Aqeel Ahmad

NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION      In May 1998, India and Pakistan engaged in a series of nuclear tests, raising  the possibility of escalation in the pace of nuclear proliferation around the  world. Nuclear proliferation refers to the spread of nuclear weapons to states that did not possess them prior to 1968, when the Nuclear Non-Proliferation  Treaty (NPT) was signed. Until the Indian and Pakistani nuclear detonations, international efforts to arrest the spread of nuclear arms in the 1990s  seemed to be enjoying some success. The rate of nuclear proliferation appeared to be slowing down, the geographic scope of proliferation was  shrinking, and de-nuclearisation was achieved in 1996 in parts of the former Soviet Union. Three post- Soviet states with nuclear weapons left on their  territory – Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine – cooperated in the removal of those weapons to Russia and joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as non-nuclear-w...