Nuclear Proliferation

Nuclear proliferation

"Everything from purely mathematical models to forest fire studies shows that even a small nuclear war would devastate the earth."
Alan Robock, Professor of Environmental Science, Rutgers University, 1989*

"The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking."
Albert Einstein

The human race has lived in the shadow of nuclear war for almost 70 years. In the decades following the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world’s nuclear arsenal increased to the point where even a ‘limited’ nuclear war could decimate the human race and threaten the survival of life on Earth.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War spelt the end of the immediate threat of all-out nuclear war. But the ongoing spread of nuclear technology and the development of new generations of nuclear weapons mean there is no cause for complacency. The threat will remain for as long as nuclear weapons are regarded as legitimate instruments of state ‘security’.

The Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was drawn up to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote co-operation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and to promote nuclear disarmament. 187 countries have joined the treaty. Cuba, India, Pakistan and Israel are not signatories, and of these, all but Cuba have acquired nuclear weapons. For further reading see the Federation of American Scientists and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
In recent years the NPT has shown signs of becoming increasingly irrelevant as North Korea and Iran stand on the brink of developing nuclear weapons, and as the United States and other nuclear states move towards developing ‘small nukes’ such as bunker-busting nuclear devices. The US recently agreed to sell nuclear technology to India in contravention of the NPT. See a recent article on the subject by British commentator George Monbiot. For further reading see the Australian Red Cross Campaign Target Nuclear Weapons.
Australia's uranium export policy provides assurances that exported uranium and its derivatives cannot benefit the development of nuclear weapons or be used in other military programs (Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade). Organisations such as International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ican) see the recent decision by the Australian Government to sell uranium to India, a country that has not signed the non-proliferation treaty, as a potential breakdown of that assurance.

Nuclear testing and the test ban treaty

A recent US government study estimated that nuclear tests carried out by the USA, Britain, France and the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 60s had caused the deaths of 15,000 Americans. The victims may have included the legendary actor John Wayne, who was downwind of a nuclear test in Nevada while working on a film in 1954. By 1980, 91 of the 220-strong film cast and crew had contracted or died of cancer. See The Guardian.

The 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty prohibited nuclear test explosions (including tests for ‘peaceful’ purposes) in the atmosphere, in outer space and underwater, but not underground. The 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty seeks to ban all nuclear testing. 132 nations have ratified the treaty but many haven't including the United States. For a chronology of key events such as this in nuclear non-proliferation see the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Disarmament treaties

Since the 1960s a number of treaties have been signed to restrict or reduce the nuclear arsenal. They include a series of Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties between the US and USSR/Russia (see the Nuclear Weapons Inheritance Project) and the Treaty of Raratonga, which created a South Pacific nuclear free zone (see atomicarchive.com).

The link between nuclear power and nuclear weapons

“As of January 4, 2012 in 31 countries 435 nuclear power plant units with an installed electric net capacity of about 368 GW are in operation and 63 plants with an installed capacity of 61 GW are in 15 countries under construction.” (European Nuclear Society). For discussions of the risks of nuclear power and the link between the 'peaceful' nuclear industry and nuclear weapons, see the Nuclear Info Net, the Nuclear Information and Resource Service and the Nuclear Energy Information Service.

The anti-nuclear movement

A large number of organisations around the world are campaigning for nuclear disarmament and, in many cases, for the phasing out of the nuclear energy industry. They include International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Greenpeace, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and Trident Ploughshares, whose members have engaged in direct action against nuclear installations.