by John McAfee and Shelly Nixon, University of North Carolina at Asheville

Presented to the Midwestern Political Science Association’s 67th Annual Conference in April, 2009.

download this essay as a pdf file: Nixon Nuclear Weapons

Abstract:  The global community is currently facing a resurgence in the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Given the horrors experienced by the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the dropping of the bomb in 1945, it is difficult to understand why nuclear weapons have not been eradicated entirely. In this paper, the authors explore the history and rational behind nuclear armament. Highlighting South Africa as an example, they explain a success story of voluntary nuclear disarmament. In addition, the authors outline a global plan as well as a citizen’s action guide for attaining global nuclear weapons disarmament.

I.  Introduction: The Threat of Nuclear Weapons

“The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” – Albert Einstein

No single weapon holds as much self-contained destructive violence as a nuclear bomb.  In the last seven decades, the United States has been the only country to use nuclear weapons in an act of war with the twin bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan in August of 1945.  The incineration of both Japanese population centers with a combined death total well into the hundreds of thousands ushered humanity into what is commonly referred to as the First Nuclear Age.  The world during this age was characterized by the proliferation of nuclear-armed States, advancements in the power and delivery of nuclear weapons, the establishment of nuclear war-fighting doctrine, and a radical shift in foreign policy decision making (Beckman et al. 2007, xiv).  By the close of World Ware II, mankind wielded the power of ultimate destruction, not only threatening perceived enemies, but all life upon the globe.

The unique threat nuclear weapons pose to humanity was not lost on the world’s people or leaders during the First Nuclear Age, and several proposals were put forth to mitigate the magnitude of the nuclear danger.  President Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” speech to the United Nations in December of 1953 laid the foundation for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a “world” body charged with ensuring the peaceful application of nuclear energy and limiting nuclear weapon acquisition.  In 1963, the Partial Test-Ban Treaty was proposed and signed by the United States and Russia – followed by 120 other signatories – outlawing nuclear weapons’ testing in the atmosphere, outer space, or underwater.  By 1968 the five countries in possession of nuclear weapons – the United States, the USSR, Great Britain, France, and China – all proposed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) on nuclear weapons in an attempt to cap the number of nuclear weapon States (NWS).  Within the NPT’s ten articles, the NWS formally agreed to provide all non-nuclear weapon States (NNWS) signatories with nuclear technology for energy and research in exchange for NNWS pledging not to pursue nuclear weapons and agreeing to IAEA monitoring of compliance.  Furthermore, NWS promised to pursue in good faith a path toward complete nuclear weapon disarmament (Beckman et al. 2007, 143).  Eventually almost every country on earth signed the NPT and proponents lauded it as the most successful arms control treaty of all time.  Clearly, even with the Cold War between the Unites States and the former Soviet Union overshadowing such compromises, the First Nuclear Age offered citizens of the world some hope that the nuclear threat could be contained and, with time, diminished.

However, in looking back at the First Nuclear Age and examining our present position in the Second Nuclear Age – the advent of which began at the end of the Cold War – it seems clear to the authors of this report that the world’s nuclear weapon situation has only become more precarious over the years.  In the summer of 1945 there was only one NWS; today, there are believed to be nine (the US, Russia, Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea).  Older NWS continue to hold on to their nuclear arsenals while fashioning new strategic doctrines for their future use.  New regional nuclear powers, such as India and Pakistan, threaten stabilized borders while so-called “rogue” States like North Korea (a NWS) and Iran (a possible NWS aspirant) threaten the world’s status quo writ large.  Added to that volatile mix is a new sort of “globalized” terrorism, whose goal of mayhem and chaos amidst perceived Western hegemony could be best realized in a surreptitious nuclear strike.  These threats, if left unchecked, augur a bleak and violent future for the world’s people.

[Editor's Note: see this map showing which countries have nuclear weapons programs. Also an animated map illustrates the proliferation of nuclear weapons, with a timeline; courtesy of Global Zero.]

