Nuclear Weapons Proliferation and the NPT

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5 countries with nukes in NPT and 5 when Iran gets one and drops out 50-50.
 

Ray

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Sir,

There was a time when the Chinese exported revolution and the mass insanity called the Great Prolitereate Cultural Revolution.

As was the proliferation of the CHIC-4 blueprint.
Colonel,

With all due regards. it maybe mass insanity to the rest of the world, but to China, it was ''ideological cleansing''. It does not sound pleasant, but given the requirement to ensure that the mindset was similar and not deviate, it was required as perceived by Mao.

We are judging China based on western perception and media. What is the truth? Maybe there was good reasons to feel that there would be such a turmoil that China would disintegrate and hence Mao organised the same? I am not aware, but just a conjecture.

Mao maybe demonised today, but then his ideas brought a poverty stricken country to where it is!!

The theory of Legalism and assimilation of others is what has got China where it is today.

Badguy,

The Chinese media is what the CCP wants it to say.

Please read Pallavi Iyer's Smoke and Mirror to realise what the Chinese media is all about. She was teaching in Beijing Journalist College and the book is full of praise for China as also brings out some (very few actually!) errors of China. Control of the media is one error she feels.

SARS epidemic was not told to the people till it was totally evident! Likewise, the tainted milk!

Check the western media - they go whole hog and criticise their govt for errors. The Speaker of the UK lower House of Parliament had to resign for a scam!! In India, Ms Gandhi, a great leader, got a drubbing in the election because of the Emergency and the media published blank pages when it was imposed!!

One cannot blame the Mainland Chinese for their mindset. It is honed by the theory of Legalism.
 

Yusuf

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Nuclear Weapons Proliferation

All discussions about nuclear weapons proliferation, role of China, AQ Khan and his nuclear walmart etc to be carried on here.
 

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5 countries with nukes in NPT and 5 when Iran gets one and drops out 50-50.
LF,

Your command of the facts is extremely lacking. North Korea can only put together the cruedest of devices and it is not deliverable by missile but by 747 (and since South Korea is watching all traffic, the chances of successful delivery is lower than you getting laid by Cheryl Ladd)

Iran has stopped all nuclear weapons development. I don't know if they learned enough to put together a nuke but I do know I have absolutely no confidence in their warheads without a test.

Furhter more, you're missing the point. There are far more advanced nuclear weapons capable powers than India, Pakistan, and Israel combined. Within 3 weeks, Canada can field nukes that are far superior than even what China has produced to date. Like I said, I am a dinosaur, when I first joined the 4th Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group in West Germany, we were withdrawing tactical nuclear weapons from our inventory. China has never fielded tactical nukes.

I know that Germany, Italy, and Turkey had the same experience as us.

Furthermore, you asked what good is the NPT. Membership has its privledges. Despite India's almost MOD EDIT: OoE the word you used is not in good taste. This is not allowed here. Consider this as first warning. plea getting an unconditional waiver from the NSG, Russia and France refuesd to sell reprocessing technologies to India. Further more, your waiver openned the door to China vis-a-vi Pakistan and the US vis-a-vi Israel to do more trade BUT and this is a BIG BUT, all NSG members are closing any nuclear weapons related trade. India, Pakistan, and Israel will NOT BE getting reprocessing technologies.

BTW, once China signed the NPT, Russia sold China reprocessing technologies that was superior to the Chinese ... and aided the Chinese in their nuclear warhead size reductions. The same technolgies Moscow refused India despite the NSG waiver.

Now after all I've written, prove me wrong, son. Don't write the world is out to get India.
 

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Colonel,

With all due regards. it maybe mass insanity to the rest of the world, but to China, it was ''ideological cleansing''. It does not sound pleasant, but given the requirement to ensure that the mindset was similar and not deviate, it was required as perceived by Mao.

We are judging China based on western perception and media. What is the truth? Maybe there was good reasons to feel that there would be such a turmoil that China would disintegrate and hence Mao organised the same? I am not aware, but just a conjecture.

Mao maybe demonised today, but then his ideas brought a poverty stricken country to where it is!!

