Summary of Proceedings

Numerous experts and activists placed hope in Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer to reignite the conversation of nuclear disarmament and arms control. However, evidence on the persuasive effects on popular media is mixed, and studies estimating such causal effects are scarce. We draw on narrative persuasion literature to underpin the disarmament and arms control communities’ expectations of the Oppenheimer movie's impact with regards to various dimensions of nuclear disarmament and arms control. Leveraging nationally representative survey data from Italy both before and after the movie's release, we first show that younger respondents, men, and those with higher education were more likely to see the movie. Using inverse probability weighting, propensity score matching, and difference-in-difference methods, we then correct for these biases and find qualified evidence that watching the movie increased support for nuclear arms control. At the same time, the movie did not move attitudes towards unilateral nuclear disarmament, opposition to proliferation, or opposition to nuclear weapons use. Beyond sparking the conversation about the dangers of nuclear weapons, the movie did not appear to have shifted public attitudes in the direction of broader disarmament goals. Our findings not only shed light on the persuasive effects of the Oppenheimer movie and popular media more broadly, but further contribute to our understanding of public views regarding nuclear disarmament and arms control.

It has been 50 years since the adoption of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which established the obligation upon all States Parties to work towards nuclear disarmament under Article VI. Yet, despite extensive reductions in nuclear weapons stockpiles since the Cold War peaks, nuclear arms control and disarmament efforts are currently in disarray. After the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty was terminated in 2019, the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty remains as the only bilateral limitation on United States (US) and Russian nuclear forces in operation and is due to expire in February 2021. The US has justified its limited nuclear disarmament progress on the premise that the current international security environment is not conducive to further nuclear disarmament. Instead, the US has recently promoted a new initiative called Creating an Environment for Nuclear Disarmament (CEND). The initiative aims to provide a platform for all States to engage in constructive dialogue to identify ways to improve the international security environment, which make nuclear deterrence necessary while addressing the hurdles that currently impede progress towards nuclear disarmament. Significantly, the US regards CEND as an ‘effective measure’ and an illustration of its commitment towards disarmament under Article VI. This article seeks to address the US claim that CEND represents a good faith, effective measure towards nuclear disarmament pursuant to Article VI. This will revisit existing doctrinal interpretative debates concerning the obligation under Article VI, particularly the requirements that negotiations and measures be adopted in good faith, and what constitutes an effective measure towards nuclear disarmament. The discussion will then determine whether the CEND initiative itself can be considered a good faith, effective measure towards nuclear disarmament, by considering its purpose, origins and implementation, and actions of the US.

SummaryShifts in U.S. nuclear policies under the Trump Administration may affect Japan in significant ways. The demands of formulating a coherent set of policies and implementing them, and dealing with pushback from other states and domestic opposition make it hard to anticipate exactly what U.S. nuclear policies may look like under Donald Trump. President Trump, however, has been outspoken on nuclear policy issues, and even though the statements are often contradictory, they offer some insight. These statements form the basis of this analysis.This essay looks at how United States nuclear arms control and disarmament policies may change over the next few years. It begins by looking at Trump's views on nuclear arms control issues, including the New START agreement and U.S. plans for modernization, the possibility of new nuclear weapons and a resumption of nuclear testing. It then looks at Trump's views on U.S. nuclear posture, including the question of the first use of nuclear weapons. The essay also examines how the President has viewed the challenge of nuclear proliferation, especially the case of North Korea and U.S. policy toward Japan. Finally, with talks to begin in March 2017 on a UN mandated treaty to ban nuclear weapons, the essay looks at the abolition of nuclear weapons.

