Nuclear weapons in the 1990s and beyond
- RAND Corp., Santa Monica, CA (United States)
This chapter explores on a country-by-country and region-by-region basis the factors that will influence the debates concerning nuclear weapons in both the nuclear and nonnuclear states. The recent political changes in Europe and longer-term developments such as the continuing diffusion of economic and technological power throughout the world are calling into question basic assumptions about the compatibility of the existing nuclear order with other aspects of the international system. Together the United States and the former Soviet Union possess over 95 percent of the nuclear warheads in existence, but only about 10 percent of world population and 35 percent of gross national product. France and Britain have large and growing nuclear arsenals, while Japan and Germany, both of which have larger populations and economies and exposed geopolitically, are barred from access to nuclear weapons. In the third world there is lingering resentment at the perceived efforts by the great powers to deny nuclear weapons to rising regional influentials in the case of important countries such as India, Israel, and South Africa. More fundamentally, there is uncertainty about the very identity of at least three of the five declared nuclear powers. France and Britain are engaged in a long-term process that could lead to full political union in a larger European Community. Meanwhile, the former Soviet Union has moved in the opposite direction and at a far more rapid pace. The August 1991 coup and its aftermath severely weakened central control in Moscow, leading to declarations of independence by the union republic. Nuclear weapons almost certainly will play less of a role in structuring a bipolar American-Russian competition, but they could well play a more dangerous and destabilizing role in the third world, as well as Japan, Germany, and other countries previously thought of as middle powers that are now assuming greater global importance. 5 refs.
- OSTI ID:
- 105168
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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