The theory of Legalism and assimilation of others is what has got China where it is today.
Sir,

Extremely insightful. I have to think this through but there are automatic counter examples, the Sino-Japanese Wars, the Warlords era, and the 1947 Chinese Civil War. These episodes goes counter to your thesis but the question is why do they come back to your thesis.

Good show, Sir, good show.
 

Yusuf

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Sir India reprocesses its own fuel. That was one of the issues during the discussion for nuclear waiver. The US did not want India to process its fuel, but India wanted to, to feed its fast breeder reactors.
 

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As far as I understand it, the IAEA can only monitor materials going through designated civilian programs. Therefore, the fuel can be reprocessed as long as they met the IAEA guidelines, ie the materials going through these reactors cannot be used for nuclear weapons.

However, what I am talking about is the reprocessing technologies. India right now has reprocessing technologies but it is inferior to the those of the NSG and the NSG, even though the waiver allows it, will not sell India those reprocessing technologies.
 

Yusuf

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In due course of time things will change. Economics is a hard reality. If you can sell lethal weaponry, what is reprocessing technology. Besides India will become a key cog in the nuclear supplier industry with many western countries lining up ventures to do so.
Ultimately things will fall into place when the world comes to terms that India can get the cake and eat it too.
 

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In due course of time things will change. Economics is a hard reality. If you can sell lethal weaponry, what is reprocessing technology. Besides India will become a key cog in the nuclear supplier industry with many western countries lining up ventures to do so.
Ultimately things will fall into place when the world comes to terms that India can get the cake and eat it too.
You forget my age, Yusuf. I'm no longer in the habbit of seeing more than 5 years down the line, if that. You forget that I saw myself buring at the Iron Curtain or seeing my now daughter manning my post. I was wrong on both counts.

Let see the advances before saying they're real.
 

Yusuf

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You forget my age, Yusuf. I'm no longer in the habbit of seeing more than 5 years down the line, if that. You forget that I saw myself buring at the Iron Curtain or seeing my now daughter manning my post. I was wrong on both counts.

Let see the advances before saying they're real.
But then young people like us have every reason to believe that India will be up there.
 

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The nuclear nightmare

The nuclear nightmare
By BRAHMA CHELLANEY
North Korea and Pakistan present unique nuclear-proliferation risks because they challenge the very premise on which the international anti-proliferation measures have been built.

While North Korea is often compared with Iran, the challenge it poses is more akin to Pakistan's. Both Pakistan and North Korea are actual proliferation threats as opposed to Iran's potential proliferation challenge. But while North Korea is a growing regional threat, Pakistan — with its expanding nuclear armory, terrorists and jihadist-infiltrated military and nuclear establishments — presents itself as an international nightmare.

In the past, these two countries have clandestinely bartered Pakistani uranium-enrichment knowhow for North Korean missile technology. Today, they are showing that the nuclear abolition debate is not germane to the key proliferation challenges in Asia, even if movement on the stalled disarmament process helps reduce incentives to proliferation in some other cases.

The present global anti-proliferation measures are tied to three key elements: The continued stability and credibility of the nonproliferation regime; the exercise of punitive power, when necessary, to enforce observance of global norms and rules; and the raising of costs for proliferators.

The outlook of North Korea and Pakistan, however, is founded on a fundamentally antithetical premise, which can be summed up as: Threaten to fail, then reap rewards.

For these two dissimilar nations, potential state failure actually serves as an incentive to extort ransom money internationally. Both have assiduously sought to leverage their weakness into strength diplomatically, with Pakistan more successful than North Korea. "We'll fail if you don't come to our support" is their refrain. That is another way of saying: "Pay up or face the consequences."

In that light, it is proving very difficult to hold them to any international standards.

In fact, Pakistan's success in extracting ever-more international aid has only emboldened North Korea to follow suit. Pyongyang's latest nuclear test — its second in less than three years — is a desperate move to garner international aid.

If Islamabad can play nuclear poker to shield its export of terrorism and still get rewarded with $23.6 billion in international aid commitments just in the last six months ($5.5 billion of which came at the April donors conference in Tokyo), Pyongyang reckoned it could stage its own nuclear-and-missile show to draw the world's attention.

