Nuclear disarmament

Nuclear disarmament is the act of reducing or eliminating nuclear weapons. Its end state can also be a nuclear-weapons-free world, in which nuclear weapons are completely eliminated. The term denuclearization is also used to describe the process leading to complete nuclear disarmament.^[2]^[3]

Disarmament and non-proliferation treaties have been agreed upon because of the extreme danger intrinsic to nuclear war and the possession of nuclear weapons.

Proponents of nuclear disarmament say that it would lessen the probability of nuclear war occurring, especially considering accidents or retaliatory strikes from false alarms.^[4] Critics of nuclear disarmament say that it would undermine deterrence and make conventional wars more common.

Organizations[edit]

Nuclear disarmament groups include the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Peace Action, Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, Greenpeace, Soka Gakkai International, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Mayors for Peace, Global Zero, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. There have been many large anti-nuclear demonstrations and protests. On June 12, 1982, one million people demonstrated in New York City's Central Park against nuclear weapons and for an end to the cold war arms race. It was the largest anti-nuclear protest and the largest political demonstration in American history.^[5]^[6]

In recent years, some U.S. elder statesmen have also advocated nuclear disarmament. Sam Nunn, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and George Shultz have called upon governments to embrace the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons, and in various op-ed columns have proposed an ambitious program of urgent steps to that end. The four have created the Nuclear Security Project to advance this agenda. Organisations such as Global Zero, an international non-partisan group of 300 world leaders dedicated to eliminating all nuclear weapons, have also been established.

(PTBT) 1963: Prohibited all testing of nuclear weapons except underground.

Partial Test Ban Treaty

(NPT)—signed 1968, came into force 1970: An international treaty (currently with 189 member states) to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. The treaty has three main pillars: nonproliferation, disarmament, and the right to peacefully use nuclear technology.

Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

(SALT I) 1972: The Soviet Union and the United States agreed to a freeze in the number of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) that they would deploy.

Interim Agreement on Offensive Arms

(ABM) 1972: The United States and Soviet Union could deploy ABM interceptors at two sites, each with up to 100 ground-based launchers for ABM interceptor missiles. In a 1974 Protocol, the US and Soviet Union agreed to only deploy an ABM system to one site.

Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty

(SALT II) 1979: Replacing SALT I, SALT II limited both the Soviet Union and the United States to an equal number of ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers, and heavy bombers. Also placed limits on Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicles (MIRVS).

Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty

(INF) 1987: Banned US and Soviet Union land-based ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and missile launchers with ranges of 500–1,000 kilometers (310–620 mi) (short medium-range) and 1,000–5,500 km (620–3,420 mi) (intermediate-range).

Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty

(START I)—signed 1991, ratified 1994: Limited long-range nuclear forces in the United States and the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union to 6,000 attributed warheads on 1,600 ballistic missiles and bombers.

Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty

(START II)—signed 1993, never put into force: START II was a bilateral agreement between the US and Russia which attempted to commit each side to deploy no more than 3,000 to 3,500 warheads by December 2007 and also included a prohibition against deploying multiple independent reentry vehicles (MIRVs) on intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs)

Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty II

(SORT or Moscow Treaty)—signed 2002, into force 2003: A very loose treaty that is often criticized by arms control advocates for its ambiguity and lack of depth, Russia and the United States agreed to reduce their "strategic nuclear warheads" (a term that remained undefined in the treaty) to between 1,700 and 2,200 by 2012. Was superseded by New Start Treaty in 2010.

Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty

(CTBT)—signed 1996, not yet in force: The CTBT is an international treaty (currently with 181 state signatures and 148 state ratifications) that bans all nuclear explosions in all environments. While the treaty is not in force, Russia has not tested a nuclear weapon since 1990 and the United States has not since 1992.^[62]

Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty

—signed 2010, into force in 2011: replaces SORT treaty, reduces deployed nuclear warheads by about half, will remain into force until 2026.

