The United Kingdom’s national security adviser Stephen Lovegrove has anticipated a growing risk of nuclear confrontation with Russia and China, amid a breakdown in the backdoor communication channels. He said that the backdoor channels that helped maintain peace during the Cold War.
Speaking in Washington, Lovegrove said that the lack of dialogue was taking place at a time when there were not only a “broader range” of strategic risks, but also more “pathways to escalation” because of advances in science and technology, the proliferation of weapons, and growing rivalry.
“The Cold War’s two monolithic blocks of the USSR (Soviet Union) and NATO – though not without alarming bumps – were able to reach a shared understanding of doctrine that is today absent,” he said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a think tank.
“Doctrine is opaque in Moscow and Beijing, let alone Pyongyang or Tehran.”
He said that mutual understanding helped ensure the world did not stumble into a nuclear conflict.
“This gave us both a higher level of confidence that we would not miscalculate our way into nuclear war,” Lovegrove said. “Today we do not have the same foundations with others who may threaten us in future – particularly with China.”