In January 2023, the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved the hands of the Doomsday Clock forward to 90 s before midnight, reflecting the growing risk of nuclear war [1]. In August 2022, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that the world is now in ‘a time of nuclear danger not seen since the height of the Cold War’ [2]. The danger has been underlined by growing tensions between many nuclear-armed states [1, 3]. As editors of health and medical journals worldwide, we call on health professionals to alert the public and our leaders to this major danger to public health and the essential life support systems of the planet, and we urge action to prevent it. Current nuclear arms control and non-proliferation efforts are inadequate to protect the world's population against the threat of nuclear war by design, error or miscalculation. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) commits each of the 190 participating nations to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to the cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control [4]. Progress has been disappointingly slow, and the most recent NPT review conference in 2022 ended without an agreed statement [5]. Many examples of near disasters have exposed the risks of depending on nuclear deterrence for the indefinite future [6]. Modernisation of nuclear arsenals could increase risks: for example, hypersonic missiles decrease the time available to distinguish between an attack and a false alarm, increasing the likelihood of rapid escalation. Any use of nuclear weapons would be catastrophic for humanity. Even a ‘limited’ nuclear war involving only 250 of the 13,000 nuclear weapons in the world could kill 120 million people outright and cause global climate disruption leading to a nuclear famine, putting two billion people at risk [7, 8]. A large-scale nuclear war between the USA and Russia could kill 200 million people or more in the near term and potentially cause a global ‘nuclear winter’ that could kill five to six billion people, threatening the survival of humanity [7, 8]. Once a nuclear weapon is detonated, escalation to all-out nuclear war could occur rapidly. The prevention of any use of nuclear weapons is therefore an urgent public health priority, and fundamental steps must also be taken to address the root cause of the problem – by abolishing nuclear weapons. The health community has played a crucial role in efforts to reduce the risk of nuclear war and must continue to do so in the future [9]. In the 1980s, the efforts of health professionals, led by International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), helped to end the Cold War arms race by educating policy makers and the public on both sides of the Iron Curtain about the medical consequences of nuclear war. This was recognised when the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to IPPNW [10] (http://www.ippnw.org). In 2007, IPPNW launched the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, which grew into a global civil society campaign with hundreds of partner organisations. A pathway to nuclear abolition was created with the adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in 2017, for which the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons was awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize. International medical organisations, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, IPPNW, the World Medical Association, the World Federation of Public Health Associations, and the International Council of Nurses, played key roles in the process leading up to the negotiations and in the negotiations themselves, presenting the scientific evidence on the catastrophic health and environmental consequences of nuclear weapons and nuclear war. They continued this important collaboration during the First Meeting of the States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which currently has 92 signatories, including 68 member states [11]. We now call on health professional associations to inform their members worldwide about the threat to human survival and to join with IPPNW to support efforts to reduce the near-term risks of nuclear war, including three immediate steps on the part of nuclear-armed states and their allies: first, adopt a no first-use policy [12]; second, take their nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert; and, third, urge all states involved in current conflicts to pledge publicly and unequivocally that they will not use nuclear weapons in these conflicts. We further ask them to work towards a definitive end to the nuclear threat by supporting the urgent commencement of negotiations among the nuclear-armed states for a verifiable, time-bound agreement to eliminate their nuclear weapons in accordance with commitments in the NPT, opening the way for all nations to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The danger is great and growing. The nuclear-armed states must eliminate their nuclear arsenals before they eliminate us. The health community played a decisive part during the Cold War and more recently in the development of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. We must take up this challenge again as an urgent priority, working with renewed energy to reduce the risks of nuclear war and to eliminate nuclear weapons. The respective authors were paid by their employers. CZ's time was funded by International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. IH and AH developed the idea of the editorial and led drafting, along with CZ. All other coauthors contributed significantly to the editorial content.

The slogans of the "walkers for peace " in the Uniled Slates of America anti in Western Europe (and also in South Africa) against the proliferation of nuclear weapons and nuclear technology as well as the growing probability of a nuclear war in the light of president Reagan's rearmament plan, arc born of the numerous failures of nuclear disarmament and arms control. The ever- increasing danger that goes along with nuclear proliferation in the sense of weapon production and the handling of radioactive waste urges us to look more seriously than ever at nuclear technology. The article deals with some of the efforts to control the proliferation process as well as efforts to limit or reduce nuclear arms. Some essential factors that negatively influence the discussions are pointed out and finally it is concluded that because of the sin-induced brokenness of man’s heart, control over nuclear arms proliferation has just partial success. The abolition of weapon production and total disarm­ ament are ideals that will, in this era that precedes the second coming of Christ, not be fulfilled. Thus, the nuclear arms race will inevitably continue.

