The Challenges to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
By Kira Webster
After fifty years of celebrating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, current political trends are undermining the agreement. Signed in 1968 after the Cuban Missile Crisis, the NPT aims to reduce the spread of nuclear weapons, prioritize peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and achieve global disarmament. One hundred and ninety-one countries signed up, marking it as the cornerstone of nuclear non-proliferation efforts. Only one country -North Korea – left (2003), thus making the agreement remarkably stable. However, India and Pakistan, countries that never signed the treaty, became nuclear powers. While the NPT significantly reduced the chance of a nuclear apocalypse, it has created opportunity for certain countries to have more power over others.
Under the original terms of the NPT, five countries were allowed to keep their weapons (the U.S., Russia, England, France, and China) in exchange for committing to reduce their nuclear stockpiles and also helping to develop peaceful nuclear technology. The countries that didn’t possess nuclear weapons agreed to never develop them. However, the treaty does not prohibit the five nuclear armed countries from upgrading their arsenal and creating even deadlier weapons (despite this contradicting the way to more peaceful nuclear strategy). There is also no explicit deadline for nuclear disarmament, which leads to merely relying on these nations to do the right thing in “good faith.” Beatrice Fihn, director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, has argued that “the NPT is fundamentally flawed due to the fact that it creates a divide between powerful and non-powerful states.”
Currently, with Iran threatening to pull out of the NPT, as well as Trump’s questionable loyalties, the risk of a major conflict escalates since the treaty could easily crumble without all signatures on board. The mixture of Middle Eastern conflicts, Trump’s aggression and boasts about the size of his “nuclear button,” an increasingly emboldened China, and resurgent Russia potentially points to an international nuclear arms race.
There has been discussion of whether the NPT should be scrapped for something more robust – a Comprehensive Disarmament Treaty that enforces more willingness and effort towards a nuclear-free world. An agreement between a CDT and the NPT was proposed by China in 1964 – a No First Use pledge. This would prohibit nuclear states from being first in using their weapons in a conflict unless in retaliation of a nuclear attack against its own territory or military base/personnel. As of today, China remains the only country to have an unconditional NFU pledge. It has called on other countries to create a multilateral NFU treaty. So far, no caveats have been found regarding their pledge, however, China has focused so heavily on conventional military modernization that it remains highly unlikely for them to strive for nuclear escalation.
Our country formally made an NFU pledge, in 2010, under the Barack Obama Administration. While the U.S. did assure that we would not use nuclear force against other compliant countries in the treaty, we also reiterated that the U.S. still reserves the right to strike first but would continue to reduce the idea of this right as a way of deterrence. This was once an important point to make during the Cold War, when allies in Eastern Asia and Europe needed to be assured that they would be protected should Russia launch any attacks. Due to this, critics against the NFU have suggested that our allies would be opposed to an NFU pledge, feeling that we would endanger them in chemical, biological, conventional, or cyber-weapons attacks. With tensions mounting against Russia right now, our allies in Europe would feel especially vulnerable. Since the Cold War, the U.S. has stated that this method of thinking is outdated, and proponents of an NFU pledge have stated that the U.S. has enough superiority in conventional weapons to deter any kind of threat. Kingston Reif, a member of the Arms Control Association, said that “a clear U.S. no-first-use policy would reduce the risk of Russian or Chinese nuclear miscalculation during a crisis by alleviating concerns about a devastating U.S. nuclear first-strike.”
In 2017, for the first time in 42 years, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing regarding the president’s ability to use nuclear weapons. Democrats also introduced bills to restrict the president’s nuclear use without a congressional declaration of war. It’s hard to say whether this would have a serious effect on Trump’s ability to use nuclear weapons, but a steady hand could be the largest deterrence to a global nuclear war.
