The Challenges of Nuclear Non-Proliferation

Abstract

THE CHALLENGES OF NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION Richard D. Burns and Philip E. Coyle III Lanham, MD., USA: Rowman and Littlefield, 2015 238 pages, hardcover $75.00, paper $29.95This book, in the publisher's Weapons of Mass Destruction series, offers a chronology of nuclear weapons production and attempts at non-proliferation from World War II to the near present. The authors discuss the pros and cons of US President Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace Program, which critics contend contributed to the spread of nuclear weapons capabilities. Currently, about 49 countries have the capacity to develop nuclear weapons. Of these, only ten have actually done so.Presently, there are five nuclear weapons states (NWS) which have ratified the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1968 (US, U.K., Russia, France, and China) and four rouge NWS (Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea) that are not party to the NPT and do not permit International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors on their soil. The first five were officially recognized in the NPT.The US led the way in the production of atomic and nuclear weapons. Its Manhattan Project, with 18 facilities in the US and Canada, had employed 130,000 people and cost nearly $30 billion (in today's dollars) before being officially disbanded in August 1946. By 1996, the five official NWS had conducted 2069 nuclear tests, polluting land, sea, air and formerly occupied Pacific islands (not discussed). At their peaks, the US in 1967 and the USSRin 1986 had 31,255 and 45,000 nukes respectively in their stockpiles. Together, they accounted for over 90% of the world's total.With the help of the US, UK, France, and private US citizens loyal to Israel (not discussed by the authors), Israel became the world's sixth nuclear power, followed by India, Pakistan, and North Korea. In 1964, Argentina sold over 80 tons of uranium oxide to Israel, requiring the purchaser to use it for peaceful purposes only. "An agreement that Tel Aviv ignored" (p. 171). South Africa had a nuclear weapons program, which President F. W. de Clerk ordered dismantled in 1989. The authors ignore the abundance of evidence of nuclear weapons cooperation between Apartheid South Africa and Israel. They simply write that such "rumors" cannot be dismissed nor verified.Although North Korea had contemplated developing nuclear weapons for years, its 1992 joint declaration with South Korea on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula held promise for a safe future. However, US President G.W. Bush's inclusion of North Korea (along with Iraq and Iran) in his 2002 Axis of Evil speech convinced Pyongyang that the US threat required nuclear weapons for North Korea's protection. It withdrew from the NPT and in 2006 detonated its first nuclear device.Burns and Coyle offer an important discussion of nuclear weapon-free zones (NWFZ)-a topic largely ignored in the US. These zones consist of groups of states that prohibit nuclear weapons on their land, sea, and air. They also agree to IAEA inspections. NWFZs are found in Central and South America, Africa, Southeast Asia, the South Pacific and Central Asia. Each NWFZ treaty contains protocols asking the five official NWS not to use their nukes against members of the zone and to keep their nukes out of the zone. Although US President Barak Obama has submitted several of these protocols to the Senate for its approval, the Senate has not acted on them. Because four of the five NWFZ are located in the Southern Hemisphere, the UN General Assembly sought to pass a resolution making the Southern Hemisphere totally void of nuclear weapons. The resulting vote was 165 in favor with only four (US, UK, France, Russia) opposed.In the opening chapter, the authors misleadingly state that Iran called for establishing a NWFZ in the Middle East in 2007. In fact, the UN General Assembly endorsed calls for the establishment of a NWFZ in a resolution approved in 1974 following a proposal by Iran and Egypt. …