How effective are attempts to prevent Nuclear Proliferation?

Nuclear proliferation has been a problem since the Atom bomb was first invented.  There have been numerous attempts to stop the spread of the technology and know how.  If you are looking at these as a Politics student you may wish to consider, how effective have these attempts been?

Word document to fill out whilst watching video.

Overt

At various times Israel (herself a nuclear power) has used force to stop neighbouring powers gaining the bomb. At times they have done this in an overt or open fashion.

The most famous example was in 1981 when Israel attacked a nuclear reactor in Saddam Hussein's Iraq.  Their fear was that Saddam was planning to use enriched uranium to create an atom bomb.  The following website gives the Israeli perspective http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/operation-opera-raid-on-iraqi-nuclear-reactor

In 2007 Israel also attacked Syria's nuclear reactor it what was known as Operation Orchard.  This article explores the successes and failures of this enterprise https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/bombing-the-syrian-reactor-the-untold-story/

Covert

Sometimes states have acted in a covert or secretive fashion to disable other countries attempts to gain the bomb.  America had been trying for a considerable time to slow Iran going nuclear.

The most interesting of these was their attempt to use a computer virus called Stuxnet to damage the infrastructure needed to enrich uranium.  This was highlighted in the documentary Zero Days.

As highlighted in Zero Days there was also a series of Iranian scientists assassinated as reported in this Guardian article https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jan/16/iran-scientists-state-sponsored-murder

Sanctions

Often states have turned to sanctions in order to force countries to abandon their nuclear programmes.  Sanctions vary from imposing general trade bans on oil for example, through to targeted restrictions on leader's international bank accounts. 

The deal that led to the Iranians promise to stop enriching uranium saw the sanctions lifted as highlighted in this BBC article http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-35335078

Sanctions have not always worked North Korea currently seems to be holding firm on maintaining and testing their Nuclear Weapons in the face of severe sanctions.  This article highlights as to why the sanctions were not successful http://theconversation.com/why-un-sanctions-against-north-koreas-missile-program-failed-83554

Talks

Sometimes states have given up their nuclear weapons through a series of talks.  You can read this article in Foreign Affairs (although you will have to register for free) how South Africa gave up the bomb https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/south-africa/1993-12-01/why-south-africa-gave-bomb

This was repeated when Libya also gave up it's programme of weapons of mass destruction as highlighted in this Independent article http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/libya-gives-up-nuclear-and-chemical-weapons-83350.html.  Although some have been at pains to point out that within a decade of Gadhafi giving up his weapons of mass destruction he was overthrown which might not encourage North Korea to do the same https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/10/a-possible-reason-north-koreas-kim-wont-disarm-memories-of-gadhafi.html