The debate over abolition of nuclear weapons

Abstract

Since the dawn of the nuclear age, there has been interest in putting the nuclear genie back into the bottle. In the intervening decades there have been persistent efforts to promote the elimination of nuclear weapons. The International Pugwash Movement, for example, has struggled for more than 40 years to establish zero as the proper goal of nuclear arms control and to examine seriously the prerequisites and conditions that would permit nuclear elimination to become a plausible policy option. But such voices were always very much in the minority, and their preferred course was always distant from the main lines of debate about nuclear weapons policy and nuclear arms control. Indeed, as is quite evident, during the Cold War the superpower protagonists built vast nuclear arsenals, numbering tens of thousands on each side, and enshrined nuclear weapons at the centre of their defence strategies. The notion of eliminating nuclear weapons did not stir wide interest or support. In the last few years, this has begun to change rather dramatically. There has been a remarkable upsurge of interest in, and support for, the abolition of nuclear weapons. This upsurge has included a series of high profile studies examining the prospects for nuclear elimination as well as a widening web of prominent supporters of the idea of abolition. The mid and late 1990s have witnessed an unprecedented focus on nuclear abolition as a desirable objective worthy of serious policy consideration.