A Nuclear-weapon-free World Desirable? Feasible?

The world total of some 50,000 nuclear warheads is beginning to fall off sharply. It should be well below 10,000 by the year 2000. Should the ultimate target be zero? The idea of a nuclear-weapon-free world (NWFW) was put back on the world agenda by President Gorbachev in 1986. President Reagan also had a vision of a world without nuclear weapons.

Preface -- A Nuclear-Weapon-Free World: Executive Overview -- Historical Review -- Past Attempts to Abolish Nuclear Weapons -- Desirability of a NWFW -- Nuclear Weapons After the Cold War -- A Nuclear-Weapon-Free World: Is It Desirable? Is It Necessary? -- Feasibility of a NWFW -- Technological Problems of Verification -- The Breakout Problem -- Societal Verification -- A NWFW Regime: Treaty for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons -- Verification and Enforcement in a NWFW -- International Security in a NWFW -- Making Nuclear Weapons Illegal -- Alternative Routes to a NWFW -- Nuclear Weapons for the United Nations? -- An International Nuclear Security Force -- An Asymptotic Approach to a NWFW -- Intermediate Steps -- Approaches Towards a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World

Joseph Rotblat (UK) Physics. Emeritus Professor at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, University of London. Worked on the atom bomb during World War II in Liverpool and Los Alamos. Signatory of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto. President of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. Jack Steinberger (Switzerland) Physics. Galilean Professor of Physics, Scuola Normale, Pisa. Nobel Laureate in Physics. Former Professor, Columbia University, New York and senior researcher at CERN. Bhalchandra M. Udgaonkar (India) Physics. Emeritus Professor, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. Former President, Indian Academy of Social Sciences and Special Adviser and Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission.