scholarly journals Nuclear Proliferation and Pakistan

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (01) ◽  
pp. 54-70
Author(s):  
Farooque Ahmed Leghari ◽  
Humera Hakro ◽  
Muhammad Ramzan Kolachi

Pakistan, India, Israel in addition to North Korea became successful to get sensitive nuclear assistance from other nuclear weapon states and became successful nuclear weapon states. The major objective of this research is to know Pakistan’s nuclear path that what factors motivated it to get nuclear weapons. The qualitative methodology is used and secondary data is being analyzed with content analysis to get the findings. This article tries to look at nuclear proliferation and nuclear non-proliferation regimes to check out Pakistan’s nuclear path. The article finds three things. First, the sense of conventional military inferiority and insecurity against India led Pakistan to follow nuclear path. Second, the cold war in Afghanistan between the United States and the Soviet Union proved to be a blessing in disguise for Pakistan to fulfill its dream of becoming a nuclear weapon state. Third, Pakistan became successful to get sensitive nuclear assistance from the China. Pakistan became successful in achieving the milestone of getting the capability to manufacture nuclear weapons in 1980s era.

Author(s):  
John W. Young ◽  
John Kent

This chapter examines why the United States and the Soviet Union returned to confrontation during the period 1979–1980. Despite the slow progress of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II), there were at least some efforts to control strategic weapons. Short-range and intermediate-range nuclear weapons, in contrast, continued to grow in number and sophistication, particularly in Europe, where NATO and Warsaw Pact forces still prepared for war against each other, despite détente. The failure to control theatre nuclear weapons led to a new twist in the European arms race at the end of the 1970s which helped to undermine recent improvements in East–West relations. The chapter first considers NATO’s ‘dual track’ decision regarding theatre nuclear weapons before discussing the Iranian Revolution and the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. It concludes with an assessment of the revival of the Cold War, focusing on the so-called Carter Doctrine.


1981 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 193-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Nacht

An examination of the past relationships between nuclear proliferation and American security policy substantiates several propositions. First, the political relationship between the United States and each new nuclear weapon state was not fundamentally transformed as a result of nuclear proliferation. Second, with the exception of the Soviet Union, no new nuclear state significantly affected U.S. defense programs or policies. Third, American interest in bilateral nuclear arms control negotiations has been confined to the Soviet Union. Fourth, a conventional conflict involving a nonnuclear ally prompted the United States to intervene in ways it otherwise might not have in order to forestall the use of nuclear weapons.In all respects, however, the relationship between nuclear proliferation and American security policy is changing. The intensification of the superpower rivalry and specific developments in their nuclear weapons and doctrines, the decline of American power more generally, and the characteristics of nuclear threshold states all serve to stimulate nuclear proliferation. It will be increasingly difficult in the future for American security policy to be as insulated from this process as it has been in the past.


2010 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 7-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis J. Gavin

A widely held and largely unchallenged view among many scholars and policymakers is that nuclear proliferation is the gravest threat facing the United States today, that it is more dangerous than ever, and that few meaningful lessons can be drawn from the nuclear history of a supposed simpler and more predictable period, the Cold War. This view, labeled “nuclear alarmism,” is based on four myths about the history of the nuclear age. First, today's nuclear threats are new and more dangerous than those of the past. Second, unlike today, nuclear weapons stabilized international politics during the Cold War, when in fact the record was mixed. The third myth conflates the history of the nuclear arms race with the geopolitical and ideological competition between the Soviet Union and the United States, creating an oversimplified and misguided portrayal of the Cold War. The final myth is that the Cold War bipolar military rivalry was the only force driving nuclear proliferation. A better understanding of this history, and, in particular, of how and why the international community escaped calamity during a far more dangerous time against ruthless and powerful adversaries, can produce more effective U.S. policies than those proposed by the nuclear alarmists.


