NPT regime in crisis after failed N.Y. confab.

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun/Daily Yomiuri)

NPT regime in crisis after failed N.Y. confab

Ramesh Thakur Special to The Daily Yomiuri

Yomiuri

The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is the centerpiece of the global nonproliferation regime that codified the international political norm of nonnuclear-weapons status. Sixty years after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings, the NPT regime faces a fourfold crisis.

Some countries are engaged in undeclared nuclear activities in violation of their nonproliferation obligations. Others have failed to honor their disarmament obligations. A third group--India, Israel and Pakistan--are nuclear-weapon states outside the NPT. Finally, nonstate actors like terrorist groups are seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.

Arms control agreements are multilaterally negotiated outcomes among governments entailing difficult technical and political judgments on reciprocity, mutuality and relative balance. They are achievable if countries engage in a genuine give-and-take where the final outcome satisfies the minimum requirements of all without necessarily achieving the maximum goal of any. But they prove a mirage when the basic minimum interests of key parties are too far apart to be bridged.