That is why it is the authors’ intentions in this paper to suggest a different choice – a different future – which can be made if the US and other NWS do what they must: denuclearize the global arsenal.  After delineating in-depth the current threats facing the world in the Second Nuclear Age, this paper turns to South Africa, the first and only nation to actually dismantle its existing nuclear weapons and program, as a model for achieving what many consider the impossible.   South Africa’s straightforward decision to denuclearize offers the clearest vision of where the world must travel in order to secure peace over unimaginable destruction.  After examining the South African model of denuclearization, the authors move into applying this framework to other NWS as a starting point for worldwide denuclearization.  Finally, the paper ends with a citizen’s action guide filled with suggestions of what individuals can do to help move the world beyond nuclear weaponization and its currently predicted self-destructive destiny.

II.  The Second Nuclear Age: 1987 to the Present

“Nuclear weapons are held by a handful of states which insist that these weapons provide unique security benefits, and yet reserve uniquely to themselves the right to own them.  This situation is highly discriminatory and thus unstable….” – Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons (Rauf 2000, 39).

Beginning in 1987 and continuing through 1991, the USSR formally disintegrated as both the economic and political foundations of communism collapsed (Loeber 2005, 167).  During the twilight of the USSR’s power, several treaties were signed with the US to reduce the threat of nuclear war between the two countries.  These included the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force agreement, outlawing in 1987 all land-based missiles with ranges between 300 and 3,400 miles, and the 1991 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, setting strict limits on the size of strategic delivery systems and arsenals (Beckman et al. 2007, 145 & 173).  By 1992, even though the Cold War had ended and the US now remained the world’s lone superpower, the treaties curbing nuclear weaponry continued to be honored by both sides.  Many thought the threat of nuclear war that had held so many of the world’s people in decades of fear had finally ended, peacefully.

Positive signs in the reduction of nuclear threats in other parts of the globe appeared as well during the early 1990’s.  As South Africa’s apartheid-based regime began to crumble, the government revealed its clandestine nuclear weapons program and devices and voluntarily began their dismantlement.  Argentina and Brazil ceased their nuclear weapons programs and signed on to the NPT as NNWS (Bidwai and Vanaik 2000, 31-32).  Three former Soviet republics – Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine – finding themselves with nuclear stockpiles after the USSR’s collapse, all agreed to hand the weaponry over to Russia and become NNWS.  The 1991 war in Iraq revealed and, with United Nations oversight, reversed Saddam Hussein’s chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons program (Beckman et al. 2007, 204-205).  The specter of unbridled nuclear proliferation – at first blush – appeared contained.

So as Hirsh and Barry report (2004), it took many by surprise in the second presidential debate of 2004 that both George W. Bush and John Kerry agreed that nuclear weaponry – the fissile materials, the know-how, and the equipment – was the single biggest threat to the US’s security and its people.  Suddenly the retreating Cold War fear had reappeared on live national television, though this time couched in rhetoric concerning rogue states and terrorists.  What had happened since the fall of communism to bring nuclear weaponry back into the forefront of the US’s and, by default, the world’s consciousness?  Were the candidates merely “fear mongering,” or did the evidence substantiate the threat then as well as today?

Though the nuclear threat may have ebbed as communism collapsed in Europe, by 1994, and throughout the rest of the decade, new regional nuclear powers in Asia began to increase the chances of nuclear confrontation.  Intelligence that North Korea had produced enough fissile material for at least two bombs in 1994 began a series of threats and counter threats, negotiations, and accords between the US, North Korea, and South Korea, fundamentally keeping the issue of military action on the Korean Peninsula largely unresolved by the turn of the century (Beckman et al. 2007, 199-204).  In May of 1998, both India and Pakistan tested five nuclear devices each; Pakistan confirming intelligence it had surreptitiously achieved nuclear firepower and could now threaten to embroil its rival India in a nuclear war (Perkovich et al. 2005, 15).

Although of concern to American interests, the nuclear threat in Asia did not seem to extend to the home front – that is, until the events of September 11, 2001.  After the attacks of 9/11, the focus became not if the US will again be attacked, but when and how.  The worst fear: terrorists acquiring and detonating a nuclear weapon within the US’s borders.  As if overnight the 3,700 metric tons of fissile material suitable for weaponry, sitting in scattered locations across forty countries, went from mere fact to immediate threat (Perkovich et al. 2005, 27 & 86).  The threat was immediate evident since even the crudest design for a terrorist nuclear device would need only five to six kilograms of plutonium or twenty-five kilograms of highly enriched uranium to be effective (Mark et al. 2002, 238).

