4. Nuclear disarmament

In the struggle for a nuclear weapons-free world, the elimination of existing arsenals is imperative. Under Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, states with nuclear weapons have an obligation to engage in good faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament and to pursue a treaty on general and complete disarmament.

To achieve disarmament it is important that weapons are irreversibly destroyed in a transparent manner, and that the resulting fissile materials are sufficiently safeguarded. Though some arsenal reductions have been made through bilateral agreements and unilateral actions, There are still some 19,000 nuclear weapons in the world, mostly in arsenals of the US and Russia. Other countries with nuclear weapons arsenals are Israel, France, the United Kingdom, China, India, Pakistan and North Korea.

Existing disarmament commitments made by the United States and Russia include the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) and the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START).

5. Threat of nuclear weapons

Nuclear weapons pose a vast threat to our society and to the global environment. They are indiscriminate in nature and enough warheads exist to threaten human existence. The use of nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki clearly demonstrated the horrifically destructive powers of nuclear weapons. Most nuclear weapons deployed today have a destructive capacity many times greater than those used in 1945.

Uranium enrichment and plutonium separation does not violate the NPT if done for peaceful purposes under IAEA inspection. In fact, a number of more developed countries (e.g., Japan) conduct such activities. In the three countries where uranium enrichment or plutonium separation was thought to have been conducted for weapons purposes—Iran, Iraq, and North Korea—the activities had taken place largely at locations not declared open for inspection to the IAEA. 

Iraq’s weapons program was found after the 1991 Persian Gulf War thanks to UN Security Council orders demanding more intrusive inspections than were then required by IAEA inspection standards. North Korea’s weapons program later became known through intelligence, IAEA inspections, and North Korea’s own admissions.

The IAEA’s discovery of Iran’s failure to disclose experiments with plutonium separation and uranium enrichment to inspectors has recently led to a standoff with Tehran.

6. Nuclear terrorism. New threats

The very existence of nuclear weapons and their production endanger our safety because they are susceptible to terrorist exploitation. Nuclear weapons and production sites all over the world are vulnerable to terrorist attack or to theft of weapons or weapons-grade materials. Russia, due to the breakup of the former Soviet Union, has a weakened command and control system, making their substantial arsenal especially vulnerable to terrorists. In addition, nuclear weapons are not helpful in defending against or responding to terrorism because nuclear weapons cannot target a group that is unlocatable.

Many people believe that nuclear weapons are well protected and that the likelihood of terrorists obtaining these weapons is low. In the aftermath of the Cold War, however, the ability of the Russians to protect their nuclear forces has declined precipitously. In addition, a coup in a country with nuclear weapons, such as Pakistan, could lead to a government coming to power that was willing to provide nuclear weapons to terrorists. In general, the more nuclear weapons there are in the world and the more nuclear weapons proliferate to additional countries, the greater the possibility that nuclear weapons will end up in the hands of terrorists. The best remedy for keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists is to drastically reduce their numbers and institute strict international inspections and controls on all nuclear weapons and weapons-grade nuclear materials in all countries, until these weapons and the materials for making them can be eliminated.

In light of the Cold War’s end, many people believed that nuclear threats had gone away. While the nature of nuclear threats has changed since the end of the Cold War, these threats are far from having disappeared or even significantly diminished. During the Cold War, the greatest threat was that of a massive nuclear exchange between the United States and Soviet Union. In the aftermath of the Cold War, a variety of new nuclear threats have emerged. Among these are the following dangers:

1. Increased possibilities of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists who would not hesitate to use them

2. Nuclear war between India and Pakistan

3. Policies of the US government to make nuclear weapons smaller and more usable

4. Use of nuclear weapons by accident, particularly by Russia, which has a substantially weakened early warning system

5. Spread of nuclear weapons to other states, such as North Korea, that may perceive them to be an “equalizer” against a more powerful state