International Actions to Stop and Reverse Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons

Abstract

The world faces a full agenda of urgent on-going or proposed actions designed to reduce sharply the short- and long-term likelihood of nuclear war. All the items on this agenda are significantly interconnected. My focus here is on some of the items of this agenda that relate especially to controlling the spread of nuclear weapons. These are listed below in a sequence of scheduled or possible times for their completion: 1. Initial rounds of unofficial comparative assessments of Gorbachev’s proposal to eliminate all nuclear weapons (Zero Nuclear Arsenals, or ZNA) by the year 2000, Gandhi’s proposal to do this no later than 2010, and various proposals for present Nuclear Weapon States (NWS) to maintain finite, but much smaller than present sized nuclear deterrent forces (Finite Nuclear Arsenals, or FNA) for the forseeable future (i. e. for at least the next three decades) — preliminary assessments by various, probably non-governmental groups, published before the end of 1989; 2. Convening of the first conference to consider amendments to the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (PTB) that would convert it into a Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTB) — possibly by April 1990, or a year after the formal requests, completed in April 1989, by the 39 parties to the PTB needed for such a conference to be required; 3. Continued negotiations of the START Treaty between the USA and USSR, calling for about 50 percent reduction in deliverable strategic nuclear warheads of each country — possibly in force by mid-1990; 4. Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference — August 1990; 5. Adoption or rejection of a CTB, as formulated by initial and later conferences of parties to the LTB — after mid-1990; 6. As yet unspecified actions related to binding commitments by the nuclear superpowers to achieve specified short- and long-term goals related to nuclear disarmament, especially as they relate to their responsibilities under Article 6 of the NPT — prior to 1995; 7. Conference of parties to the NPT to decide whether to prolong the Treaty indefinitely or for an additional fixed period or periods — early in 1995, if literally 25 years after the NPT went into force.