States possessing possible, if not probable, nuclear weapons programs were also re-examined in terms of the heightened tension surrounding 9/11, leading most famously to President Bush’s “Axis-of-Evil” speech, the subsequent war in Iraq, and continued saber-rattling towards Iran.  But far from highlighting the US’s attempt at reducing the threat of nuclear war or terrorism on a global basis, the war in Iraq and the possibility of war with Iran exemplify the contradictions within US foreign policy, its nuclear containment policy, and force posture.  These contradictions undermine the reduction of the nuclear threat and can best be examined through the twin lenses of nuclear power and US military strategy.

Nuclear power is intimately tied to nuclear weaponry, which is why the current drive to build more civilian reactors around the world is troubling and creates a deadly double-standard for US policy.  The uranium fuel to power civilian nuclear reactors most often requires a slight enrichment of the uranium isotope U-235.  But if a country has the ability to enrich U-235 to the three to four percent necessary for powering, it conceivably can go on to enrich U-235 up to the eighty to ninety percent required for bomb making.  Even if a country cannot make its own reactor fuel (relying on importation instead), it still has within its reactors the fissile material to make weaponry should it extract the plutonium isotope PU-239 found in spent fuel (Bergeron 2007, 18-19).  This link between nuclear power and weaponry is what allowed India, Pakistan, and North Korea to covertly proliferate nuclear weapons even while maintaining the semblance of a peaceful nuclear posture.

With the realistic threat of fissile materials falling into the hands of rogue States or terrorists, one would think the world would be backing away from nuclear power; instead, it is in the midst of a “nuclear renaissance.”  The Christian Science Monitor (2008) points out that today sixteen percent of the world’s electricity is produced in the world’s 439 nuclear power plants, with an additional 100 new plants in the process of being planned or built, half in developing countries.  As Soloman (2008) writes, leading the push for increased nuclear power is the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), a consortium of countries including the US, Japan, France, Great Britain, and Russia, that are selling civilian nuclear reactor technology as a “green” alternative to fossil fuels and greenhouse gases.  Clayton (2007) echoes this trend, reporting the first of fifteen expected permit applications in the US for new reactor construction – the first such in thirty years – was filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on March 26, 2007.

But, as Esmaili’s editorial (2007) alludes to, the push for civilian nuclear power has come to a moral crossroads in Iran, a country that wants uranium enrichment capability in order to be self-sufficient in producing nuclear fuel for its reactors.  The US says Iran is using this as a cover for the acquisition of fissile materials for weapons and claims to be ready to go to war over the issue.  However, Iran has made clear that the US is holding the world to an untenable double-standard, trumpeting an increase in nuclear power reactors through the GNEP yet unilaterally limiting the countries that may be allowed to possess the capability for nuclear fuel production.

Compounding the problems of raising objections over Iran are changes in the US’s military strategies after 9/11.  Although US nuclear strategy was re-examined after the Cold War in such documents as the 1994 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and the 1997 Presidential Decision Directive (Bidwai and Vanaik 2000, 35), it was not until the 2002 NPR that a fundamental shift in how nuclear weapons would be used in future conflicts became codified (Wirtz 2005, 3).  Instead of an overarching deterrent along the lines of the Cold War’s Mutually Assured Destruction policy, America’s nuclear arsenal would go tactical and would be included in strategic military planning along with conventional forces (Fetter and Glaser 2005, 23).  Steinberg (2005) elucidates this break with policy tradition, outlining how military strategists further weaved the 2002 NPR into the new Bush national doctrine of pre-emptive warfare, creating a secretive war plan called Global Strike.  Global Strike has fundamentally repositioned the US military, allowing itself the option of a first use nuclear strike irregardless of an opponent’s nuclear capability.

