Toward a nuclear weapons free world?

Conference · Sun Sep 01 00:00:00 EDT 1996

OSTI ID:378798

Maaranen, S A ^[1]

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1. Los Alamos National Lab., NM (United States). Center for International Security Affairs

Doubts about the wisdom of relying on nuclear weapons are as old as nuclear weapons themselves. But despite this questioning, nuclear weapons came to be seen as the indispensable element of American (indeed Western) security during the Cold War. By the 1970s and 1980s, however, discontent was growing about the intense US-Soviet nuclear arms competition, as it failed to provide any enduring improvement in security; rather, it was seen as creating ever greater risks and dangers. Arms control negotiations and limitations, adopted as a means to regulate the technical competition, may also have relieved some of the political pressures and dangers. But the balance of terror, and the fears of it, continued. The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) under President Reagan was a very different approach to escaping from the precarious protection of nuclear weapons, in that it sought a way to continue to defend the US and the West, but without the catastrophic risks of mutual deterrence. As such, SDI connoted unhappiness with the precarious nuclear balance and, for many, with nuclear weapons in general. The disappearance of the Warsaw Pact, the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and the sudden end of the Cold War seemed to offer a unique opportunity to fashion a new, more peaceful world order that might allow for fading away of nuclear weapons. Scholars have foreseen two different paths to a nuclear free world. The first is a fundamental improvement in the relationships between states such that nuclear weapons are no longer needed. The second path is through technological development, e.g., missile defenses which could provide effective protection against nuclear attacks. The paper discusses nuclear weapon policy in the US, views of other nuclear states, the future of nuclear weapons, and issues in a less-nuclear world.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-36
• OSTI ID: 378798
• Report Number(s): LA-UR-96-2971; CONF-9608135-1; ON: DE96014805; TRN: AHC29620%%10
• Resource Relation: Conference: Is a nuclear weapons from world possible? Threats and problems related to the reduction of nuclear weapons, Helsinki (Finland), Aug 1996; Other Information: PBD: [1996]
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

35 ARMS CONTROL
45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEFENSE
29 ENERGY PLANNING AND POLICY
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
NON-PROLIFERATION POLICY
NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY
NUCLEAR DETERRENCE
NATIONAL SECURITY
NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT
NUCLEAR WEAPONS DISMANTLEMENT
USA
UNITED KINGDOM
FRANCE
RUSSIAN FEDERATION
INDIA
PAKISTAN
ISRAEL
BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE