NPT News in Review, Vol. 20, No. 2

Editorial: (No) Panic at the PrepCom
1 May 2025

By Ray Acheson

“I want you to panic.” These words from Greta Thunberg in 2019 were a call to action against the climate crisis. “I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act.”

Today, there is even more to panic about, and action is more urgent than ever. The climate crisis has gotten worse, yet environmental protections and climate mitigation measures have been undermined or eliminated to serve the interests of fossil fuel companies. Fascism is on the rise. Tech-broligarchs are taking over entire countries. The bodily autonomy of women, trans, and nonbinary people is being increasingly restricted. Migrants, immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers are being detained, deported, or are dying in deserts or seas. Some governments are committing genocide while others are providing the weapons. Global military expenditure has increased to more than 2.7 trillion USD—an increase of 9.4 per cent since 2023, the steepest rise in a single year since at least the end of the Cold War. The United States, responsible for most of this spending, is looking to expand its military budget to 1 trillion USD.

Most importantly for our setting, nuclear arsenals are growing and billions of dollars are being spent on their modernisation. Here, too, the US budget, already the largest of all the nuclear-armed states, is exploding. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the US nuclear weapon programme will cost about 1 trillion USD over the coming decade, a 25 per cent increase over previous estimates. Even still, this figure does not include the likely cost increases of certain aspects of its modernisation programme.

All the other nuclear-armed states are also modernising or expanding their nuclear arsenals and delivery systems. Some are making threats to use them or resume “testing” them. And now, more states are talking about acquiring them.

Yet, there is very little panic at this PrepCom.

There is, instead, a lack of both energy and compelling vision from the nuclear-armed or nuclear-complicit states for how to course correct. This is an incredible failure to meet the urgency of the moment—and we will pay for it in the worst possible ways if we don’t break the cycle of inaction.

We are already in a global downward spiral of mass harm. Any use of nuclear weapons, or resumption of testing, or spread of bombs to new countries, will result in more harm than many can fathom. The path we are currently on leads only to overwhelming, catastrophic levels of violence that exceed the fascist fantasies of horror currently being inflicted on many people around the world, whose bodies and lives are dehumanised in the interests of power and profit.

Continued adventures in gaslighting

Not only is there no panic at the PrepCom, but we are being gaslit about the dangers. The business-as-usual tone by some states suggests we just need to address nuclear problems as a challenge of bureaucracy. If we could just get the Conference on Disarmament to agree to negotiate a fissile material cut-off treaty, we’d be fine, apparently.

Maybe for some it’s denialism. Drink your coffee while the house burns. But it’s more than that. We’re being actively lied to by the nuclear-armed and nuclear-complicit states.

“At a time when the strategic environment is deteriorating and European security is under threat, France reaffirms its unwavering commitment to the Treaty and its authority,” said the French delegation. Yet only a month ago, French President Macron said he had “decided to open the strategic debate on the protection of our allies on the European continent through our (nuclear) deterrence.”

Poland similarly reaffirmed its “unwavering support” for the NPT, even though its President recently urged the United States to deploy its nuclear weapons in Poland.

Finland warned, “Nuclear arms control is unravelling, and the ongoing proliferation crisis is exacerbated by speculations about the acquisition of nuclear weapons.” Meanwhile, both the Finnish Prime Minister and the Chair of the Defence Committee of the Finnish Parliament have welcomed the possibility of an expanded role for French nuclear weapons in Europe.

Belgium rejected “attempts to create an issue over NATO nuclear sharing,” which it asserted “distracts from the real issues” that put the NPT at risk. Yet the Belgian Prime Minister has also called for more nuclear weapons in Europe, suggesting the need for a pan-European “nuclear umbrella”.

Germany argued that NATO has been good for global stability—apparently ignoring the destabilisation of the many wars in which NATO countries have engaged. Meanwhile, the German Chancellor-in-waiting has urged France and the United Kingdom to expand their nuclear cooperation with others in Europe.

