Nuclear Disarmament Gets Critical, by Praful Bidwai

What you are allowed to think and what you do think are two different things, aren't they? That's another way of saying that this forum may be NSFW, if your boss is a Republican. A liberal won't fire you for it, but they'll laugh at you in the break room and you may not get promoted. Unless you're an engineer, of course, in which your obsession with facing reality is not actually a career-disabling disability.

Nuclear Disarmament Gets Critical, by Praful Bidwai

Postby admin » Wed Nov 08, 2017 5:52 am

Nuclear Disarmament Gets Critical
by Praful Bidwai
Inter Press Service
December 28, 2006

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


Image
The mushroom cloud rising over Nagasaki, Japan. The city of Nagasaki was the target of the world’s second atomic bomb attack at 11:02 a.m. on August 9, 1945.

NEW DELHI, India - Dec 28 - If prospects for nuclear weapons reduction took a turn for the worse in 2006 the New Year holds out little hope for containing proliferation.

In October 2006, eight years after India and Pakistan crossed the nuclear threshold, the world witnessed yet another breakout, when North Korea exploded an atomic bomb and demanded that it be recognised as a nuclear weapons-state. Talks aimed at persuading Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons, in return for security guarantees and economic assistance, collapsed last week.

In 2006, the ongoing confrontation between the Western powers and the Islamic Republic of Iran over its nuclear programme got dangerously aggravated. The United Nations Security Council imposed harsh sanctions on Iran but these may prove counterproductive.

Tehran dismissed the sanctions as illegal and vowed to step up its "peaceful" uranium enrichment programme. It added one more cascade of 164 uranium enrichment centrifuges during the year and is preparing to install as many as 3,000 of these machines within the next four months. (Several thousands of centrifuges are needed to build a small nuclear arsenal.)

Developments in South Asia added to this negative momentum as India and the United States took further steps in negotiating and legislating the controversial nuclear cooperation deal that they inked one-and-a-half years ago. The deal will bring India into the ambit of normal civilian nuclear commerce although it is a nuclear weapons-state and has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Meanwhile, India and Pakistan continued to test nuclear-capable missiles and sustained their long-standing mutual rivalry despite their continuing peace dialogue.

Looming large over these developments in different parts of Asia are the Great Powers, led by the U.S., whose geopolitical role as well as refusal to undertake disarmament has contributed to enhancing the global nuclear danger in 2006.

According to a just-released preliminary count by the Federation of American Scientists, eight countries launched more than 26 ballistic missiles of 23 types in 24 different events in 2006. They include the U.S., Russia, France and China, besides India, Pakistan, North Korea and Iran.

"One can list other negative contributing factors too," says Sukla Sen, a Mumbai-based activist of the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace, an umbrella of more than 250 Indian organisations. "These include U.S. plans to find new uses for nuclear armaments and develop ballistic missile defence ("Star Wars") weapons, Britain's announcement that it will modernise its "Trident" nuclear force, Japan's moves towards militarisation, and a revival of interest in nuclear technology in many countries."

"Clearly," adds Sen, "61 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world has learnt little and achieved even less so far as abolishing the nucleus scourge goes. The nuclear sword still hangs over the globe. 2006 has made the world an even more dangerous place. The time has come to advance the hands of the Doomsday Clock."

The Doomsday Clock, created by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, published from Chicago in the U.S., currently stands at seven minutes to midnight, the Final Hour. Since 1947, its minute hand has been repeatedly moved "forward and back to reflect the global level of nuclear danger and the state of international security".

The Clock was last reset in 2002, after the U.S. announced it would reject several arms control agreements, and withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which prohibits the development of "Star Wars"-style weapons.

Before that, the Doomsday Clock was advanced in 1998, from 14 minutes to midnight, to just nine minutes before the hour. This was primarily in response to the nuclear tests by India and Pakistan in May that year.

The closest the Clock moved to midnight was in 1953, when the U.S. and the USSR both tested thermonuclear weapons. The Clock's minute hand was set just two minutes short of 12.

The lowest level of danger it ever showed was in 1991, following the end of the Cold War and the signature of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The Clock then stood at 17 minutes to midnight.

"The strongest reason to move the minute hand forward today is the inflamed situation in the Middle East," argues M.V. Ramana, an independent nuclear affairs analyst currently with the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Environment and Development, Bangalore.

"Iran isn't the real or sole cause of worry. It's probably still some years away from enriching enough uranium to make a nuclear bomb. But there is this grave crisis in Iraq, which has spun out of Washington's control. And then there is Israel, which is a de facto nuclear weapons-state and is seen as a belligerent power by its neighbours in the light of the grim crisis in Palestine. All the crises in the Middle East feed into one another and aggravate matters," adds Ramana.

At the other extreme of Asia, new security equations are emerging, partly driven by the North Korean nuclear programme.

"Today, this is a key factor not only in shaping relations between the two Koreas, but the more complex and important relationship between North Korea, China, Japan and the U.S.", holds Alka Acharya, of the Centre of East Asian Studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University here.

Adds Acharya: "The U.S. has failed to resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis diplomatically. North Korea's nuclear weapons programme will spur Japan and South Korea to add to their military capacities. There is a strong lobby in Japan which wants to rewrite the country's constitution and even develop a nuclear weapons capability. Recently, Japan commissioned a study to determine how long it would take to develop a nuclear deterrent."

Japan has stockpiled hundreds of tonnes of plutonium, ostensibly for use in fast-breeder reactors. But with the fast reactor programme faltering, the possibility of diversion of the plutonium to military uses cannot be ruled out. Similarly, South Korea is likely to come under pressure to develop its own deterrent capability.