Journal Article Nuclear Proliferation and the Near-Nuclear Countries and The Last Chance: Nuclear Proliferation and Arms Control Get access Nuclear Proliferation and the Near-Nuclear Countries. Onkar Marwah and Ann Schulz (Eds.). Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger. 1976. (Distributed in UK by John Wiley, Chichester.) 348 pp. £9.80.The Last Chance: Nuclear Proliferation and Arms Control. By William Epstein. New York: Free Press; London: Collier Macmillan. 1976. 341 pp. £10.50. Lawrence Freedman Lawrence Freedman 1Chatham House Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 53, Issue 4, October 1977, Pages 642–643, https://doi.org/10.2307/2616240 Published: 01 October 1977

ABSTRACTSouth Africa had active nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs during the 1970s and 1980s. South Africa dismantled its nuclear weapon program prior to its 1991 accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Similarly, it terminated its chemical weapons program prior to its 1995 ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention. Only the dismantlement of Pretoria's nuclear weapons program was subjected to international verification—albeit ex post facto—following a 1993 decision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) General Conference to verify the correctness and completeness of South Africa's declarations under its NPT safeguards agreement. During the 1980s, South Africa also developed and purportedly used biological weapons, violating its obligations under the 1972 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction, which it had ratified in 1975. This article draws lessons from the verification of the dismantlement of these programs and makes recommendations for future verification work to confirm the elimination of weapons of mass destruction capabilities.

54 Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Vol. XXXIV, No.4, Summer 2011 India, Pakistan and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty M. Yousuf Saeed* In its Final Document adopted in May 2010, the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference urged India and Pakistan to subscribe to the NPT as non-nuclear weapon states (NNWS) and to put all their nuclear facilities under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards “promptly and without conditions.”1 This was not the first time that members of international community asked the two South Asian states to sign the treaty. Similar appeals were made by the U.N. Security Council in 1998 and by the NPT Review Conference in 2000.2 Both countries have remained unresponsive. This article reviews the origin and evolution of India and Pakistan’s attitudes toward the NPT. It discusses the reasons they offer for staying out of the treaty, describes the similarities and differences in their policies and the changes that these policies have undergone over a period of time. It suggests that both countries should be admitted into the treaty as nuclear weapon states (NWS), the status assigned to the first five nuclear powers. India and Pakistan: Initial response The idea of an international non-proliferation treaty, when first mooted in 1961, was supported by both India and Pakistan. The Irish resolution on the “Prevention of the Wider Dissemination of Nuclear Weapons,” to which the legislative origin of the NPT is traced,3 was presented to the U.N. *M. Yousuf Saeed is an Assistant Professor of Political Science in the Department of History and Sociology at Claflin University in Orangeburg, South Carolina. He received his Ph.D. in International Studies from the University of South Carolina. His research interests include international relations of south and southwest Asia, and nuclear proliferation. 1 United Nations, 2010 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Final Document, 16. www.un.org. 2 U.N. Security Council resolution 1172, June 6, 1998; 2000 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Final Document, May 24, 2000. 3 Mason Willrich, Non-Proliferation Treaty: Framework for Arms Control (Charlottesville, Virginia: The Michie Company, 1969), 61. 55 General Assembly that year and was favored by the two countries when put to vote on December 4.4 The central paragraph of the resolution, which contained language similar to what was later used in Articles I and II of the NPT,5 asked for the conclusion of an international agreement containing provisions under which the nuclear States would undertake to refrain from relinquishing control of nuclear weapons and from transmitting the information necessary for their manufacture to States not possessing such weapons, and provisions under which States not possessing nuclear weapons would undertake not to manufacture or otherwise acquire control of such weapons....6 In addition, both India and Pakistan supported other resolutions, moved around this time in the U.N. General Assembly that recommended cessation of all nuclear tests.7 India and the NPT Indian policy regarding non-proliferation underwent a change after the Chinese nuclear explosion in October 1964.8 Defending its nuclear detonation, the Chinese government claimed that the 1963 Moscow partial test ban treaty, which prohibited tests in the atmosphere, in outer space and under water, was an attempt “to consolidate the nuclear monopoly held by the three nuclear powers and tie the hands and feet of all peace loving countries.” China, it further stated, supported “the complete prohibition and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons” and believed that partial suspension, or complete prohibition, of nuclear testing, or destruction of nuclear weapon delivery vehicles could not be the first step toward complete disarmament. Rather, in Chinese view, an international summit conference had to be convened which “as the first step” should conclude an agreement under which the nuclear-weapon and nuclear-weapon threshold states “undertake not to use nuclear weapons, neither to use them 4 Resolution 1665 (XVI) was unanimously approved. Documents on Disarmament 1961 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, 1962), 694. 5 Article I of NPT requires NWS not to transfer nuclear weapons...

