ASSIGNMENT OF GLOBAL POLITICS

Nuclear proliferation is the spread of nuclear weapons, fissionable material, and weapons-applicable nuclear technology and information to nations not recognized as "Nuclear Weapon States" by the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, also known as the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty or NPT. Leading experts on nuclear proliferation, such as Etel Solingen of the University of California, Irvine, suggest that states' decisions to build nuclear weapons is largely determined by the interests of their governing domestic coalitions. Nonproliferation: Under Article I of the NPT, nuclear-weapon states pledge not to transfer nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices to any recipient or in any way assist, encourage or induce any non-nuclear-weapon state in the manufacture or acquisition of a nuclear weapon. Proliferation has been opposed by many nations with and without nuclear weapons, the governments of which fear that more countries with nuclear weapons may increase the possibility of nuclear warfare (up to and including the so-called "counter value targeting of civilians with nuclear weapons), de -stabilize international or regional relations, or infringe upon the national sovereignty of states.. The threat of nuclear terrorism elicits much fear today, especially in the US, the UK, France, Russia, India and Israel. This fear increases resistance to taking nuclear disarmament seriously, though it ought to be irrelevant to decisions about dramatically reducing the number and salience of nuclear weapons. It should be evident that retaining nuclear weapons is unnecessary and not helpful for preempting, deterring or retaliating against nuclear terrorism. States with nuclear weapons still need to be convinced, however, that these weapons are not necessary deterrents against nuclear and biological terrorism. Officials in the US, France, Russia, India and Israel have all at times identified state sponsorship of nuclear and biological terrorism among the threats their nuclear forces are supposed to deter.

Nuclear-armed states are often urged to declare precisely how many nuclear weapons they hold, how many they have produced, how much fissile material they retain, and so on. In March 2008, French President Sarkozy invited the five nuclear-weapon states recognized by the NPT to agree on transparency measures.26 A brief exploration of this issue reveals that key states and regions have more work to do to establish security relationships conducive to transparency. Because China retains a nuclear arsenal much smaller than that of Russia or the US, it relies on secrecy regarding the size and disposition of this arsenal to help protect its survivability. China perceives that the US has not clearly accepted a relationship of mutual deterrence with it. That is to say, the US has not reassured China that it will not seek or use military capabilities to negate Chinas capacity to retaliate with nuclear weapons against any US first strike.

Pakistan and India both rely on secrecy to augment their nuclear deterrents and limit domestic political pressure to build larger and more costly stockpiles and arsenals. Each hopes that secrecy about the size and location of its nuclear arsenal will keep adversaries from concluding that they could successfully target these capabilities. Keeping adversaries guessing is a way of reducing vulnerability to a first strike, and of thereby easing

Internal pressure to build larger retaliatory forces operating at higher launch readiness. Opacity about stocks of fissile material provides decision makers in both states with greater freedom to determine how much isenough. If, for example, Pakistan were to declare an inventory of separated plutonium and highly enriched uranium larger than Indias, Indian public opinion might express surprise and concern, and be liable to demand that the government hurriedly expand production.

Modification of Israels nuclear-opacity policy would have several securities Implications. It seems clear that if Israel unambiguously announced its possession of nuclear weapons, pressure would grow within Egypt, Iran and other states to ramp up countervailing capabilities. If, in the absence of a verifiable and enforceable agreement to bring about a WMD-free zone in the Middle East, Israel declared how much fissile material it had produced outside international safeguards, domestic pressure could mount on Arab governments and Iran to begin producing fissile material under safeguards.

Even if this material were put to purely peaceful uses, its production could well be perceived in the region as a hedge to keep the nuclear-weapons option open, and hence be destabilizing.

The Iran case is deeply damaging to the objective of global nuclear disarmament. A party to the NPT that has broken its safeguards agreement and failed to cooperate with the IAEA to resolve all outstanding questions regarding the exclusively peaceful nature of its nuclear activities is defying the proper enforcement mechanisms of the non-proliferation regime. If and when Iran fully complies with these mechanisms, this would be the time to negotiate adjustments to the non-proliferation regime to prevent future violations and to address the double standards criticism. In order to simplify certain procedures under CSAs for States that have little

or no nuclear material and no nuclear material in a facility, the IAEA began making available, in 1971, a Small Quantities Protocol (SQP), which held in abeyance the implementation of most of the detailed provisions of CSAs until such time as the quantities of nuclear material in a State exceeded certain limits or the State had nuclear material in a facility. The most commonly used nuclear material is depleted uranium, often used as shielding for radiation sources used in hospitals. Small amounts of nuclear

material may also be found in universities and well drilling operations.

