Before India came out openly as a nuclear-armed state, it could find, in many quarters, sympathy—if not actual support—for its disdainful stance toward the NPT. Since the indefinite extension of the NPT and India's nuclear test explosions, nothing whatsoever is gained by remaining aloof from the NPT community which is, for all intents and purposes, the rest of the world. Without formally adhering to the treaty, India should embrace it wholeheartedly and be an exemplary nuclear-weapon state, showing the way ahead for the treaty's nuclear-weapon states.
India's nuclear development has been accompanied by a dual track strategy of developing and building weapons while criticising the non-proliferation regime as discriminatory and simultaneously making public statements and proposals in favour of nuclear disarmament. But with international progress likely on aspects of nuclear disarmament over the next few months, India will be in the spotlight at the forthcoming 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference to help move the disarmament and non-proliferation agenda forward.
With the 'world without nuclear weapons' speech by President Obama and the other moves, indications are good for the next Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference. Progress has to be made on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the proposed fissile materials cut-off treaty (FMCT), Negative Security Assurance (NSA), and reducing the role of nuclear weapons. On the non-proliferation side, the Additional Protocol must be made a standard, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) strengthened, and NPT withdrawal acted on decisively.
The expiry of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty-1 (START-1) in 2009 and an urgent need to conclude a new US-Russian agreement on strategic nuclear weapons so that the oldest and biggest nuclear powers demonstrate some progress in implementing Article 6 of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in proximity of the 2010 NPT Review Conference has drawn international attention to the interface between the progress/crisis in nuclear disarmament and strengthening/weakening of the NPT regime.
The nuclear non-proliferation regime, despite being frequently criticised for an alleged lack of effectiveness, is in fact an amazing success story. The number of states which had conducted nuclear weapons activities in various stages but which have terminated them at one point surpasses the number of Nuclear-Weapon States (NWSs) by far. At the apex of its success, however, the regime is threatened by erosion from three different directions. A small number of rule-breakers and outsiders undermine its central objective: to stop the spread of nuclear weapons.
In a fundamental shift in its position on the global nuclear non-proliferation regime, Pakistan has made it known that it will join the NPT only as a recognised nuclear weapons state.
Though world opinion is still divided on whether the FMCT would include past stocks or not, Pakistan appears to have decided to continue with the production of fissile materials and oppose any talks at the CD.
Australia is not finding it economically prudent and diplomatically rational to deny uranium to India, while other countries profit from nuclear commerce with India.
In the aftermath of North Korea's second nuclear test and the launch of three short-range missiles on May 25, 2009, followed by the launch of seven ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan on July 4, there has been widespread speculation on Japan's principled position on non-proliferation and disarmament and whether it will abandon its nuclear abstinence and acquire nuclear capability. This possibility has been echoed recently by the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Pakistan against signing the NPT as a non-nuclear weapons state
In a fundamental shift in its position on the global nuclear non-proliferation regime, Pakistan has made it known that it will join the NPT only as a recognised nuclear weapons state.