Realism is a political theory that concerned about their own security, pursuing their own national interests, and struggle for power, and consider the principal actors in the international politic to be states. Which realist perspective sees that it’s own nation security interests and survivability is the most substantial points that need to be implemented, a nation has to be able to survive on their own without any help from other states or it called ‘Self-help’ . This means that every obligations of foreign policy created by the state has to be attain of the own national interest to get their power above other nation state, a nation has to be able to survive on their own without any help from other states. Realist sees that in the international system there is an anarchy that fosters competition and conflict among states and inhibits their willingness to cooperate even when they share common interests. Realists see no reason to believe that states can ever trust each other, and must rely on themselves.
Therefore to achieve their own national security, this act will create insecurity of other state, this phenomena is called ‘security dilemma’1. On realist perspectives, state must pay attention about their own military power because the most important think for a realist is their own nation security and to achieve it, need a huge military power that enough to defense and counter other nation attacks. By increasing military power, it also effect the proportion of alliances in the international system. As other nation going to look for an alliance as a reinforcement of their own national security, the motivation is clear that nations need more power to be able to survive in a huge anarchy system.Mentioning about the current topic of How arms control regime manage to limit the proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in more further analysis. There some explanation about what is the purpose of nuclear weapon. A Nuclear weapons is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, this weapon is classified as a mass weapon killer that could kill a lot more people than the conservative weapons2, nuclear weapon is one of the factors that stop world war II as United States use Nuclear Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki city in Japan and created many casualties.
Nuclear weapon is now consider as the strongest weapon on earth. There are 9 countries that have nuclear weapons in their weaponry, its United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, and Israel. But 93% of Nuclear weapons in the world are held shared between United States and Russia3. The motivation of every nation for having nuclear weapon could be seen by the quantity of their nuclear warheads, Russia and United States at the top of the list as they have more than 7000 warheads. Both of them are the pioneer of nuclear weapons development, and as two super power in the world with a huge territory to cover, essential for them to have the most nuclear weapons compare to the other country, its also considered as an Arms race because they’re both trying to get more power from this weaponry and neither of the country wants to concede on their weaponry especially Nuclear weapon. On the other side U.K and France become countries that doesn’t really having the spotlight on nuclear weapons as the possession of nuclear weapons become a question of national pride4.
As both countries are close each other, its become essential to protect their own security so there is no security dilemma by only one nation having the nuclear power on that area. While China and India are both competing on Nuclear power and weaponry development to make more nuclear warheads5, China is a country with a huge area to cover, as a large territory nation they need to have nuclear weapons on their defense system to protect them from any other threat in the world and by developing nuclear weapon China also could become stronger in terms of weaponry in the Asia region. While India is developing its nuclear weaponry especially on ballistic missile because of the conflicts they have with Pakistan, as both nation are sharing the same borders. Both of conflicting nation, Pakistan and India need to have nuclear weapons for a guarantee of their own safety, the point is both nation need nuclear to protect the survivability of their own nation as they’re conflicting and both become threats on each other nation.NPT consist a several members of UN involved that has nuclear weapons on their defense system. But there is a disagreement among the invited nations who been asked to disarm their Nuclear weapons and stop it development, There is Nations that already signed the agreement It is United States, Russia, China, France, and the United Kingdom, And on the opposite side there is India, North Korea, Israel, Pakistan, South Sudan ,Libya and Syria.
By this situation Realist perspective sees that, a regime operates against a realist background of anarchy and interests6. The non proliferated world serves their interests, while the security dilemma will still occurs between small state, as they use nuclear weapon as a security guarantee. The anarchic nature in politics will always lead into interests in nuclear weapon, Realist predicts that states will organize to preserve the nuclear status quo but it couldn’t be sure 100% as nonproliferation policy often conflicts with strategic, economic, and security of some nation7, and by the real situation in reality that the non signing nations is mostly they have conflicts neighboring countries, and in their perspectives disarming the ultimate weapon is a bad idea for their own defense security.
Needs more diplomacy and the involvement of Hegemons to mediate conflicting country to solve their problems and then come up with an agreement to disarm it Nuclear weapons step by step. So, NPT is not going to be effective in this current time, except the UN could come up into a situation that Nations who has a nuclear weapons are forced to be disarm and stop developing nuclear weapons.Adding more information about bilateral agreement and treaty of 2 biggest nation that has the most nuclear weapons in the world Russia and United States and how they committed on stopping the nuclear development. Both nation has already signed some bilateral treaty, its SALT I – SALT II – START I. The first one is Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I) that happen during the late 1960s (Cold War) and created a treaty between the United States and Soviet Union to limit the number of nuclear missiles in their arsenals. SALT I is considered the crowning achievement of the Nixon-Kissinger presidency. The treaty contains the limitation of strategic missile defenses to 200 interceptors each and allowed each side to construct two missile defense sites, one to protect the national capital, the other to protect one Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) field. It continue to the SALT II in the late 1972, SALT II initially focused on limiting, and then ultimately reducing, the number of MIRVs.
