People often have strong and differing opinions on the topic of nuclear weapons. It is either that they believe nuclear weapons are a danger to international peace, or they believe that nuclear weapons aids to maintain international peace. I believe that deciding whether nuclear weapons are a threat to international peace is not clear cut. I shall argue that nuclear weapons are a threat to international security depending on certain factors and circumstances such as the time, who owns the nuclear weapons and human error.
Nuclear weapons can be a threat to humanity by mistake or miscalculation, if not by design. During the cold war years,the nuclear weapons systems were strained by mistakes, false alarms as well as human error. So long as we are human, there is a risk of miscalculation. Miscalculation on a nuclear weapon can have some grave consequences on the world. Hence, even if by design, nuclear weapons are not a threat to international peace, they pose a threat to the world because the people who have these nuclear weapons are prone to mistakes and miscalculation.
The mere existence of nuclear weapons might not be an immediate threat to international security, but the proliferation of nuclear weapons is definitely a threat to the international system.Proliferation of nuclear weapons creates a security dilemma which then leads to the nuclear arms race. Nuclear arms can happen in terms of Horizontal proliferation is the spread of nuclear weapons to other countries or non-state actors (Walton and Gray, 2007: 210) “Vertical” proliferation refers to nation-states that do possess nuclear weapons and are increasing their stockpiles of these weapons, improving the technical sophistication or reliability of their weapons, or developing new weapons. ( Sidel, Victor)“Horizontal” proliferation refers to nation-states or nonstate entities that do not have, but are acquiring, nuclear weapons or developing the capability and materials for producing them. On the grounds that some countries have nuclear weapons, other countries will want to acquire nuclear weapons as well. Some countries may may want to nuclear weapons because they are threatened by the other country’s nuclear stockpile, and believe increasing the amount of nuclear weapons in their stock will give them the security they need
Also, nuclear terrorism can be classified as a huge risk to international peace. If nuclear weapons fall into the hands of violent non-state actors, it may cause a great threat to international peace. Terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda have tried to acquire some nuclear weapons for some of their campaigns.Using the 9/11 attack on the United States, one can understand the danger the rest of the world faces if such non-state actors acquire such weapons. They will explode these nuclear weapons in places that will cause hundreds of death to make their political statements. They have little or no regard for human life, a disturbing fact, given what we know about the destructive capabilities of nuclear weapons. What’s more interesting is that these violent non-state actors are free from nuclear retaliation, meaning they do not have much to lose anyway. Hence, they will not hesitate to use these weapons when they deem fit. It is easy to see why nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorist groups can be detrimental to world peace.
Critics however believe that nuclear weapons are not as dangerous as we make them seem.
Nuclear peace is a theory of international relations that argues that under some circumstances nuclear weapons can induce stability and decrease the chances of crisis escalation.Nuclear weapons are said to have induced stability during the Cold War, when both the US and the USSR possessed mutual second strike retaliation capability, eliminating the possibility of nuclear victory for either side. Proponents of nuclear peace argue that controlled nuclear proliferation may be beneficial for inducing stability.
Nuclear weapons may have influenced political rhetoric, public defense budgets but it is not clear that they have had a significant impact on the history of world affairs since WW2. They do not seem to have been necessary to deter ww3, alliance patterns or to cause the United States and the Soviet Union to behave cautiously ( the essential irrelevance of nuclear weapons: stability in the post war world – John Mueller)
In conclusion, nuclear weapons are what you make of them. If you see nuclear weapons as a threat to international peace, then they would be. Nuclear weapons on its own, is not a threat to international peace, but may become a threat due to certain variables.
References :
Evans, Gareth. Nuclear Weapons as a threat to Global Peace.Address by Professor Gareth Evans, Co-Chair of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, President Emeritus of the International Crisis Group and former Foreign Minister of Australia, to the UNI Global Union 3rd World Conference, Nagasaki, Japan, 11 November
Walton, C. D., Gray, C. S. (2007) ‘The Second Nuclear Age: Nuclear Weapons in the Twenty-first Century.’In Strategy in the Contemporary World, edited by John Baylis, James Writz, Colin . Gray and Eliot Cohen. Oxford University Press: Oxford.
Sidel, Victor W., and Barry S. Levy. “Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons: Opportunities for Control and Abolition.” American Journal of Public Health 97.9 (2007): 1589–1594. PMC. Web. 28 Nov. 2014.