Geography
In The
News™
Neal G.
Lineback
THE NUCLEAR
CLUB, 2005
and the Anti Ballistic Missile (ABM)
Treaties between the nuclear powers.
The 1980s found President Ronald
Regan calling the Soviet Union “The
Evil Empire.” In response to the Soviet
nuclear threat, the United States
carried out a massive increase in
nuclear weapons. Israel probably
joined the Nuclear Club sometime
between 1979 and the mid-1980s. By
the end of the decade the Soviet Union
dissolved, breaking up into 15 independent states.
In the early 1990s, three of the
former Soviet republics-- Ukraine,
Kazahkstan and Belarus-- agreed to
give up their inherited stockpiles of
nuclear weapons. But other former
republics were reluctant to do the
same. Then India and Pakistan
became members of the Nuclear Club
when both tested their own nuclear
weapons and missiles.
By the first decade of the 21st
century, a radical change in nuclear
focus began, as U.S. concerns about
worldwide terrorism were added to
worries about rogue countries with
nuclear capabilities. Concerns not
only included the black-market
spread of weapons to new countries,
but the black-market diffusion of
nuclear materials to terrorist groups.
Humanity’s greatest threat of all
time is a nuclear holocaust, which
could leave large portions of the earth
uninhabitable for centuries. The
Nuclear Club is growing as not only
terrorists but developing countries
seek nuclear technology. Who has or
may have nuclear weapon technology
and what are the implications?
The 1940s Manhattan Project was a
research effort by the United States to
build and test the first atomic bombs
as a way to win World War II. Two
atomic bombs were dropped on the
Japanese cities of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki in 1945, ending the war. But
the Cold War followed, as the Soviet
Union exploded its first atomic bomb
in 1949.
The Cold War in
The Nuclear Club
the 1950s raised the
level of nuclear
threat, as the United
States
developed
the first intercontinental
ballistic
missiles.
Bomb
shelters
proliferCountries with
ated across the
Nuclear Weapons,
country over fears
and Year Tested
that the Soviets
United States 1945
would not be far
Russia
1949
United Kingdom 1952
behind.
©2005
France
1960
In the 1960s,
China
1964
India
1974
France and China
C. Knoll/P. Larkins
Israel
1979
established
their
Pakistan
1998 Geography in the News 3/25/05
own nuclear weapNorth Korea
NA
Source: www.globalsecurity.org
ons programs and
the United States and the Soviet
Of particular concern have been the
Union faced off over the Cuban
covert activities of the head of
Missile crisis. These events set the
Pakistan’s nuclear program, Abdul
stage for discussions about developQadeer Khan. He allegedly sold
ing a worldwide Nuclear Nonnuclear technology to Iran, Libya and
Proliferation Treaty.
North Korea.
The 1970s brought SALT I and II
©2005 Maps.com
In 2005, the world’s Nuclear Club
consists of seven countries with
known stockpiles of nuclear weapons:
United States, Russia, United Kingdom, China, France, India and Pakistan. North Korea recently claimed to
have nuclear weapons and Iran is
being accused of secretly working on
a
nuclear
weapons
program.
Although Israel still has not admitted
it, it is well known that the country
also has achieved nuclear status.
It is unknown, however, whether
aging Soviet nuclear weapons are
being stored in other former Soviet
republics, including those along the
southern Siberian border adjoining
Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and China.
Extremely troublesome is the fact that
many former Soviet weapons are
housed in less than secure conditions,
perhaps making them accessible to
terrorists.
Finally, little is known about Abdul
Qadeer Khan’s black market operations. Up until last year, he was free to
travel around the world. Pakistan’s
dictator and President Pervez Musharraf put him under house arrest at
the insistence of the United States.
Trained in nuclear technology in West
Germany and Belgium, this rogue
scientist has done more to break the
world’s
nonproliferation
treaties than all of
the
remaining
nuclear scientists.
In Pakistan, he
remains a national
hero
and
the
government
refuses to allow
outsiders to interview him.
And
so
the
Nuclear
Club
grows
in
membership—and
in danger.
And
that
is
Geography in the
News™. March 25, 2005. #773.
(The author is a Geography Professor
and Interim Dean of the College of Arts
and Sciences at Appalachian State
University, Boone, NC.)
Source: http://www.nuclearfiles.org