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4 The Cornerstone of Security: The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty I n a f o r e i g n a f f a i r s a r t i c l e s e v e r a l y e a r s ago, Jonathan Schell argued that the solutions to some political problems lie “outside the bounds of contemporary political acceptability”; that sometimes the right approach seems politically untenable, and, as a result, we choose instead an ostensibly more attractive middle course (“The Folly of Arms Control,” September –October 2000). But the politically easy answer may carry unspeakably dangerous consequences. According to Schell, such was the case when the Allies chose to appease Nazi Germany rather than resolutely oppose Hitler’s aggression, or when the United States, refusing to choose between full occupation of and full withdrawal from Vietnam, chose instead a path that led to gradual escalation of the war, with disastrous consequences. Schell argued that we are at another such juncture today: The human race has reached the point where (under U.S. leadership) it must choose between a world free of nuclear weapons and a widely proliferated world. He suggests that the prevailing notion 5 0 of making every effort to stop the spread of nuclear weapons while holding on to a large nuclear stockpile ourselves is inherently contradictory . Somehow that contradiction must be addressed. Schell stated that there is no middle road here: If we are to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, we must be prepared to eventually give up our own weapons. If we cannot give up our own weapons, then we must be prepared to live in a world in which every nation that can acquire nuclear weapons does so. I would not go so far as to say that we must choose between complete nuclear disarmament and the rampant spread of nuclear weapons, but I do agree with Schell’s premise that we are at a crucial juncture in the world’s relationship with nuclear weapons. Our approach to nuclear arms control and nonproliferation in recent years has drifted so far away from the commitments we have made that we are now approaching a point where we may have to make a conscious choice: Do we accept a widely proliferated world in which thirty or more nations have nuclear weapons and begin to develop plans to try to manage that world, or do we pursue a strong, vigorous, effective nuclear nonproliferation regime? There can be no underestimating the importance of this decision . The principal threats to U.S. security today center not on the risks posed by powerful nation states but on the weakness of states such as Russia (which may be potentially unable to prevent part of its vast stockpile of nuclear weapons, nuclear explosive material, and other threatening technologies and scientific weapon expertise left over from the Cold War from proliferating into dangerous hands) and on transnational concerns such as terrorism, economic instability, wide-scale poverty and disease , and environmental degradation, all of which reinforce the central threat to our security: the spread of nuclear weapons to unstable countries, terrorist organizations, religious cults, and the like. For more than thirty years, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation t h e c o r n e r s t o n e o f s e c u r i t y / 5 1 Treaty has been a firm bulwark against this threat. Because of the npt, the international community has thus far been largely successful in preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. The predictions made during the Kennedy administration that as many as twenty-five to thirty nations would have nuclear weapons integrated into their arsenals by the end of the 1970s did not come true, thanks to the npt. The International Atomic Energy Agency reports that, while many nations now possess the technological capabilities to produce nuclear weapons, only a handful have crossed the nuclear threshold. In 2000, then U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright referred to the npt as “the most important multilateral arms control agreement in history.” The success of the npt is no accident. It is rooted in a carefully crafted central bargain often referred to as the npt “basic bargain”: In exchange for a commitment from the nonnuclear weapon states (today, some 182 nations) not to develop or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons and to submit to international safeguards intended to verify compliance with the commitment (Article 2), the npt nuclear weapon...

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