U.S. Nuclear Policy after the Cold War Essay Example

Introduction

In this paper, the fate of the nuclear weapons that were used during the cold war shall be discussed, and mostly how and why the nuclear policy changed afterward. Despite the use of nuclear weapons having been rejected by some of the advocates, there was still some sturdy support in approval of the same. Now that the cold war is over the big question is what will be the fate of these weapons and what measures should be taken in the future with the nuclear policy. The U.S. is at the moment taking part in many agreements, such as the CTBT and ABM, which are meant to reduce the universal nuclear remains presence, whilst there is yet a lot of progress that should be done to reduce the nuclear forces. Studies show that the U.S. is not yet ready to dispose of all these weapons since the policies as at now are not yet been seriously implemented. This means that it will take some time for the U.S. to improve safety.

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Nuclear weapons were used during the cold war by the U.S. military against Soviet security. Both nations were coming up with various, large, more accurate nuclear forces which were kept at high levels of alert. For these reasons, the U.S. army had to strategize on ways to stop the Soviet nation from threatening or attacking the U.S. and its followers with the nuclear forces.

The Soviet Union used these weapons to stop the U.S. and its followers from military and political gain from the ownership of nuclear weapons. They also wanted to give an act of revenge against the use of nuclear weapons. Since 1946, none of the rivalries had succeeded in the nuclear weapons usage and none had hurled a nuclear attack against the other (Dinerstein. (1959). Both nations were still on the world war 2 destruction, that was done using the conventional forces.

The Impacts of Nuclear Weapons Policy

After the cold war, the biggest indecision on the U.S. government was how to appropriately get away with the deadly nuclear remains. The question all along was what would be the policies and purpose of these weapons in the future. This became a major subject of debate concerning the right purpose and the policies in the U.S. for nuclear weapons, since the beginning of the nuclear weapon technology.

Now that the intended purpose for the nuclear force had been struck out, there was no appropriate reason for keeping such a massive and dangerous nuclear arsenal. The government officials held debates on the methods they would use to reduce nuclear arsenal and control the use of overwhelming weapons. There are diverse feelings and opinions of every individual. Some debate for completely abolishing them, yet others are for the opinion that completely abolishing is impossible and difficult at the same time for the reasons that there are some nations that are illegally owning the nuclear weapons, like Pakistan and India (Scheffran, J. (2018). In addition, they argue that abolition by law is not the same as abolition in actual sense, hence by eliminating the nuclear forces would lead to vulnerability in the nations illegally possessing nuclear weapons.

Again another opinion why the nuclear force should not be disposed of is that it can be used for security purpose. The possession of nuclear weapons declares a state so powerful over the others and assures the nation enough protection from the enemies for the U.S. Basically, if enemies know that the country is in possession and has the ability to use nuclear weapons, they will avoid launching attacks on the U.S.

Today, the stand on the policy of the U.S. nuclear weapons is of a more advanced restriction. Still preserving the main function of the nuclear forces to prevent nuclear violence, the nuclear forces are minimized and their functions narrowed down. More emphasis is put on accomplishing higher values of national safety.

The U.S. nuclear forces have grown since the end of cold war. It is arguable that more growth is highly needed. Similarly, Russia has had the same experience as the U.S. and this has defined the non-adversarial connection between these two states and their adverse changes. The argument of many is that the vital goal, at last, is ban the ownership of nuclear weapons. However, this complicates the issue because of India and Pakistan who are still in ownership of the same.

During the cold war, the U.S. and Russia agreed on some arms control regulations so as to control the direct harm of their confrontation. Additionally, they attempted to amending agreements to involve other countries whose participation was wider, with intentions to stop the spread to other countries as a way to limit the dangers these nuclear weapons could have in their own countries (Tyler, p. (1992).

The attempts to clear the nuclear arsenal and spread of nuclear weapons was successful since there was no case of illegal nuclear weapons launchings, no accidents that were nuclear force related, there were no erroneous weapons spread and there was no risk of nuclear war anymore. The nuclear remains were eventually stopped, although at high levels of nuclear weapons for the U.S. and Soviet Union (Chafetz, G. (1993).

With the completion of the cold war, the nuclear remains in the U.S. and Russia significantly reduced and dismantling of the warheads happening at a high pace each year. Still, the question was being 'is this enough and why would we need to completely demolish the nuclear weapons, even after the Soviet Union was no longer in existence.'

Some agreements were signed upon the end of the cold war. The first was (START I) Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty which was signed in 1991. This ought to cut down the number of warheads by the U.S. and Russia from 13,000 and 11,000 respectively to 8000. START II that was signed in 1993 was approved by the U.S. in 1996 but Russia never approved it. This would advocate for the further reduction of the warheads to 3,000 and 3,500 on both sides (Sakwa, R. (2017).

Yet another agreement was signed START III that would advocate for a reduction of 2,000 to 2,500 of the nuclear warheads. This was signed on March 1997, at the Helsinki summit by the two presidents. The U.S. and Russia agreed to not target their arsenals against the other Scheffran, J. (2018).

These agreements have only paused, but not inverted the nuclear competition that was being experienced during the cold war. Although the nuclear forces diminished, there was still some fear to be attacked due to the remains of the damage that had been caused. The weapons that were not tackled by the START treaties could be used without any further treaties and imply unauthorized use, theft or breakout risks.

The U.S. prevention policy, currently, can be divided into three:

• Maintenance and strengthening of the official prevention regime.
• Assuring the other nations that the former nuclear weapons will not threaten their security.
• Be on call in case additional spread occurred.

The Clinton government has been in great support to achieving the comprehensive test ban treaty, although there is no great change in the U.S. nuclear position and exercise to mirror the post-cold war situations, which weakens the integrity of the leadership. (Pres. Bill Clinton, Transcript, 1998). The other nations which have never been involved in the nuclear war are in doubt of 9the assurance that the U.S. will give if threatened with a nuclear attack. This basically gives a proof that the U.S. does not practice what they are preaching.

Achieving the conditions required to make lasting worldwide prevention on the ownership of nuclear weapons possible will be hard. Many, however, do believe that the time is here to strengthen the determination to realize the objectives stated.

References

Tyler, P. E. (1992). US Strategy Plan Calls for Insuring No Rivals Develop: A One Superpower World. New York Times, 8.

Dinerstein, H. S. (1959). War and the Soviet Union-Nuclear Weapons and the Revolution Oin Soviet Military and Political Thinking.

Chafetz, G. (1993). The end of the Cold War and the future of nuclear proliferation: An alternative to the neorealist perspective. Security Studies, 2(3-4), 125-158.

Buzan, B. (2008). People, states & fear: an agenda for international security studies in the post-cold war era. Ecpr Press.

Sakwa, R. (2017). Russia against the rest: The post-Cold War crisis of world order. Cambridge University Press.

The President's Radio Address. (Pres. Bill Clinton, Transcript) Weekly Compilation of Presidential documents v34, n21. may 25, 1998.

Scheffran, J. (2018). Verification and security of transformation to a nuclear-weapon-free world: the framework of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Global Change, Peace & Security, 30(2), 143-162.