Through the G-8 Summit held each year, eight key countries; Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States are taking steps to reduce the threat of weapons proliferation to the world community. “We will work closely with our coalition to deny terrorists and their state sponsors the materials, technology, and expertise to make and deliver weapons of mass destruction,” states President George W. Bush at the G-8 Summit in Kananaskis Canada, January 29th 2002. The coalition intends to do this by; “reducing strategic missiles, bombers, silos, and submarines; ending weapons-grade plutonium production; reducing excess weapons grade plutonium; upgrading storage security for fissile material; reducing nuclear weapons infrastructure; destroying chemical weapons; eliminating chemical weapons production capability; securing biological pathogens; providing peaceful employment for former weapons scientists; enhancing export controls and border security; and improving safety of civil nuclear reactors.” The eight-country coalition committed themselves to raising $20 billion over ten years to prevent proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the United States providing half of the total funding.

Vertical proliferation of non-conventional weapons is the internal development of weapons of mass destruction. There are three categories of weapons of mass destruction; nuclear, chemical, and biological. The nuclear bomb the United States dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan was a 12.5-kiloton atomic bomb, “an explosive blast equal to 12,500 tons of conventional high explosives (such as TNT) and caused high pressure waves, flying debris, extreme heat, and radioactive fallout.” Examples of chemical weapons would include the nerve agent Sarin that was deployed by a religious cult in Japan in 1995 to kill and injure the general public, and mustard gas that was used during World War I. Biological weapons are far more deadly and destructive compared to chemical

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