(EDM) Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared at last week’s (January 18) special meeting of the United Nations Security Council that Russia had no intention of joining the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (a.k.a. the Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty—NWBT). In his opinion, the NWBT “provokes deep contradictions in the international community” (RIA Novosti, January 19). This came as no surprise: Not one of the world’s nuclear powers and none of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) member states support this fledgling treaty, which has nevertheless been approved by many states, including Kazakhstan. Indeed, Astana had called this meeting using its prerogative as the current temporary chair of the UN Security Council. Lavrov confirmed Russia’s commitment to the non-nuclear world ideal but lashed out against the “dangerous tendency” to ignore the interests of nuclear powers and to neglect strategic stability (Mid.ru, January 18). Yet, hidden in the diplomatic language on upholding the international order is Russia’s determination to undermine it from within by corrupting its core rules and norms—as identified in the United States’ new National Defense Strategy (Kommersant, January 20). […]
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