For many the ending of the Cold War, Atomic/Space Age, and Nuclear Arms Race spelled out the end of possible nuclear annihilation...which couldn't be further from the truth.
While the LTBT, TTBT, CTBT, NPT, SORT, SALT, SALT II, START, START II, NEW START have all been established and signed, not only by the US and Russian Federation/Soviet Union, but by others such as China, Pakistan, India, South Africa, ect...this of course none of them in any effective way prevent the possibility of nuclear warfare. They do of course regulate, limit, and monitor nuclear weapons.
What is most "humorous" about all the treaties and bans, is that prior to the majority of them being signed, the US or USSR had shared or given a multitude of other nations the abilities to develop nuclear weapons...or simply had given them nuclear weapons. The US with it's "Atoms of Peace" ideal and nuclear weapons sharing. The USSR merely sharing whatever technology it saw fit (Sino-Soviet treaty of Friendship and Alliance) and parking nuclear weapons in nearly all it's satellite nations. Additionally both nations had fulfilled any achievable developmental or stockpile capabilities long before the treaties were proposed.
The US peaking at around 30,000 and the USSR around 45,000.
As can be seen in the above graphic, both nations still maintain a substantial stockpile in the tens of thousands, far more than enough to pockmark each other's terra firma.
Even as the treaties commenced, weapons were misplaced, stolen, or simply forgotten about, especially after the fall of the Soviet Union. Additionally, by the time any nation or organization thought of action concerning the development of nuclear weapons by a nefarious third-party...it was already too late, a proverbial "cat's out of the bag" scenario.
Now as we sit today, with a nuclear North Korea and most certainly a nuclear Iran, with a possible future nuclear Syria. The world just doesn't seem so safe anymore...not that it was overly safe to begin with.
Now with North Korea's Taepodong-1 and Taepodong-2 and more recent Unha platform, their reach has grown considerably. These platforms now give them the capability to strike targets in Europe and the US.
Iran with it's Safir, Simorgh, Qoqnoos platfroms has the capabilities as well. One can only assume if North Korea can develop and effectively test nuclear weapons, than Iran which is a much richer and develop nation certainly has the same or better capabilities.
The Russian Federation has also disregarded it's signing of many treaties, by developing newer missile platforms with a nominal MIRV capacity, such as the Topol
Topol-M, and Yars. The Russian Federation has additionally been preparing tunnel systems and Metro lines as fallout shelters as the Soviet Union had commended during it's era.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro-2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Metro#Cold_War_era
http://www.presstv.com/detail/187699.html
http://rt.com/news/prime-time/moscow-bomb-shelters-outskirts/
China has additionally been adding to it's nuclear stockpiles and building fallout shelters, but under a much tighter paradigm than that of Russia or other nations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_City_%28Beijing%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Republic_of_China_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction
While in 1992 the US defunct the Civil Defense, thus closing down it's hundreds of thousands of fallout shelters and bomb shelters, of which the remnants can still be seen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_civil_defense
