Nuclear Powers: History and Modernity

Since 1970, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which identifies nuclear powers and regulates the scope of their responsibility with regard to their weapons, is in force throughout the world. Under the treaty, the United States, Britain, France, the People's Republic of China and the USSR received the status of nuclear states (now Russia, as the legal successor). It was in these states that the test explosions were carried out before 1967, so they officially entered the "nuclear club".

The NPT treaty obliges the nuclear Powers in no way to transfer their weapons or technology to its production to countries that do not have it, do not encourage or facilitate the production of such weapons in them.

One can share experience and help each other, but only in the peaceful use of the energy of a nuclear explosion.

The treaty says that if a nuclear strike is struck in a country that does not have such weapons, then other nuclear powers of the world will stand up for its defense, in accordance with the UN Charter.

More than 170 countries participate in the NPT Treaty, and it operates indefinitely.

In fact, to date, nuclear weapons have been developed and tested in Pakistan, Iran, India, South Africa and North Korea, but legally these countries are not included in the number of nuclear weapons.

Pakistan and India almost simultaneously conducted their tests. This happened in 1998.

Initially, North Korea signed the NPT treaty, but in 2003 officially declared itself free from the obligations of this treaty. And in 2006, North Korea produced the first test explosion on its territory.

Among the countries that have nuclear weapons, many include Israel. But the country's official authorities have never confirmed or denied that such developments and trials are being conducted in the country.

In 2006, the nuclear powers were replenished by one more participant. The President of Iran officially stated that in the laboratory conditions the technology of nuclear fuel production has been fully developed .

On the territory of the three former republics of the USSR (Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus), there were also rockets and warheads that remained in their ownership after the collapse of the country. But in 1992 they signed the Lisbon Protocol on limiting and reducing strategic weapons and actually got rid of such weapons. Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine have joined the NPT member countries and are now officially considered as non-nuclear powers.

In South Africa, nuclear weapons were also created and tested in the Indian Ocean in 1979. However, shortly thereafter, the development of the program was closed, and since 1991, South Africa officially joined the NPT Treaty.

Now in the world there is a separate group of countries that theoretically have the opportunity to create nuclear weapons, but for military and political reasons, this is not appropriate. Experts refer to such countries some countries of South America (Brazil, Argentina), South Korea, Egypt, Libya, etc.

The so-called "latent" nuclear powers can, if necessary, quickly switch their industry to the production of weapons using dual-use technologies.

In recent years, the world community has declared a reduction in its arsenals of weapons, while making it more modern. But the facts are that of the 19,000 nuclear weapons currently available in the world, 4400 are constantly in a state of high combat readiness.

Reducing the arsenal of armaments is mainly due to the reduction in the military reserves of Russia and the United States, as well as due to the write-off of obsolete missiles. Nevertheless, both the official nuclear countries and Pakistan and India continue to announce the deployment of new weapons development programs. It turns out that in practice, and not in words, not one of the countries is ready to completely abandon its nuclear arsenal.