Global nuclear non-proliferations - Part.1
Progressive update of reports on ongoing Nuclear non-proliferation
Sanctuary Team
The story of nuclear proliferation began in the shadow of World War II, when the United States used atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. The immediate devastation demonstrated a new level of destructive power that transformed global politics. Within a few years, the Soviet Union (1949), United Kingdom (1952), France (1960), and China (1964) all developed their own nuclear arsenals, marking the emergence of the five official “nuclear-weapon states.” This period saw the rise of the nuclear arms race, with both superpowers — the U.S. and USSR — stockpiling thousands of warheads and developing increasingly sophisticated delivery systems. The United Nations began to voice alarm about the dangers of proliferation as early as 1946, when it established the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission (UNAEC), though early efforts to regulate nuclear weapons failed amid Cold War tensions.
In the 1950s, the United States sought to manage nuclear knowledge and technology through President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” speech (1953), delivered before the UN General Assembly. This initiative promoted peaceful uses of nuclear energy — such as power generation and medical research — while attempting to prevent the diversion of nuclear materials into weapons programs. It laid the groundwork for the creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 1957, headquartered in Vienna, Austria. The IAEA’s mission was twofold: to encourage the safe, peaceful use of nuclear energy and to verify that civilian nuclear programs were not used for weapons development. Despite these efforts, the nuclear arms race intensified during the late 1950s and early 1960s, with massive weapons testing that caused widespread environmental and health concerns.
Growing public and diplomatic pressure led to the first major arms control agreement — the Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) of 1963 — signed by the U.S., USSR, and U.K. The PTBT prohibited nuclear weapons testing in the atmosphere, outer space, and underwater, though it still allowed underground tests. While it did not halt proliferation, it represented an important symbolic step toward restraint and cooperation. The most consequential milestone, however, was the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), opened for signature in 1968 and entering into force in 1970. The NPT rested on three central pillars: non-proliferation (nuclear states agreed not to transfer weapons to others), disarmament (a commitment to pursue arms reduction negotiations), and the right to peaceful nuclear technology. To monitor compliance, the IAEA established a system of safeguards and inspections, giving it a crucial verification role in global nuclear governance.
Part.2
Throughout the Cold War, additional treaties and bilateral agreements sought to stabilize the nuclear balance. The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I, 1972) produced the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, limiting missile defense systems and thus reinforcing deterrence. SALT II (1979), though never formally ratified by the U.S. Senate, further constrained the number of launchers and delivery vehicles. In the 1980s, with tensions easing under leaders like Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, momentum for disarmament grew. The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty (1987) became a landmark achievement, eliminating an entire class of missiles from Europe. Alongside these agreements, international bodies such as the Conference on Disarmament, the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA), and numerous summits under the auspices of the UN continued to promote arms control, transparency, and non-proliferation norms. By the end of the Cold War, a complex web of treaties and institutions had emerged to contain the nuclear threat, though the challenges of enforcement and mutual trust remained unresolved.
The end of the Cold War in the early 1990s ushered in cautious optimism about the future of nuclear disarmament. The collapse of the Soviet Union left thousands of nuclear weapons scattered across Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, prompting urgent efforts to secure and reduce these arsenals. The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), signed in 1991 by U.S. President George H. W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, required both sides to reduce their deployed strategic warheads by nearly one-third and introduced rigorous verification mechanisms. Following the USSR’s dissolution, the Lisbon Protocol (1992) ensured that Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan acceded to the NPT as non-nuclear states, transferring all Soviet nuclear weapons to Russia.
The START II Treaty (1993) sought even deeper cuts and the elimination of multiple-warhead intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), though it never fully entered into force due to later disagreements. These years also saw international successes such as the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) of 1996, which banned all nuclear explosions and established the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) to monitor compliance — though the treaty still awaits ratification by several key states, including the United States and China.
Part.3
During the 1990s and 2000s, however, optimism gave way to new proliferation challenges. India and Pakistan conducted nuclear tests in 1998, becoming de facto nuclear states outside the NPT framework, while North Korea withdrew from the NPT in 2003, later conducting its first nuclear test in 2006. The exposure of clandestine nuclear networks, such as A.Q. Khan’s proliferation ring, underscored the limits of existing verification systems. Meanwhile, the Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions (SORT) — also called the Moscow Treaty (2002) — reaffirmed reductions but lacked robust verification. The U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002 under President George W. Bush further strained arms control relations with Russia, which viewed missile defense systems in Eastern Europe as a direct threat to its deterrent. Despite these setbacks, renewed diplomatic engagement under Barack Obama led to the New START Treaty, signed in 2010 by Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Entering into force in 2011, it capped each side’s deployed strategic warheads at 1,550 and launched a new era of on-site inspections and transparency measures — widely regarded as the last surviving pillar of bilateral nuclear arms control.
In the 2020s, the global nuclear order grew increasingly fragile amid rising geopolitical tensions. The United States formally withdrew from the INF Treaty in 2019, citing alleged Russian violations through the development of the 9M729 missile system. Moscow responded by suspending its own compliance, marking the effective collapse of a key Cold War-era accord. Efforts to extend New START faced uncertainty until early 2021, when the Biden administration and the Kremlin agreed to a five-year extension — preserving verification mechanisms temporarily. However, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 fundamentally disrupted the security landscape.
In February 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the suspension of Russia’s participation in New START, accusing the West of hostility and interference. While Moscow did not formally withdraw, it halted U.S. inspections and data exchanges, effectively freezing the last active nuclear arms control channel between the two largest nuclear powers. International organizations, including the United Nations, the IAEA, and the G7, condemned the move as a setback to decades of arms control progress. As of the mid-2020s, the global non-proliferation regime faces mounting challenges: modernization of arsenals in the U.S., Russia, and China; regional tensions involving Iran and North Korea; and the erosion of trust that once underpinned treaty compliance.
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