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Let's Endorse a South Pacific Nuclear-Free Zone
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# : |
13445 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
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9 / 1987 |
2,190 Words |
| Author
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Ben Blaz
Ben Blaz is the representative from Guam in Congress and a
retired brigadier general in the U.S. Marine Corps. |
The United States has, over the past decade, joined with nations around the world in establishing four major nuclear-free zones that play an important role in preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons by carving out huge slices of the earth where, by international agreement, the nuclear arms race is prohibited.
There has been bipartisan approval by several U.S. administrations of the concept and practice of nuclear-free zones in other regions of nonproliferation concern, specifically, in the South Asia subcontinent, Africa, and the Middle East.
Our nation is now a member of the Treaty of Tlatelolco, the Antarctic Treaty, the Seabed Arms Control Treaty, and the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space. These declare nuclear-weapons-free zones, respectively, for all of South America, Antarctica, the deep seabeds of the world, and all of outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies.
These are vital pacts that complement bilateral and multilateral arms reduction treaties among the nuclear powers. The zones act, in a sense, to set borders on the arms race, to limit it, and to provide assurances to nervous nations that their neighbors are not attempting "to steal a nuclear arms march" on them.
We should not ignore the exclusion-zone front because of preoccupation with bilateral negotiations. Neither should we encourage or join zones that jeopardize our strategic interests by hampering our existing nuclear forces. That, to my mind, would be a form of unilateral
... (1990 of 13274 Characters)
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