A Tiny Sun: Getting the Bomb
Tom Stevenson, 24 February 2022
The Non-Proliferation Treaty had been in force since 1970, to discourage non-nuclear states from acquiring nuclear weapons, but the existing powers had only paid lip service to disarmament. Now the US could focus on non-proliferation as a tool of power politics. It often failed. The Clinton administration sought to prevent North Korea getting the bomb, and with the 1994 Agreed Framework succeeded in temporarily hindering its weapons programme. But after the US refused to finance civilian reactors for North Korea under international safeguards the agreement came under strain, and the George W. Bush administration pulled out of the deal entirely. Pyongyang acquired its first nuclear weapon in 2006. Advocating non-proliferation is a common hobby for retired American officials with time on their hands and a less than clean conscience. Were the US actually committed to limiting nuclear weapons, it would at the very least have to declare a ‘no first use’ policy for its own nuclear arsenal. The Soviet Union, China and India have all made such a pledge in the past (Britain and France have not).
