74 SOCIAL SCIENTISF , . example, the number of strategic nuclear warheads possessed by the two powers have increased from approximately 5,000 to 23,000. Subrah-manyam therefore contends that the problem in the intervening periods has not been so much of "new nations becoming self-acknowledged nuclear weapons powers" but the continuing qualitative and quantitative proliferation being carried out by the sponsors of the treaty. Subrahmanyam discuses this issue at length in a chapter examining the real contours of proliferation. He focuses on the nuclear weapons in terms of their large-scale globle deployment, and the loosening of the command and control of the nuclear trigger This has been a proliferation which has not been addressed to by the treaty or its two subsequent reviews since the guilty parties have been the nuclear weapons states themselves. Given the strict controls with which the Soviet Union handles its own weapons, allowing no participation by the Warsaw Pact countries, the problem is really one of NATO alliance, in which the US shares its nuclear wcapans with its allies. One aspect of the situation is the horizontal proliferation within the armed forces of the main nuclear weapons powers. Here Subrahmanyam points out, several problems that arise. In the command and control systems dealing with nuclear submarines for example the nature of the deployment leads to the diffusion of central authority in the command and control procedures. Besides the problem of submarines where the problem of communications have compelled a certain degree of command autonomy, there have been < authenticated reports of similar delegations with regard to other forces as well especially NORAD (North American Air Defence Command) or the NATO. In fact, Subrahmanyam has adduced sufficient evidence to point to the alarming fact that the command and control of nuclear weapons far from being in the black-box accompanying the President of the US may now be delegated to such levels that the danger of an inadvertent nwlear conflict has increased sharply. He has cited Lord Solly Zuckerman's observation that "prior release" orders for the nuclear weapons was axiomatic in the case of tactical nuclear weapons that the US possesses in abundance and deploys mainly in Western Burope. The thousands of warheads designed to fire from artillery guns or small tactical missiles, presumably in conventional conflict scenarios make central command and control of nuclear weapons an impossible proposition. Another less discussed aspect of proliferation is the impact of new technologies interfacing with the nuclear weapons. By definition this is a problem confined to the established and technologically advanced nwlear weapons states. The laboratories and research establishments of the advanced countries are not covered by the NPT. C. Raja Mohan has pointed to the shift in the western attitudes towards the transfer of any nwlear technology for weapons or other uses to Third World countries. The destruction of the internationally safeguarded OSIRAK reactor by Israel and the western acquiescence of th^ act marks the new phase of western strategy whe?^