THE NPT WORSENS PROLIFERATION ABROAD (Michael Wesley, Executive Director of the Lowy Institute for International Policy, Australian Journal of International Affairs, September, 2005, Its Time To Scrap the NPT,”) My central argument is that the horizontal proliferation of nuclear weapons will probably continue at the rate of one or two additional nuclear weapons states per decade, whether or not the NPT is retained. Persisting with the NPT will make this proliferation much more dangerous than if the NPT is replaced with a more practical regime. I argue that the NPT is a major cause of opaque proliferation, which is both highly destabilising and makes use of transnational smuggling networks which are much more likely than states to pass nuclear components to terrorists. On the other hand, scrapping the NPT in favour of a more realistic regime governing the possession of nuclear weapons would help put transnational nuclear smuggling networks out of business and stabilise the inevitable spread of nuclear weapons.
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