To avoid more destruction there is a dire need to promote nonproliferation efforts.
ISLAMABAD: Nine nuclear weapons states (NWS) today possess more than 17,000 warheads. Most of these are many times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. At the moment a single nuclear warhead, if detonated over a large city could kill tens of thousands of people. To avoid more destruction there is a dire need to promote nonproliferation efforts.
There are two broad theoretical camps on the question of the causes of nuclear acquisition or proliferation, i.e., ‘realist’ and ‘idealist’. The ‘realist’ view states that security threats are a dominating factor in the acquisition of nuclear weapons. Hiroshima and Nagasaki had political consequences with a lasting impact on Soviet strategic thought.
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has been seen by many as a grand bargain between nuclear weapons states. America and the Soviet Union joined it in 1949, followed by the UK in 1952, France in 1960 and China in 1964. India, Israel, and Pakistan have never joined the NPT and North Korea withdrew from it in 2003.
With the passage of time, other treaties and groups emerged up under the IAEA umbrella or through mutual collaboration to pursue arms control and disarmament. Another success story was made up in the course of nuclear arms control when the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) was established in 1978 to promote peaceful uses of nuclear technology, adherence to NPT and civil cooperation among NPT signatories.
But yet another setback was witnessed when India got a waiver through a US-India civil nuclear deal in 2008. As long as such things are done we will never see an effective containment of the spread of nuclear weapons.
Samra Saeed
Published in The Express Tribune, August 30th, 2014.
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