Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
There twelve thousand seven hundred nuclear warheads in the world today. Nine thousand forty-four of these are in military stockpiles ready for possible use. Russia and the U.S. possess over ninety percent of the nuclear warheads in the world. China with three hundred and fifty warheads, India with one hundred and sixty warheads, and Pakistan with one hundred and twenty warheads have announced that they are expanding their stockpiles. The U.K has one hundred and eighty warheads, France has two hundred and ninety warheads and it is estimated that Israel has as many as four hundred warheads.
The five permanent U.N. Security Council members are China, France, Russian Federation, United Kingdom and the United States. Despite agreeing in 2021 that “nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” all five are increasing and/or modernizing their nuclear weapons arsenals. Nuclear weapons have become much smaller, more accurate, and far more powerful than the ones that the U.S. used seventy seven years ago on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to force Japan to surrender in World War II. Although they were much less powerful than today’s nuclear warheads, the ones that the U.S. dropped on Japan killed over two hundred thousand Japanese civilians, most of whom were women and children.
The nuclear weapons of today can destroy a major city within minutes. It really does not matter who attacks whom. A full scales nuclear war will probably cool the whole world by at least thirteen degrees Fahrenheit and bring about a new ice age. Within the first hour of a nuclear war, over one hundred million people will be killed. As the geopolitical tensions rise, the world cannot continue to ignore or downplay the threat of a major nuclear war.
On the 6th of August, the U.N. Secretary-General was in Hiroshima to mark the seventy seventh anniversary of the atomic bombing. During his speech, he begged the world: “We must keep the horrors of Hiroshima in view at all times, recognizing there is only one solution to the nuclear threat: not to have nuclear weapons at all.”
On January 22nd, 2021, the Treaty of the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), more commonly known as the Nuclear Ban Treaty, came into force after fifty one countries ratified the treaty. The treaty bans the use, threat of use, development, testing, production, manufacturing, acquisition, possession, or stockpiling of nuclear weapons. The treaty also makes it illegal to assist, encourage or induce anyone to do so.
The number of countries which are parties to the treaty has already increase to sixty-six. However, the countries which possess nuclear weapons or are suspected of having that ambition have not joined the treaty. The Nuclear Ban Treaty may strengthen the taboo against nuclear weapons, but it is just a beginning.
The international norms, values, and principles have become extremely vulnerable in recent years. The threats to use nuclear warheads and nuclear power plants as weapons of war have become quite common. The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty does not provide much assurance for the world to feel safe and secure from a looming nuclear disaster.