Word: nuclearization
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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This raises two crucial questions. First, can a nuclear nation give an effective guarantee? Second, can a non-nuclear nation accept it in total faith? Both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. have been extremely reluctant to give such a blanket commitment because they want to keep open as many options as possible. They just don't know what they will do in any particular crisis. And even if the nuclear powers did give such a commitment who knows whether they would keep it if their own survival was at stake...
Therefore many nun-nuclear nations doubt that they could rely on such a security guarantee. The nuclear guarantee in some cases might even be insufficient for it inherently rules out a preemptive attack. Retaliation would take place only after an initial attack. But can a nation always afford to wait until after she has been attacked, when her cities are already smoldering...
This is precisely the argument of India, which doubts that any guarantee will protect her from Communist China. Thus India will probably refuse to sign the nonproliferation treaty. Indian realists contend that in the absence of effective international peace-keeping machinery or reliable alliances only nuclear weapons can truly guarantee a nation's independence and territorial integrity. If India decided to build her own nuclear force she could do it with little difficulty. The majority of Western arms analysts believe that India could produce nuclear weapons sooner than West Germany...
...SECOND issue of technical assistance for peaceful uses of atomic energy has raised a flurry of charges that it will keep the non-nuclear states in a status of permanent technological dependence on the nuclear powers. Brazil and Argentina particularly are seeking specific commitments in the draft treaty to enable them to use nuclear explosives to clear virgin land...
...third issue of limiting the arms race between the nuclear powers themselves challenges the very validity of the nonproliferation treaty. Neutrals like Sweden and India have consistently held that a comprehensive nuclear treaty signed by all five nuclear powers is a pre-requisite to any nonproliferation treaty. How can the non-nuclear states, they ask, be fairly expected to renounce nuclear weapons indefinitely, much less forever, while the five existing states fail to make any progress toward nuclear disarmament, and while two of the five still refuse to adhere to the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty...