SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
The treaty was endorsed by 122 countries at the United Nations headquarters in New York on Friday after months of talks in the face of strong opposition from nuclear-armed states and their allies. Only the Netherlands, which took part in the discussion, despite having US nuclear weapons on its territory, voted against the treaty.
All of the countries that bear nuclear arms and many others that either come under their protection or host weapons on their soil boycotted the negotiations. The most vocal critic of the discussions, the US, pointed to the escalation of North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programme as one reason to retain its nuclear capability. The UK did not attend the talks despite government claims to support multilateral disarmament.
[...] The 10-page treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons will be open for signatures from any UN member state on 20 September during the annual general assembly. While countries that possess nuclear weapons are not expected to sign up any time soon, supporters of the treaty believe it marks an important step towards a nuclear-free world by banning the weapons under international law.
[...] Previous UN treaties have been effective even when key nations have failed to sign up to them. The US did not sign up to the landmines treaty, but has completely aligned its landmines policy to comply nonetheless. “These kinds of treaties have an impact that forces countries to change their behaviour. It is not going to happen fast, but it does affect them,” Fihn said. “We have seen on all other weapons that prohibition comes first, and then elimination. This is taking the first step towards elimination.”
Under the new treaty, signatory states must agree not to develop, test, manufacture or possess nuclear weapons, or threaten to use them, or allow any nuclear arms to be stationed on their territory.
[...] Instead of scrapping their nuclear stocks, the UK and other nuclear powers want to strengthen the 1968 nuclear nonproliferation treaty (NPT), a pact that aims to prevent the spread of the weapons outside the original five nuclear powers: the US, Russia, Britain, France and China. It requires countries to hold back from nuclear weapons programmes in exchange for a commitment from the nuclear powers to move towards nuclear disarmament and to provide access to peaceful nuclear energy technology. The new treaty reflects a frustration among non-nuclear states that the NPT has not worked as hoped.
-- submitted from IRC
For perspective, see the 14m25s video on YouTube: "1945-1998" by ISAO HASHIMOTO which depicts the over 2000 atomic bomb blasts that occurred within that period, with each month of time depicted in one second.
(Score: 4, Informative) by looorg on Sunday July 09 2017, @05:54PM (12 children)
Pointless posturing about something they can never do anything about. They don't have any power to back up any such thing with. The UN has 192 (or is it 193?) membership nations and only 122 endorse this treaty. That sounds an awful lot like all the countries that do have nuclear weapons didn't bother -- about nine countries that we know off, plus a fair amount of countries that have the ability or knowledge to get some if they wanted to, plus the once that enjoy nuclear umbrella protection of one of the "haves". The once that do they don't give a fuck about this treaty, they either don't even attend or they don't care because they know that the UN is not going to or would be able to take their nukes away.
Sure we are not seeing a large uptick in new countries that get nukes. But that might be more about them not wanting or needing them then not having the ability to build them. The latest countries that have built them have all been in regard as protection vs a potentially or historically hostile neighbor or as blackmail -- India vs Pakistan, North Korea vs the World and Israel vs the Arabs and Persians, if or when Iran gets their it will be as a power response towards Israel.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 09 2017, @06:04PM (10 children)
That's just the thing though. Are any of the countries that signed this even nuclear states? Nuclear weapons are a thing and we're unlikely to ever be rid of them unless something bigger is invented. For better or for worse, as long as nuclear weapons exist, we're probably not going to have another world war of the scale of what we had in the 20th century. It'll either wipe out nearly all the inhabitants of the planet or it will be much more limited in scale, more on a normal size than a world war.
(Score: 4, Informative) by looorg on Sunday July 09 2017, @06:13PM (9 children)
In the fourth link of the article (... The 10-page treaty on the prohibition) includes a link to a PDF with the vote result. To save everyone some time here is the result:
United States (no vote), Russia Federation (no vote), United Kingdom (no vote), France (no vote), China (no vote), India (no vote), Pakistan (no vote), Democractic People's Republic of Korea (no vote), Israel (no vote).
So no known (or assumed) nuclear power even bothered to show up, attend and/or vote for this.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Sunday July 09 2017, @06:26PM (8 children)
Other "no vote" (no the same as voting no, in this cause they don't even show up to vote) countries are among others Australia (Five-eye member), Belarus (former part of the Soviet Union), Belgium (NATO, and US nuclear host nation), Canada (Five-eye member, NATO), Denmark (NATO member), Finland (don't want to anger Russia or the US), Germany (NATO member, US nuclear host nation), Iceland (in large totally dependent on the US for military protection), Italy (NATO member and another US nuclear stockpile host) ... the list goes on like this.
