Next Steps

Three cardinal arms control treaties are currently in danger of unravelling: the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). The impression not only among researchers and NGOs, but also among officials of the P5 nations, is that we are going backwards, that Cold War thinking has re-asserted itself, and that a new arms race is beginning.

This is a time when it is tempting for officials and policy makers to become fatalistic, and to be overwhelmed by the rhetoric of other nations, the perceived negativity of erstwhile allies, even the cynical attitudes of colleagues. Public opinion is quiet, generally uninformed, and therefore no spur to proaction.

This is a time when it is essential to work with officials and to offer them support. This support can take many different forms: it can simply be attentive listening, it can be re-examination of what the root problems are, it can be the making of connections and communications with counterparts who can act, it can take the form of imaginative proposals to break a stalemate or overcome objection. Such proposals could include:

• Taking the lead in negotiations for a treaty to ban the production worldwide of the fissile materials used to make nuclear weapons. This would reduce the risks of proliferation and increase the transparency necessary for multilateral disarmament.

• Convening a conference of all the nuclear weapon states to define how nuclear weapons worldwide can be taken off hair-trigger alert. This would immediately reduce the risk of nuclear holocaust happening by accident, making the world a much safer place.

• Promoting negotiations to multilateralise the ABM Treaty. This would prevent the collapse of this fundamental global safety measure.

• Within NATO, Britain could take the lead in the current re-consideration of NATO’s nuclear policy, in the direction of reducing reliance on nuclear weapons in the international system.

• In the United Nations the P5 could cease to veto Resolution No. 54/54G "Towards a nuclear-weapon-free-world: the need for a new agenda," put forward by the New Agenda Coalition (Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, and Sweden) in 1998 and 1999.

• Making sure that heads of state attend the NPT Review Conference in April 2000.

We may have to come very close to losing a vital treaty like the NPT before we wake up to the starkness of the choice facing us, namely nuclear anarchy or nuclear abolition.

Paradoxically, it is in this kind of moment that real change can come.

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