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This
May, the United Nations will be holding a review conference on the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a key nuclear arms control and disarmament
agreement to which 188 countries are now parties.
Originally proposed by
the U.S. and Soviet governments, the NPT was signed at the United Nations in
1968 and went into force in 1970. Under its provisions, non-nuclear nations
agreed to renounce the development of nuclear weapons and nuclear-armed nations
agreed to divest themselves of their nuclear weapons through good faith
negotiations for nuclear disarmament. In this fashion, nations on both sides of
the Cold War divide signaled their intention to halt the nuclear arms race and
move toward a nuclear-free world.
For decades, there was substantial
progress along these lines. Non-nuclear nations refrained from building nuclear
weapons. And the nuclear powers, despite their frantic stockpiling of nuclear
weapons to bolster their world dominance, signed a series of important nuclear
arms control and disarmament treaties: the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty;
two Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties; the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty;
two Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties; and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. At
times, they even reduced their nuclear forces unilaterally. As a result, by the
late 1990s, no additional nations belonged to the nuclear club, while the number
of nuclear weapons deployed by the nuclear nations or in their stockpiles
declined dramatically.
Since 1998, however, the nuclear arms race began
to revive. Determined to place their nations within the ranks of the nuclear
powers, the governments of India and Pakistan exploded their first nuclear
weapons that year. Since then, they have engaged in dangerous and mutually
threatening nuclear buildups. Other non-nuclear nations, including North Korea,
took the first steps toward going nuclear, though the extent of their progress
along these lines remains uncertain.
The nuclear powers, with the United
States taking the lead, also began to abandon their NPT commitments. In 1999,
the U.S. Senate stunned much of the world, including U.S. allies, by rejecting
ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Taking office in 2001, the
administration of George W. Bush withdrew the United States from the ABM Treaty,
opposed ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, began deployment of a
missile defense system, pressed for the development of new U.S. nuclear weapons,
and abandoned negotiations for nuclear disarmament. Responding sharply to U.S.
withdrawal from the ABM Treaty and U.S. plans for missile defense, the Russian
government announced its intention to deploy a new generation of nuclear
missiles. And China might not be far behind.
Why has there been a
reversal of earlier progress toward a nuclear-free world?
A key factor
behind the turnabout is the decline of popular pressure for nuclear
disarmament.
Rival nations -- and before their existence, rival
territories -- have always gravitated toward military buildups. This is based on
the assumption -- what might be called the "old thinking" -- that national
security is best achieved through military strength. Not surprisingly, then, in
a world of competing and sometimes hostile nations, governments are tempted to
develop nuclear weapons to secure what they consider their "national interests."
Thus, beginning during World War II and continuing during the Cold War, a
growing number of rival governments commenced developing powerful nuclear
arsenals.
Fortunately, however, the nuclear arms race of the Cold War era
inspired widespread public resistance -- resistance that took the form of mass
movements for nuclear disarmament, feisty antinuclear marches and rallies, and
public critiques of nuclear weapons by religious bodies, scientists, and
cultural leaders. Polls found public opinion strongly opposed to nuclear
buildups and nuclear wars. As a result, governments were pushed, often
reluctantly, into agreements for nuclear arms control and
disarmament.
But, since the end of the Cold War, the mass nuclear
disarmament movements of the past have declined dramatically and public
awareness of and about nuclear weapons has dwindled. Furthermore, much of the
lingering public concern has been manipulated by cynical government officials to
bolster their own policies -- as when the Bush administration exaggerated the
Iraqi government's readiness to wage nuclear war in order to justify its
invasion of Iraq. Thus, freed of the constraint of popular pressure for
international nuclear disarmament, governments gradually jettisoned their NPT
commitments.
The situation, however, may be changing once more. Just as
the nuclear arms race of the Cold War era inspired massive popular protest, the
reviving nuclear arms race of recent years is beginning to generate substantial
public opposition.
Much of this public opposition is crystallizing around
the May 2005 NPT review conference at the United Nations, where nuclear and
non-nuclear nations almost certainly will condemn one another for reneging on
their treaty commitments. United for Peace and Justice (the major peace
coalition in the United States), along with Abolition 2000 (a group focused on
the nuclear issue), is laying plans for a nuclear abolition march and rally in
New York City on May 1, the day before the review conference convenes. Noting
that the NPT is "in serious disarray," the organizers of these events have
called for "a massive demonstration" to "demand global nuclear disarmament and
an end to nuclear excuses for war." Large antinuclear meetings and other related
events are taking shape in numerous American cities, with informed speakers
drawn from political, academic, and cultural life.
International
organizations are also focusing their efforts on the NPT review conference.
Stressing the importance of the gathering, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War is mobilizing for it
as part of a Campaign for a Nuclear-Weapons-Free 21st Century. Mayors for Peace,
an organization of top municipal officials from more than 700 cities around the
world, has become particularly active in pressing the case for nuclear
abolition. Headed by Hiroshima's mayor, Akiba Tadatoshi, Mayors for Peace will
be sending a substantial delegation to the NPT review conference for this
purpose. It will be joined there by a group of Japanese hibakusha, who desire to
make their presence felt at the United Nations in this sixtieth anniversary year
of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Thus, at this time of
widespread uncertainty about the future of the NPT -- and, more broadly, about
the future of nuclear arms control and disarmament -- there are signs that
popular pressure is developing to put the world back on track toward nuclear
disarmament. Whether this pressure will prove powerful enough to save the NPT
remains to be seen. But there is certainly movement on this front. Fortunately,
in the most dangerous of circumstances, people have a tendency to rise to the
occasion.
Lawrence S. Wittner is Professor of History at the State University of
New York, Albany. His latest book is Toward Nuclear Abolition (Stanford University Press). This is
a slightly revised version of an article he wrote that was published on March
21, 2005 by the History News Network. Posted March 22,
2005.