Basically members of NATO (or countries that dream of being in NATO), people that want to remain in the good graces of the United States and former Soviet states didn't bother to vote. They know this is basically pointless posturing for the feelgood crowd without any basis in reality.
The Islamic Republic of Iran voted Yes, and so did Iraq. Guess Saddams imaginary yellow cake nukes are no more.
Japan didn't vote yes. One would think they would be first in line since they are the only country to actually be nuked. But once again they probably doesn't want to anger the US.
Singapore was the only nation that abstained and the Netherlands voted NO, one can only assume they either forgot about what was agreed upon on the NATO meeting or they had some balls to stand up and actually vote no.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday July 09 2017, @07:58PM
“These kinds of treaties have an impact that forces countries to change their behaviour.".....
.....until it becomes inconvenient. Then they'll do what is necessary. P
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 09 2017, @08:56PM (1 child)
> Japan didn't vote yes.
The United States has kept, and may continue to keep, nuclear weapons on Japanese territory, at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa. The draft treaty provides that "each State Party that has any nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices in its territory or in any place under its jurisdiction or control that are owned, possessed or controlled by another State shall ensure the prompt removal of such weapons."
> They know this is basically pointless posturing for the feelgood crowd without any basis in reality.
That depends on who signs it. Iran and South Africa endorsed the draft; if the treaty goes into effect (which requires 50 countries to join) and they join, they'll be committing permanently to allow inspection of their nuclear facilities, to ensure they don't re-start their weapons programs. Ukraine didn't endorse, but the same would apply to it if it joined.
As I said, the nuclear-weapons states wouldn't be allowed to place their nuclear weapons in countries that sign this new treaty. Depending on who signs it, it could expand the existing nuclear-weapon-free zones. That's a real action.
Aside from that, and assuming no nuclear-weapons states join, it does look like posturing. The signatories will be taking the posture that they won't be acquiring nuclear weapons and that the nuclear-weapons states should disarm. The NPT, which five nuclear-weapons states (China, France, United States, Russia and United Kingdom) have signed, already mandates nuclear disarmament, but as the draft of this new treaty says, it's been slow going. A bit of posturing calling for urgency in the process isn't a bad thing.
Stronger measures may be needed, but this is constructive.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 09 2017, @09:02PM
Scratch what I wrote about Iran and South Africa. Those provisions in Article 4 don't apply to them, but only to countries which now have nuclear weapons.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by khallow on Sunday July 09 2017, @11:46PM (4 children)
Let us keep in mind that Japan may already be a nuclear power. Even if they aren't, acquiring nukes would give them a credible counterweight to future Chinese (and to a lesser extent, Russian) influence and military power - particularly since the US is likely to weaken significantly over the next half century.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Monday July 10 2017, @12:01AM (3 children)
That would be a possible scenario. Just as India and Pakistan got theirs to counter each other, India possibly also got theirs to counter China. Japan could get them to counter a potential threat from China, Russia or North Korea. Most countries in the world could get nukes at the moment, if a dirt poor country like NK can have them then anybody can. There are other reasons besides money and knowledge prevent them from doing so.
In the case of NK I would say it seems more like they have blackmail nukes. Yes they are afraid of the US. But they also like to have them big foreign aid packages coming with food and other such things. Dropping a test missile or two into the pacific is a small price to pay to keep your blackmail scheme going.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday July 10 2017, @08:54AM (2 children)
It's a mistake to think of NK in those terms. They are very poor per-capita, but their wealth is tightly concentrated and their military is well funded. They have a fairly large submarine fleet, for example, which is not really something that you'd expect a 'dirt poor country' to be able to afford.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by khallow on Monday July 10 2017, @11:02AM
To the contrary, North Korea is the very demonstration of the extremes of what a dirt poor country can afford. As you note, the wealth, such as it is, is tightly concentrated in the very things you note that they have afforded. If they weren't dirt poor, they'd have some sort of achievements outside of where they've decided to concentrate their existing wealth.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Monday July 10 2017, @11:47AM
I don't believe it's a mistake to view NK as "dirt poor". They are a poor, and backwards, nation by any international standard, which is usually a matter of some form of per-capita indicator(s). As you note there is wealth and money available but as with almost any dictatorship the wealth is concentrated around the leader, his inner circle and the military that support them. They might be able to feed their nation and provide for the people if they wanted to, it's hard to say. They clearly chose another path.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 09 2017, @09:19PM
> They don't have any power to back up any such thing with.
They wouldn't win a nuclear war, but they do have power. They could restrict travel, financial services and other forms of trade, similarly to what's been done against North Korea. The draft doesn't provide for that, however.