Nuclear Weapons Are Bad, But Only For Some Countries

This week talks were held at the UN to set up the agenda for next year’s renewal of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This is the main building block of world nuclear disarmament.

The 41 year old treaty has not managed to contain, or curb the spread of nuclear weapons and prevent rogue nations building their own nuclear arsenals, but it has had some success. Some former Soviet states gave up nuclear weapons and others stopped trying to develop them.

Since the treaty started in 1968, there have been 189 signatures but some key players have still not signed up. India, Pakistan and Israel have not agreed and North Korea has tested a nuclear weapon and threatens to build more, while Iran is also thought to be working on its own nuclear arsenal.

President Obama has tried to strike a deal with Moscow which would cut the two countries’ nuclear arms stocks by about one third, but Britain, France and China refuse to follow in his footsteps.

There are two ways of looking at this. We can conclude that all nuclear weapons are bad and that we should get rid of them entirely, or that they are only bad if some countries have them. There seems to be a touch of George Orwell’s ‘All animals shall be equal, but some shall be more equal than others’ going on here.

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. http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/631710