Devastated Russia rebuilt its military power<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nWithin a few years after the War, the Russians rebuilt their country and its military might to prevent any future attack on their country. In 1949, Russia added nuclear weapons to its arsenal and in 1961 it detonated its largest nuclear weapon \u201cTsar Bomba\u201d with a yield of 50 megatons (equivalent to the power of 3,800 Hiroshima bombs).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I first visited Moscow in 1962 as a graduate student in International Law, the former Soviet Union was a proud nation with a thriving economy, marvels of industrialization, advances in science, technology and medicine, escapades into outer space, and basking in the glory of a superpower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But in the 1990\u2019s due to internal economic stagnation and external interference, Russia\u2019s economy and military lost its splendour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After Vladimir Putin became Russia\u2019s President in 2000, he rebuilt economy with liberal economic reforms and revamped Russia\u2019s unrivalled military complex to its former glory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a 2014 speech, referring to NATO\u2019s expansion into Russia\u2019s borders, President Putin said, \u201cOur Western partners, led by the United States of America, prefer not to be guided by international law in their practical policies, but by the rule of the gun. They have come to believe in their exclusivity and exceptionalism, that they can decide the destinies of the world, that only they can ever be right\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Recently, Putin revealed that the Russian Armed Forces adopted more than 300 new pieces of military equipment over the last six years. Among those are a number of \u201cinvincible\u201d defence systems including a new prototype missile that can reach any point in the world, a supersonic weapon that cannot be tracked by anti-missile systems, and a new hypersonic aviation and missile system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Putin recently said that \u201cThe lessons of the past war are still relevant. We have done and will do everything necessary to ensure the high combat capability of our Armed Forces and the defence potential of the most modern level\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last year, addressing the Victory Day military parade in Red Square, Putin said, \u201cThe Soviet Union faced the most powerful assaults by the Nazis, but there is no force, and there will be no force, that could conquer our people\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Peace or Nuclear Armageddon<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThe World War II gave birth to the United Nations with fancy ideals \u201cto save succeeding generations from the scourge of war which twice in our life time has brought untold sorrow to mankind\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It had lofty goals \u201cto practice tolerance and live together in peace\u201d; \u201cto maintain international peace and security\u201d and \u201cto establish the conditions for peaceful coexistence between nations\u201d. The UN has, thus far, failed to accomplish any of these.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The UN Security Council has primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. The Charter calls for the settlement of international disputes by peaceful means and without endangering international peace and security and justice, and to refrain from \u201cthe threat of or use of force against any other State\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Regardless, since 1945, our world leaders who compete for economic and military supremacy have waged hundreds of regional wars around the world \u2013 killing many more millions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Their senseless conflicts threaten international peace and security around the world, and as President Franklin D. Roosevelt said: \u201cWhen peace has been broken anywhere, the peace of all countries everywhere is in danger\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today, we fearfully live in a dangerous world governed by megalomaniacs who see atomic weapons not solely as deterrents but as weapons of aggression that can be used to conquer other nations, and often blatantly threaten other countries with nuclear annihilation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last year, the British journalist Finian Cunningham wrote, \u201cThe Western countries \u2013 who by contrast did comparatively little to defeat Nazi Germany \u2013 are the same ones today who feel entitled to wage covert and overt wars for regime change around the world\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said, \u201cOne may argue, therefore, that the battle against fascism has never ended. Nazi uniforms, soldiers, guns and tanks may have been buried, but the mentality of aggression, superiority, lawlessness and impunity is very much alive\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though we may not succeed in eliminating regional wars that may arise from time to time, we can at least eliminate the nuclear threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ratify the Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThe United Nations, in 1946, adopted by consensus its very first resolution seeking to eliminate nuclear weapons but \u2013 for 75 years now \u2013 it has been nothing but a dream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since then, eight more countries have acquired nuclear weapons, and some countries spend trillions of dollars to upgrade their nuclear arsenal. Now, more countries aspire to develop nuclear weapons to discourage attacks by aggressors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After years of resistance by nuclear powers, in July 2017, the UN finally adopted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW<\/a>), also known as the Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty. It is the first legally binding international agreement to comprehensively prohibit nuclear weapons, with the goal of leading towards their total elimination.<\/p>\n\n\n\nTherefore, the only way to make this a more just and peaceful world is for all peace-loving nations to ratify the UN Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and guide the world towards the elimination of nuclear weapons. [IDN-InDepthNews \u2013 06 May 2020]<\/p>\n\n\n\n
* Somar Wijayadasa, an international lawyer, was a Faculty Member of the University of Sri Lanka, worked for IAEA and FAO, was delegate of UNESCO to the UN General Assembly, and was the Representative of UNAIDS at the United Nations.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nPhoto: Veterans in a letter called for Putin to \u201ctake a difficult but, as we see it, fair decision to hold the military parade on another date\u201d. Putin has meanwhile agreed to defer the military parade. Credit: Sergei Kiselyov\/Moskva News Agency<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Viewpoint by Somar Wijayadasa* NEW YORK (IDN) \u2013 On May 9, 1945, after four years of violent battles inside Russia, recorded as the bloodiest and most destructive military conflict in the whole history of humanity, the Russians defeated Nazi Germany in World War II. It is the single most important day in Russian history that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7639,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,16,93],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7637","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-europe","8":"category-news","9":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7637"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7638,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7637\/revisions\/7638"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}