Nuclear Non-Proliferation Regime and The Soviet Union

Abstract

An international regime may broadly consist of a ‘set of purposes, norms, rules and procedures’, which are intended to affect, channel, contain and shape patterns of behaviour. Such a “‘regime is cither a conscious creation’ of actors or at least is recognised and consciously used by them regardless of its manner of creation.”1 The nuclear non-proliferation regime which the Nuclear Weapons States (NWS)—USA, USSR and UK, had sought to establish ever since the 1960s fulfils most of the parameters of the international regime. The germs of the non-proliferation regime can be traced back to the policy of denial and secrecy adopted by the United States and the Soviet Union in the early phases of the development of nuclear energy and technology. The Western Suppliers’ Group (WSG), a precursor of the 1975 Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), formed in 1954 at the initiative of the United States, was meant even at that time to control the sales of uranium to prevent the spread of nuclear capabilities. The WSG consisted of South Africa, Britain, Canada, France, Belgium, Australia and the United States. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which was established in 1957 with the concurrence and explicit support of the Soviet Union, was on the one hand meant to provide the peaceful use of nuclear energy and on the other to create an international safeguards system to check and control the diversion of nuclear materials for non-peaceful purposes. Over the years the IAEA with all its safeguard measures has emerged as the key component and instrument of the international non-proliferation regime.