When the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) came into force in 1970, the ultimate aim was that the world should be rid of all nuclear weapons. It was with that hope that the then five nuclear powers, the United States, the Soviet Union, China, Britain and France, along with some 180 other states signed the treaty. Thirty-five years later, as delegates meet at the United Nations in New York for their fifth yearly review of the treaty’s effectiveness, many will argue that the NPT has failed. Israel, India and Pakistan — none of whom signed the original treaty — all have nuclear weapons. North Korea, which did sign but later withdrew, says it now has the bomb. Iran is still a signatory but is suspected by Washington of having a nuclear weapons program, which Tehran denies.
Only four states are known to have started and later abandoned nuclear ambitions — South Africa, the Ukraine, Libya and Iraq. Only in the exceptional case of Iraq has international intervention forced an end to the development of a nuclear arsenal. Nonetheless while the NPT remains an agreement without teeth, it is still not without purpose. The problem is that among the nuclear power signatories, the United States has been distorting that purpose. For the Americans stopping the spread of nuclear weapons means at bottom — stopping the danger that any state will seek to challenge US world hegemony.
The sheer potential horror of a nuclear exchange between the old Soviet Union and the United States kept the Cold War from ever growing hot. The superpower arsenals proved to be a real deterrent. America won that contest and now hopes that Moscow and Beijing are too busy trying to get rich to bother with further ideological standoffs.
The deterrent effect of a nuclear capability is, however, what has informed the weapons programs of India, Pakistan, Israel, even North Korea and maybe also Iran. In the last two countries, the power primarily being deterred would be Washington. That any state has contemplated the immense expense and considerable effort of its own nuclear program represents a major failure of post-Cold War diplomacy, primarily by the Americans. Had America capitalized immediately upon the end of the superpower standoff by fulfilling the original ambition of the NPT and initiating genuine nuclear disarmament talks, the world might now be well on the way to ridding itself of the threat of thermonuclear destruction. The problem is that the Americans are still committed to further nuclear weapons development and testing.
This is not the same, however, as saying that the NPT is useless. It is far from that. Indeed it is the framework around which global disarmament will one day be built. But until Washington accepts this, no genuinely constructive process can begin.
