Keen to impose control regimes on the rest of the world, they jealously guard their current advantage and the privileges that apparently come along with being a nuclear power, including a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Thus, since the end of the Cold War, and especially since the 1991 Gulf War, nuclear proliferation in the South has been portrayed as the world's top security threat. International control regimes such as the NPT and CTBT rely on information supplied by surveillance. As a result, satellites are now being used by Northern governments to collect detailed military and economic information on states without their cooperation. With the most advanced satellite monitoring technology, the US has become the enforcer of an international nuclear regime.
Few analysts seem concerned that using satellites to spy violates international law.
Imagine the outrage we would hear from the defence and intellectual establishments in the West if, for example, Iran operated a satellite that monitored US troop movements. Yet, it isn't considered at all abnormal that so many military satellites are used to spy on Southern countries. The technological capability for satellite surveillance is concentrated in a few hands, mostly the US, Russia and France. The proposal for a neutral multinational UN satellite to monitor compliance with the CTBT has been dismissed by Northern experts as an unjustified cost since so much is available from government and commercial satellites. The UN's dependence on US technology has been reinforced by the donation of an intelligence-processing system that enables the UN to receive, process and disseminate information provided by member states.