Abolish Nuclear Weapons

Abolish Nuclear Weapons

By Dr Arvind Kumar

The total global inventory of nuclear weapons comprises about 22,400 weapons, of which 5,500 are strategic nukes, 2,550 non-strategic nukes and remaining 7,700 are operational ones. This inventory can cause destruction of this planet many thousand times. The new START treaty between US and Russia is a welcome step towards gradual march towards nuclear disarmament. During the Cold War era, the nuclear pentapoly had decried the sceptre of horizontal proliferation and the developing countries voiced their concern over vertical proliferation and insisted on their right to harness nulear energy for peaceful purposes. Even at the cusp of the second decade of new millennium, the situation has become graver than it was during the Cold War.

Horizontal proliferation has become more threatening because of emergence of new nuclear actors like Israel, India and Pakistan possessing nukes and North Korea and Iran scrambling for acquring them. Any arms control mechanism is meaningless unless all certified as well as potential nuclear powers are not involved in such talks. It is welcome measure that Washington and Moscow are gradually treading along the path of limiting proliferation. However, other countries should also be made part of negotiations designed to limit and ultimately abolishing nuclear weapons. The involvement of Israel, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Iran is almost a sine qua non for realizing the goal of nuclear disarmament and make this world safe. At a time when our existence is already threatened by climate change, the need for taking concrete measures towards liquidation of nuclear weapons becomes more desirable.