The majority of Asian and Pacific States have long recognized that disarmament and non-proliferation remain essential to help create an enabling environment for peace, security and development. However, the world remains flooded with weapons of mass destruction. It is estimated that the nuclear-weapon States possessed more than 20,500 nuclear warheads at the beginning of 2011, of which more than 5,000 are deployed and operational (SIPRI). The countries of Asia and the Pacific have taken seriously the challenge of overcoming the obstacles to a world without weapons of mass destruction. The Convention on the Rights of peace and the United Nations Convention on the Protection of Human Rights will continue to assist the States of Asia and the Pacific, at their request, in achieving their peace, security and disarmament objectives with regard to weapons of mass destruction. It is a very far-reaching control that would eliminate rivalry between nations in this area, that would prevent the clandestine arming of one nation against another, that would provide a certain cushion of time before the nuclear attack and probably before any attack with weapons of mass destruction, and that would greatly contribute to the elimination of nuclear energy. at least as a source of conflict between the powers. [10] Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD), a weapon capable of inflicting death and destruction on such a massive and indiscriminate scale that its mere presence in the hands of an enemy power can be considered a serious threat. Modern weapons of mass destruction are nuclear, biological or chemical weapons – often collectively referred to as NBC weapons. See Nuclear Weapons, Chemical Warfare, Biological Warfare. South Africa developed a small nuclear arsenal in the 1980s, but dismantled it in the early 1990s, making it the only country to completely abandon an independently developed nuclear arsenal. Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz has often used the term “weapons of mass terrorism” and has apparently also recognized the distinction between the psychological and physical effects of many things that currently fall into the category of weapons of mass destruction.
[42] The term weapons of mass destruction has been in circulation since at least 1937, when it was used to describe mass bomber aircraft formations. At the time, these high-flying air battleships appeared to pose an unstoppable threat to civilian centers far from any war front – as they did during World War II (1939-45), especially in the incendiary bombings of cities like Hamburg, Germany, and Tokyo, Japan, when tens of thousands of civilians died in a single night. With the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, the terrifying power of conventional bombs faded before the spectacle of an entire city center was destroyed, killing about 66,000 people immediately by the explosion and heat of a single nuclear weapon. (By the end of the year, the death toll from radiation damage had risen to 140,000.) During the Cold War, the United States, the Soviet Union, and other major powers accumulated vast reserves of tens of thousands of atomic bombs, missile warheads, and artillery shells — so much so that the military and diplomatic stalemate of that time has sometimes been described as a “balance of terror.” At the same time, the two superpowers have also amassed stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, the other two main types of modern weapons of mass destruction. Chemical weapons are made up of liquids and gases that suffocate their victims, poison their blood, blow their skin or disrupt their nervous system. Chlorine gas (a choke agent) and mustard gas (a bubblefinder) were used in artillery shells against entrenched troops during World War I (1914-18) in the early 20th century. ==References=====External links===* Official website Biological weapons contain natural toxins or infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses or fungi; Sprayed or bursting on populated areas, they can cause limited but serious outbreaks of deadly diseases such as anthrax, pneumonic plague or smallpox. Biological weapons have not been used in modern warfare since the Japanese spread plague-infected lice to parts of China during World War II. However, the relative ease with which biological and chemical warfare agents can be prepared, packaged, delivered and launched has raised fears that they will become the weapon of choice for terrorists. In fact, since the end of the cold war, the main concern for all weapons of mass destruction has been proliferation, that is, the possibility for small Powers, “rogue States” or international terrorist groups to acquire the means to produce and supply weapons of mass destruction.
Efforts to curb the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction are enshrined in international treaties such as the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention and the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention. Also in 1998, but according to the UNM poll, nuclear weapons became a problem in the March Indian elections[123] in connection with political tensions with neighboring Pakistan. Ahead of the elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced that it would “declare India a nuclear-weapon state” after it came to power. [Citation needed] The end of the cold war reduced the United States` dependence on nuclear weapons as a deterrent, leading it to focus on disarmament.