Toward an interdisciplinary model of barriers to nuclear arms control

However the importance and influence of scientists within and without government are assessed, however vital their knowledge, it was political decisions taken at national and international levels which transformed erudite speculations and assessments into an agreement to prohibit nuclear tests and inhibit or ‘control’ the nuclear arms race.1 Equally, however widespread and publicised thess movement of protest might have been, that protest availed nought unless it influenced the decisionmakers. The scientists and protesters were a part of a movement against the nuclear arms race which focused on the issue of nuclear weapons testing, but the search for a multilateral agreement to halt nuclear tests and secure a measure of nuclear disarmament could only be conducted at the international level. The scientific community in Britain helped draw attention to the hazards of continued nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere and helped devise means of verifying compliance with a treaty. The protesters acted as an insistent chorus which the government found difficult to ignore; they played a part by encouraging the government to pursue with determination the search for a CTBT, but they did not change the government’s defence policy which included the possible use of nuclear weapons.

Nuclear disarmament, arms control and non-proliferation

Nuclear disarmament, arms control, non-proliferation and security

Technology is a key factor in, and often catalyst for, arms control. The increasingly rapid pace of technological change with respect to weapons systems and military capabilities, as well as of developments of inherently dual-use technologies (with both peaceful and military applications), present clear challenges to the law of arms control, both in terms of the application and/or potential modification of existing instruments, as well as the prospects for new regulation where necessary. Not only are military technologies, or technologies with a potential military dimension, developing rapidly, but the increasing diffusion of such technologies to more and more states and possibly to non-state actors further complicates the situation. This chapter looks at some of the contemporary challenges, including inter alia in the areas of cyber, artificial intelligence, biotechnology and missile technology, and it gives an overview of the arms control law approaches available to address issues related to new, emerging or evolving technologies. The chapter also discusses another side of the coin, namely access to technology being an incentive for becoming party to an arms control law instrument, which is a common element of the treaties related to nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. In addition, the role that technology plays in verification of arms control agreements is considered.

Traditionally, the term nuclear arms control is strongly associated with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty or Russian-American bilateral agreements. Besides the US-Russia regime, there is at least one more interesting case in the world, which certainly deserves attention — a specific case of India-Pakistan relations in this field. These two countries had to interact in a very peculiar regional and bilateral context, and thus they have formulated their specific understanding of basic concepts of nuclear arms control. The world’s current situation is developing towards revising nuclear arms control mechanisms and possible expansion of multilateral formats of arms control negotiations. Although these states possess nuclear weapons, they are outside the current nuclear non-proliferation regime. Yet, Pakistan and India could be potentially involved in the extended format of the debate. So, the understanding of their bilateral practices addressing nuclear arms control mechanisms is necessary for the initiation of a constructive discussion with them. The measures taken by the two Governments are not regarded as arms control in the classical Western approach to research in this field. Still, the authors suppose reviewing the Pakistani attempts to establish the peculiar South Asian bilateral nuclear arms control between India and Pakistan.

The early literature on common security was suspicious about and ambivalent towards arms control. Until the late 1980s the exercise was often seen as a tool of superpower competition and as a device to deflect calls for disarmament. Arms control, it seemed, was about creating the impression that cuts were occurring — while in reality it merely set permissive and hardly meaningful limits on arms acquisition policies. Arms control was so tied to the politics of power and competing interests that in 1961 Hedley Bull defined it as something which comprised ‘all those acts of military policy in which antagonistic states co-operate in the pursuit of common purposes even while they are struggling in the pursuit of conflicting ones’.2 In such a climate there was little real prospect of engineering a convergence between arms control and genuine reductions in weaponry; there seemed even less likelihood that arms control could be used as a stepping stone towards the total abolition of military power (i.e. ‘general and complete disarmament’).