Disarmament: Under Article VI of the NPT, all Parties undertake to pursue goodfaith negotiations on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race, to nuclear disarmament, and to general and complete disarmament

The overarching benefit provided by the NPT is that of enhanced international peace and security. The norm of nonproliferation--the international consensus that the further spread of nuclear weapons would weaken all states security, as well as global and regional stability--remains strong. The NPT is the cornerstone of the international nuclear nonproliferation regime which includes the framework of legal restrictions, safeguards, export controls, international cooperation, and other mechanisms that help to prevent proliferation.
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The NPT is the only internationally-binding agreement that provides a global barrier to the spread of nuclear weapons. The Treaty, the norm of nonproliferation which it embodies, and the elements of the wider nonproliferation regime that the NPT underpins have helped prove wrong the mid-20th century predictions that 20 to 30 states would acquire nuclear weapons. The bulwark against proliferation that they provide enhances the individual security of every state, as well as global and regional security.

The Limited Nuclear Test Ban treaty was signed in Moscow on August 5, 1963, by U.S. Secretary Dean Rusk, one day short of the 18th anniversary of the dropping of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Over the next two months, President Kennedy convinced a fearful public and a divided Senate to support the treaty. The Senate approved the treaty on September 23, 1963, by an 80-19 margin. Kennedy signed the ratified treaty on October 7, 1963.

The treaties Included, prohibited nuclear weapons tests or other nuclear explosions under water, in the atmosphere, or in outer space allowed underground nuclear tests as long as no radioactive debris falls outside the boundaries of the nation conducting the test, Thirdly pledged signatories to work towards complete disarmament, an end to the armaments race, and an end to the contamination of the environment by radioactive substances. Proliferation begets proliferation is a concept described by Scott Sagan in his article, "Why Do States Build Nuclear Weapons?". This concept can be described as a strategic chain reaction. If one state produces a nuclear weapon it creates almost a domino effect within the region. States in the region will seek to acquire nuclear weapons to balance or eliminate the security threat. Sagan describes this reaction best in his article when he states, Every time one state develops nuclear weapons to balance against its main rival, it also creates a nuclear threat to another region, which then has to initiate its own nuclear weapons program to maintain its national security (Sagan, pg. 70). Going back through history we can see how this has taken place. When the United States demonstrated that it had nuclear power capabilities after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Russians started to develop their program in preparation for the Cold War. With the Russian military buildup, France and Great Britain perceived this as a security threat and therefore they pursued nuclear weapons.

The Issue of Nuclear Trade

International trade in nuclear technology, equipment and materials is fundamental to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Article III, 2 of the NPT sets the basic conditions for such trade in requiring each State Party to undertake: not to provide: (a) source or special fissionable material, or (b) equipment or material especially designed or prepared for the processing, use or production of special fissionable material, to any non-nuclear-weapon State for peaceful

Purposes, unless the source or special fissionable material shall be subjected to the safeguards required by this Article. This is a crucial part of the Treaty. It not only requires a state to refrain from using its nuclear material for proscribed purposes and to accept safeguards to verify its compliance, but it also requires that nuclear material is not exported without safeguards being applied at its destination and that material and equipment suitable to be used for nuclear purposes should only be sold abroad on condition that the nuclear activity for which they are intended will in turn be covered by safeguards.

Export Control: The other way of avoiding that international nuclear trade would
increase the risk of proliferation was by adopting a policy of not exporting items that might help recipients manufacture nuclear weapons; in other words, a policy of denial. As pointed out before, this was not a simple proposition: unless all potential suppliers of a given item could agree to the export policy to be followed. in regard to that item, i.e. whether or not and under what conditions they should supply such items, the country that set the least stringent conditions would have the competitive advantage. In 1974, Canada, the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Japan, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States met in London to discuss further restrictions on their nuclear exports. France had in the past been criticized for exporting items that were seen as apt to add to the recipients ability to run a nuclear weapons programme; examples: the reprocessing plants of Pakistan and the Republic of Korea, referred to above.

Ideally, governments of both nuclear-armed and non-nuclear-weapons states would take up this combined non-proliferation and disarmament challenge in the near term. If they are unwilling to do so directly, and are chary of undertaking ambitious negotiations, they would earn political credit for themselves and advance this important international agenda by facilitating an international collaboration of government-affiliated and independent think tanks to explore the conditions necessary for the secure prohibition of nuclear weapons.

