Q) To what extent do Nuclear Proliferation threatens Peace and Security ? (25) A) 1. History and Nature of Nuclear Weapons.

1) First and only weapons used in a warfare were atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the 1945 war. 2) Work through nuclear fission 2. Devastating in three ways 1) Immediate Devastation : wreaked by a blast effect of awesome explosive force which is combined with thermal radiation. 2) Nuclear Radiations: detonation of the weapon creates an immediate pulse of nuclear radiation and by products of the detonation form radioactive fall-out. Exposure to these may result in various diseases such as cancer. 3) Colossal Destructive Power : in the orm of the hydrogen bomb ; releases destructive force 2000 times more than the ones used in japan. 3. Have affected international and domestic politics. 4. Distinguished from conventional weapons : 1)They are weapons that have potential to inflict massive collateral damage 2)Mass impact has raised important moral questions that these weapons are non-legitimate inhuman forms of warfare 3)Have particularly powerful deterrent effect. 5. Balance of Power : Realist Views : - BOP plays an important role. ; Waltz(1979) portrayed BOP as theory of international politics. - Reflects core assumptions about importance of power in shaping state behavior and of the role of power relations in structuring international politics. - Understood as a rough equilibrium between two or more power blocs. Power can be a check on power thus leads to peace and security. - Classical Realists: BOP is essentially a policy, product of political intervention and statesmanship. E.g. Voluntarism (implying faith in free will and personal commitment) assumes that key decision makers in foreign policy enjoy freedom of operation. - Neo-Realists: BOP is more of a system, set of arrangements that tend to arise automatically, rather than through the self-willed actions of decision makers. E.g. Determinism ( implying that human actions are entirely conditioned by external factors) suggests that the BOP is actually imposed by events who are constrained by the dynamics of the international system. - Happens because states in a self help system are likely to act to prevent the emergence of hegemonic domination by a single state. - BOP is more likely to develop in a bipolar system than in a multipolar or unipolar system.

 Liberal Views - BOP legitimizes and entrenches power politics and international rivalry, creating inherent instability and deepening distrust. - Basic premise of BOP is that other states pose a threat to security and can only be contained through a rival build up of power or the formation of a rival alliance. - BOP more likely to cause war than to prevent it. - Focuses more on finding alternative and more effective mechanisms for ensuring peace and security - Principle solution is the creation of institutes like UN or League of Nations etc. - Whereas BOP fosters private agreements that cover most if not all states, so making possible a system of collective security. Social Constructivists: -emphasized the extent to which any assessment of the balance of power is dependent on perception, ideas and beliefs. - BOP is shaped by the identities that states have of themselves and of other states. - BOP is what states make of it (anarchy) International Society Theorists: - BOP is an artifact : emerges out of the existence of common normal and values and a mutual desire of states to avoid war. - BOP works because states want it to work. Feminists - Share views with liberals - BOP tends to intensify international conflict and make war more likely. - Reflects a gendered conception of the BOP, in which power is always conceived as power over or dominate others. - The BOP therefore invariably becomes a struggle for power. Post-colonial Theorists: - BOP as an essentially European or western game, which excluded consideration of the rest of the world - European BOP system in the late 90s thus coincided with the scramble for Africa and a deepening of global inequalities and imbalances.

6. Promotes Peace & Security (YES) Absence of Nuclear War - Rarely used. - only used as instruments in the war of 1945 to bring an end to the war. - Fact that they have not been used so frequently suggests that they are of a very particular type - Almost entirely of symbolic, not practical, importance. Effective Deterrence - Motive : prevention of war through the massive destruction that would befall an aggressor. - Well-suited to this role because of their enormous destructive nature and relatively ineffective as defensive weapons. -Low possibility of a state achieving a fist strike nuclear knockout since nuclear power invariably seek to develop a second strike capability. - Makes war, between two nuclear powers, unthinkable. International Stability - Vertical proliferation of nuclear arms has not destabilized international politics - Has tended to preserve the BOP through a BO-Terror. -Horizontal proliferation has been gradual, hence better than either no spread or a rapid spread would. Nuclear Statesmanship - Possession may engender a sense of responsibility + strong bias towards caution. - E.g. Regional tensions between Pakistan and India are much less likely to lead to a war now that both powers possess nuclear weapons. 7. Promotes Peace and Security (NO) Unreliability of deterrent systems -Theory of deterrence is nave and dangerous. - World in which Nuclear Weapons exists will always carry the threat of a nuclear war - Deterrence may fail due to accidents and miscalculations. - Conventional wars may also escalate into nuclear wars through mistakes make in the frenetic atmosphere. Danger of nuclear imbalance - No guarantee that vertical or horizontal N.P will preserve the BOP - Proliferation inevitably creates temporary imbalances which may then be exploited by aggressive states. - e.g. Japan bombs were dropped to take advantage of precisely such a military imbalance

 Useable Nuclear Weapons - Developments in the recent years have focused on the production of nuclear weapons. - Making them useable. - These tactical or battlefield nuclear weapons no longer are of symbolic importance. Irresponsible Nuclear Powers - Deterrent effect of nuclear weapons during the first nuclear age is less stable and reliable in the multipolar second nuclear age. - Nuclear weapons may fall in the hands of dictatorial regimes or terrorist organizations, which may have fewer scruples about using them.