New START Treaty

—signed 2017, entered into force on January 22, 2021: prohibits possession, manufacture, development, and testing of nuclear weapons, or assistance in such activities, by its parties.

Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

(RRW): This program seeks to replace existing warheads with a smaller number of warhead types designed to be easier to maintain without testing. Critics charge that this would lead to a new generation of nuclear weapons and would increase pressures to test.^[70] Congress has not funded this program.

Reliable Replacement Warhead Program

Complex Transformation: Complex transformation, formerly known as Complex 2030, is an effort to shrink the U.S. nuclear weapons complex and restore the ability to produce "pits", the fissile cores of the primaries of U.S. thermonuclear weapons. Critics see it as an upgrade to the entire nuclear weapons complex to support the production and maintenance of the new generation of nuclear weapons. Congress has not funded this program.

: Formally known as the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP), this program aimed to modify an existing gravity bomb to penetrate into soil and rock in order to destroy underground targets. Critics argue that this would lower the threshold for use of nuclear weapons. Congress did not fund this proposal, which was later withdrawn.

Nuclear bunker buster

: Formerly known as National Missile Defense, this program seeks to build a network of interceptor missiles to protect the United States and its allies from incoming missiles, including nuclear-armed missiles. Critics have argued that this would impede nuclear disarmament and possibly stimulate a nuclear arms race. Elements of missile defense are being deployed in Poland and the Czech Republic, despite Russian opposition.

Missile Defense

Declared nuclear weapon states not party to the NPT:

[75]

List of countries' nuclear weapons development status represented by color.

While the vast majority of states have adhered to the stipulations of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, a few states have either refused to sign the treaty or have pursued nuclear weapons programs while not being members of the treaty. Many view the pursuit of nuclear weapons by these states as a threat to nonproliferation and world peace.^[74]

Semiotics[edit]

The precise use of terminology in the context of disarmament may have important implications for political Signaling theory.^[78] In the case of North Korea, "denuclearization" has historically been interpreted as different from "disarmament" by including withdrawal of American nuclear capabilities from the region.^[79] More recently, this term has become provocative due to its comparisons to the collapse of the Gaddafi regime after disarmament.^[80] The Biden administration has been criticized for its reaffirming of a strategy of denuclearization with Korea and Japan, as opposed to a "freeze" or "pause" on new nuclear developments.^[81]^[82]^[83]^[84]

Similarly, the term "irreversible" has been argued to set an impossible standard for states to disarm.^[85]

Freeman, Stephanie L. Dreams for a Decade: International Nuclear Abolitionism and the End of the Cold War (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023). 978-1-5128-2422-3

ISBN

Kostenko, Y., & D’Anieri, P. (2021). Ukraine’s Nuclear Disarmament: A History (S. Krasynska, L. Wolanskyj, & O. Jennings, Trans.). Cambridge: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute.

New Video: A World Without Nuclear Weapons

Archived December 12, 2015, at the Wayback Machine—Arms Control and Disarmament

Nuclear Files.org

Archived February 3, 2006, at the Wayback Machine

Annotated bibliography for nuclear arms control from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues

or NPIHP is a global network of individuals and institutions engaged in the study of international nuclear history through archival documents, oral history interviews and other empirical sources.

The Woodrow Wilson Center's Nuclear Proliferation International History Project

Council for a Livable World

Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

TV documentary report on 2005 NPT Review crisis

People v The Bomb: Showdown at the UN

William Walker, , Proliferation Papers, Paris, Ifri, Winter 2009

"President-elect Obama and Nuclear Disarmament. Between Elimination and Restraint."

Robert S. Norris & Hans M. Kristensen,

"Nuclear U.S. and Soviet/Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles, 1959-2008"

Robert S. Norris & Hans M. Kristensen, , Nuclear Notebook, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

"U.S. nuclear forces, 2009"

Seiitsu Tachibana, "Bush administration's nuclear weapons policy : New obstacles to nuclear disarmament" Hiroshima Peace Science, Vol. 24, pages 105-133 (2002)