"Driving these pursuits are not just nuclear calculations, but also geopolitical factors," says Prof. Achin Vanaik who teaches international relations and global politics at Delhi University. "The U.S. plays a critical role here because of its aggressive stance and its double standards. It cannot convincingly demand that other states practise nuclear abstinence or restraint while it will keep it own nuclear weapons for 'security'. Eventually, Washington's nuclear double standards will encourage other countries to pursue nuclear weapons capabilities too."

In particular, the joint planned development of ballistic missile defence weapons by the U.S. and Japan is likely to be seen by China as a threat to its security and impel Beijing to add to its nuclear arsenal.

Adds Vanaik: "The real danger is not confined to East Asia or West Asia alone. The overall worldwide impact of the double standards practised by the nuclear weapons-states, and especially offensive moves like the Proliferation Security Initiative proposed by the U.S. to intercept 'suspect' nuclear shipments on the high seas, will be to weaken the existing global nuclear order and encourage proliferation. The U.S.-India nuclear deal sets a horribly negative example of legitimising proliferation."

"A time could soon come when a weak state or non-state actor might consider attacking the U.S. mainland with mass-destruction weapons. The kind of hatreds that the U.S. is sowing in volatile parts of the world, including the Middle East, could well result in such a catastrophe,'' Vanaik said.

The year 2006 witnessed a considerable weakening of the norms of nuclear non-proliferation. Until 1974, the world had five declared nuclear weapon-states and one covert nuclear power (Israel). At the end of this year, it has nine nuclear weapons-states -- nine too many.

No less significant in the long run is the growing temptation among many states to develop civilian nuclear power. Earlier this month, a number of Arab leaders met in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia and decided to start a joint nuclear energy development program.

"Although this doesn't spell an immediate crisis, nuclear power development can in the long run provide the technological infrastructure for building nuclear weapons too," says Ramana. "The way out of the present nuclear predicament does not lie in non- or counter-proliferation through ever-stricter technology controls. The only solution is nuclear disarmament. The nuclear weapons-states must lead by example, by reducing and eventually dismantling these weapons of terror."

© Copyright 2006 IPS - Inter Press Service
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36125
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Nuclear Disarmament Gets Critical, by Praful Bidwai

Postby admin » Wed Nov 08, 2017 8:41 am

We Will Win Nuclear War, Says India
by Richard Beeston, Diplomatic Editor and Zahid Hussain in Islamabad
The Times of London
December 31, 2001

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


INDIA boasted yesterday that it would survive a first strike by a Pakistani atomic weapon, but that its neighbor would be wiped out in a swift nuclear counter-attack.

As troop reinforcements continued to pour into the frontier zone, and tens of thousands of people fled border villages, the specter of all-out war between two nuclear powers prompted America and Britain to intervene directly.

President Bush spoke by telephone to India’s Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, and to President Musharraf of Pakistan, urging them to show restraint. He also discussed the crisis with Tony Blair. The Prime Minister, who issued his own appeal yesterday for both countries to back down, has agreed to launch a diplomatic peace mission when he visits the region early in the new year.

A serious intervention from the outside world could not come too soon. India is determined to avenge the attack by Islamic militants on the Delhi parliament that killed 14 people, including five assailants, on December 13. Unless Pakistan arrests and hands over those responsible, India seems determined to act unilaterally.

Pakistan says that it has held at least 50 militants and frozen assets and last night Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, the head of the group blamed for the attack was arrested for “making inflammatory speeches to incite people to violate law and order”. But India says that is not enough and wants the suspects handed over.

Both countries insisted that they wanted to avoid war. But on the ground they both ordered the biggest military build-up for 15 years in what looked like a prelude to the fourth Indo-Pakistani war since independence in 1947.

Mr. Vajpayee won the backing of opposition parties yesterday to take whatever action was needed. On the other side of the border Adbul Sattar, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, said that his anxieties were “mounting, not only by the day but by the hour”.

Part of Pakistan’s concern is the increasingly bellicose message from Delhi, whose conventional and nuclear forces are roughly double those of Pakistan. In an interview published yesterday George Fernandes, the Indian Defense Minister, said that his military, from the top down, was eager to fight and that thousands of Indian reinforcements would be in place by the middle of this week.

Speaking after a visit to frontline positions in Kashmir, he told the Hindustan Times: “Everyone is raring to go. In fact, something that actually bothers them is that things might now reach a point where one says there is no war.”

Of greater concern were his remarks about the possible use of nuclear weapons. He warned Pakistan not to consider the use of a first strike, which he said would be tantamount to national suicide. “We could take a strike, survive and then hit back,” he said. “Pakistan would be finished. I do not really fear that the nuclear issue would figure in a conflict.”

However, military experts point out that in the event of a conventional war, Indian forces would heavily outnumber the Pakistanis and could score swift victories. In that case Pakistan’s weapon of last resort would be its atomic bomb.

Certainly General Musharraf suggested yesterday, after meeting most of the country’s political leaders, that he would not walk away from a fight with his bigger neighbor “I stand here addressing the people of India . . . that Pakistan stands for peace. Pakistan wants to reduce tensions . . . Pakistan wants to de-escalate,” he said. “However, Pakistan has taken all counter-measures. If any war is thrust on Pakistan, Pakistan’s Armed Forces and the 140 million people of Pakistan are fully prepared to face all consequences with all their might.”

The West is caught in the middle. It needs Islamabad’s help to hunt down Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda leadership, many of whom may already be hiding in Pakistan. Pulling Pakistani troops away from the Afghan border to fight India could seriously hamper that effort.

At the same time, the West sympathizes with India’s battle against terrorism and militant Islamic groups in Kashmir which have in the past kidnapped and killed Western hostages.

But above all Washington and London want the stand-off resolved peacefully.
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36125
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am


Return to Another View on 9/11

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 3 guests

cron