Negotiations also sought to prevent both sides from making qualitative breakthroughs that would again destabilize the strategic relationship. As the SALT I are failed to be implemented, the Soviets refused to include its backfire bomber in the SALT negotiations as the United States requested , and soviets also failed to limit American deployment of Air-Launched Cruise Missiles (ALCMs). On the paper SALT II agreed on limited the total of both nations’ nuclear forces to 2,250 delivery vehicles and placed a variety of other restrictions on deployed strategic nuclear forces, including MIRVs. But during the implementation of this treaty it become unclear as the soviet invade Afghanistan and consider SALT II for its advice and consent, and it was never ratified, its ended when Ronald Reagan presidency agreed to abide by SALT II until its expiration on December 318, 1985, while he pursued the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). START I happen in 1991 – 1993, so the START I contains discussion of the nuclear warheads that Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan have either their strategic nuclear warheads get destroyed or to turn them over to Russia. Analyzing this move, it looks like there is a centralization of nuclear power into two super power that centered towards Russia and United States. START I ended when both sides enacted their cuts by 2001 and expired on Dec. 5, 20099.
Responding on the issues that a lot of nations disagree and won’t sign the treaty, the NPT became useless to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons or the motivation to acquire them. They express disappointment with the limited progress on nuclear disarmament, where the five authorized nuclear weapons states still have 22,000 warheads in their combined stockpile and have shown a reluctance to disarm further. NPT policies should be take cared seriously as some point the political environments in which those dangers exist, a lot of interest would come and conflicting it policies10. Based on theory of realist perspectives, by looking into this treaty that tries to proliferating the nuclear weapons on nation defense systems, this is the opposite of realist would think about security and power structure.
As realist sees that having more power is the most important on the survivability of its own nation, losing nuclear weapon is not even an option. Realist would sees this only as a precaution or set of international rules treaty that nuclear weapon will not be used to other state. But in the reality of International weaponry, conflicts, and internal – external issues. The absence of nuclear power is impossible to accomplish, as every nation in the world still thinking about their own national security and there is no nation big enough to create a stability when the nuclear weapons are proliferated step by step. The only thing that could happen based on treaty and agreement is involving international organization such as United Nations and NATO to create it, and create a set of rules, punishment and sanction that will be implemented by every member if there is a nation member that is not following the rules and violating the treaty itself , by this commitment maybe a treaty and agreement will work effectively. But still on the reality, If there is still even a nation that think nuclear is still the best way to defense its own nation, any treaty or agreement can’t withdraw nuclear in world defense system. Because in ‘black market’ there is still a lot of transaction of the nuclear weapons itself, its already become a public secret that middle east country have a transaction on this weaponry.
1 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2017). Political Realism in International Relations. Retrieved January 22, 2018 from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/realism-intl-relations/ 2 United Nation office for disarmament affairs. Nuclear Weapons. Retrieved January 23, 2018 from https://www.
un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/ 3 Eleanor Ross (2016). The nine countries that have nuclear weapons. Retrieved January 23, 2018 from http://www.independent.
co.uk/news/world/politics/the-nine-countries-that-have-nuclear-weapons-a6798756.html 4 Carsten Volkery (2010). A Look at Britain’s and France’s Nuclear Arsenals.
Retrieved January 23, 2018 from http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/deterrent-lite-a-look-at-britain-s-and-france-s-nuclear-arsenals-a-688504.html 5 Benedict Brook (2017).
Warnings of a ‘chance of war’ between India and China as nuclear rivals face off. Retrieved January 23, 2018 from http://www.news.com.au/world/asia/warnings-of-a-chance-of-war-between-india-and-china-as-nuclear-rivals-face-off/news-story/325ace8a2957aeb6a3634db44a4c12e9 6 Arms Control Association (2018). Nuclear Weapons: Who Has What at a Glance.
Retrieved January 23, 2018 from https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Nuclearweaponswhohaswhat 7 The Realist Nuclear Regime by Zachary S. Davis Published online: 25 Nov 2010. Retrieved November 23, 2017 from http://dx.doi.org/10.
1080/09636419309347520. 8 Office of The Historian . Strategic Arms Limitations Talks/Treaty (SALT) I and II.
Retrieved January 22, 2018 from https://history.state.gov/milestones/1969-1976/salt 9 Freedman Lawrence (2018). Strategic Arms Reduction Talks. January 24, 2018 from https://www.britannica.com/event/Strategic-Arms-Reduction-Talks 10 Deterring nuclear weapons proliferation by Dagobert L. Brito and Michael D.
Intriligator , published by Blackwell publisher. Retrieved November 23, 2017 from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.
1111/ecaf.1997.17.
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