ARE THE RULES THAT PREVENT A NUCLEAR WAR?

The former arms control treaties are crumbling, and the return of old enmities between the major global powers raises doubts about the possibility that these countries reach new agreements."We are walking in a minefield and we do not know where the explosion will come from."The warning was made by Igor Ivanov, a former Russian foreign minister, at the influential Conference on Nuclear Policy at the Carnegie Foundation in Washington, USA.

"If the United States, Russia and China do not work together, it will be a nightmare for our children and grandchildren," echoed Sam Nunn, a former US senator and former weapons control activist.

He encouraged current leaders to repeat the approach adopted by Presidents Ronald Reagan (United States) and Mikhail Gorbachev (Soviet Union) at the end of the Cold War. And to support the premise that nuclear war can not be defeated and therefore should never be considered.

Reagan dreamed of anti-missile defenses, but that did not stop him from negotiating a comprehensive nuclear disarmament agreement with his Soviet counterpart.

Efforts led to the Start, or Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which came into force in 1994 and reduced the stockpiles of the two nuclear superpowers.

Today, the future of the successor to the agreement - the so-called Novo Start - is in check. The Middle-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty collapsed after the United States and Russia stopped supporting it.

For US President Donald Trump, the Russians have broken the agreement for years, but Russian President Vladimir Putin denies it.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) supports Washington's vision, but US allies strongly criticize Trump's approach to international affairs, as was clear at the conference.

Do we run the risk of a war 'by mistake'?

In her speech at the Nuclear Policy Conference in Washington, Germany's ambassador to the United States, Emily Haber, spoke of "erosion of the rule system" that governed the international system.

For her, the widespread use of economic sanctions punishes countries instead of shaping their future behavior - an indirect criticism of US sanctions against Russia after the Crimean invasion in 2015.

The German ambassador also criticized Putin's series of provocations, which she said eroded global confidence and the diplomatic process.

But, as many conference speakers emphasized, there is not just the collapse of the old arms control agreement or the rise of tensions between nuclear superpowers. They fear that something new and dangerous is approaching.

Imagine highly accurate missiles flying at hypersonic speeds, cyber weapons, the possible militarization of space, the impact of artificial intelligence, and so on.

The whole warning system on which nuclear deterrence stands could be undermined.

As former US Senator Sam Nunn put it, "In this new era, war is more likely to be by deception or miscalculation - by third-party interference - than by premeditated attack."

This was not a conference to elevate the spirits. His message was deeply depressing.

Is there agreement on the horizon?   

Can the nuclear-intermediate-range treaty, or INF, be resurrected and still attract China? Forget that, says Andrea Thompson, Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control in the United States.

Is it possible for the New Start treaty to be saved? Time is short. The agreement expires in early February 2021.

And while presentations by senior officials from the United States and Russia have recognized its usefulness, there was little enthusiasm for any extension.

The New Start should not be canceled yet, but may become a victim of the hostile climate between Washington and Moscow.

There was also no good news for the conference on another principle of Trump's diplomacy - the promised nuclear deal with North Korea.

At the Hanoi summit, Trump made a big bargain with Pyongyang. But his North Korean counterpart was only prepared to sacrifice a small part of his country's nuclear program, demanding in exchange suspension of economic sanctions. Trump chose to leave.

Stephen Biegun, the United States' special representative for North Korea, said the Trump government's stance hardened. But despite all of Biegun's efforts to show the President's reasoning as coherent and credible, there is no consensus on the direction of US policy toward North Korea.

There is something worrying going on

If treaties limiting old-fashioned weapons are breaking up, will it be more difficult to agree on measures to control new weapons? The era of traditional weapons control is over?

There was a consensus - of Russians, Europeans and Americans - that a dialogue on strategic stability between Washington and Moscow is urgently needed.

This will not be easy given the constant investigation into the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election, or Putin's actions in Syria and Ukraine.

At the height of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union threatened each other with mutual destruction. This produced a system of treaties and understandings, but it seems that the old rule book has already been discarded.

 Old enmities are back and can be more dangerous than ever given the apparent lack of any mechanism or willingness to manage these escalating tensions.