ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the overall findings of the research. It examines the relevance of each proposition from the research framework and addresses the research question. It summarises the factors involved in the outcomes of several key development points in the evolution of international nuclear trade controls. The relevance of the factors highlighted in the conceptual framework is considered in turn.
The overall finding of the book as presented in Chapter 7 is that nuclear non-proliferation trade controls have evolved in a structurally flawed fashion since the inception of international concern over proliferation primarily because of the geo-strategic interests of the Cold War Superpowers. This was a direct and foreseeable result of the decision by President Eisenhower to move forward with the Atoms for Peace initiative without an effective system of trade control based on short term US self-interest in the context of the Cold War. In implementing the Atoms for Peace initiative, the US explicitly accepted that nuclear proliferation was inevitable but pressed ahead because of the value that supplying atomic energy to other states held for diplomatic purposes. In so doing, these states created the conditions from which a Collective Action Problem (CAP) emerged notably because these and other states began to compete against one another to supply technology in the absence of adequate safeguarding provisions.
