The last decade of the 20th century saw the world enter a much healthier phase in terms of nuclear threat. Not at any time since the post world war period had the world been in such a commanding position to halt the spread of weapons of mass destruction. A number of momentous developments took place all of which helped reinforce the ‘nuclear taboo’. “Under current arms-reductions accords, entire categories of weapons (intermediate-range missiles) have been eliminated, and after START II and III are implemented, U.S and Russian nuclear arsenals will have been reduced by nearly 90 per cent from their Cold War peaks”. Also of considerable significance, particularly for Greenpeace was the treaty banning all nuclear tests (CTBT), they had been campaigning for 25 years and hailed the news as “opening up the way to a world free of the threat of nuclear weapons”. This period saw nations all over the world forswearing membership into the nuclear club. Belarus, Kazakhstan and the Ukraine each gave up the nuclear weapons that they had inherited in order to aid the path toward becoming legitimate Western nations. Although much of the reasoning for this was based upon financial incentives and security assurances from major western powers. Similarly regime changes in both Brazil and Argentina resulted in democratisation winning through whilst unaccountable military regimes, determined to pursue nuclear programmes moved aside.
Although during the late 1990’s great strides were made there were nevertheless problems achieving the huge developments that many world powers were striving for. “The period 1995-1998 was marked by a gradual deterioration in the climate and achievement of international nuclear relations, and by mounting frustration over the inability to take matters further on a number of fronts”. This chain of thought was born out of Russia’s continuing slow progress in implementing plutonium and highly enriched uranium disposition programmes; and then most recently the Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests. William Walker gives two explanations for this turn in fortunes. The first one is based around the belief that increased utility came to be attached to nuclear weapons in most of the nuclear states. Nuclear weapons did not regain the central roles ascribed to them during the Cold War, but they did begin to gain fresh importance in certain political and military contexts. In consequence, some arms control measures that entailed further restraint on nuclear powers became more elusive”. The second explanation centres upon nuclear arms control objectives and processes becoming tangled and confused, partly out of deliberate intent and partly because states found themselves confronted with dilemmas to which there were no ready solutions.
The significance of nuclear weapons for contemporary world politics can be seen by the political standoff in Asia. Following India’s refusal to endorse the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in August 1996 and the subsequent testing of their nuclear capabilities there was much concern the world over about how to deal with this. “There was a palpable sense of violation, of hard-won and cherished norms being trampled by an exultant India, and of neighbours being threatened with intimidation.” Concerns were then heightened following the decision of Pakistan to respond to Indian testing by conducting their own tests on May 28th and 30th 1998. Since the Cold War there had been a general feeling that nuclear issues were slowly being eroded from political agenda. This sudden turn of events altered this incomprehensibly and led some to question, “what kind of India, and what kind of Asia, are emerging in these late years of the century? Are we threatened by a renewed militirization and nuclearization – of interstate relations?” This merely provides one example of the superpower build-down having very little effect upon the status of threshold or opaque nuclear powers. In fact quite the opposite, years after the Gulf War had finished the Indian Prime Minister was asked if he had learnt any lessons from it, to which his response was, “never fight the U.S without nuclear weapons”.
The traditional line of thought regarding nuclear weapon acquisition is regularly given as a means of deterrence. In the international climate there are many alliances between states, through treaties or bilateral agreements. For example Pakistan is under the U.S umbrella, this could have been seen to be a reason for India to develop nuclear weapons to deter the U.S using them if future conflict were to occur between Pakistan and India. This leads us to another reason as to why states acquire nuclear arms, if a state perceives a possible conflict with another state – maybe due to a history of conflict, or differing ideological, religious views – then that state may wish to obtain nuclear warheads as a deterrent against invasion. As K. Waltz argues, “nuclear weapons dissuade states from going to war more surely than conventional weapons do”. The National Academy of Sciences in the U.S also come up with a similar conclusion surrounding the effects that these weapons have, “as long as nuclear weapons exist…this very existence will exert a deterrent effect against unrestricted conventional war among major powers”.
S.D. Sagan argues that there are three main reasons for states to obtain nuclear weapons: - for security, domestic politics or because of the creation of norms throughout international society. The security point refers to the need for a country to be able to compete on an even scale with its rivals, and for this reason it must at the very least have similar capabilities. However, as Sagan appreciates this may lead to an international domino effect, “every time one state develops nuclear weapons to balance against it’s main rival, it also creates a nuclear threat to another state in the region, which then has to initiate its own nuclear weapons programme to maintain its national security”. With regard to contemporary world politics, one may equate the situation in India and Pakistan, mentioned above, to a similar trend. Pakistan would certainly not have acted as they did were it not for the developments that had taken place in nearby India and the threat that they perceived this to be.
