World without nuclear arms

Sunday, 20 Dec, 2009

The nuclear disarmament agreement between Washington and Moscow that is billed as the successor to START 1991 has yet to be inked. It is unlikely that the follow-up treaty will be signed by end December, as was expected. Negotiators from both sides have been reiterating that there are no major obstacles. According to them agreement has been reached on all major questions but the finer details have to be wrapped up.

The fact is that Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev agreed in July on a framework for the new treaty restricting the number of deployed strategic warheads to 1,500-1,675 which will be a substantial cut from the 2,200 agreed upon under the 2005 Moscow treaty. Hence the new agreement is important because Russia and the US hold 95 per cent of the world’s nuclear weapons and the cuts they agree upon will send a crucial message in the wider global perspective.

Considering the massive stockpile of nuclear arms in a number of countries, the world today is a more dangerous place than ever before. As the two co-chairmen of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament pointed out, command and control systems are more susceptible to error than commonly believed. In other words, if leaders are serious about saving the world from a nuclear holocaust, they should strive for a nuclear-free world. In April President Obama had promised exactly this but the path to that end appears to be rocky.

Short-term measures such as nuclear no-proliferation, a fissile material cut-off treaty, agreement on preventing an arms race in outer space and negative security assurances will help in the disarmament process. But as long as the principle of total nuclear disarmament is not accepted and an effort made towards that end, it is futile to hope for a world safe from nuclear hazards.