak assessment came as Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte earlier on Wednesday accused Russia of assisting North Korea’s nuclear programme in exchange for Pyongyang sending troops to fight Ukraine.
Radakin described the deployment of thousands of North Korean troops to Ukraine’s border as the “year’s most extraordinary development” and warned tens of thousands more of them could follow.
He added Moscow’s defence pact with Pyongyang “could involve the exchange of the most sensitive technology and expertise” between the two countries.
Russia and the US have withdrawn from several key arms control treaties over the past years, and only one — the New Start treaty — is in force.
The treaty’s expiration in 2026 will fall in the middle of incoming US president Donald Trump’s second term in office.
Russia last year suspended its participation in New Start, which caps the numbers of nuclear warheads, launchers and bombers the two signatories can deploy, but has also said it would abide by its limits for now.
Radakin also cited China’s nuclear build-up and Iran’s and North Korea’s nuclear programmes as causes for concern.
Despite his grim remarks, Radakin said the UK and its Nato allies were safe from direct attack from Russia.
Moscow would not launch such an attack because “it knows that the response would be overwhelming, whether conventional or nuclear, [because] the strategy of deterrence by Nato works”, he said.
Radakin stressed Nato “has to be kept strong and strengthened against a more dangerous Russia”.
He added the international nuclear order had been maintained by countries such as the UK and US which had extended their nuclear umbrella to allies to guarantee their security.
“This must continue,” Radakin said.
He argued the risks of nuclear proliferation were only the most obvious symptom of what he called the “increasingly uncertain world”.
Radakin said: “We need to sense the risk of tragedy to ensure we avoid it, and that risk of tragedy is growing. The world is more dangerous, the challenges are greater. But we have the capacity, structures and time to meet those challenges. It is our choice.”