WMD and Nuclear Proliferation Questions and Answers

Answer: A

The one that is not a biological warfare agent is Leukemia.

A biological warfare agent is a living organism or toxin that can be spread deliberately to cause disease. Smallpox virus and the haemorrhagic fever viruses of Ebola and Marburg are all listed among the highest-threat (category A) agents because they are contagious or deadly.

Leukemia is a cancer of the blood-forming tissues. It is not caused by an infectious agent that can be spread to a population, so it cannot be used as a biological weapon.

Answer: D

The terms come from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The NPT of 1968 divides its parties into nuclear-weapon states, defined in Article IX(3) as those that had manufactured and exploded a nuclear weapon before 1 January 1967, and non-nuclear-weapon states, which undertake not to acquire nuclear weapons and to accept IAEA safeguards.

The Treaty of Westphalia (1648) and the Treaty of Versailles (1919) long predate nuclear weapons, and the SALT agreements were bilateral US-Soviet limits on strategic arms, not a treaty dividing states into these two categories.

Answer: C

The NPT recognises five nuclear-weapon states.

Under Article IX(3), a nuclear-weapon state is one that manufactured and exploded a nuclear weapon before 1 January 1967. That covers exactly five: the United States, the Soviet Union (now Russia), the United Kingdom, France and China, which are also the permanent members of the Security Council.

Nine is the number of states that actually possess nuclear weapons, adding India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea, which the NPT does not recognise as nuclear-weapon states. Ten and zero do not fit the treaty.

Answer: B

The three pillars are Disarmament, Non-Proliferation and Peaceful uses of Nuclear technology.

The NPT is described as a bargain resting on three pillars: non-proliferation, under which non-nuclear-weapon states forgo nuclear weapons (Articles I and II); disarmament, under which all parties undertake to pursue negotiations towards nuclear disarmament (Article VI); and the right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy (Article IV).

Nuclear, chemical and biological weapons are the three kinds of weapons of mass destruction, and bombers, ballistic missiles and submarines are the three legs of the nuclear triad. Neither is the NPT's pillars, so 'All of the above' fails too.

Answer: B

The country that stayed away was the Russian Federation.

The fourth and final Nuclear Security Summit was held in Washington in March-April 2016, the last of the series begun by President Obama in 2010 to secure nuclear materials against terrorists. Russia, which had attended the earlier summits, boycotted it amid tensions with the United States, criticising the summit process.

The United Kingdom, Kazakhstan and India all took part; India was represented by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Answer: A

Pakistan tested in the Chagai Hills.

On 28 and 30 May 1998, two weeks after India's Pokhran-II tests, Pakistan conducted its nuclear tests, Chagai-I and Chagai-II, in tunnels in the Ras Koh range of the Chagai Hills and in the Kharan desert of Balochistan. Pakistan marks 28 May as Youm-e-Takbeer.

Lop Nur is China's nuclear test site in Xinjiang. The Khyber Hills and a 'Karachi Test Range' were not test sites.

Answer: B

In nuclear weapon states the IAEA applies Voluntary-Offer Agreement (VOA) safeguards.

The five NPT nuclear weapon states are not required to accept safeguards on all their nuclear material. Instead each has concluded a voluntary offer agreement, under which it offers some civilian facilities or material for safeguards, and the IAEA selects which ones to inspect.

Comprehensive safeguards apply to all nuclear material in non-nuclear-weapon states party to the NPT. Item-specific safeguards under INFCIRC/66-type agreements apply to particular facilities in states outside the NPT, such as India, Pakistan and Israel, so 'Type-66' and 'facility-specific' describe that regime, not the one for nuclear weapon states.

Answer: D

The IAEA reports such cases to the United Nations Security Council.

Under Article XII.C of the IAEA Statute, when the Board of Governors finds a state in non-compliance with its safeguards agreement, it reports the non-compliance to all members and to the Security Council and General Assembly of the United Nations. The Security Council is the body that can act, as it did with Iraq, North Korea and Iran, because it alone can impose binding measures under Chapter VII of the Charter.

The General Assembly receives the report but cannot enforce anything, the Secretary-General is not the body named for action, and the Conference on Disarmament is a negotiating forum with no compliance role.

Answer: B

The Treaty of Rarotonga is a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone Treaty.

Signed at Rarotonga in the Cook Islands in 1985, the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty bans the manufacture, possession, stationing and testing of nuclear explosive devices in the South Pacific, and the dumping of radioactive waste at sea there. It was a response to French nuclear testing in the Pacific.

It does not reduce existing nuclear arsenals, as the US-Soviet START treaties did, and it does not deal with chemical weapons, which are covered worldwide by the Chemical Weapons Convention.

Answer: D

The implementing body is the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

The OPCW, based at The Hague, was set up when the Chemical Weapons Convention came into force in 1997. It verifies the destruction of declared chemical weapons stockpiles, inspects chemical industry sites, and investigates alleged use. It received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013.

The other names in the options are invented variants; no 'International Chemical Weapons Agency' or 'Organisation for Implementing Chemical Weapons' exists.