the political importance of nuclear weapons
Nuclear weapons became an operational reality in the closing days of the Second World War. During the month of August in 1945, the United States detonated nuclear bombs over two large cities in Japan - Hiroshima and Nagasaki - with catastrophic consequences for the inhabitants of those two cities (Hymans, 2009). In the intervening five years between the end of the Second World War and the beginning of the Korean War, the United States continued its development of nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union successfully tested a nuclear weapon. Nuclear weapons were not employed during the Korean War, although the threat of their use hovered in the background (Jones, 2008). By 1964, five countries had acquired nuclear weapons, and their existence became of salient reality of the Cold War that evolved in the aftermath of the Korean War and that lasted until the collapse of the Former Soviet Union some 35 years later (Baylis, 2008). During the Cold War and later, however, additional states acquired nuclear weapons, although not all of these states officially admitted their acquisition of nuclear weapons (Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organization, 2001).
Several treaties were negotiated during the Cold War, the objectives of which were to restrict the quantity of nuclear weapons and/or the development of improved nuclear weapons deployed and/or maintained by the nuclear-armed states. Later, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons was negotiated and ratified by dozens of states. Again, not all of the states known to or widely believed to have nuclear weapons ratified the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
None of the treaties, however, led to the complete abandonment of nuclear weapons. During the Cold War, none of the states that possessed nuclear weapons were willing to consider the complete elimin...