Arms Control

Arms control is a major issue facing the nations of the world today. The concept that a war today could destroy every living thing doesn?t sit well with many people. So to control weapons and what nations have these weapons will help control war. With problems with Nuclear weapons, Biological, chemical, and small arms we need to control them to help curve the problem.

There are five nuclear weapon states in the world. They are the United States, Russia, France, United Kingdom, and China. Currently there are no international laws banning nuclear weapons, but their bans on testing these weapons. There is a treaty to ban nuclear testing world wide, to establish inspections, and establish a network of monitoring stations to identify these situations (United Nations Handout). Thus far, not all forty-four of the countries with nuclear capabilities have signed, therefore making it null and void. Until we can come to agreement on this issue the issue of resolving the other weapons will be hard to come by.

Chemical and biological weapons are the next item for the world to tackle. There are more than sixteen nations with these weapons. Some of which are Russia, India, China, and Israel. There is a Chemical Weapons Convention, which bans the use stockpile, development, production, and sale of these weapons. More than seventy nations have ratified it. There are five nations that have neither taken part in talks nor signed the agreement. They are Egypt, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, and Syria. The problem with controlling chemical weapons is that many of the agents that are used are used in everyday items. Phosphoric oxychloride, which is used in insecticides, gasoline additives and flame-retardants, is an item in question. These are items we must curtail to lessen or stop the threat of a chemical and biological war.

The issue of land mines and small arms is a huge issue to tackle. For the simple reason that they are both easy to conceal. Land mines kill 800 people around the world a month. There about one hundred million active anti-personnel mines around the world in about seventy nations. This is a huge problem, because most of the people being killed are innocent people. The conflicts that they were used for have been over for years and either the military can?t find them or don?t have the capabilities to remove them. There has been a treaty submitted to more than one hundred nations for ratification, were there is a good chance that they will pass. It would make signers of the treaty to stop develop and deployment of anti-personnel mines. The United States has stated that they will not sign it, because we need them to protect American security. The problem with that is the area in question is along the North and South Korea border. So maybe we need to look at the broader picture and not at what we think is best for us. With the issue of small arms is that they are small and easy to conceal. They are fairly cheap and available. So the issue of small arms is a hard one to tackle, which may never be solved.

In conclusion the issue of arms control is a hard one to tackle. Like life not everyone will be satisfied. We as a world must need to come to a general understanding of what we all need to do. Whether or not we recognize a nation as having weapons they are going have them regardless. We should limit what each country should have. That is as far as we should go. We can?t stop anyone from doing anything. We can only hope to contain them.