The second explanation revolves around individuals within the state pursuing the development of nuclear weapons in order to further their own interests, for example in order for a politician to maintain or regenerate their popularity within the state. An example of this was in India when in 1974, India tested out its first nuclear weaponry after domestic support for the then Prime Minister Gandhi, had been at an all-time low due to a prolonged and severe recession. Sagan suggests that, “it would be highly surprising for a politician with such problems to resist what she knew was a major opportunity to increase her standing in public opinion polls and to defuse an issue about which she had been criticised by her domestic opponents”. However it must be noted that domestic political reasons cannot be suggested to be the common place reasoning for the obtaining of arms, it may well encourage decisions regarding nuclear weapons, but it is by no means likely to be the sole reason.
Sagan’s third explanation as to why states acquire nuclear weapons is that of the norms. By norms it is meant the international beliefs that become legitimised and appropriate internationally. Therefore this can be seen that the signal to the rest of the world in the cold war era was that the development of nuclear arms was acceptable, after all the five big powers in the security council were doing so. As Sagan states, “nuclear weapons programmes serve symbolic functions reflecting leaders perceptions of appropriate and modern behaviour”. Michael Renner also agrees with this suggestion by stating that, “the continued possession of nuclear weapons by a few countries, even small numbers, perpetuates the idea that they constitute a legitimate instrument for national defence…it lends legitimacy to other countries’ efforts to acquire them”. Therefore maybe it could be suggested that nuclear weapons breed nuclear weapons, just by some countries having them – especially five very prominent states – legitimises other countries seeking them.
Much of the contemporary issues regarding nuclear weapons has revolved around the relationship between two of the world’s major powers, Russia and the U.S. Throughout the last decade of the 20th century Russia began to increasingly feel weaker in terms of their political, economic and military power. Therefore Russia saw NATO expansion as delivering a new lease of life to nuclear weapons. All of a sudden they became an “unassailable symbol emblem of Russian power”. As the U.S looked on they concerned themselves, more with the possibility that Russian nuclear technology may fall into the wrong hands, as opposed to an actual revival of Russian nuclear might. Nuclear weapons in the hands of rogue organisations was of premium importance to the U.S. due largely to the fact that the U.S are unlikely to ever believe that a major power would be prepared to let off a nuclear explosion. Israel used nuclear weapons in order to bargain with the U.S. They hoped that the U.S would in times of crisis help them out by whatever means were necessary. “Its alarm was infectious in the United States, and indeed may deliberately have been relayed to Washington in an attempt to bind America into the protection of the Israeli governments political and security agendas”.
In an era where Bosnia-type conflicts are the norm, I believe it is hard to imagine a scenario in which nuclear force would be unleashed. The only possible situation being “a pre-emptive attack upon a buried weapons of mass destruction research facility that would be invulnerable to conventional weapons”. In the current climate of contemporary world politics, it would be ill-judged not to mention nuclear terrorism by non-state actors. In such a case, for example with Osama Bin Laden, nuclear weapons have no use as a deterrent. The simple reason being that if he was to launch an assault on the U.S, for example, they would have no means of a come back, due to the fact that as a non-state actor he has no known territory.
In conclusion, it appears that although amongst the world’s most powerful countries there seems to be consensus in reducing the proliferation of nuclear weapons, amongst the smaller nations weapons of mass destruction continue to play a large part in contemporary world politics in their use as what Manning describes as the “ultimate insurance policy”, therefore continuing to have enormous relevance and implications to contemporary world politics. As Manning states, “whether as a hedge against uncertainty in the case of China and Russia, as a means of security assurances for allies, or as a means of reversing proliferation, nuclear weapons remain part of the global and regional security equation”.
Bibliography
- Bracken. P, 2000, Jan – Feb, The Second Nuclear Age’, Foreign Affairs vol. 79(1)
-
Kegley C.W. and Wittkopf E.R., 1995, The Global Agenda; Issues and Perspectives (4th Ed.), McGraw-Hill Inc., USA
- Manning. R, 1997/8, ‘The Nuclear Age: The Next Chapter’, Foreign Policy No. 109
- Sagan, S.D., 1996/7, ‘Why do states build nuclear weapons? Three models in search of a bomb’, International Security 21(3)
- Walker. W, 1998 July, ‘International nuclear relations after the Indian and Pakistani test explosions’, International Affairs 74(3)
- http://www.greenpeace.com
World Politics – 03EUB303
-
Kegley (ed.), 1995, p. 63
