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Will you take a nuclear weapon with those fries? GLOBAL GOVERNANCE POLICY SERIES

Towards a Nuclear Weapons Peace Framework: with more countries thinking of acquiring nuclear weapons capabilities are they becoming a dangerous commodity?

30 MINUTES

Report includes conclusions on the:

NON PROLIFERATION REVIEW CONFERENCE. U.N. NEW YORK, MAY 2010 Keywords: Main belief systems> ideologies> global governance> ethics> war strategies> missile threats and responses> geopolitics> intelligence> mutual assured destruction (MAD)> nuclear and weapons technology> Cold War> disarmament and deterrence> terrorism and counter-terrorism> national and international security> international cooperation.


2  GOLD MERCURY INTERNATIONAL  Will you take a nuclear weapon with those fries?

Introduction The national security paradigm for nuclear weapons was developed during the Cold War. Its underlying assumptions were the foundation of thought on the nuclear issue and are still prevalent in much current thinking on the topic. They can be seen, both in the framework controlling and monitoring proliferation and nuclear progression, and in the way nuclear weapons and material are thought about both militarily and in a wider sense. Considering the changes that have taken place in the world over the past 20 years, this thinking and its consequent actions, no longer make total sense either within a security framework or a control framework. The hypothesis is that the effect of these inconsistencies serves to drive proliferation and increase the danger of the nuclear issue rather than reduce it. The article considers this from two directions. Firstly, holistically from a bird’s eye view. In this respect, the article considers the variety of the current threat and the differences in its reality to certain outmoded security paradigms, concluding that current threats are fundamentally outside the scope of previous conceptions’ solutions. From this perspective it also analyses the current non-proliferation framework and its underlying thought, concluding that it is neither aligned with the current nuclear reality nor with current nuclear dangers. Secondly, it considers the machinations from within the issue as a bottom up consideration of the factors that may provide momentum for future change. In this respect, it considers recent developments in the context of nuclear weapons and non-proliferation, particularly considering subtle but potentially important changes in U.S. and Russian stances and considers what repercussions they could have for the wider model and the position and role of nuclear weapons in the world.


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The Nuclear Threat Nuclear weapons as well as other forms of nuclear material have the potential to cause massive damage and potentially even more serious long term consequences. To compound this, the nature of a nuclear weapon or fissile material used as a weapon, strategically and militarily speaking, mean that its use for effect would most likely be against a city or populated area. They are potential weapons of genocide and are intrinsically dangerous.

Mikhail Gorbachev, with Ronald Reagan and George Bush. Gorbachev’s accession to power helped bring to an end the Cold War.

However, until twenty years ago the time in which they have developed and had a paradigm built around them, cast them not only in the role of military devices but also political tools. Not only as weapons of destruction, but as threshold weapons, also weapons which were touted as diverting politics and states from militaristic decision making. Throughout the time of the Cold War, a relatively simple model surrounded the building and existence of nuclear weapons, and the threat of nuclear material was essentially summed up by the idea of deterrence and mutual assured destruction. Although there was a massive build up during this period and a nuclear capability was developed by a range of states, the sparsity of main actors and the similarity of logic behind the build up in arsenals and their potential use, coupled with the arguably simpler military and political dynamic of the two superpowers, made the nuclear equation easier to calculate. The aim of this article is not to question the logic of past actions that have founded our current predicament, but it must be pointed out that with the relative simplicity of the equation and the arguable predictability of outcome and of logic, came a form of threat manageability (at least on the part of the few actors playing key roles at that time). With the fall of the Soviet Union and the developments of the last twenty years there have been considerable changes to the global picture in all respects. With these changes however, the power of the weapons and their equally powerful political and strategic associations, built over 40 years of Cold War politics, has not diminished.


4  GOLD MERCURY INTERNATIONAL  Will you take a nuclear weapon with those fries?

Coupled with this the spread of fissile material and nuclear technology geographically and in terms of understanding and the fact that non-military and military uses for the technology essentially share a very similar base, means that the availability and ability to manipulate material has never been so difficult to control or monitor.

NEW INTERNATIONAL DYNAMIC POST COLD WAR BYPASSED

Old Cold War and international relations inertia ruling nuclear thought theory COLD WAR

International Dynamic

Thought theory on nuclear issues

State behaviour

- 2 superpowers - States singular actors

POST COLLAPSE SOVIET UNION

- New dynamic - Globalisation - Non state actors join scene

2010

2020

- New states with nuclear weapons arrive on scene - Non state actors acquire nuclear capability - Some states with nuclear capability fail

- National Security - Deterrence - Second strike - MAD

- Inertia from Cold War - National security - Deterrence

- Deterrence Fails - Still unable to use arsenals

- Build up by nuclear powers - Alliances

- Nuclear posturing - Unwillingness to disarm - New states seek weapons

- Need for a new nuclear doctrine/ strategy

During the Cold War a consideration of the international dynamic led to a theory paradigm around nuclear weapons which in turn led to this being the relevant

mode of behaviour on the part of states. Thought and behaviour then served to reinforce each other. However following the end of the Cold War, a new international

dynamic developed whilst the thought and behaviour around nuclear weapons remained largely unchanged - a form of historical inertia. Thus while they now continue

to reinforce each other, their key link to the reality of the international situation is not present and a key part of the logic chain is missing.


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