Nuclear disarmament

Editor: Justin Healey
ISBN 978 1 921507 25 0
Year 2010

Price: $20.95

  

Nuclear Disarmament
Volume 314, Issues in Society

The threat of nuclear destruction has long loomed over the planet. Weapons stockpiles among the nuclear powers continue to proliferate, and a number of other nations including Iran are actively pursuing nuclear capability. Australia is directly involved in global negotiations to slow down the arms race as both a major supplier of uranium, and as co-chair of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament, which recently reviewed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This book examines Australian and international efforts aimed at non-proliferation, arms control and disarmament. What is the extent of nuclear weaponry around the globe, and how safe are we from the nuclear threat posed by rogue states and terrorist groups? Is there a risky link between nuclear power and arms production? Securing nuclear materials is one thing, but can nuclear weapons be eliminated altogether?

Chapter 1: Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation
Nuclear weapons: who’s got them?; Nuclear weapons stockpiles; Nuclear disarmament; Nuclear weapons states profile; A nuclear weapons-free world?; The right to have nuclear weapons?; The effects of nuclear weapons; Non-proliferation, arms control and disarmament; Australian government’s response to nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament; Australia’s nuclear history; A delicate issue: Asia’s nuclear future; Time to rethink uranium safeguards; Nuclear power ‘won't fuel arms race’; Nuclear power and nuclear weapons; Uranium export is the first step to war; UN talks back steps towards nuclear-free Mideast; Iran’s nuclear program of concern; Stockpiles revealed; Will Iran know that the use of nukes is MAD?; On the path to a nuke-free world; Nuclear disarmament: nine steps to a revolution; A real chance for a world free of nuclear weapons; A world free of nuclear weapons: the fierce urgency of now.

Glossary; Fast Facts; Web Links; Index



fast facts
FAST FACTS from this volume
  • There are 5 officially declared nuclear weapon states in the world: the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China.
  • Although there are 39 countries in the world, apart from the 5 declared nuclear weapons states, that have nuclear power or research reactors and thus the potential capability to produce nuclear weapons, nearly all of them have chosen not to possess nuclear weapons and have officially signed treaties with this intention.
  • Nuclear disarmament refers to both the act of reducing or eliminating nuclear weapons and to the end state of a nuclear-free world, in which nuclear weapons are completely eliminated.
  • After the Partial Test Ban Treaty (1963), which prohibited atmospheric testing, the movement against nuclear wea-pons somewhat subsided in the 1970s (and was replaced in part by a movement against nuclear power).
  • Only one country has been known to ever dismantle their nuclear arsenal completely – the apartheid government of South Africa apparently developed half a dozen crude fission weapons during the 1980s, but they were dismantled in the early 1990s.
  • Despite a general trend toward disarmament in the early 1990s, the George W. Bush administration repeatedly pushed to fund policies that would allegedly make nuclear weapons more usable in the post-Cold War environment.
  • During his Presidential campaign, US President Elect Barack Obama pledged to “set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons, and pursue it.”
  • While the vast majority of states have adhered to the stipulations of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, a few states have either refused to sign the treaty or have pursued nuclear weapons programs while not being members of the treaty.
  • In Jan 2006, the then President Jacques Chirac stated that France would respond with nuclear weapons against any state using terrorist means or considering using weapons of mass destruction against France.
  • In Sep 2008, the then Defence Secretary Des Browne re-stated a 2005 position that “The UK does not rule in or out the first use of nuclear weapons. A policy of no first use of nuclear weapons would be incompatible with our and NATO’s doctrine of deterrence.”
  • Israel government’s position remains ambiguous over its possession of nuclear weapons.
  • North Korea exploded nuclear devices in October 2006 and in May 2006 but there are doubts about whether it has an operational nuclear weapons capability. It may have enough fissile material to produce 6-10 nuclear warheads. International negotiations are being held to ensure North Korea does not become a nuclear weapons capable state.
  • On 24 September 2009, the UN Security Council, adopted a resolution (1887) calling for the creation of “conditions for a world without nuclear weapons ...”
  • On 4 May 2010, the US disclosed that it has 5,113 warheads in its nuclear stockpile.
  • Under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), every country does have a right to nuclear development for peaceful purposes (i.e. nuclear energy).
  • Nuclear weapons have been used twice, on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
  • The heart of a nuclear explosion reaches a temperature of several million degrees centigrade. Over a wide area the resulting heat flash literally vaporises all human tissue.
  • Nuclear weapons cause severe damage to the environment and it is suspected that no other weapon is capable of causing environmental damage on a similar scale.
  • Accurate estimates of long term fatalities at Hiroshima are not possible given the large scale destruction of records, population movements and a general censorship on nuclear effects by the US occupation regime. However the generally used minimum figure for immediate and short term deaths is 140,000.
  • The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) is the centrepiece of the nuclear non-proliferation regime. The NPT entered into force in 1970, and Australia ratified the treaty in 1973.
  • During the 1950s and 1960s, the Australian government made several efforts to obtain nuclear weapons from the US or the UK.
  • Since the early 1970s, there has been little high level support for the pursuit of a domestic nuclear weapons capability.
  • North Korea has no operating power reactors but an ‘Experimental Power Reactor’ is believed to have been the source of the fissile material (plutonium) used in its nuclear weapons tests.
  • Israel has no power reactors, though the pretence of an interest in the development of nuclear power helped to justify nuclear transfers to Israel.
  • A typical power reactor (1,000 MWe) produces about 300 kilograms of plutonium each year. Total global production of plutonium in power reactors is about 70 tonnes per year. As at the end of 2003, power reactors had produced an estimated 1,600 tonnes of plutonium.
  • Currently, Russia and America possess 97% of the 23,000 to 26,000 nuclear weapons in the global arsenal.
  • Any country with a 1,000-megawatt nuclear power plant can manufacture up to 250 kilograms of plutonium each year – theoretically enough to produce 50 bombs.
  • Britain’s new government revealed the planned size of its nuclear weapons stockpile, saying it will not exceed 225 warheads.
  • The new START calls for the number of deployed strategic warheads to be reduced to 1,550 each. But it still fails to get to grips with the other bombs.
  • Military budgets, currently at an obscene US$1.3 trillion plus per year, continue to grow.
  • Even though 96% of the world’s nuclear weapons are held by Russia and the US, such a war is within the capacity of China, France, the UK, Israel or India and Pakistan.
  • The 13 practical steps agreed at the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review conference in 2,000 should be upheld and implemented.
  • In 2007 the world’s governments spent US$1,339 billion on their militaries, a real increase of 45% in a decade. This year, US military spending – US$711 billion – exceeds the amount spent by the rest of the world combined.