THE HINDU

APLN Member Rakesh Sood wrote for The Hindu warning that the resumption of US nuclear testing will have a domino effect and lead to the demise of the CTBT and the NPT regime.

Today, the global nuclear order offers a curious contradiction — since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, nuclear weapons have not been used during the last 80 years. The global nuclear arsenals have come down from a high of 65,000 bombs in late 1970s to less than 12,500 today. And, despite concerns in the 1960s that by 1980, there may be at least two dozen states with nuclear weapons, the total today remains nine — five (the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France and China) are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council who had tested before the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) came into being while four more developed their nuclear arsenals later (Israel, Pakistan, India and North Korea).

Read the full article here.