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Nuclear Disarmament and Proliferation: Two Sides of the Same Coin

Disarmament, especially nuclear disarmament, has long been a dream of world ever since it witnessed the horrors of the effects of its use in the Second World War. Nuclear disarmament is likely to be the centre of debate at the forthcoming NPT Review Conference.

Stop Worrying and Start Moving Towards Global Zero

The Realist Case Against Nuclear Disarmament

Nuclear disarmament is once again fashionable. If rhetoric was sufficient, nuclear disarmament should be easily achievable. But what the rhetoric hides is not only the difficulty of achieving nuclear disarmament, but also the instrumental manner in which that rhetoric is being deployed. At the height of the Cold War, the two superpowers traded a number of detailed proposals for controlling the atom.

The NPT and India: Accommodating the Exception

In different international bodies and in statements by various world leaders, universalisation and a possible revision of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) are figuring quite frequently. Certainly, in the emerging context for universalisation, the relationship between India and the NPT may be reviewed. Several relevant options are emerging to define the relationship between India and the NPT. This has put the relationship between India and the NPT in the international limelight.

The Importance of 2010

In international relations, the more powerful have a way of underplaying history or overemphasising it, depending on how helpful or otherwise it may be in promoting their immediate objectives. It is interesting to note that even a country like India, which is beginning to sense the stirrings of power, is tending to fall into the same pattern.

Reforms in the NPT and Prospects for India’s Accession: A Situational Analysis

Since its indefinite extension in 1995, the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has been on the sidelines, with its utility eroding in the post-Cold War security environment, as new instruments took over the anti-proliferation mantle. Being the cornerstone of the regime and near-universal in character, the NPT has nonetheless survived despite a host of challenges threatening its existence. Its future, however, is imperilled unless the member states take remedial actions, including a restructuring of the treaty to suit 21st century requirements.

Special Editor’s Introduction

The failure of the 2005 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference (RevCon) almost signalled doom for the treaty. The NPT, since it came into force, has always travelled a slippery slope encountering various hurdles on the way. Its problem did not end even after it acquired the ‘near universal’ status. With the exception of India, Pakistan and Israel, all countries have joined the treaty, though North Korea withdrew from it and later conducted a couple of nuclear tests.

India and the NPT: Separating Substantive Facts from Normative Fiction

This article examines the feasibility and advisability of India joining the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Cyber Wars: A Paradigm Shift from Means to Ends

The last couple of decades have seen a colossal change in terms of the influence that computers can have on the battlefield, with defence pundits claiming it to be the dawn of a new era in warfare. Under these circumstances, there has been a gradual paradigm shift in military thinking and strategies from the strategic aspect to the tactical aspect of cyber warfare, laying more emphasis on it being a potent force multiplier. The author believes this is wrong and rather than cyber warfare being an enhancement of traditional operations, the latter will be force multipliers of cyber warfare.

NPT RevCon 2010: An Opportunity to Refocus Priorities

Amongst the challenges that bedevil the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) today, the NPT Review Conference (RevCon) 2010 will have to particularly handle two issues: one, right of non-nuclear weapon states (NNWS) under Article IV over the entire nuclear fuel cycle; two, identification by nuclear weapon states (NWS) of credible moves under Article VI for realising disarmament. In addressing the two interlinked issues, the RevCon has an opportunity to refocus the 40-year-old treaty into an effective instrument of non-proliferation and disarmament—its original twin objectives.