scholarly journals Nuclear Disarmament without the Nuclear-Weapon States: The Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty

Daedalus ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 149 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harald Müller ◽  
Carmen Wunderlich
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Nuclear Weapon ◽  
Nuclear Disarmament ◽  
The Road ◽  
Common Basis ◽  
Global Zero ◽  
Nuclear Arms

The 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (tpnw) represents a daring act of self-empowerment: nuclear have-nots produced an international disarmament treaty without the involvement of the nuclear-weapon states or their allies. In this essay, we assess how the new treaty relates to the existing nuclear order and its four central norms: constraints on use, political restraint, non-proliferation, and disarmament. We discuss the tpnw's origin in and impact on this contested order. At the heart of contestation are two security concepts: deterrence versus the immediate ban of nuclear arms, which result in fundamentally different ideas on how to pursue the road to “global zero.” Whether or not the tpnw and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons are compatible depends on how the opponents handle their controversies. The key is to overcome the emotionalized polarization and rediscover a common basis in order to prevent damage to the existing nuclear order and bring forward nuclear disarmament in practice.

scholarly journals The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons: a Promise, a Threat or a Flop?

2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 215-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Pedrazzi
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Nuclear Weapon ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Nuclear Disarmament ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Ultimate Purpose

On 7 July 2017 a UN Conference, convened in New York by the General Assembly, adopted a Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, providing for the first total ban on these weapons intended to be global in scale. The Treaty was opened for signature on 20 September 2017. The process and its outcome, were, however, firmly opposed by nuclear-weapon States and by NATO countries, including Italy: they refused to take part in the effort, fearing that it could definitively undermine the stability of the non-proliferation architecture built upon the 1967 Non-Proliferation Treaty. In reality, the Treaty is consistent with the ultimate purpose of the NPT regime, and the obligations assumed by States under the NPT remain untouched. Its main deficiencies relate to its verification apparatus, and it would be advisable to remedy them through future negotiations. Whether this instrument will enter into force is not clear, although it has the potential to acquire, and surpass, the fifty ratifications necessary. However, the absence of support from nuclear-weapon States risks rendering it irrelevant. Nevertheless, it seems plausible that broad support for this new regime, from non-nuclear-weapons States, as well as from civil society, could contribute to exerting pressure towards the adoption of concrete steps in the nuclear disarmament agenda.

Justice and Injustice in the Fissile Material (Cutoff) Treaty

2014 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 570-598
Author(s):  
Annette Schaper
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Nuclear Weapon ◽  
Nuclear Disarmament ◽  
Fissile Material

The Fissile Material (Cutoff) Treaty (fm(c)t) has been on the negotiation agenda since 1996, but has seen little progress. This is due to a fundamental disagreement over whether emphasis should be placed on nuclear disarmament or nuclear non-proliferation. Several delegations perceive the fm(c)t as a tool to draw in states from outside the non-proliferation regime, while others understand it to be a disarmament measure that reduces quantities of fissile materials for nuclear weapons. They however, regard the unwillingness of nuclear weapon states to engage toward this end as deeply unjust. Additional disagreements also concern justice: Should there be different standards of verification? May some states continue to produce unverified military fuel? As long as the nuclear weapon states only push their interests through pure power instead of respecting the notion of justice, no progress can be expected and the non-proliferation regime will further erode.

No First Use of Nuclear Weapons

Worldview ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 19 (11) ◽  
pp. 9-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Russett
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
Nuclear Proliferation ◽  
Arms Race ◽  
Nuclear Disarmament ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
Weapons Systems ◽  
Nuclear Arms

As a result of nuclear proliferation, new weapons systems, and new strategic doctrines, the danger of nuclear war is increasing. The very modest "arms control" agreements negotiated or in prospect under SALT are totally inadequate to contain this danger. According to Herbert Scoville, "Arms control negotiations have become a mechanism for promoting the arms race rather than controlling it." Even by a less skeptical evaluation the negotiations can at best slow Soviet and American acquisition of new weapons systems. Disarmament in the realm of strategic nuclear arms is nowhere in sight. Other countries, which have long demanded some degree of Soviet-American nuclear disarmament as the price of an effective nonproliferation agreement, can plainly see that their price will not be met.

scholarly journals The Inevitable Consequences of Nuclear Armament: An Urgent Call for Nuclear Disarmament

2021 ◽  
pp. 103-105
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Nuclear Weapon ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Direct Result ◽  
Nuclear Disarmament ◽  
Nuclear Testing ◽  
The World ◽  
Radiation Induced ◽  
Mere Presence ◽  
Global Threat