It is little wonder the world sees the US engaged in egregious contradictions in its handling of the nuclear dilemma, and why many experts believe the chances for nuclear war have in fact increased since the Cold War era.  Though the US and Russia continue to work toward a paring down of nuclear arsenals, most of the world is now resigned to the fact that the US and other NWS will not live up to their side of the NPT and move toward disarmament.  Instead, weapons modernization and changes in war fighting strategy are entrenching nuclear weaponry even more deeply into military establishments.  This, coupled with the war in Iraq and the US’s stridency toward Iran, is working to undo the linchpin of the NPT, causing NNWS to rethink their national security and their agreement to abstain from nuclear weapons.  All of this is set against a backdrop of global terrorism, readily available fissile materials, and a nuclear renaissance that, even under the best circumstances, can only increase the chance terrorists will acquire enough plutonium or uranium to construct a weapon.  When even such bulwarks of governmental establishment as George Shultz and Henry Kissinger (2008) begin to see nuclear weapons as more liability than asset and call for disarmament, citizens should note the immediacy of the danger and the need for action.  Otherwise, with nearly 30,000 nuclear weapons in existence today and the fissile material to make many more, the nuclear haunted generations of the Cold War will be passing on their fear to their children and grandchildren unless radical socio-cultural recalculations are made in the US and abroad.

III.  Combating the Threat of Nuclear Armament

“The possession of nuclear weapons by any state is a constant stimulus to other states to acquire them … a central reality is that nuclear weapons diminish the security of all states.” – Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons (Rauf 2000, 39).

Though other alternatives have been suggested for combating the spread of nuclear armament, many agree that complete nuclear disarmament is the only true way to combat the nuclear threat.  This is not a recent way of thinking; rather, it has been recommended since the inception of the nuclear bomb.  “Complete nuclear disarmament had been recommended by many before, going back to Albert Einstein in the period immediately following the first nuclear explosion” (Beckman et al. 2007, 354).  Regardless of the consensus of numerous experts, relatively little has been done in the way of nuclear weapons disarmament.

Many in the nonproliferation movement were hopeful that at the end of the Cold War nuclear weapon disarmament would proceed at a rapid pace.  This was not to occur, however.  “In the more than 15 years since the end of the Cold War, the world has barely moved toward the goal….” (Beckman et al. 2007, 355).  The most recent nuclear weapons disarmament agreement occurred in 2002: the Moscow Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reduction, or SORT, set as a goal that both Russia and the United States reducing their stockpiles of active nuclear weapons to 2,200 in number by the year 2012 (Beckman et al. 2007, 355).  However, several flaws exist in this agreement.  First, no concrete timetables for the pace of weapons reduction were established.  Second, even though both nations are required to reduce the amount of the nuclear weapons they possess, there still is no formal agreement that they must never exceed this limit in the future.  Third, and finally, the treaty allows for keeping additional nuclear weapons in storage rather than requiring them to be dismantled (Beckman et al. 2007, 355).

According to a leading resource, two policies for dealing with nuclear weapon disarmament exist.  The first, Nuclear Disarmament I, states that the global community should dismantle existing nuclear weapons but still retain nuclear capability and the ability to produce more nuclear weapons.  The second, Nuclear Disarmament II, states that the global community should not only dismantle existing nuclear weapons but also completely renounce all nuclear capability and technology (Beckman et al. 2007, 357).  Obviously, Nuclear Disarmament II is a better long term plan as it responds to the immediate situation in addition to looking to the future.  However, neither option can be achieved without massive global commitment and cooperation and this has yet to occur.

Some experts currently suggest that the United States should be the first to demonstrate a good faith effort by actively pursuing nuclear disarmament.  Setting an example may convince other nuclear powers to begin the process.  In order to approach this in a comprehensive manner, the United States must pursue a three step process.  First, adopting a management philosophy towards nuclear weapons would begin the journey towards the long term goal of nuclear disarmament.  In other words, “continue a formal negotiating process for the mutual reduction of nuclear armaments to a relatively small number, something approaching what all could agree would likely ensure minimum deterrence” (Beckman et al. 2007, 364).  This is only the first step; ideally, it would be followed by efforts to decrease global conflict and to set reasonable goals for nuclear arms reduction as well as reasonable sanctions for treaty transgressions.  “The trust required for the abandonment of nuclear weapons would require that threats and punishments were less salient” (Beckman et al. 2007, 364).  Third, the United States must adopt a philosophical stance that the development, production, and use of nuclear weapons is unacceptable.  “All American actions would have to reinforce the nuclear taboo” (Beckman et al. 2007, 364).  This may not happen at a rapid pace.

