Blog
Global Issues - NPT Review Underway [Updated]
4th May 2010
The NPT Review kicked off today, not without controversy. The BBC has the details.
Also, the CFR have a cery comprehensive ‘backgrounder’ entitled ‘Fifteeen Nuclear Agendas to Watch”.
At the Financial Times, Gideon Rachman in an article headed “A nuclear-free world? No thanks” argues that the dream of a nuclear-free world is a necessary piece of western hypocrisy and contends that a world without nuclear weapons would actually be more dangerous, but it is not politically correct to say openly that they are more worrying in the hands of unstable states such as Iran.
A world without nuclear weapons would be dangerous, writes Gideon Rachman. Nobody can prove that nuclear weapons have kept the peace among the world’s main powers since 1945. But it is likely that countries have been operating in the knowledge that conflict between nuclear-armed states is just too dangerous to consider. The balance of terror works. A world free of nuclear weapons would look very different. War between big powers would once again become thinkable. Deprived of nuclear weapons, the world’s most powerful states might also put more effort and money into more conventional arms, such as chemical and biological weapons. However, a nuclear weapon in the hands of a North Korea or an Iran is inherently more worrying than its possession by more stable nations. This is a hard argument to make stick in the politically correct environment of the UN. This is why pretending to believe in total nuclear disarmament may be a necessary piece of western hypocrisy.