Leaders and Laggards: Who Signs the NPT?
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NTRODUCTION
The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) was concluded at the end of the
1960s, a decade which saw the drama of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the height of the
nuclear arms race between the superpowers, and the entry of France and China into the
club of countries that had tested nuclear weapons. The basic bargain underlying the NPT
allows countries to surrender their right to develop nuclear weapons in return for access to
international assistance in civilian nuclear technology. Five countries (the United States,
the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France, and China) that had tested nuclear devices
before 1 January 1967, were conferred the status of Nuclear Weapon State (NWS) by
Article IX. All other signatories (Non Nuclear Weapon States or NNWSs) pledged to
abjure the development and diffusion of nuclear weapons technology.
Recent events have heightened debate over the utility of the NPT as a means of
stemming nuclear proliferation. In the Persian Gulf, European countries placed renewed
faith in an Iranian re-commitment to the NPT at the center of their strategy for stopping
Tehran’s efforts to acquire nuclear arms. In the same vein, the reinforcement of
multilateral agreements such as the NPT is at the center of the European Union’s strategy
against weapons of mass destruction unveiled in December 2003 (European Union, 2003).
Meanwhile, on the Korean peninsula, the relentless pursuit of nuclear arms by an NPT
signatory state seems to underscore the futility of the regime. North Korean actions point
to a weakness of the regime long emphasized by critics: countries can make clear progress
towards the nuclear threshold under NPT auspices and then simply withdraw shortly
before assembling weapons.
Is the NPT a paper tiger, as critics claim, or the foundation of a successful anti-
proliferation strategy? To answer this question, we need to understand why countries sign
the NPT in the first place. For those who believe in the importance of regimes or place
Convention