Indeed the task of ridding the world of the nuclear threat seems overwhelming at best and impossible at worst.  However one need only look to the recent example of South Africa for hope and inspiration.  To date, South Africa is the only country to voluntarily undergo nuclear disarmament.  Though this nation possessed a mere six nuclear weapons, it serves as a useful model that can be applied on an international scale.

Scientists working in the nuclear industry at the time of South African disarmament agree that its successful outcome was due to a confluence of events, rather than a single precipitating event.  The collapse of the former Soviet Union resulted in the withdrawal of communist troops from Southern Africa in 1989 is often cited as a primary factor.  This, in turn, led to a peaceful solution to the ongoing war in Angola.  Arguably, South Africa thus felt secure enough to scale down its defense programs, and eventually this led to the renouncement of its nuclear weapons program (Van Der Walt 2005, 96).

The collapse of the USSR and the end of the military conflict in Angola were not the only factors that played a role in South Africa’s decision to undergo nuclear weapons disarmament.  In fact, South Africa voluntarily signed the NPT in July of 1991.  As discussed earlier, under the NPT participating nations agree to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) and to safeguard their highly enriched uranium (Fig 2005, 70).  Inspections promptly began in November of 1991 and continued for the next few years, effectively making South Africa accountable to a larger international body (Fig 2005, 71).

It is hard to specify why exactly South Africa agreed to sign on to the NPT.  Some experts speculate that the contemporary global climate was conducive to greater democratization as well as nuclear weapon nonproliferation and  nuclear weapon disarmament (Van Der Walt 2005, 96).  Some have also speculated that South Africa’s newly enacted anti-apartheid policies and the election of F.W. de Klerk as the country’s new president influenced this decision.

“It is not known whether the decisive argument that convinced de Klerk to dismantle South Africa’s Nuclear bombs was the alluring prospect of normalising its international nuclear standing, or whether the nuclear and military bureaucracies feared a future in which an ANC government might have access to nuclear weapons.  Whatever the case, de Klerk recognised that the new political climate demanded the full dismantling of the weapons and issued orders to have them destroyed” (Fig 2005, 70).

Regardless, South Africa’s choice to proceed with nuclear weapons disarmament facilitated the country’s re-entry into international politics, an attractive bonus (Fig 2005, 71).

Though nuclear weapons disarmament did occur relatively quickly, some say over a period of five years, it is important to note that it was not undertaken haphazardly (Van Der Walt 2005, 96).  Rather, a joint effort between the South African Defense Force (South Africa’s military), the Atomic Energy Corporation (South Africa’s nuclear energy industry), and Armscor (South Africa’s nuclear weapons industry) led to the following proposed steps for nuclear disarmament:

1. Maintenance of security and safety during disarmament.
2. Extraction of materials from the warheads.
3. Disposal of nuclear materials extracted by the Atomic Energy Corporation in compliance with the IAEA.
4. Decomposition and disposal of non-nuclear components in the warheads.
5. Decontamination of used facilities.
6. Destruction of all documents relating to the nuclear warheads.
7. Alternative employment, retraining, and early retirement of nuclear weapons personnel.
8. Joint internal auditing by the three participants (South African Defense Force, the Atomic Energy Corporation, and Armscor).
9. Appointment of an external auditor.

10.  Signing and compliance of the NPT.

11.  Termination of the operation of the (Y) uranium enrichment plant (Van Der Walt 2005, 99-100).

Indeed, this comprehensive plan led to the success of South Africa’s nuclear weapons disarmament, and the external auditor was able to present F.W. de Klerk with an acceptable audit certificate upon their completion (Van Der Walt 2005, 100).

