For nearly forty years our government and those of the other nuclear powers have flouted their obligations under the 1968 Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), which commits them to "negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament". As we have pointed out here (26th February), the renewal of the British Trident submarine-based missile system further undermined the process envisaged in the treaty. Our parliament calmly took a decision which endangered us all and paid no regard to whether our children would inherit a safer world.
In their arcane game-theory calculations, nuclear strategists analyse rational responses to threats and opportunities. Should we launch our long-range missiles "on warning"? Can we lower the threshold so that - to use a phrase beloved of ministers whose connection with the actual battlefield is limited to seeing it in the cinema - we can deploy short-range weapons "in theatre"? Would a "counter-force" strike (i.e, one against military targets) mean a "counter-value" response (i.e, against cities) using missiles surviving the first strike?
What seems to escape the attention of these planners of death on a scale that must be the envy of Lucifer is that calculations based on the thinking of rational actors assume that government is stable and rational actors in control. Of course it has dawned on them that a criminal or terrorist organization might try to produce a dirty bomb (one using conventional explosives to disperse radioactive material). For the rest the nuclear powers can only make strenuous efforts to deny nuclear capacity to state actors presumed to be non-rational, which in practice means that they are hostile to us (Libya, Iran) or to our allies (North Korea).
And yet if we look at the history of the nuclear states themselves, stability is not exactly their leading characteristic, with several having undergone major political - even revolutionary - upheavals. The Soviet Union collapsed and for a period experienced near anarchy; in South Africa the nuclear-armed Apartheid regime fell to pieces; North Korea is on the verge of widespread famine, if not worse; and Israel fights endless wars to survive as a racially based state.
Largely because they wanted to point them at each other and not at us, India and Pakistan were allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, and the dominant powers comforted themselves with the same facile assumption that rational actors would always be in control. Now that turmoil in Pakistan has once again exposed the illusions of the nuclear elite, what do they propose to do? Well according to the Washington Post (11th November), they are considering moving in to take control of the country's nuclear arsenal. "Former officials" concede however that any attempt by the US to seize the weapons could be "very messy".
So there you have it, the modern approach to non-proliferation. First behave as if non-proliferation doesn't apply to you, while allowing your friends to acquire nuclear weapons. Then, when things go wrong, move in to confiscate them, even if it might turn "messy".
Just one question: wouldn't it have been better to implement the NPT in the first place?
I must say that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty treaty to limit the spread proliferation of nuclear weapons, treaty are known or believed to possess nuclear weapons,so the process is about to provide the weapons to the countries,and mainly the most of the countries are taking full advantage from this and they are getting the weapons that hey wanted,so the things you share are really good and usfeul to see.
Posted by: Dissertation Writing | March 02, 2011 at 04:41 AM