Introduction

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Notes

The exceptions were the use of conventional explosive warheads on V2s aimed at London and Antwerp in 1944 and the SCUD type missiles used against each other's cities by Iran and Iraq in the First Gulf War and by Iraq against Israel and Saudi Arabia in the Second Gulf War.

A ‘second strike’ capability is a set of weapon systems that could be guaranteed to survive a first strike by the opponent, such as submarine based systems.

For a full account see: Jack F. Matlock, Jr, Autopsy of an Empire: The American Ambassador's Account of the Collapse of the Soviet Union (New York: Random House, 1995).

The NPT was opened for signature simultaneously in London, Moscow and Washington on 1 July 1968 in order to ensure that all states of the world, regardless of their allegiance at that time, could have an opportunity to sign. (A particular problem was the recognition or otherwise of China and Taiwan.) Thereafter the US, UK and USSR, as the depository states were required to convene the five-yearly NPT Review Conferences.

There are those who believe that the double flash observed in the South Atlantic by a US satellite in 1979 was a test conducted jointly by South Africa and Israel. See David Albright and Corey Gay, ‘A Flash from the Past; South Africa – Nuclear Proliferation’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol.53, No.6 (Nov.–Dec. 1997), p.15 quoted by Roy E. Horton, Out of South Africa: Pretoria's Nuclear Weapon Experience, ACDIS Occasional Paper (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Aug. 2000).

Weapons of Mass Destruction were defined by a Resolution of the United Nations Commission for Conventional Armaments, dated 12 August 1948 as: ‘atomic explosive weapons, radioactive material weapons, lethal chemical and biological weapons, and any weapons developed in the future which have characteristics comparable in destructive effect to those of the atomic bomb or other weapons mentioned above’.