Archbishop Ettore Balestrero has warned of the “existential threat” posed by nuclear weapons twinned with an increase in rhetoric and threats about their use occurring around the world presently.
Speaking at the United Nation's Geneva headquarters, the Holy See’s Permanent Observer to the UN said the “existential threat” posed by nuclear weapons has been exacerbated by the current “tense strategic environment” and the “ongoing modernisation and expansion of nuclear arsenals", reports Vatican News.
Throughout the ongoing war in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned of the risk of nuclear weapons being used if Russia faced a serious enough threat. The ongoing conflict in the Middle East between Israel and Hamas has also cast a spotlight on the risk of nuclear weapons being deployed in that region.
Israel has never confirmed if it possesses a nuclear arsenal, maintaining a policy of strategic ambiguity, though some experts believe it does posses a small arsenal. Its bitter enemy Iran does not posses nuclear weapons, but is feared to be trying to develop them in nuclear facilities.
Meanwhile, according to calculations from the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (Ican) pressure group, global spending on nuclear weapons is estimated to have increased by 13 per cent to a record $91.4 billion during 2023, reports the Guardian. This has been partly driven by a sharp increase in US defence budgets.
In his address to a UN committee on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, the archbishop highlighted that a distinctive feature of Vatican diplomacy on nuclear issues is that – contrary to the doctrine of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction), whereby if two opponents both have nuclear weapons they will never be able to use them as each would then wipe the other out – even the possession of nuclear weapons, even for deterrence, is morally wrong.
