NUCLEAR WEAPONS

It’s been 70 years since the US dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan. It was an unforgettable event which changed the course of history.  Recently, there has been a breakthrough in negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 group on Iran’s nuclear programme. This has reignited the debate on whether nations should be allowed to possess and make nuclear weapons and whether nuclear weapons should exist at all. Many critics of nuclear weapons say that it is high time that countries destroy their nuclear arsenal in order to ensure a more peaceful world. Countries like the United States, Britain, Russia, China etc possess huge stockpiles of advanced nuclear weapons capable of causing destruction which is 100 times more than that caused by the atomic bombs which were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Other countries want to emulate these countries and seek to develop nuclear weapons or increase the number of such weapons.

Some scholars, especially those who hail from countries which possess such weapons argue that possession of such weapons acts as a deterrent. This concept of deterrence was widely prevalent during the Cold War. Their basic argument is that if two rival powers possess nuclear weapons then the probability of either of them attacking the other first is reduced significantly due to the threat of nuclear bombs. Neither of the two countries would be willing to risk the destruction of their societies and thus the chances of a war taking place are reduced drastically. For example, after 1998 India and Pakistan both possess nuclear weapons.  Both countries are now afraid to attack the other country first and as such the chances of a full scale war between India and Pakistan has been lessened due to the fact that they possess nuclear weapons. There are many loopholes in this theory. Someone with a vested interest might deliberately try to set off a large scale nuclear war by firing a nuclear weapon or else someone might set it off accidently. A natural calamity could take place and trigger the nuclear weapon. There are many such doomsday possibilities. The other country may not realise that the weapon was fired accidently and might retaliate by destroying the other country entirely.

There are certain international treaties that act as mechanisms to ensure that countries do not acquire or develop nuclear weapons, the most prominent of which is the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The NPT was signed in 1968 and ratified in 1970. It recognises five nuclear weapon states US, UK, USSR (present day Russia), France and China. It debars other countries from acquiring or developing nuclear weapons and also stresses on complete nuclear disarmament by the five countries. It is widely regarded as a discriminatory treaty which aims to maintain the military power of these five countries. 190 countries are parties to this treaty. However India, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea and South Sudan are non signatory states. Out of these five countries only South Sudan doesn’t possess nuclear weapons. The NPT nuclear weapon states have failed in their goal of nuclear disarmament and in fact possess 22,000 nuclear warheads in their combined stockpile and have shown reluctance to reduce the number of such warheads. This treaty has done little to prevent countries from developing nuclear weapons.

In an ideal world, no nuclear weapons should be allowed to exist and nuclear disarmament would be most preferable. The world would certainly be better off without the presence of such destructive weapons. Practically however there is not even the remotest chance that the great powers would give up all their nuclear weapons so it would be more prudent for nations to concentrate on reducing nuclear weapon stockpiles instead of the utopian ideal of eliminating them completely.  This can be done by creating a fair and just international treaty preferably under the aegis of the United Nations instead of an openly discriminatory treaty such as the NPT. Severe sanctions should be imposed on countries which violate the terms of the treaty. In the short term, nuclear weapons are going to exist in our world and it is up to the nuclear weapon states to decide whether to enhance peace by reducing their warheads or contribute to conflicts and tensions by increasing the number of these weapons.

R. Prajapathy