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Reviewing the state of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons

Open Forum: Time for a reality check on nuclear diplomacy, San Francisco Chronicle, By Jerry Brown and William Potter April 24, 2019  On Monday,diplomats from around the world are meeting at the United Nations in New York to review the state of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. This treaty, commonly known as the NPT, came into force 49 years ago, and is widely regarded as the cornerstone of international disarmament and nonproliferation diplomacy.……..In some respects, the promise of the NPT has been realized. The pace of proliferation has been much slower than anticipated, and the treaty’s membership now includes almost all the nations of the world. To be sure, three nuclear-armed states — India, Pakistan and Israel — refused to join. A fourth — North Korea — joined and then chose to withdraw. But of the 13 past and present nuclear nations, four countries (South Africa, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine) renounced those weapons and ratified the treaty.

The size of the global nuclear arsenal is much smaller today than it was at the peak of the Cold War — a fact that the two states with the largest nuclear forces, the United States and Russia, say shows their good faith under the treaty to pursue negotiations to stop the nuclear arms race at an early date and eventually achieve nuclear disarmament.

What is less evident is whether any of the nuclear-armed states actually believes in nuclear disarmament.

It is also unclear if the overall reduction in nuclear weapons has made the world a safer place. Indeed, we believe that the use of nuclear weapons is actually more likely today than at any time in recent memory.

The greatest nuclear danger today is the potential for a military confrontation among nuclear-armed states because of mistake, miscalculation or accident. The danger of nuclear blunder has always existed. In fact, there have been a large number of “close calls” in the past that did not escalate into military conflict.

The biggest difference between today and the past is that there is an absence of trust between the United States and Russia. There simply is no inclination on either side to interpret ambiguous information — such as an early warning signal of a missile launch — as anything other than the worst case.https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/Open-Forum-Time-for-a-reality-check-on-nuclear-13793344.php

 

April 27, 2019 - Posted by | 2 WORLD, politics international, weapons and war

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