While vowing to "take action" against North Korea over its test, U.S. President Barack Obama has set out to make Pakistan the single largest recipient of U.S. assistance in the world, leaving Israel and Egypt behind in the aid sweepstakes.

When Pakistan rakes in a windfall, North Korea can hardly be faulted for using the possibility of becoming a failed state as a means to collect some small change.

If Obama thought that succumbing to Pakistani demand would set no international precedent, North Korea's ailing "dear leader" has made sure the chickens will come home to roost in Washington.

Even as America worries about Iran's potential nuclear-weapons capability, its handling of the actual problem thrown up by Pakistan's military-controlled weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and military-nurtured terrorists threatens to send the wrong signal to Tehran. According to a just-released Congressional Research Service report, Pakistan has approximately 60 nuclear warheads. It also has biological weapons, including pathogens no less dangerous than the H1N1 virus

Bountiful U.S. aid, in fact, is allowing Pakistan to divert more of its scarce resources to expand WMD capability, as illustrated by the two new plutonium-production reactors now under construction in Khushab with Chinese assistance. Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chie's of Staff, has been constrained to acknowledge at a May 14 congressional hearing that there is evidence showing Pakistan is expanding its nuclear arsenal.

Existing WMD in a country with jihadists are a matter of deep global concern; an expanding arsenal makes the scenario terrifying.

America has little incentive to start the flow of major international aid to North Korea, which, as U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates admitted recently at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, poses no direct military threat to the U.S. at present. Strategically, North Korea is of little positive value to U.S. policy.

By contrast, China over the decades has maintained close ties with Pyongyang and Islamabad and, besides providing direct WMD aid to both, may have even encouraged North Korean-Pakistani technology exchanges. But Beijing lacks the leverage to control their steps and gets surprised now and then by their actions, as exemplified by the latest North Korean nuclear and missile testing.

More broadly, the traditional carrots-and-sticks approach of the nonproliferation regime has been derailed by the North Korea and Pakistan cases. The derailment happened because the punitive component was rendered blunt by the continuing intent of the major geopolitical players not to let North Korea or Pakistan become a failed state.

So, the more North Korea and Pakistan appear likely to become failed states, the more it becomes evident that the international response is constrained by the objective not to let them fail. The international approach toward them thus is to bark but not to bite.

In dealing with North Korea, China, Russia, the United States and Japan do not want to go so far as to cause the collapse of the regime. Although not necessarily motivated by the same interest, these powers are not geopolitically ready for Korean reunification, which will be a logical corollary to the regime collapse in Pyongyang. South Korea, too, is not prepared for that development because it would unleash a torrent of refugees and saddle Seoul with colossal reunification costs, as the continuing domestic costs of German reunification attest. So, not wanting the Stalinist North Korean state to unravel, the external players do little more than pass tough resolutions or statements.

Pakistan, for its part, has for long served as a useful pawn in Chinese and American policies. It remains Beijing's "all-weather ally," although its utility to U.S. policy has eroded to the extent that today it appears more of a strategic liability than an asset. Yet the old mind-set in Washington has not sufficiently changed. As a result, the deeper Pakistan has dug itself into a jihadist dungeon, the more the U.S. has gotten involved in that country. Such growing involvement, far from serving U.S. interests, has fueled an Islamist backlash in Pakistan, where anti-American sentiment is among the strongest in the world and where America is unfairly blamed for everything.

Washington also does not face up to another reality: Pakistan's political border with Afghanistan has ceased to exist in practice. The so-called Durand Line — a British-colonial invention that left the large Pashtun community divided into two — now exists only in maps. Its disappearance is irreversible. Given that reality, how can U.S. policy expect to prop up the Pakistani state within political frontiers that, in part, no longer exist?

It is sad but true: The only way the international community can regain leverage against North Korea and Pakistan is to unflinchingly pursue a forward-thinking nonproliferation course that is not constrained by the specter of state collapse. That means standing up to them to disable their nuclear terror.