Czechia, Norway, the United States, and others argued that NATO nuclear sharing is the reason the NPT’s non-proliferation measures have been so successful. That is, by sharing US nuclear weapons and threatening to use them in defence of NATO states, other countries in the Alliance accepted having to live without their own atomic bombs. It takes less than a minute to dismantle this absurd argument, of course. Just ask how NATO countries would feel about one or two Middle Eastern, Latin American, African, Southeast Asian, or Pacific countries acquiring nuclear weapons in order to prevent proliferation to the rest of the region. I’ll wait.

Beyond this, however, is the fundamental problem underlying the corrosion of the NPT and international law and norms in general, which is that states that have invested so much money in their nuclear arsenals and militaries tell themselves this is necessary for security. More weapons make them more secure, they claim. But heaps of other countries don’t act this way, don’t think this way—they can’t afford to and they don’t want to, because it doesn’t make sense and has borne out, time after time, to be demonstratively false.

Jamaica, Kenya, Malaysia, Morocco, Mozambique, South Africa, and many others explained their commitment to nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation as a strategic choice. This is based, as Mozambique said, on “the conviction that true security derives from diplomacy, trust, and cooperation, not from destructive arsenals.” As Jamaica noted, “The reality is that the continued stockpiling and reliance on these weapons is incompatible with our survival. Their continued existence serves only to heighten tensions and perpetuate global instability.”

This is clear from what’s happening between NATO and Russia-Belarus right now. Yet “both sides” accuse the other of doing the same bad things and using that behaviour as justification for doing the same bad things.

For example, France criticised the “uninhibited resort to the use of force in international relations, the erosion of the international security architecture, and ongoing proliferation crises”—but it only meant in relation to Russia. The material support by several NATO members for genocide of Palestinians doesn’t count, apparently. The genocide isn’t happening at all, Western states often suggest, even as we watch Palestinian babies be decapitated, as we see entire cities like Rafah be flattened and bulldozed, as we witness hundreds of thousands of people burn or starve.

It’s tiring to constantly refute the historical and factual inaccuracies asserted by NATO countries and to point out the hypocrisy of their positions. (See last year’s editorial on this subject for an extensive analysis of NATO’s claims.) But that is part of gaslighting—the lies are meant to exhaust, to destabilise; they seek to turn falsehoods into facts through sheer repetition.

NATO is not alone in this, of course. Russia is an equal player in the game of distortions and lies. Its repeated justifications for invading and occupying Ukraine are as exhausting as the justifications for genocide or nuclear sharing. And Russia’s “the US did it first” justification for violating international law is also tiresome. Complaining about US nuclear force build up, for example, Belarus and Russia jointly said they “have had to resort to compensating steps in the nuclear field.” But, they insist, their cooperation “strictly complies with the international law and our international obligations, including the provisions of the NPT, and poses no threat to third countries.”

None of the actions Russia or Belarus have taken in relation to nuclear sharing or their nuclear doctrines are in accordance with international law. The fact that they accuse NATO of violating the NPT for the same behaviour makes that clear. And nuclear weapons absolutely pose a threat to third countries. As the states parties and signatory states to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) said, “The inherent risks and transboundary and global consequences of the use of nuclear weapons make clear” that nuclear weapons are “a threat to the security, and ultimately the existence, of all states, irrespective of whether they possess nuclear weapons, subscribe to nuclear deterrence or firmly oppose it.”

Furthermore, nuclear violence is not confined just to the use of nuclear weapons. The development and maintenance of these weapons is violent, generating health, social, economic, and environmental harms. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) has explained previously, “The insidious reality is that the manufacturing of these weapons, their maintenance and their eventual disposal all cost the earth, even without any direct use. These weapons displace people and communities from cradle to grave, diverting funds and scientific know how from pressing global needs.” The reality is “these weapons create harm on many levels through their very existence. Survivors of the more than 2,000 nuclear weapons tests conducted so far in the world can verify the breadth of harm from developing this supposed deterrent.”

