ABSTRACT

From 1945 onwards, when the US tested and then used the first nuclear device, an important goal of its foreign policy has been to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The last 60 years show that, depending on the viewpoint, it has been very successful or has failed badly. The first view takes sustenance from the fact there are only seven declared and two undeclared nuclear weapons states in the world out of a theoretically possible 190 countries. That is not a bad record. The second view depends for validation on the perception that no one except the US should have a nuclear weapon, and that while four more were somehow acceptable – all permanent members of the Security Council, as it happens – anything more is totally, wholly and completely unacceptable.