Brahma Chellaney, professor of strategic studies at the privately funded Center for Policy Research in New Delhi, is the author, most recently, of "Asian Juggernaut: The Rise of China, India and Japan" (HarperCollins).

The nuclear nightmare | The Japan Times Online
 

p2prada

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Mods. Can we make this thread a sticky and use it to follow the latest developments in nuclear proliferation. Primarily aimed at NK, Pak, Libya, Iran etc.
 
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there will probably be a few more nuclear countries before the UN figures out what do.
 

venkat

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LF! pakistan is virtually indulging in Nuclear blackmail to which India and pakistan mentor the US of A has succumbed(willingly)! North Korea and Iran will follow suit! bangladesh,srilanka ,Nepal ,Burma and Bhutan will be in queue(LOL)!
 

thakur_ritesh

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Mods. Can we make this thread a sticky and use it to follow the latest developments in nuclear proliferation. Primarily aimed at NK, Pak, Libya, Iran etc.
threads mearged, please continue the discussion.

thanks
 

Yusuf

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G8 calls upon all countries to sign NPT

L'AQUILA (Italy): The G8 countries on Thursday called upon all countries to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) while deciding to step up efforts for swift implementation of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), in a message that seems aimed at India -- the only `outlier' country at the summit.

Insisting that countries that have not signed NPT should do so immediately, the G8 emphasised the importance of the treaty to pursue non-proliferation and disarmament. India has refused to sign NPT describing it as a discriminatory regime.

"We underscore that NPT remains the cornerstone of the nuclear non-proliferation regime and the essential foundation for the pursuit of nuclear disarmament, and reiterate our full commitment to the objectives and obligations of its three pillars: non-proliferation, peaceful uses of nuclear energy and disarmament. We will work together so that the 2010 NPT Review Conference can successfully strengthen the Treaty's regime and set realistic and achievable goals in all the Treaty's three pillars," the L'Aquila Statement on Non-Proliferation said.

Though only the latest of the reminders to India and other holdouts, the insistence is a clear indication that divergence over NPT remains a potential point of tension between India and the developed world. As NPT members move towards the RevCom of the NPT in 2010, there will be increased calls to India to sign up.

The G8 stand on non-proliferation highlighted the increasing possibility of India coming under renewed pressure also on the issue of CTBT, with member countries resolving to speed up their efforts to ensure ban on nuclear testing.

After remaining in cold storage for almost a decade, because the Bush administration did not consider it to be priority, the non-proliferation crowd received a shot in the arm with Barack Obama, who has promised to get the US Senate to ratify CTBT. He is still short of the required two-thirds majority, but experts believe that could be made to happen, overcoming doubts that US's nuclear warheads need to be updated.

"We welcome the announcement made by the President of the USA that has decided to seek ratification of Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and we will intensify our efforts towards the early entry into force and universalisation of the CTBT as one of the principal instruments of the international security architecture and a key measure of non-proliferation and disarmament," the G8 countries stated.

CTBT became major point of discord between India on the one hand and the US and other developed countries as well as NPT signatories on the other after India refused to sign the treaty calling it discriminatory and designed to serve the interests of the nuclear haves. The issue abated under the Bush administration, but has staged a comeback under Obama who has decided to make nuclear disarmament one of the defining marks of his presidency.
G8 calls upon all countries to sign NPT - Europe - World - The Times of India
 
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India not signing NPT

India not signing NPT: Chavan- Hindustan Times


India is not considering signing the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty, government informed the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.


India not signing NPT: Chavan



This was stated by Minister of State in PMO Prithviraj Chavan in a written reply to a question raised by Kalikesh Singh Deo in the Lok Sabha.

“No Sir,” Chavan said to a query on whether the government was considering signing the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty.

In reply to a separate question, Chavan said the government had received suggestions to amemnd the Atomic Energy Act, 1962 to allow private participation in nuclear power generation.

He said the Indian private sector can participate in nuclear power generation projects as a minority partner under the present Atomic Energy Act.

State-owned Nuclear Power Corporation Limited runs all the nuclear power plants in the country.
 

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