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from the he-might-be-a-little-nuts-too dept.
North Korea's defiant pursuit of nuclear weapons capabilities, dramatised by last weekend's powerful underground test and a recent long-range ballistic missile launch over Japan, has been almost universally condemned as posing a grave, unilateral threat to international peace and security.
The growing North Korean menace also reflects the chronic failure of multilateral counter-proliferation efforts and, in particular, the long standing refusal of acknowledged nuclear-armed states such as the US and Britain to honour a legal commitment to reduce and eventually eliminate their arsenals.
In other words, the past and present leaders of the US, Russia, China, France and the UK, whose governments signed but have not fulfilled the terms of the 1970 nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT), have to some degree brought the North Korea crisis on themselves. Kim Jong-un's recklessness and bad faith is a product of their own.
The NPT, signed by 191 countries, is probably the most successful arms control treaty ever. When conceived in 1968, at the height of the cold war, the mass proliferation of nuclear weapons was considered a real possibility. Since its inception and prior to North Korea, only India, Pakistan and Israel are known to have joined the nuclear "club" in almost half a century.
To work fully, the NPT relies on keeping a crucial bargain: non-nuclear-armed states agree never to acquire the weapons, while nuclear-armed states agree to share the benefits of peaceful nuclear technology and pursue nuclear disarmament with the ultimate aim of eliminating them. This, in effect, was the guarantee offered to vulnerable, insecure outlier states such as North Korea. The guarantee was a dud, however, and the bargain has never been truly honoured.
[Ed Note: Since this story was submitted there has been at least one additional ballistic missile test by North Korea.]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Virindi on Sunday September 17 2017, @12:21AM (2 children)
I would like to explicitly add the conclusion to this reasoning:
1) More countries having nuclear weapons decreases the chance of the intentional use in warfare. As examined above no nuclear country wants to use them against another.
BUT also,
2) More countries having nuclear weapons increases the chance of an accidental launch.
So really I think the most critical thing for the human race going forward, is not the scaling back of nuclear arsenals. Rather, it is the deployment of communications systems, redundancy, etc designed to prevent an accident, and reduce the chance of an accident turning into a full scale nuclear war that neither side wanted.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 17 2017, @01:43AM
On the flip side of the scenario in Dr. Strangelove is Fail-Safe [imdb.com].
How long can the matador keep dodging the bull?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @04:50PM
Objectively the USSR's system was saner than the USA's system.
Compare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand_(nuclear_war) [wikipedia.org]
With: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/12/01/no-one-can-stop-president-trump-from-using-nuclear-weapons-thats-by-design/ [washingtonpost.com]
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_spectator/2011/02/an_unsung_hero_of_the_nuclear_age.html [slate.com]