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Nuclear weapons countries cling to their nuclear weapons systems and are actively upgrading them—inventing new roles and designs for them. They’re not sitting getting old. They’re being modernized, such as recent proposals for "smaller useable" weapons. All this, despite all the speeches and promises to get rid of them.
The attitude of the so-called nuclear ‘haves’ is one of the central contradiction in international efforts to control the spread of nuclear weapons, the very countries who most vociferously try to control the spread of weapons are steadfastly hanging on to their own.
As well as the devastating impacts of the nuclear bombs for the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan—victims of the first nuclear bomb’s use in 1945—more than 2,000 nuclear weapons tests have left a legacy of global and regional contamination. People living near nuclear test sites suffer from cancers, still births and miscarriages. It is clearly absurd that Governments continue to build weapons that are too dangerous to use while contaminating their own populations along the way.
In recent years, the threat has become more unpredictable as China, France, Russia, the UK and the US have not kept promises they made in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to disarm. Since the treaty began, countries like India, Israel, North Korea and Pakistan have also joined the nuclear club. And as nuclear energy technology spreads, so, too, does the number of countries that could make bombs if they wanted to.
But there is hope. Some countries have taken a lead and decommissioned their nuclear weapons. South Africa had nuclear weapons in the 1970s but chose disarmament instead. Once a country decides there’s a better way to get security, nuclear disarmament can happen quite quickly.
Unless other nuclear weapons states follow South Africa's example, the political leaders in the aspiring nuclear weapons states are unlikely to either. We need more countries taking their fingers off the button, not jumping on in. That’s why the Nuclear-Free Middle East Treaty is so important, it reduces the threat of nuclear bombs being used—and complements the important work of getting current nuclear states to follow South Africa’s example.
The attitude of the so-called nuclear ‘haves’ is one of the central contradiction in international efforts to control the spread of nuclear weapons, the very countries who most vociferously try to control the spread of weapons are steadfastly hanging on to their own.
As well as the devastating impacts of the nuclear bombs for the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan—victims of the first nuclear bomb’s use in 1945—more than 2,000 nuclear weapons tests have left a legacy of global and regional contamination. People living near nuclear test sites suffer from cancers, still births and miscarriages. It is clearly absurd that Governments continue to build weapons that are too dangerous to use while contaminating their own populations along the way.
Greenpeace action against Indian nuclear tests, Taj Mahal.
But there is hope. Some countries have taken a lead and decommissioned their nuclear weapons. South Africa had nuclear weapons in the 1970s but chose disarmament instead. Once a country decides there’s a better way to get security, nuclear disarmament can happen quite quickly.
Unless other nuclear weapons states follow South Africa's example, the political leaders in the aspiring nuclear weapons states are unlikely to either. We need more countries taking their fingers off the button, not jumping on in. That’s why the Nuclear-Free Middle East Treaty is so important, it reduces the threat of nuclear bombs being used—and complements the important work of getting current nuclear states to follow South Africa’s example.
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