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This book presents different views on nuclear disarmament and arms control and a brief history of nuclear non-proliferation policy and the nuclear test ban issue. It describes the preparations for and results of the 1990 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference and the 1991 Partial Test Ban Treaty Amendment Conference. With a view to 1995, it assesses the chances for consensus or dissension regarding regarding nuclear proliferation and the test ban, and the prospects for an extension of NPT. It concludes by examining the future and the threat of a new North-South divide over these issues.

This text opens with a brief look at nuclear proliferation until 1970, when the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) came into force. It then examines the spread of nuclear weapons technology since 1970 and at the factors that will determine proliferation in the years ahead.

Fischer, who helped draft the original charter of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), provides a detailed historical account of current non-proliferation treaties and controls. He notes that originally the proliferation problem was how to permit the development of nuclear power (for cheap energy) without permitting countries to develop bombs; now the problem is how to prevent countries determined to build atomic bombs from acquiring the requisite technology. Many technologies (explosives, computers, nuclear energy) that are key to the development of nuclear weapons also have other legitimate applications. Fischer recommends reorienting the current non-proliferation regime, which is largely a Soviet-American invention, into one also supported by economic powers (the European Community and Japan); and that potential new nuclear states and "closet" nuclear powers be brought under broader IAEA controls. ISBN 0-415-00481-0: $66.95.