INTERNATIONAL

Background Report: Nuclear Devt and Curtailment

Hadiza Wada, DBA ...April 10, 2010

World leaders from 47 countries converge in Washington Monday for a two-day summit on nuclear non-proliferation. But what is the story behind nuclear build –up? When did it begin and when did it became of much concern to the world; enough to make nations push for its reduction, and eradication?

Nuclear arms race began immediately after world war II in the mid nineteen forties. The atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki both cities of Japan in August of 1945 became the focus of attention for nations hungry for power and military might. The world for the first time saw the devastation such a weapon could make, where it was estimated that a total of 150-200,000 people lost their lives in the two cities. The United States who manufactured and decided for the first time to use such a weapon during the presidency of Harry Truman, was drawn into the war with the attack on Pearl Harbor, its Naval base in Hawaii by Japan on December 7, 1941. Japan at that time was fighting alongside Hitler’s Germany. Six days after the bombings, Japan surrendered to the allied nations effectively bringing the war to an end.

Later, the Eastern European largely communist countries under the leadership of the Soviet Union (today represented principally by just Russia) also wanted to develop one, as the Western European democratic countries under the leadership of the United States went on to actuality continue to develop even more potent weapons and in large numbers too. That began the arms race; or what was popularly known as the cold war; the East vs. West and the NATO vs. Warsaw Military Alliances. Each of the two camps wanted to outwit the other in weapon potency terms, outmanufacture and outnumber the stockpiles of weapons it owns.

The cold war became more intense as the years go by, so much so that the two camps set out to divide up the whole world based on alliance between them. There soon appeared the Pro-West (North Atlantic Treaty Organization of the West) known as NATO established April 4, 1949 in Brussels Belgium; and the Pro-East Warsaw countries (Warsaw, Poland where they first established it) consisting of eight countries established May 14, 1955;and the non aligned countries, meaning countries that belong to neither. The goal for NATO (Wikipedia) was “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.”

Since the use of that weapon of mass destruction nations across the world began to crave such a weapon to exhibit their might and strength. The two top nations however continued to control and exert strict secrecy on its technology, keeping in more or less affectively under their wings. While nations crave nuclear weapons, at the same time every nation does not pray for a day to use it on any other nations not only because of the stigma, but because of the possibility of causing the annihilation of mankind from the planet, due to the potency of much more destructive weapons manufactured since then.

That race with all the complications, including the near use of such weapons in reports such as the Bay of Pigs episode (Cuban Missile Crisis), the arms race was finally quelled with the break-up of the former Soviet Union into smaller units of countries some of which have already gradually been transformed to western democratic ideology in Politics and economics; two of the most divergent of the two camp’s differences. The fall of the Soviet Bloc has basically resulted into only one “super power” as they used to call themselves then. Since then the era of nuclear non-proliferation treaty became a thing of the past. An agency under the watch of the United Nations named the IAEA i.e. the International Atomic Energy Agency has been assigned the duty of monitoring and controlling nuclear proliferation

There are much fewer nations that own nuclear weapons than the ones that use it for peaceful purposes i.e. generating energy for their industries and homes. Today the nations that own nuclear weapons are just nine. US, Russia, UK, France and China in order of acquirement. Then India, Pakistan and North Korea. The last three have also successfully tested such devices

The only nation believed to own nuclear weapons that has neither owned up to it, nor signed the treaty is Israel. It is the only Middle Eastern country that owns nuclear. South Africa is also the only African country believed to have own nuclear weapons in the past. It built it during the apartheid era, when the white minority government was in power in the country. But it later on disassembled its stockpiles and reverted to peaceful uses of it.

Making weapons is not the only way to put nuclear energy into use. Many developed nations including the United States, France and Japan use a significant percentage of nuclear energy to generate electricity for domestic and industrial use. Among them France relies more with about 74% of its total energy needs satisfied by nuclear, followed by Japan with 24 percent and U S with about 20%. But in general the whole of North America (U.S., Canada and Mexico) and a greater percentage of South American land mass uses it, so does Eastern and Western European countries, China, and India. In Africa South Africa generates nuclear power for use, while the whole of the Maghreb countries of Africa, Nigeria and Angola plan to establish nuclear generating plants for their energy needs.