10nfl1-Nukes-Cover
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| THE NPT IS A LOST CAUSE (Michael Wesley, Executive Director of the Lowy Institute for International Policy, Australian Journal of International Affairs, September, 2005, Its Time To Scrap the NPT,”) The failure of the 2005 Review of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to reach agreement on even a single matter of substance only confirms that global efforts to control weapons of mass destruction have reached a dangerous precipice (Nason 2005; Cubby 2005). As two observers of the 2003 PrepCom (Preparatory Committee) meeting commented, the NPT review process is under such severe strain that it has been sedated interaction over difficult issues has been put on hold (Ogilvie-White and Simpson 2003: 48). Yet an overwhelming majority of states and commentators advocate persisting with the NPT regime, despite its numerous shortcomings. They do so in the fearful but misguided belief that it represents our last chance (Epstein 1976) to ensure a world that is safe from the use or threat of nuclear weapons. The danger in this obsessive focus on the NPT, while failing to acknowledge and confront its fundamental weaknesses, is that states will lose sight of the ultimate objective*/preventing the threat or use of nuclear weapons*/and thereby gradually lose their capacity to ensure this objective. My intention here is to provoke debate about the utility of keeping the NPT on life support, as opposed to replacing it with a regime that acknowledges contemporary realities, while developing a more effective compact against the use or threat of nuclear weapons. 10NFL1-Nuclear Weapons Page 111 of 199 www.victorybriefs.com Download 1.23 Mb. Share with your friends:
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