Despite the achievement of nuclear disarmament, South Africa did experience some potential drawbacks following nuclear disarmament.  It turns out that the proposal outlined above did not anticipate the loss of 15,000 job opportunities in the defense industry, nor did it accurately predict the loss of approximately 7,000 jobs in the nuclear industry.  South Africa also suffered from “brain drain,” as many young entrepreneurs and engineers working the nuclear and defense industries followed the job market elsewhere.  In addition, South Africa lost its status as a major international exporter of defense and related technologies as well as its leading edge in defense technology.  Finally, the main players did not realize how massive the undertaking of installing necessary arms control mechanisms would be.  Some also argue that it was a mistake to forswear to revert to any nuclear arms in the future as it may prove to be detrimental to national security and sovereignty (Van Der Walt 2005, 102).

IV.  Proposal for Global Nuclear Weapons Disarmament

“It seems to me that as long as we are both here, it’s pretty clear that the struggle is to share the planet, rather than divide it.” – Alice Walker

As the world enters into its seventh decade of living with nuclear weapons, the threat of nuclear war and destruction continues to be as strong as it was following the twin bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the onset of the Cold War.  Whereas in 1945 only the Unites States possessed the power of nuclear weaponization, today the United States shares that status with Britain, France, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and possibly North Korea.  Other states, such as Iran and Syria, may also be nuclear weapons aspirants, continuing a proliferation curve that may never end.

If nuclear weapons are the greatest threat to the United States’ security, and by extension to the world’s status quo, then what is the international community to do?  Can nuclear proliferation be properly contained?  Can nuclear war be avoided?  Can nuclear peace be obtained?  According to Polanyi (2007), the answer is a resounding “yes,” but only if the international community has the will to do what it must, and that is to abolish all nuclear weapons and programs from all countries.  Is this an achievable goal?  The authors of this paper believe it is, and, with ideas taken from South Africa’s successful, peaceful denuclearization, begin a discussion of what course the nuclear peace process must chart.

A.  Lessons from South Africa

First, it is clear from the case of South Africa that diminishing military threats is a precursor.  South Africa’s voluntary nuclear weapons disarmament provides a successful model that can serve as a springboard for a global plan.  Several of the steps carried out in South Africa can be successfully repeated in most other countries.  First and foremost, before a nation can contemplate nuclear disarmament, it must end all international conflicts unilaterally.  Obviously this is easier said than done, but nuclear disarmament depends directly on diminished threats to a nation’s sovereignty.  South Africa could not even begin a coherent discussion about nuclear disarmament, let alone conceptualize and carry out a comprehensive plan, until the Soviet Union had withdrawn communist troops from Angola.   This easing of tension allowed South Africa to feel secure enough to undertake the process of nuclear disarmament.

Second, international pressure clearly plays a role in facilitating nuclear disarmament.  On a global scale, nuclear weapon possessing states must approach disentanglement and noninterference in each other’s affairs through a variety of methods.  As outlined in previous sections, nuclear nonproliferation treaties are a useful tool as are other diplomatic techniques.  Setting achievable and realistic nuclear arms reduction goals and specifically adhered to timelines seems to be the most successful strategy.  This can be achieved by a greater focus on negotiation and diplomacy between nuclear weapons states.

It is important, however, that these international treaties meet certain requirements.  In the case of South Africa, the treaties signed stipulated that South Africa would not only disarm, but that they would also agree to not pursue nuclear weapons technology in the future.  Not all treaties have been successful – for example, problems with the Moscow treaty are outlined above.  The problem of monitoring disarmament proceedings presents itself.  Again, in the case of South Africa, both internal and external auditors were consulted during the nuclear weapons disarmament process, resulting in a more effective monitoring system.  Treaties must also make room for incentives for nuclear disarmament as well as imposed sanctions for transgressions.  Incentives could be economic as well as having the effect of facilitating greater international respect and participation in global organizations and international trade, not to mention sharing of coveted alternative technologies and resources.

Third, nuclear weapons states and the international community need to have a plan for the disposal of fissile materials.  In the case of South Africa, this process was overseen by both the IAEA and the Atomic Energy Corporation.  Current proposals include grinding fissile materials with glass beads and then forming the resulting mixture into solid rods.  Said rods would then be buried in appropriate underground facilities, negating the risk of theft and groundwater contamination.  Other options include using spent nuclear reactor fuel to power nuclear submarines, perhaps a more viable alternative at this point in time.