Governments could encourage private foundations to initiate such a project by making available relevant nuclear-weapons and arms-control experts and military strategists to inform and appraise the deliberations of analysts from think tanks

and academia. Going further, governments could then invite participants in such a collaboration to present their conclusions to NPT review meetings, national governments, the Conference on Disarmament and the UN General Assembly.

The US, Russia and China should explore whether and how ballisticmissile defenses might stabilize the global nuclear order and help to create conditions for nuclear disarmament. Nuclear disarmament can be achieved through a calm and steady process dependent upon commonsensical commitments and compromises among the major players, with due regard for the interests and concerns of the non-nuclear-weapon states. In this respect, it reflects a striking feature of the current push for abolition: This is an elite-level debate. During the Cold War, when conditions appeared as unripe as they could be in terms of superpower relations, the pressure for disarmament came from political movements such as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and scientific lobbies such as Pug wash. It was routinely opposed by policy elites.

Obviously public opinion manifests itself in different forms in countries with different political systems and cultures. Its influence can be felt even in countries where formal democratic mechanisms are either nonexistent, as in China, or increasingly circumscribed, as in Russia. It can turn up in Internet blogs or street demonstrations. In both these cases, expressions of popular feeling are often nationalistic. This is not unusual. For example, however much A. Q. Khan might have been a villain to the international community as a promoter of proliferation, in Pakistan he remained something of a hero, which put the government in a difficult position when it was obliged to deal with him after his network had been exposed. In Israel, a strong and vocal lobby will always argue against taking political risks when it comes to matters of national security. If popular opinion becomes animated, it is as likely to serve as a brake on disarmament progress as an accelerator.
Nuclear proliferation - be it among nations or terrorists - greatly increases the chance of nuclear violence on a scale that would be intolerable.

Proliferation increases the chance that nuclear weapons will fall into the hands of irrational people, either suicidal or with no concern for the fate of the world. Irrational or outright psychotic leaders of military factions or terrorist groups might decide to use a few nuclear weapons under their control to stimulate a global nuclear war, as an act of vengeance against humanity as a whole. Countless scenarios of this type can be constructed.

a nation in an advanced stage of latent proliferation, finding itself losing a non nuclear war, might complete the transition to deliverable nuclear weapons and, in desperation, use them.
Limited nuclear wars between countries with small numbers of nuclear weapons could escalate into major nuclear wars between superpowers. For example, a nation in an advanced stage of latent proliferation, finding itself losing a nonnuclear war, might complete the transition to deliverable nuclear weapons and, in desperation, use them. If that should happen in a region, such as the Middle East, where major superpower interests are at stake, the small nuclear war could easily escalate into a global nuclear war. A sudden rush of nuclear proliferation among nations may be triggered by small nuclear wars that are won by a country with more effective nuclear forces than its adversary, or by success of nuclear terrorists in forcing adherence to their demands. Proliferation of nuclear weapons among nations could spread at an awesome rate in such circumstances, since latent proliferation is far along in at least several dozen nations, and is increasing rapidly as more nuclear power plants and supporting facilities are built in more countries. In summary, much more serious international attention than is now evident needs to be given to the consequences of nuclear proliferation among nations, terrorists, or criminals. Continuing to neglect this menace is a recipe for disaster. There were number of treaties signed for the nuclear arms control, For much of the past century, U.S. national security strategy focused on several core, interrelated objectives. These include enhancing U.S. security at home and abroad; promoting U.S. economic prosperity; and promoting free markets and democracy around the world. The United States has used both unilateral and multilateral mechanisms to achieve these objectives, with varying amounts of emphasis at different times. These mechanisms have included a range of military, diplomatic, and economic tools.

