UN General Assembly
1976

216. It is an irony of our time that an age of ideological and nationalistic rivalry has spawned as well a host of challenges that no nation can possibly solve by itself: the proliferation of nuclear weapons technology; the problems posed by the law of the sea; and the horrible new tool of tenor that cJiims innocent victims on every continent. 217. The growing danger of the proliferation of nuclear weapons raises stark questions about man's ability to ensure his very existence. We have lived through three perilous decades hi which the catastrophe of nuclear war has been avoided, despite ? strategic rivalry between a relatively few nations. 218. But now a wholly new situation impends. Many nations have the potential to build nuclear weapons. If this potential were to materialize, threats to use nuclear weapons, fed by mutually reinforcing misconceptions, could become a recurrent feature of local conflicts in every' quarter of the globe. And there will be growing dangers of accidents, blackmail and nuclear terrorism.