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The Pros And Cons Of The Proliferation Of Nuclear Weapons

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The catastrophic experience with the nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in1945 left the entire world with fear and horror. The former US secretary of war Lewis Stimson, rightly remarked that "the atomic bomb was more than a weapon of terrible destruction; it was a psychological weapon." This horrific psychological impact generated a nuclear taboo which remains in practice till present. The nuclear taboo against the use of nuclear weapons due to its horrific threat to humanity has strengthened over time. Moreover, there was also a trend towards the possession and proliferation of nuclear weapons after 1945, the Soviet Union tested their first nuclear weapon in August 1949.
The first institutional effort to strengthen norms against proliferation took place in 1954 when the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was approved and became operational in 1957. This was an effort to create a system of safeguards: non-nuclear weapons states agreed to report their civilian activities to the IAEA and also …show more content…

NWS are defined as "those that have manufactured and tested their nuclear weaponry before January 1, 1967." The NWS are United States, Russia, The United Kingdom, France and China. Every other country that is a member to the treaty is categorized as NNWS. It was established under the belief that the proliferation of nuclear weapons would increase the risks of a nuclear war. Thus, the treaty required the NNWS not to acquire, manufacture or seek assistance in the manufacturing of nuclear weapons or explosive devices,88(88 S. Paul Kapur, Dangerous Deterrent (2007), p.3.)while the NWS were to disarm and subsequently eliminate nuclear weapons. This effort developed cooperation among states and legally enforceable rules and initiated anti-nuclear norms which remain in practice though they are violated at different times by different

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