One of these core objectivesenhancing U.S. securitygenerally is interpreted as the effort to protect the nations interests and includes, for instance, protecting the lives and safety of Americans; maintaining U.S. sovereignty over its values, territory, and institutions; and promoting the nations well-being. The United States has wielded a deep and wide range of military, diplomatic, and economic tools to protect and advance its security interests. These include, for instance, the deployment of military forces to deter, dissuade, persuade, or compel others; the formation of alliances and coalitions to advance U.S. interests and counter aggression; and the use of U.S. economic power to advance its agenda or promote democratization, or to impose sanctions or withhold U.S. economic support to condemn or punish states hostile to U.S. interests. In this context, arms control and nonproliferation efforts are two of the tools that have occasionally been used to implement the U.S. national security strategy. They generally are not pursued as ends in and of themselves, and many argue that they should not become more important than the strategy behind them. But many believe their effective employment can be critical to the success of that broader strategy. Many analysts see them as a complement to, rather than a substitute for, military or economic efforts. As was noted above, the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and 1974 Protocol allowed the United States and Soviet Union to deploy limited defenses against long-range ballistic missiles. The United States completed, then quickly abandoned a treatycompliant ABM system near Grand Forks, ND, in 1974. The Soviet Union deployed, and Russia continues to operate, a treaty-compliant system around Moscow. During a summit meeting with President Putin in November 2001, President Bush announced that the United States would reduce its operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads to a level between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads during the next decade. He stated that the United States would reduce its forces unilaterally, without signing a formal agreement. President Putin indicated that, Russia wanted to use the formal arms control process, emphasizing that the two sides should focus on reaching a reliable and verifiable agreement. This legally binding will provide that would provide predictability and transparency and ensure for the irreversibility of the reduction of nuclear forces. The United States wanted to maintain the flexibility to size and structure its nuclear forces in response to its own needs. It preferred a less formal process, such as an exchange of letters and, possibly, new transparency measures that would allow each side to understand the force structure plans of the other side.

Nuclear threshold states*those that have chosen nuclear restraint despite having significant nuclear capabilities*seem like the perfect partners for the reinvigorated drive toward global nuclear disarmament. Having chosen nuclear restraint, threshold states may embrace disarmaments a way to guarantee the viability of their choice (which may be impossible in a proliferating World). Supporting disarmament efforts affirms their restraint, both self-congratulating and self-fulfilling. Additionally, the commitment to their non-nuclear status springs at least in part from a moral stance against nuclear weapons that lends itself to energetic support of global disarmament. Israel is one of three significant countries which have never been part of the NPT. Unlike India and Pakistan, Israel has no civil nuclear power program. However, in 1975 it concluded a limited safeguards agreement with the IAEA.

After Israel was established in 1948, there was close collaboration between France and Israel in nuclear research. Israeli scientists were involved with early French facilities near Marcoule.

In 1952 the Israel Atomic Energy Commission was established, and in 1955 the USA agreed to supply a 5 MWt pool-type reactor for Nahal Soreq, south of Tel Aviv. This IRR1 required high-enriched uranium supplied from the USA. It started up in 1960 and from the outset was required to be under IAEA safeguards.

In 1957 an agreement was signed with France to build a large (24 MW thermal) heavy water research reactor at Dimona in the Negev desert. This would run on natural uranium and incidentally be suitable for producing weapons-grade plutonium. France apparently supplied four tonnes of heavy water for the reactor and also assisted in the construction of a reprocessing plant at the site.

In 1960 France reportedly urged Israel to put Dimona under full international safeguards, but this was not done. Due to US pressure, cursory twice-yearly inspections were carried out of the reactor only. The reactor started up in 1964, and with the benefit of oversize cooling circuits, power was subsequently raised to 70 MWt. A full suite of infrastructure is reportedly at the Dimona site, including fuel fabrication.

Uranium for the reactor was initially sourced from indigenous deposits, but most is believed to have come from South Africa, over some 20 years of nuclear collaboration from 1967.

In 1968 the US Central Intelligence Agency concluded that Israel had started producing nuclear weapons from separated plutonium. In 1974 it appeared to have 20 nuclear bombs, and by the late 1990s the estimate had grown to 75-130 nuclear warheads. No tests have been undertaken in Israel, but it is widely believed that Israel collaborated with South Africa in a 1979 test off the east coast there.

Israel has never confirmed or denied that it has nuclear weapons.

Using conventional weapons, an Israeli Air Force strike in 1981 destroyed Iraq's Osirak nuclear research reactor near Baghdad

Challenges in India and Pakistan: All this, of course, is fuelled by the continuing rhetoric on both sides. Officials in both countries claimed that they would not use nuclear weapons first, but they seem remarkably keen to use them second. Given the proximity of the two states, it is clear that millions of their own people would die along with millions of their nearest neighbors. India has said that it would not use nuclear weapons first, while Pakistan has clearly stated that it would. Whilst a 'no first use' policy is an important step towards disarmament, it is all too often used as an excuse to build a large 'second use' capacity. Eventually, of course, the 'second use' becomes indistinguishable from the 'first use'. As the tension mounts, the temptation grows to get your retaliation in first. But what are the immediate reasons for the current increasing tension and the risk of war? India appears to be escalating events but its argument is that it is following the lead of the US and the west by zero tolerance of terrorist attacks. It has identified what it sees as terrorists being harboured by another state so it threatens military retaliation.

