History of Non-Proliferation

• July 16, 1945 f- first nuclear test in Alamagordo, New Mexico
• August 6 & 9, 1945- Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
• November 15, 1945- United States, United Kingdom and Canada propose the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission. Their goal was to, "entirely eliminating the use of atomic energy for destructive purposes."
• 1946- Baruch Plan. Proposed by the United States, this plan fought to forestall nuclear arms proliferation by placing all nuclear resources under international ownership and control.
• 1957-International Atomic Energy Commission. Oversees the development and spread of nuclear weapons technology and materials
• 1961- UN General Assembly passes the Joint Statement of Agreed Principles for Disarmament Negotiations.
• 1963- Treaty to stop nuclear powers from testing nuclear weapons in outer space.
• 1964- Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
• 1967- Nuclear weapons banned from Latin America
• 1968- NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY

Non Proliferation Treaty

The main intent of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was to restrict development and testing of all nuclear weapons so that no other countries besides the 5 powers that were currently nuclear powers in 1968 would be able to produce nuclear weapons. The nuclear nations would work on disarming any nuclear bombs.

A system of safeguards was implemented to make sure that there was compliance with the NPT, the International Atomic Energy Agency would verify the products produced by nuclear reactors and where they went, to make sure that they did not go to making bombs. Nuclear nations were required to protect non-nuclear nations. Also, nuclear nations were required to disarm while non-nuclear nations were required to stay non-nuclear.

Most nations, even those non-nuclear signed the treaty. Many countries did not though, including two of the world's biggest nuclear powers, the United States and China. Cuba, India, Isreael and Pakistan also did not sign the agreement.

Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty

In 1996 after many countries had tried to test nuclear weapons the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was implemented. This treaty seeks to ban all nuclear weapons test explosions and nuclear explosions in general. To be ratified 44 countries need to sign it. So far neither India nor Pakistan have signed the treaty. Both countries are needed to ratify the treaty.

India participated in the talks discussing the treaty though it did not ratify the Test Ban Treaty and to this day refuses to sign it. India against CTB: Misplaced fears In many ways India wished to keep its nuclear option open in case of need one day.

India and Pakistan and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

India:

India did not sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty for many reasons. One was the want of India to keep it's nuclear options open should one day it find the need to use nuclear weapons.

Pakistan

Pakistan primarily did not sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty because it felt threatened by India, a country that was already a professed nuclear power. Since both Pakistan and India have had fairly bad relations Pakistan has wanted to keep its nuclear option open, should it ever need to excercise it.