UN nuclear head fears new cold war: "The world could be pushed back to the brink of destruction, as during the height of the cold war, due to the spread of nuclear technology, the head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog has said.
Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, warned that the former US president John F Kennedy's prediction of a world with 20 or 30 countries with nuclear weapons could become a reality.
That could mean the return to prominence of the doctrine of mutually assured destruction, the belief that international security can be maintained by the threat of nuclear annihilation, Mr ElBaradei told Johns Hopkins University's Paul H Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in the USA.
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'When it comes to nuclear weapons, we are reaching a fork in the road ... Efforts to control the spread of such weapons will only be delaying the inevitable: a world in which each country or group has laid claim to its own nuclear weapon,' said Mr ElBaradei.
'Mutually assured destruction will once again be the absurd hallmark of civilisation at its technological peak.'
Mr ElBaradei said the only way to avoid this nightmare scenario would be for the major global powers, including the US and its allies, to develop alternative strategies for international security that eliminated the need for nuclear deterrence.
He said that while existing nuclear powers retained and continued to develop their atomic arsenal, other countries would want to follow suit. Mr ElBaradei, who, with his agency won the Nobel peace prize last year, added that the likelihood of rogue states and terrorist groups acquiring nuclear capability would increase due to advances in communication technology.
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