It is no exaggeration to say that arms control has undergone a revolution in the past decade. In the forty years since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended World War II and began the nuclear age, governments, organizations, and individuals have worked to reduce the threat of wars between great powers employing weapons of mass destruction-nuclear, chemical, and biological. Some progress was made during this period; the Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT) of 1963, the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1970, and the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) of 1972 were the more notable achievements. But progress was always slow, frustrating, and tentative, with no assurance that the whole fabric might not be undone by an increase in superpower tension or by domestic forces in either the United States or USSR hostile to the very concept of arms control.
Based on interviews with participants and research in newly opened archives, the book reveals how the American atomic monopoly affected Stalin's foreign policy, the role of espionage in the evolution of the Soviet bomb, and the relationship between Soviet nuclear scientists and the country's political leaders.
This paper describes the technologies needed for producing nuclear weapons, giving particular attention to those used in electromagnetic separation and laser uranium-235 enrichment. The complexity of the technologies makes it clear that developing countries, to various degrees, need assistance from the developed world in order to build nuclear weapons. Complete restriction of assistance could prevent the spread of these weapons. Unfortunately, knowledge of the technology is already so widespread that preventing further spread is virtually impossible in the long run. In practice, imposing rigorous control over the availability of key components of all of the possible technologies may delay access to nuclear weapons by the less-developed world for many years. All of the recommendations in this discussion may be overtaken by the chaotic situation in the former Soviet Union--rumors abound that its nuclear engineers, technology, weapons material, and the weapons themselves are potentially for sale. A better method of preventing proliferation is needed, and some of the proposals for achieving improvements are discussed in this paper.
Under Article VI of the NPT, all parties agree "to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control." The purpose of this paper is to consider the meaning of this language.
