Peace and Non-violence Commission

European Humanist Regional

Nuclear weapons

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty(NPT) became effective in 1970, ratifying an agreement among nuclear countries (at that time USA, Great Britain, Soviet Union, France and China) and all the others: the second ones committed themselves to renounce to nuclear weapons and the first ones committed themselves to dismantle their arsenals and not to increase their equipments or to augment their power with new technologies. The treaty also decrees the right for all the countries to develop civil nuclear programs, under the control of IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency).

According to official data, United States admitted to own 10.500 bombs, Russia 20.000, Great Britain 185, France 450 and China 400.

From 1970 to 2000 only three countries (Israel, India and Pakistan) have become nuclear powers, although Israel never officially admitted to have a nuclear arsenal, but they remained outside NPT. According to Hans Blix, former chief UN weapons inspector, Israel is assumed to have 200 nuclear weapons.

Many countries ratified the treaty and some, such as South Africa and Kazakhstan, to do it eliminated their arsenals. During the ’90, agreements between USA and Russia led to dismantle many thousands of tactic nuclear warheads.

But in the last years things have changed. In May 2005 the VII NPT Review Conference failed and the representatives of 188 countries could not find an agreement about a common document. The main reason of this failure is the US refusal to create a nuclear free zone in Middle East and the five nuclear powers’ refusal to formulate and respect a plan with precise deadlines for their total disarmament. Therefore Unites States and their allies are violating the treaty, while accusing Iran and North Korea to do just that.

Meanwhile the rush to nuclear rearmament restarted: Russia is planning a third generation of atomic submarines and in 2004 did 16 experimental explosions of ballistic missiles. Great Britain projects new nuclear bombs for 4 Trident submarines (each one of them has the power of 384 Hiroshima bombs) and United States, besides having a nuclear fleet of 18 submarines, are designing small bombs to be used on the battlefield and others that can deeply penetrate in the ground. They also declare that the commitment not to use nuclear bombs in the first place no longer exists. Recently French president Chirac did not exclude to use nuclear weapons against the states that want to attack France with terrorist actions.

Nato acts outside the NPT agreements, openly violating them. United States has disposed about 480 bombs in eight air bases in six European Nato countries. 150 in Germany, at Büchel and Ramstein; 20 in Belgium, at Kleine Brogel; 20 in Holland, at Volkel; 110 in Great Britain, at Lakenheath; 90 in Italy, at Aviano and Ghedi Torre; 90 in Turkey, at Incirlik.

In other four bases in Germany, Greece and Turkey the weapons have been removed, but could be put there again if necessary. The bombs are assigned to the “guest” countries and their launch is up to their national air forces.

Despite the reductions made during the ’90, more than 30.000 nuclear warheads remain all over the planet, enough to destroy it 25 times.

However, in this scaring situation there is some positive element: nuclear free zones already exist in the world (South America, South Pacific, South East Asia, Africa, Central Asia, Antarctic). Countries as Mongolia and Austria declared themselves free zones and over 100 states abolished nuclear weapons

Proposals

The final objective is global nuclear disarmament and total elimination of nuclear bombs and arsenals.

Intermediate steps to reach the final objective could be: