The lurking danger of nuclear confrontation

The real danger today is the return of the nuclear issues into the forefront of international politics.

Nuclear developments in recent times have generated a loomingdanger of the potential use of nuclear weapons. If such a doomsday scenario were to hit an already chaotic security environment, it will be for the second time in about eight decades there will be use of nuclear weapons since the dropping of two nuclear bombs by the United States on two Japanese cities.

The news headlines in recent times are truly scary, if put in perspective. Russia has threatened the use of nuclear weapons in the midst of a war with Ukraine that has turned into a deadly Cold War-type confrontation between the United States and Russia. In the early 1960s, Washington and Moscow were responsible for taking the world to the brink of a nuclear war amidst the Cuban Missile Crisis.

That time the nuclear warheads were not as potent as now and the delivery systems were not as precise as today.

While the crisis was resolved in time, there were several instances before and after the Cuban Missile Crisis when the threat of use of nuclear weapons hang upon mankind as the Sword of Damocles. While the nuclear arms control agreements were signed by the United States and the former Soviet Union, what was controlled was the number of warheads and not modernization of nuclear arsenals.

Most of those arms control agreements have gone redundant and no new agreements are under contemplation. To add to the lurking dangers, China, France and the UK have not joined any initiative to limit the nuclear arms race and the emergence of new nuclear weapon powers cannot be ruled out in today's circumstances.

The Big Five Nuclear Weapon Powers that were also members of the UN Security Council, did all they could to retain their nuclear arsenals, while backing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to discourage other countries from developing their nuclear weapon capability.