On Creating the Conditions for Nuclear Disarmament: Past Lessons, Future Prospects

摘要

A t the center of the international policy debate about nuclear disarmament are some quite basic questions: What are the conditions that would enable the nuclear-armed states to safely disarm and then the world community to live safely in a post-nuclear world? Is it possible to create those conditions? If so, when? If not, what should be done? In surveying the history of the policy debate, it is clear that serious interest in these questions is at best episodic. Today, however, they are back in discussion— for a variety of reasons. One is the 2020 review conference of states parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The upcoming conference promises to be even more fractious than most of its predecessors, not least because it comes on the occasion of major questions about the durability of the existing international nuclear order. Another reason is the campaign for signature, ratification, and entry into force of the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which has cast a bright light on the absence of any real answers in the treaty to the enduring challenges of disarmament. A third reason is the Trump administration's proposal for "a new disarmament discourse" focused on creating the conditions for nuclear disarmament. Dr. Christopher Ford, Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation, sketched out this proposal in April 2018 and subsequently called for creating a new international working group to identify and catalogue the necessary conditions.1 A fourth reason is the renewal of nuclear policy debate in the U.S. Congress driven in part by the Democratic Party leadership's call for a "reset" of nuclear policy with a strong disarmament focus and the impact of that debate in energizing the United States and wider NGO community.