The IAEA Director General, Yukiya Amano recently mentioned that “as a human being, as Director General of the IAEA – and not least as a citizen of the only country ever to experience the unspeakable horror of nuclear bombs – I believe with all my heart and soul that these horrific weapons must be eliminated.” What is unique in his statement is that such talk of a nuclear-weapons-free world has almost but vanished even from the lexicons of peaceniks. You see, it’s now considered childish to recommend such paradigm reversing objectives. Nuclear weapons are surely here to stay… or are they? Could there really be a possibility of a nuclear-weapons-free world? Well, as one defence commentator put it to yours truly, if India could eradicate polio, then anything is possible. Not many might remember that the Nuclear Weapons Convention (NWC) has actually aimed at the complete elimination of nuclear weapons. Those in the know would remember the global campaign called “Global Zero” which was launched in Paris in 2008 for the elimination of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Yet, against the backdrop of the renewed nuclear race – encompassing Iran, India, Pakistan, Korea, China etcetera – it’s quite unlikely that the philosophies of the NWC or Global Zero campaigns would cut any ice with the global warlocks.
As per various estimates, there are more than 23,000 nuclear warheads active in the world, most with the old foxes (America and Russia primarily); that’s one reason that nouveau entrants into the nuclear club too have all their guns blazing. North Korea, which conducted its third nuclear test last month, stated that they are developing this, targeting the US over its hostile interference in Pyongyang. Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who had urged the elimination of nuclear weapons previously, has warned that “no power could stop us if we are forced to build that.” And the less said about Pakistan, the better.
While US President Obama did mention his objective “to secure the peace of the world without nuclear weapons” in his initial addresses in 2009, he ignored such a mention in his January 2013 inaugural address. Even Senator John Kerry recently admitted that “a nuclear-weapons-free world is no more than an aspiration.” Yet, one cannot deny that nuclear weapons have not been used since 1945. For instance, the United States and Soviet Union were ready to accept their embarrassing defeat in their wars in Afghanistan and Vietnam rather than use nuclear weapons for a desperate win. South Africa has rejected nuclear weapons post the Cold War. Even Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan have decided to abandon the weapons they inherited from the Soviet Union. Sweden, Brazil, Argentina, and Taiwan too have apparently dismantled their programmes. Reports mention that over the last 30 years, the world has diminished its number of nuclear weapons by 70 per cent. So is a nuclear-weapons-free world really possible? As the peaceniks effusively say, no harm trying.
