Will we see more nuclear proliferation?

[CAMBRIDGE] Eight decades have passed since the energy contained within an atom was used in warfare. Yet rather than suffering nuclear Armageddon, the world has achieved a surprising nuclear stability – so far. Equally remarkable, while nuclear technology has spread to many countries, only a small fraction have chosen to use it to develop weapons. The world has benefited from an effective non-proliferation regime, a set of rules, norms, and institutions that have discouraged – albeit haltingly and imperfectly – nuclear proliferation. But can it survive an era of rapid geopolitical shifts?

In the 1960s, US President John F Kennedy predicted that there would be around 25 countries with nuclear weapons by the 1970s. Yet today, there are only nine, because governments took steps to prevent proliferation.

In 1968, they negotiated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which recognised that five states already had nuclear weapons, but secured pledges from others not to develop them. For decades, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has sent inspectors to countries developing nuclear energy to ensure that it is used only for civilian purposes. And in the 1970s, US President Jimmy Carter’s administration placed a high priority on slowing proliferation, in part through the newly created Nuclear Suppliers Group, whose member states pledged restraint in the export of sensitive enrichment and reprocessing technology.