Ready for real change

A real alternative must be urgently pursued. Anyone could seize this moment of global fear and uncertainty to offer a different path forward. We don’t need another Strong Man wielding bravado and force, or another moderate liberal suggesting tweaks to a massively unjust system. We need real, meaningful change for the whole world. We don’t need one person to do this. We need the majority to collectively organise. A mutual aid of global governance. Alternative economic cooperation that doesn’t rely on neoliberal structural adjustment and winner-takes-all capitalist strategies but instead pursues just degrowth strategies to reduce energy consumption and end the use of fossil fuels and nuclear energy. Alternative relationships for peace and justice through disarmament and demilitarisation. An approach that rejects the violence of nuclear deterrence for the stability of nuclear disarmament.

The seeds of organising for a different world order can be seen in the negotiation and ongoing implementation of the TPNW. It can be seen in The Hague Group, a coalition of Global South countries formed in January 2025 to protect and uphold international law in the context of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians. And the potential of organising for collective security through disarmament can even be seen at this PrepCom.

Not all delegations are complacent about the situation. Many that oppose nuclear weapons delivered passionate warnings about the state of the world, including Aotearoa New Zealand, Austria, Egypt, Guatemala, Morocco, Senegal, and others. As Egypt warned, the chaos and confusion of current international relations is pushing the world, which has already become less secure and stable, into a vicious and frightening cycle of a nuclear arms race that will be difficult to control.

Aotearoa New Zealand noted that the argument that the so-called international security environment is not right for nuclear disarmament ignores “the reality that the longer states have relied on nuclear weapons, the more dangerous the international context has become.” The world is told that nuclear weapons stabilise the global order. Yet, Aotearoa New Zealand warned, “Strategic rivalries, miscommunication, ambiguity, and accident all could tip the world over the nuclear threshold. And a world in which nuclear weapons have been used, whether inadvertently or by design, will be profoundly more dangerous for us all—assuming we survive it.”

Costa Rica said it listened “with profound concern as political elites in several non-nuclear-weapon states openly contemplate reconsidering their nuclear status.” It noted, “The principle of good faith in the interpretation and application of international law is not merely aspirational—it underpins everything we do and say as States. Nowhere is this principle more crucial than in the treaty before us, and at no point in history has strict adherence to it been more vital than at this precarious moment.”

In this context, South Africa urged states to “transform the paradigm of deterrence into one of nuclear disarmament.” It demanded that all nuclear-armed and nuclear-complicit states take urgent and clear steps towards the elimination of nuclear weapons, as they are legally obligated to do in good faith. “Peace based on the mutual threat of annihilation is not peace, but a fragile pause,” said Ecuador. “The only responsible hand is the one that destroys arsenals, not the one that controls them.”

Those without nuclear weapons might not be able to destroy them, but they can lead us toward that end. Principled leadership that firmly rejects authoritarianism and fascism, as well as militarism and nuclearism, is imperative. We need people and governments to stand in clear defence of international law, human rights, peace, and justice. “The future of humanitarian norms depends not only on their lofty articulation but on their consistent application, especially when doing so is most difficult,” writes Cesar Jaramillo of Project Ploughshares. “Otherwise, law becomes merely narrative and principle becomes politics.”

In the interests of trying to preserve the NPT and maybe even achieve some of its objectives, the UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs urged all NPT states parties to exercise flexibility and compromise, as well as empathy—“a willingness to consider the issues from the point of view of others and to set aside short-term self-interest.” She noted that the NPT was carefully negotiated and implemented over decades and contains a strategy for disarmament and non-proliferation. States parties now need to decide how to move forward. Compliance with and implementation of commitments already made on nuclear disarmament is the best—and only—place to start. And states must start right now, as if all our lives depend on it, because they do. As Morocco said:

Every day that passes without tangible progress toward nuclear disarmament brings us closer to the risk of catastrophic consequences. We are at a critical turning point where the window of opportunity to ensure a future free from nuclear threats is narrowing. Our actions today will determine whether we pave the way for a peaceful world or leave future generations to face the consequences of our inaction.

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