The more nuclear powers, the more other nations feel it absolutely necessary to develop and add weapons of this nature to their defense arsenals.
by John Ross Schroeder
Dateline: London "Despite long-standing
intelligence monitoring, India's five nuclear tests on land 13 May,
1998 took the world by surprise" (Strategic Comments, June,
1998).
So much for stability in an uncertain age.
Two Eastern nations-India and Pakistan-threatened the peace and well-being
of the world with their recent nuclear tests and mutual saber rattling.
Now there is no real end to the nuclear
threat in sight. Clearly, if a larger number of countries develop or
gain access to these nightmare weapons, the world will become a much
less-safe place. The West has every reason for limiting the nuclear
spread. Yet Libya, Iran, Iraq and possibly North Korea, are seen as
nations with the worrying capacity to gain nuclear arsenals in the
not-too-distant future.
A Sobering Press Briefing
This writer recently attended a London
press briefing at the Foreign Press Association where Dr. Gerald Segal,
Director of Studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies,
analyzed the recent India/Pakistan developments in the light of the
overall nuclear threat to humanity.
Gerald Segal lamented the harm done to
the discernible progress that had previously been made in limiting
the nuclear threat in the world. He pointed out that drastic cuts in
such weaponry had already occurred in some very prominent countries
(the U.S.A., Russia, Britain) and also said that South Africa and Brazil
had apparently pulled out of the atomic race altogether.
Dr. Segal also spoke of these most recent
tests in terms of "a wakeup call to us all," and reminded the journalists
in attendance that "if we get it wrong," there is an increased threat
to human survival on this planet.
