Research Essay

The threat of nuclear weapons maintains world peace as long as only an elite group of
nation has access to them.

ACL Diploma
Teacher’s name: Fergal. Fleming
Min-Jing Hsieh
6/21/2010
 The threat of nuclear weapons maintains world peace as long as only an elite group of
nation have access to them.

Nuclear weapons have long been a controversial issue, despite contributing to world peace for long time

due to the United States and Russia having a lot of the nuclear weapons intended to stop an enemy from

attacking (GlobalGovernment, n.d.). Meanwhile, both of them realised that once one side fight with

another, it could devastate the whole world. Nowadays, more and more countries, such as India, Pakistan,

North Korea and Israel have nuclear weapon (Norris, 2006). The elite group of nation, such as the United

States, Russia, and etc. and non-elite group of nation, such as India, North Korea and etc., all need to

consider that nuclear weapons may maintain world peace. Although nuclear weapons were considered to

maintain world peace by an elite group of nations, it can also result in more risks than benefits. The

existence of nuclear weapons has some potential threats so its development should be limited to an elite

group of nations. The United States, Russia, India and other countries with nuclear weapons are discussed

to maintain world peace with different views in this essay.

Firstly, nuclear weapons do not maintain world peace even though some elite countries claimed to own

nuclear weapons as a deterrent effect to other countries which attempt to start a war. Nuclear war which

could devastate the whole world should be avoided. During the Cold War, Russia and the United States

were the two major forces in the global nuclear race. Competition of economic, technology and military

existed during the Cold War to own the powers of Western world. Although these main countries did not

fight each other officially, they indirectly supported the Vietnam War and Korean War. The competition

between Russia and the United States were in the arms race (economically and technologically) instead of

real wars. (GlobalGovernment, n.d.) World Nuclear Association (WNA, 2010) reported that after World

War II, Russia, the United States and other countries joined the arms race, however, elite group attempt to
 The threat of nuclear weapons maintains world peace as long as only an elite group of
nation have access to them.

limit the threat of nuclear weapon spread over the world. According to (Norris, 2006), it also showed the

technique of nuclear weapon was known by more and more countries, such as India, Pakistan, North Korea

and Israel. Furthermore, after World War II, wars still happened around the world without using nuclear

weapons (Gerson, 2007). Even some countries which do not have the technique of nuclear weapon have

made attempts to product nuclear weapons to avoid threat of other countries with nuclear weapons. For

example, Taiwan attempts to own a nuclear weapon to avoid the threat from China (WMD, Nuclear

Weapon, n.d.). This is a response to the fact that nuclear weapons have been proliferating. In addition,

nuclear weapons do not mean world peace because nuclear weapons were mass produced as deterrence

to other countries. It may be more dangerous if some countries could not deal with their political and

diplomatic problem, and then start a war with nuclear weapons.

On the other hand, it is cleared that nuclear weapons do contribute to world peace. Considering the

consequence of nuclear war, the United Nations General Assembly come up an agreement as resolutions

to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons, Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT, 2005) . NPT which

are used to limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons include non-proliferation, disarmament, and the

right to peacefully use nuclear technology. Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALTII, 1972)showed that the

United States and Soviet Union also begin to reduce these strategic nuclear delivery vehicles and limited

the developments of which could threaten world peace in the future. According to (Norris, 2006), a survey

indicated that the quantity of nuclear weapons in 1987 amounted to 70,481 pieces and then nuclear

weapons decreased 26,854 pieces totally in the main 5 countries, as Russia, the United States, France,

Britain and China. In 1991, the United States and the Soviet Union finally signed the Strategic Arms

Reduction Treaty. START is an agreement to reduce the number of the nuclear weapons with equal levels

(START, 1991). As can be seen, the two major countries of nuclear weapons, the United States and Russia,
 The threat of nuclear weapons maintains world peace as long as only an elite group of
nation have access to them.

are continuing to strive for reducing the threat of nuclear weapons. They made rules of nuclear weapon to

prevent wars with nuclear weapons and maintain world peace.

In facts, these efforts of the United States which practiced to reduce the threatening of nuclear weapons

and prevent the wars with nuclear weapons not only did not work well but also increased the dangers of

nuclear weapons in extending the number of countries with nuclear weapons. No nation could suffer the

deterrent of nuclear weapons for long time; especially it is an unfair distribution of power. Due to

unbalance of power, North Korea, China and Russia probably prefer to own nuclear weapons to get power

back (Gerson, 2007). Today, after those treaties of nuclear weapons, the more countries have nuclear

weapons, the more likely they are spread and used. The proliferation of nuclear weapons could

dramatically increases problems of control, such as Pakistan’s A.Q. Khan (Krieger, 2008). Recently, North

Korea cut out contact with South and threatened rich neighbours with fights after attacking a South Korean

warship (Kim, 2010). According to WNA (2010) India and Pakistan have not sign the NPT with nuclear

weapons. It is clear that nuclear weapons could not maintain world peace because everyone intends to

own nuclear weapons as deterrent. Moreover, some countries with nuclear weapons have not sign NPT.

The wars still happened after the treaties of nuclear weapons were signed.

An elite group of nation, such as the United States and Russia, could not control nuclear weapons to

maintain world peace. Since the end of Cold War, Russia and the United States attempted to control the

proliferation of mass nuclear weapons which they made in arms race. Only 187 countries signed NPT all

over the world but some countries producing nuclear weapons have not sign NPT. For example, India are

not party to the agreement of NPT but the influence of nuclear weapon of India is more powerful than
 The threat of nuclear weapons maintains world peace as long as only an elite group of
nation have access to them.

before (Norris and Kristensen, 2005). Therefore, the United Nations could not claim nuclear weapons have

been controlled all over the world.

However, United Nations effected and limited the activities of nuclear weapons states. For instance, India

refused to sign NPT that does not mean nuclear weapons of India are out of control by the United Nations.

It is the contention of Bhaskar, former head of the institute of Defence Studies and Analyses, that even

though India are not party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), it does not mean India is a

nuclear weapons nation (APT, 2008). The United States Congress ratified an agreement to cooperate with

India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation ACT in 2006(APT, 2008). In 2008, India and the IAEA make an

agreement of India-Safeguards(IAEA, 2008).

Nonetheless, these dangers of nuclear weapon not only included nations but also terrorists. As Gerson stated

“These dangers include “rogue” states with nuclear weapons, the possibility of nations with nuclear power plants

becoming nuclear weapons states, and leakage from nuclear stockpiles finding its way to “rogue” states or to non-

state terrorist groups like al-Qaeda(2007, p1)”. Moreover, Musaffar (2010) supported that the best way to prevent

terrorisms is to abolish the nuclear weapons to avoid nuclear terrorists get them. This is clear that elite group of

nation could not maintain world peace with nuclear weapons because they could not avoid the nuclear

weapons falling into the hands of terrorists.

This essay has shown that nuclear weapons carry more risks than benefits, even though opponents claim

that nuclear weapons stop an enemy from attacking and have also been restricted by UN. It is also shown

that some countries refused to sign these treaties, such as NPT and nuclear weapons were hard to avoid to

falling into the hands of terrorists. Clearly, there is no valid reason why nuclear weapons could maintain
 The threat of nuclear weapons maintains world peace as long as only an elite group of
nation have access to them.

world peace by only an elite group. Therefore, the urgent need for United Nations bans, particularly on

production and testing of nuclear weapons and promote world peace.

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