Advancement in technology and growth in human wisdom and knowledge has become a boom and at the same time, a bane to the continued survival of mankind. Despite been born free, mankind has become enslaved to the products of their hands. The invention of weapons of human destruction (nuclear weapons), which remains the most destructive form of armory ever created, with the capacity to inflict a large-scale disaster in the shortest time, in just a strike. These weapons and their mass destructive capacity were first experienced in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombing in the year 1945, from that moment on the world, have seen an increase in nuclear testing, nuclear armory, and nuclear race among nuclear-weapon states. The mere presence of nuclear weapons poses a serious threat to the earth's environment and its inhabitants. Many islands have become inhabitable or declared a no-go zone due to the high presence of radiation and radioactivity in those places which is a direct result of years of nuclear testing. As a consequence, many people have been displaced from their ancestral lands, while some victims have lost their time to radiation-induced diseases such as cancer and its various variation. This article, therefore, will focus on the global threat to humanity posed by nuclear armament.

Threats and Challenges of the Nuclear Arms Race on the Current Stage

2020 ◽  
pp. 147-165
Author(s):  
Oleksandr Tsvietkov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Nuclear Weapon ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Arms Race ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Gradual Transition ◽  
American Federation ◽  
Nuclear Arms Race ◽  
Fierce Competition ◽  
Nuclear Arms

Contemporary issues of nuclear weapons and the nuclear arms race in the modern world are examined, based mainly on the assessments of the German “Statista” company, the American Federation of Scientists and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. It is emphasized that invented more than seventy years ago, nuclear weapon has not lost its basic qualities of the most massive and large-scale destruction, but also added to this the latest factors of global threat of its proliferation and the challenges of innovative technological advances in its means of delivery. The latter is increasingly imposed on the growing conflict of the modern multipolarworld order, thereby giving impetus to global competition in the accumulation of all forms of nuclear weapons and allocating unprecedented financial resources from nuclear and non-nuclear powers. It is shown that the most fierce competition in the nuclear arms race is developing in the triangle of relations and national interests between the US, Russia and China. On the same fact base, it is argued that China cannot be compared to the other two nations in the accumulated nuclear weapon arsenals, but that its technological positions and growing military potential lead to major changes in the bilateral concepts of international security and even to the termination of a number of Russian-American treaty agreements, above all in development of medium- and short-range ground-based missiles. There is also a gradual transition to a new deployment of forces and global strategies in the field of nuclear arms. World awareness of these changes is needed in a kind of the Swedish proposal on implementation of strategy for the “step-by-step” approach to nuclear disarmament. In general, challenges and threats should stimulate international dialogue in defense of the principle of peace-sharing in a global age

New ''Cold War''

2020 ◽  
pp. 27-34
Author(s):  
Vladimir Batiuk
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Arms Race ◽  
Ideological Struggle ◽  
Nuclear Arms Race ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Nuclear Arms

In this article, the ''Cold War'' is understood as a situation where the relationship between the leading States is determined by ideological confrontation and, at the same time, the presence of nuclear weapons precludes the development of this confrontation into a large-scale armed conflict. Such a situation has developed in the years 1945–1989, during the first Cold War. We see that something similar is repeated in our time-with all the new nuances in the ideological struggle and in the nuclear arms race.

Iraq's Chemical Weapons Legacy: What Others Might Learn from Saddam

2005 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-208
Author(s):  
Richard L. Russell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Nuclear Weapon ◽  
The United States ◽  
Chemical Weapons ◽  
Nation States

Iraq's experience with chemical weapons provides ample lessons for nation-states looking to redress their conventional military shortcomings. Nation-states are likely to learn from Saddam that chemical weapons are useful for waging war against nation-states ill-prepared to fight on a chemical battlefield as well as against internal insurgents and rebellious civilians. Most significantly, nation-states studying Iraq's experience are likely to conclude that chemical weapons are not a “poor man's nuclear weapon” and that only nuclear weapons can deter potential adversaries including the United States.

Strategic Scripts and Nuclear Disarmament

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Harries ◽  
Benedict Wilkinson
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Analytical Tool ◽  
The Other ◽  
Nuclear Disarmament ◽  
Stable Reduction ◽  
The Way

This chapter spans Freedman’s earliest focus on nuclear weapons and his development of strategic scripts as an analytical tool over three decades later. It discusses the way in which opposing logics of disarmament and armament co-existed in relation to nuclear weapons. It deploys the notion of strategic scripts to explain the contradictions inherent in approaches to nuclear disarmament, developing the concept of strategic scripts as it does so. The notion of scripts can be used to explore and even to promote nuclear disarmament. Two scripts, one of ‘stable reduction’, the other of ‘disarmament’, each serve to frame thinking. These scripts and the interactions they generate facilitate understanding of the way in which opposite instinctive reactions and, stemming from these, scripts about nuclear weapons co-exist, but are fragile as either an analytical or a strategic tool.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document