Both sides have had internal problems as well. In Pakistan, Musharraf has been promising a democratic election ever since the army took control, but there has been only a referendum. Though it was boycotted by many political parties, Musharraf claimed it as a mandate for him to continue. Meanwhile in India, the ruling BJP has lost every state election for over a year, so now uses the wellknown tactic of uniting the country against an outside 'threat'. Whatever the reasons for the tensions, the crucial aim is to avoid the devastation of nuclear war. The British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, visited the region in January 2002 to try to persuade both sides that a war was not a good idea. This took place against the background of the bombing in Afghanistan, in which Britain was an enthusiastic participant. His approach raised concerns about Western hypocrisy, as if war is fine for some countries but not others. The sincerity of Blair's mission was also in question after it transpired that his plea for peace preceded two British trade missions to Delhi in February, both designed to sell weapons to India. Defexpo is an arms fair whose promotional material pushes the weaponry on sale, with everything from small arms to missile systems. India and Pakistan have long been valuable markets for British arms manufacturers. So this arms fair, combined with the resumption of arms sales to Pakistan, as a result of its support for the war in Afghanistan, means that Britain will be arming both sides in any future war. This is, of course, not unique. A similar thing happened during the Iraq-Iran war. So, what's the answer? The situation in south Asia shows the importance of nuclear disarmament. A war even with conventional weapons would be an appalling waste of life. But this would be turned into a complete disaster on an unimaginable scale if nuclear weapons were used. In the short term there must be more diplomatic language and there must be proper international negotiations at the UN to resolve the problem of Kashmir. Our own politicians could do more to help. How can the British Government's attempts to calm the situation be

taken seriously when the Defense Minister, Geoff Hoon, appears on television saying that he would use nuclear weapons against any state if necessary? In the long term, the declared nuclear weapon states (NWS) - US, UK, France, Russia and China - must carry out their obligations under the nuclear NonProliferation Treaty (NPT) and get rid of their nuclear weapons. The NPT was drawn up in 1968, giving the definition of a NWS as one that tested nuclear weapons before then. Because India was preparing its nuclear programme at that time, it would not sign. Because India would not sign, neither would Pakistan. Therefore, they cannot sign the NPT as NWS and, since the nuclear testing by both sides in 1998, they cannot sign as non-nuclear weapon states. The NWS made statements at the time of the tests saying how appalled they were at this development. But after 11 September, the US lifted sanctions imposed on both sides, in order to boost its coalition in the 'War on Terrorism'. If the NWS put the words of the NPT into action, they would be in a position to push India and Pakistan to sign the NPT themselves. After all, part of the excuse given by India and Pakistan for the 1998 nuclear tests was that those nuclear weapon states had done nothing about their NPT commitments, so if nuclear weapons were good enough for them... Both sides need to be persuaded that nuclear weapons make the world a more dangerous, not a safer, place and to take a step back and realise that peaceful resolutions to conflict are the best way forward. This should happen through the UN. But the UN also needs to look at the continuing nuclear policies of the NWS. There are peace activists in both India and Pakistan working hard to get their views across. Their work has been particularly difficult since the nuclear tests carried out by both countries in 1998. They have the entire might of the government and military propaganda machine ranged against them. We should do all we can to support them.
Conclusion

The United States can, today, have high confidence in the safety, reliability, and performance margins of the nuclear weapons that are designated to remain in the enduring stockpile. This confidence is based on understanding gained from 50 years of experience and analysis of more than 1000 nuclear tests, including the results of approximately 150 nuclear tests of modern weapon types in the past 20 years. Looking to future prospects of achieving a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), a stated goal of the United States Government, we have studied a range of activities that could be of importance to extending our present confidence in the stockpile into the future. We include among these

activities underground experiments producing sub-kiloton levels of nuclear yield that might be permitted among the treaty-consistent activities under a CTBT.

Three key assumptions underlie our study:

(1) The U.S. intends to maintain a credible nuclear deterrent.

(2) The U.S remains committed to the support of world-wide Non-proliferation efforts.

(3) The U.S. will not encounter new military or political circumstances in the future that cause it to abandon the current policy --- first announced by President Bush in 1992 --of not developing any new nuclear weapon designs.

References Nuclear Proliferation: J, Ballys Smith Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), Feb 2010 Howlett, D. (2005) Nuclear Proliferation, in Baylis, J. and Smith, S. (eds.) (2008) The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations. Graham Allison on Nuclear Proliferation.