DISARMAMENT AND ARMS CONTROL

2,36

MB

117

stron

3870

ID

Universita degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza

2001

rok

Contents

Preface v

List of abbreviations ix

1 NUCLEAR WEAPONS: AN OVERVIEW 1

1.1 Introduction . 1

1.2 Some basic notions about nuclear and thermonuclear weapons 1

1.2.1 Fission and fusion . 2

1.2.2 Uranium 3

1.2.3 Plutonium 4

1.2.4 Nuclear-weapon technology 6

1.2.5 Nuclear explosive devices: a summary . 7

1.3 The effects of nuclear weapons . 7

1.3.1 Phenomenology of nuclear explosions . 7

1.3.2 Blast 8

1.3.3 Thermal radiation 8

1.3.4 Nuclear radiation and radioactivity . 8

1.3.5 Hiroshima and Nagasaki 10

1.3.6 Consequences of a nuclear war . 10

1.4 Nuclear weapons: their types and their delivery vehicles . 10

1.5 Nuclear arsenals: through time and now 11

1.6 Nuclear-weapon materials: through time and now . 13

1.7 The cost of nuclear arsenals and the cost of disarmament . 15

1.8 Nuclear doctrines 16

1.9 Overview 20

2 RESTRAINING AND REVERSING VERTICAL PROLIFERATION: NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT

AND ARMS CONTROL 23

2.1 Introduction . 23

2.2 The 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty 23

2.3 The ABM Treaty 23

2.4 SALT, START, INF: the issue of deep cuts . 24

2.5 The endof theColdWar 26

2.6 The 1991 unilateral undertakings by Presidents Bush and Gorbachev . 26

2.7 The last decade: lost opportunities . 27

2.8 The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty 28

2.9 The present situation: NMD, NATO enlargement, a return to a Cold War climate? 30

2.10 Main issues to be tackled soon: deep cuts, warhead limitations, transparency, de-alerting, the

role of nuclear weapons . 33

2.11 Suggested developments for NATO: nuclear weapons as instruments of last resort, no first

use, withdrawal of the few remaining US nuclear weapons in Western Europe, support for a

NWFZC&EE . 34

3 PREVENTING HORIZONTAL PROLIFERATION, RIDDING THE WORLD OF NUCLEAR

WEAPONS 39

3.1 Introduction . 39

3.2 The Non-Proliferation Treaty 39

3.3 Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones 40

3.4 The Missile Technology Control Regime 42

3.5 The agenda of the Conference on Disarmament 44

3.6 The status of nuclear weaponry in international law 45

3.7 The transition to a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World 46

3.8 The risk of terrorist uses of nuclear explosions . 49

4 CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS 55

4.1 Introduction . 55

4.2 The Chemical Weapons Convention 55

4.3 The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons 57

4.4 Chemical disarmament . 58

4.5 The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention 59

4.6 The negotiation aimed at strengthening the verification of the BTWC . 60

4.7 Chemical and biological terrorism . 60

4.8 Towards introducing personal accountability for those who participate in the development of

universally proscribed weapons: the status of ‘enemy of humankind’ 61

5 OTHER ARMS-CONTROL ISSUES 63

5.1 Introduction . 63

5.2 Conventional Forces in Europe: the CFE Treaty 63

5.3 Open skies 63

5.4 Anti-personnel mines 64

5.5 Guidelines on the world arms trade; the United Nations Register of major arms transfers 67

5.6 Small arms and light weapons . 69

Bibliographical notes 75

References 79

Appendix: Some data, reproduced from standard sources 83