Nuclear disarmament: why isn't it happening?
@edit = France's decision to resume nuclear tests in the Pacific has galvanised world opinion against the irrationality of nuclear weapons. Since the end of the Cold War, the vanishing of the "Soviet threat", which served as the pretext for western nuclear stockpiles, has given an added logic to the demand for the abolition of all nuclear weapons.
@edit = The nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which came into force in 1970, has provided a framework, not for disarmament, but for the major powers to maintain and expand their arsenals. More than 170 states have signed the treaty, which divides the world into nuclear haves — led by the US, France, Britain, China and Russia — and have nots.
@edit = Recently extended indefinitely and unconditionally, on the assurance from nuclear states that they would hasten towards signing a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) as the first step towards eventual nuclear disarmament, the NPT actually enhances the nuclear states' monopoly. The treaty does not ban the further development of nuclear weapons by those states which already possess them, and it perpetuates a massive military inequality between the superpowers and the rest of the world. The extension of the NPT has meant a delay in signing the CTBT.
@edit = This blatant manipulation of a treaty which theoretically was meant to reduce the nuclear threat is maintained via some PR manoeuvres. The first of these is the demonisation of particular Third World governments as a replacement for the "Soviet threat". These "rogue states" are portrayed as irrationally aggressive and usually as bent on acquiring nuclear weapons. Categorisation as a "rogue state" depends on the conjunctural needs of US foreign policy and such states have included Iraq, Iran, Libya and North Korea.
@edit = Meanwhile, the US is undermining the CTBT even before it's signed by pushing to change the definition of "high threshold" tests, i.e. those that would be banned. The US has proposed lifting the ceiling for an "experiment" from its current 1.8 kilos of TNT to 305-508 tonnes.
@edit = International agreements already declare the illegality of nuclear weapons, including the Geneva Convention, the Nuremberg Charter, the Hague Declaration and the Charter of the United Nations.
@edit = Nevertheless, it is clear that for the major powers, not getting rid of weapons is the aim. There would be no "need" for nuclear tests if it were not for the intent to maintain nuclear stockpiles indefinitely.
@edit = A 1992 Pentagon document asserts that "credible and capable nuclear forces are essential for national security. The potential aggressor must believe the United States could and would use nuclear weapons to attain its security objectives."
@edit = Which aggressor? Which "rogue" government is preparing to land an invasion fleet on Oahu or Cape Cod? Behind the Pentagon gibberish, what is really at stake is the maintenance of an international system of divide and rule, of a small number of major powers reaping huge material rewards from dominating the rest of the world. The threat to use nuclear weapons is a warning to the poor countries not to be "aggressive" towards the profits of western multinationals.
@edit = Nuclear weapons are one part of the entire arsenal which imperialism is prepared to use to maintain its dominance, including conventional warfare, starvation, "structural adjustment" and enforced poverty. That's why there's no progress towards nuclear disarmament.