Fourth, South Africa made the commitment to shut down nuclear reactors with uranium enrichment capability.  Indeed, nations in possession of reactors that produce fissile materials and can be used for uranium enrichment should follow South Africa’s example.  Other designs for nuclear reactors do exist; this is a realistic possibility for the power lost in shutting down currently engineered nuclear reactors.  In addition, it is important to note that doing away entirely with nuclear reactors is not a viable solution, as a source is needed to produce radioisotopes for medical and research purposes.  Alternative “green” fuels and methods of producing energy are another option to replace nuclear power.

Fifth, and finally, South Africa did take into account displaced workers created by nuclear disarmament.  As outlined earlier in this paper, South Africa used a three-pronged approach consisting of early retirement, retraining, and alternative employment.  Arguably, this was not entirely successful, as brain drain occurred, as did South Africa’s fall from an international leader in exportation of nuclear and defense technology.  Perhaps a more comprehensive solution in other instances might be to work harder at transitioning economies and workers to alternative technologies and industries.  Treaties offering sharing of technology and production methods as an incentive to nuclear weapons disarmament may be a viable supplement.

B.  A Citizen’s Action Plan

In the previous section, most of the lessons learned from South Africa and the resulting suggestions for nuclear weapons disarmament can only be achieved by those holding political office and must be undertaken on an international scale.  This is not to say, however, that everyday citizens cannot take part in the global nuclear weapons disarmament movement.  Indeed many opportunities for action exist on the grassroots level.

First, and foremost, education and awareness of the nuclear threat must take place.  This can be achieved through a variety of mediums; public education could offer courses and curriculum at the primary, secondary, and collegiate level.  In addition, non-profits and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) can be promoted through use of the internet and advertising.  Citizens and grassroots organizations may also offer workshops and write editorials to local media outlets outlining the threat of nuclear weapons.

Second, individuals may also take political action on behalf of the cause of nuclear weapon disarmament and nonproliferation.  Actions can include public protests, rallies, and educational events open to the general public.  For example, annual observance of the International Peace Day, September 19^th, could play a crucial role.  Supporting local nuclear-free ordinances and petitions is another avenue of political action.  Letter writing on the local, national, and international level has proven to be effective by such organizations as Amnesty International.  Above all, citizens can vote conscientiously in democracies when they have the opportunity.

Third, private citizens can undertake economic action, perhaps the most effective and simplest form of advocacy.  This can take the form of purchasing conscientiously – boycotting companies and products that are involved or related to the nuclear weapons industry while supporting companies and products that are neither involved nor related to the nuclear weapons industry, or actively oppose global nuclear weapons disarmament.  Citizens can also support acceptable political candidates financially.  Seeking out sources of renewable energy, supporting renewable energy, and reducing energy consumption are also viable plans of action.

Fourth, and finally, citizens can undertake individual personal and spiritual action.  This can take the form of practicing non-violence in everyday life.  Also advocating for and teaching conflict resolution is a key piece in the promotion of local and international peace and thus, as a result, helping to ultimately facilitate nuclear weapons disarmament.  Some have also suggested that individual and group meditation and prayer may be beneficial to the causes of world peace and global nuclear weapons disarmament and nonproliferation.

V.  Conclusion: An Alternate Future?

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead

Given the horror brought about by the dropping of the bomb on Japan at the end of the second World War, it is reasonable to ask why the international community has not eradicated nuclear weapons entirely.  Perhaps the answer lies in the false sense of security they provide.  “The existence of weapons that threaten the globe and its history with destruction, may also, however indirectly, be a stimulus to forestalling the catastrophe…” (Beckman et al. 2007, 296).  The authors believe this is fallacious thinking.  As this paper has explored, though they have not been directly used since World War II, nuclear weapons do not necessarily make the world a safer place.  If anything, their very existence creates an underlying anxiety for the entire global community.

Though indeed South Africa is the only nation to voluntarily undergo nuclear weapons disarmament, it serves as a beacon of hope to the rest of the world.  Even though South Africa possessed and maintained a mere six weapons and have never been considered a superpower, the practical steps followed can be generalized to the global community.  Clearly, international conflict will not disappear overnight.  However, hope exists both at the grassroots level and at the international level.

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