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Nonproliferation

Nonproliferation - Prevention of the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

The question here... who should govern this? Who decides what is a weapon of mass destruction and wether a country should or should not have this?

Nonproliferation

I am not sure I agree with it at all except in cases where the country has already proven untrustworthy by attacking another unprovoked and then signed a treaty agreeing not to make or have them.

Otherwise, I don't think anyone really has the right to say what another country builds for an arsenal. Yet, in practice, if one country believes the other country intends to use that weapon against them, what choice do they have? Should they wait until the weapon is used against them to act? No.

So, I guess in reality, someone needs to say you can't have that weapon because it threatens me. Also, reality dictates that only a country stronger than the one building the weapon can say it and enforce it.

Nonproliferation History & Civil Business Politics

It would really need to be a decision made by a panel of countries, similar to the UN Security Council. The problem with that however is that these countries then seem to have free will in terms of creating and furthering their own weapons. The rules they set forth for others would need to apply to their own countries as well. In the end, there is no real 'fair' way of enforcing non-proliferation.

Nonproliferation

None of this makes a difference if it cannot be enforced. In current era, we see that the US simply does what it wants. The nuclear proliferation is governed amongst the powers of the UN but has no real power. There suggestions can be used to start war or ignored depending on the nation.

Nonproliferation

I disagree with your last post, Konquererz. I assume your comments were based on the Iraq war, and without going offtopic really quickly, I will say that should the UN Security Council have done its job and enforced the rules that Iraq had broken (all 4 of them), then the US would not have had to act the way it did.
As for nonproliferation, I still believe that the UN Security council is the only real way to enforce this, but the members of the council need to get a backbone at times, and not just sit back and allow events to unfold before their blinded eyes.

Nonproliferation

Offtopic but, Actually it was the US who initiated the retrieval of UN weapons inspectors in Iraq through waging an invasion. Ask Hans Blix. He knew better than Bush and his cohorts what weapons Saddam had. The UN security council rejected war. They set the rules, not the US.

The problem with non-proliferation is that the countries who play policeman are often the criminals. US, Israel and Russia are a few names that come to mind.

You can't tell a country they cannot pursue nuclear technology, even for peaceful purposes, when you possess the largest nuclear arsenal and weapons program in history.

This is called hypocrisy.

One can argue non-proliferation has actually worked in curtailing the spread of nuclear weapons in almost every country in the world except a few. These exceptions include North Korea, India and Israel. However India hasn't signed up so where do they stand?

It's actually a rather strange treaty when you think about it. The US has agreed to share nuclear technology with India who isn't a signatory. This is a direct breach of the aims of the treaty. But who is there to police it?

Edited: arvhic on 13th Apr, 2006 - 11:47pm