Will Parrish

Will Parrish is the youth empowerment director at Nuclear Age Peace Foundation in Santa Barbara, CA. (www.wagingpeace.org/youth)

Toward Nuclear Abolition: North Korea Puts Non-Proliferation to the Test

 

Shortly after North Korea’s October 9 nuclear weapons test, Condoleeza Rice issued a thinly veiled threat of nuclear assault against the latest member of the Mushroom Club.  “The United States has the will and the capability,” she declared during an October 18 visit to Tokyo, “to meet the full range — and I underscore full range — of its deterrent and security commitments to Japan.”

Nuclear Disarmament, Not Non-Proliferation

 

In recent years, the nuclear crises — both real and imagined — in Iran, Iraq, and North Korea have underscored the ongoing threat posed by nuclear weapons, which remains undiminished despite the end of the Cold War more than a decade and a half ago.  Mainstream discourse on this issue is often couched in terms of nuclear “non-proliferation”.  The real issue underlying these crises, however, is the failure of the existing nuclear weapons states to pursue policies that would lead to nuclear disarmament.