Rajat Narang
'May there not be methods of using explosive energy incomparably more intense than anything heretofore discovered? Might not a bomb no bigger than an orange be found to possess a secret power to destroy a whole block of buildings-nay, to concentrate the force of a thousand tons of cordite and blast a township at a stroke?' - Winston Churchill anticipated atomic weapons in his 1924 essay 'Shall We All Commit Suicide?,' which was republished in his 1932 book of essays, Thoughts and Adventures. 'I see the possibility in the 1970’s of the President of the United States having to face a world in which 15 or 20 or 25 nations may have these weapons.' - John F. Kennedy, Former U.S. President in a News Conference held on March 21, 1963.The pursuit of efforts to harness & weaponize the massive power of the atom clearly had European roots and underpinnings dating back to the discovery of radioactivity itself in the late 19th century, much like the advancement of warfare concepts and weapons technologies in history. However, the Nazi Germany’s virtual head start with the world’s first successful nuclear fission reaction in 1938 amid gathering war clouds over Europe ensured that for the Western allies, America & Great Britain, the need to build the atomic bomb was about survival against a tyrannical regime, which had already developed the world’s first short range ballistic missile system, the V2 rocket; while looking to subjugate the entire world to its military might.However, the end of Hitler and the Nazi regime in Europe and the success of Trinity and the devastation of Hiroshima & Nagasaki effectively unleashed the atomic age for mankind as the Pandora’s Nuclear Box had virtually been opened forever as Einstein himself regretted later.The American monopoly on the A-Bomb, however, was ephemeral & short-lived, as the Soviet Union, too, quickly crossed the Nuclear Rubicon within less than half a decade with Stalin almost desperate to achieve nuclear parity with the U.S. in the quest for global dominance and overall power dynamics.America’s nuclear isolation and distancing from its traditional Euroepan allies post WW2, especially the U.K., and its unabashed nuclear saber-rattling with teh creation of a massive retaliation nuclear doctrine and persistent nuclear bullying & threats against non-nuclear powers during the Eisenhower-era inadvertently ensured further, subsequent nuclear proliferation to Europe and Asia.Subsequently, multiple nations joined the nuclear bandwagon, with some doing it for the coveted, great power status on the world stage in the grand scheme of geopolitical power-plays; while some others did so simply for establishing parity with their already nuclear neighbours, in the name of nuclear deterrence, and some, simply did it for existential reasons, i.e., to ensure survival on the world map amid threats from great, nuclear armed states.This is the story of the quest for nuclear weapons globally and it unravels the rationales & raisons d’être behind the respective decisions by the world’s all 9 nuclear weapons armed states (P5+4) to cross the Nuclear Rubicon and develop their respective nuclear weapons cum deterrents and delivery systems subsequently and how they executed that decision subsequently while dodging the hawkish overwatch of the IAEA as the nuclear watchdog and the wary global non-proliferation regime...
