“The End of Arms Control” read the recent headline in The New York Times. The article was marking the United States and Russia allowing New START, their last nuclear arms control treaty, to die. For the first time in 50 years, the two superpowers have no limits on the size or composition of their nuclear arsenals. Scary.

The Doomsday Clock has ticked up to 85 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Science and Security Board, keeper of the clock, calls for “urgent action to limit nuclear arsenals.” Don’t we all.  

We seem, however, to be going in the opposite direction. Nuclear powers are busy planning new weapons and new delivery systems. The U.S. is planning to deploy more bombs and maybe do further testing. It is, for instance, budgeting funds for more warheads on its nuclear-armed submarines.

Russia recently unveiled an underwater drone that can cross an ocean to detonate a thermonuclear warhead, setting off a radioactive tsunami that could eliminate a coastal city. There are “no ways to intercept” it, boasts President Putin. Apparently, Russia is also trying to place a nuclear weapon in space.

China has shown little interest in arms control until it has a nuclear arsenal matching those of the U.S. and Russia. It is also testing new weapons of mass destruction, including a hypersonic missile that would, like Putin’s new pet, be almost impossible to intercept.

The nuclear arms race, it seems, is back on. It is occurring at a time when sheltering under the U.S. nuclear umbrella doesn’t appear so attractive, the reliability of the Americans suddenly in doubt. A number of countries are recognizing the new world order and are considering joining the nuclear club. Poland’s prime minister has suggested it might be time and a Swedish newspaper has called for a Nordic bomb.

Currently there are only nine nuclear-weapon states, but according to experts, as many as 40 nations have the technical skill, and in some cases the material, to build a bomb. We are one of the 40. Indeed, we are considered one of the few “nuclear latent” states, those that could “easily” assemble a nuclear weapon relatively quickly. So should we?

Pondering that question, one can’t help thinking of Ukraine’s “mistake.” When the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine was left with an arsenal of nukes. Under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, it surrendered the weapons in exchange for security commitments from the U.S., UK, and Russia. We all know how that worked out. 

President Zelensky has said they made a mistake, and has suggested that Ukraine should either be invited to join NATO or rearm itself with nuclear weapons. He later walked back the nuclear part, and Ukraine doesn’t have the wherewithal in any case. Yet not an unreasonable suggestion considering how Russia betrayed the Memorandum.

Now the U.S. is betraying its friends, should we become a nuclear power? Did we, like the Ukrainians, make a mistake in foregoing the ultimate security blanket back in those early days? Were we wrong to take the high road?

I’m not serious, of course. Unlike the Ukrainians, we are members of NATO which already has three nuclear powers, including the fickle U.S., and that’s three too many. We did the right thing back then, and the right thing to do now is vigorously support the call of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists for “urgent action to limit nuclear arsenals,” as futile as that increasingly seems. 

Developing a bomb would blow up any credibility we have on that score. Or on anything else. So nothing for it but to keep on being one of the good guys. The club is shrinking.