Worldview ◽  
1983 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-15
Author(s):  
George S. Weigel

The scientific and technical knowledge that led in 1945 to the explosion of the first atomic weapons cannot be erased; as long as our civilization survives, so will our capacity to build nuclear weapons. Awareness of this harsh fact has sparked numerous attempts to control their spread. The hope was that nuclear weapons could be confined to a relatively few, politically stable countries and then eliminated entirely.In the Baruch Plan of 1946, the United States offered to turn over its nuclear monopoly to an international authority on the condition that other powers do the same and that the most rigorous safeguards and inspection/verification procedures be established and enforced The Soviet Union declined to go along. Thus the 1950s and early ’60s saw the spread of nuclear weapons, first to the Soviet Union (accomplished by a combination of internal research and international espionage), then to Great Britain and France, and later to the People's Republic of China (instigated by the USSR and doubtless regretted by the Soviets today)


Author(s):  
Len Scott

This chapter focuses on some of the principal developments in world politics from 1900 to 1999: the development of total war, the advent of nuclear weapons, the onset of cold war, and the end of European imperialism. It shows how the confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union became the key dynamic in world affairs, replacing the dominance of — and conflict among — European states in the first half of the twentieth century. It also examines the ways that the cold war promoted or prevented global conflict, how decolonization became entangled with East–West conflicts, and how dangerous the nuclear confrontation between East and West was. Finally, the chapter considers the role of nuclear weapons in specific phases of the cold war, notably in détente, and then with the deterioration of Soviet–American relations in the 1980s.


Author(s):  
Len Scott

This chapter focuses on some of the principal developments in world politics from 1900 to 1999: the development of total war, the advent of nuclear weapons, the onset of cold war, and the end of European imperialism. It shows how the confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union became the key dynamic in world affairs, replacing the dominance of—and conflict among—European states in the first half of the twentieth century. It also examines the ways that the cold war promoted or prevented global conflict, how decolonization became entangled with East–West conflicts, and how dangerous the nuclear confrontation between East and West was. Finally, the chapter considers the role of nuclear weapons in specific phases of the cold war, notably in détente, and then with the deterioration of Soviet–American relations in the 1980s.


1984 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oye Ogunbadejo

The impact of nuclear weapons on the present and future trends in international relations continues to attract wide scholarship. While the literature on the subject has been growing apace, nuclear technology is becoming increasingly sophisticated, and the dangers posed to the survival of mankind are becoming much more acute than hitherto. In broad terms, the fears expressed about these weapons tend to centre around the implications of three major issues: the emergence of greater first-strike inclinations in the two super-power nuclear forces; the possibility of a perceived strategic imbalance favouring either the United States or the Soviet Union; and the dangers of nuclear proliferation.


2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 207-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Milton Leitenberg

This article provides an overview of the perils of U.S. and Soviet nuclear war planning during the Cold War. In particular, the article discusses instances of false alarms, when one side or the other picked up indications of an imminent attack by the other side and had to take measures to determine whether the indicators were accurate. None of these incidents posed a large danger of an accidental nuclear war, but they illustrate the inherent risks of the war preparations that both the United States and the Soviet Union took for their immense nuclear arsenals.


Author(s):  
Campbell Craig

This chapter, which examines the role of nuclear weapons in the Cold War and the role of the Cold War in the nuclear revolution, argues that the development of nuclear weapons significantly affected the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union beyond the nuclear crises and arms races. It investigates the role of the atomic bomb in making impossible the postwar cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union, and evaluates the role of nuclear fear in invalidating the Soviet's Marxism-Leninism ideology. The chapter also considers how the mutual assured destruction pushed the superpowers away from direct military confrontation and into senseless weapon overproduction at home.


Author(s):  
John W. Young ◽  
John Kent

This chapter examines why the United States and the Soviet Union returned to confrontation during the period 1979–80. Despite the slow progress of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II), there were at least some efforts to control strategic weapons. Short-range and intermediate-range nuclear weapons, in contrast, continued to grow in number and sophistication, particularly in Europe, where NATO and Warsaw Pact forces still prepared for war against each other, despite détente. The failure to control theatre nuclear weapons led to a new twist in the European arms race at the end of the 1970s which helped to undermine recent improvements in East–West relations. The chapter first considers NATO’s ‘dual-track’ decision regarding theatre nuclear weapons, before discussing the Iranian Revolution and the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. It concludes with an assessment of the revival of the Cold War, focusing on the so-called Carter Doctrine.


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