The Fragility of the Global Nuclear Order

In good times, unambiguous signs that the structural pillars of a system are at risk are frequently disregarded or downplayed. The current crisis in the global financial system is an apt occasion on which to pause to consider warning signs of risk to the global nuclear order.

In 1963, President John F. Kennedy warned that on the then-current trajectory there could be 25 nuclear-weapons states by the end of the 1970s. His warning helped motivate a surge of initiative culminating in the 1968 Nonproliferation Treaty. Today, 189 nations, including scores that have the technical capability to build nuclear arsenals, have renounced nuclear weapons.

However, the architecture that has for four decades held back powerful pressures for the proliferation of nuclear weapons is shaking. As the UN High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change warned, the Nonproliferation Treaty is eroding to the point of "irreversibility" beyond which there could be a "cascade of proliferation."

Global trend lines in all things nuclear are worsening. Unless the International Atomic Energy Agency member states who meet this week in Vienna can be stirred to actions as bold and imaginative as those of the 1960s, we risk the catastrophic collapse of the global nuclear order.

Consider the recent record. Since 2004, North Korea withdrew from the treaty, expanded its nuclear arsenal from two to 10 bombs worth of plutonium, and conducted a nuclear weapons test, defying demands from the United States and China that it not do so. The fact that a small, weak state ignored the great powers and international community with impunity is telling.

Iran has defied three UN Security Council resolutions demanding it suspend enriching uranium. Instead, it has built a cascade of 3,820 centrifuges that has produced 1,058 pounds of low-enriched uranium. This is three-quarters of what is required, after further enrichment, for Iran's first nuclear bomb. Pakistan has tripled its nuclear arsenal while political instability and a burgeoning Islamic insurgency put its nuclear weapons at increasing risk.

Nuclear-weapons states have reemphasized the role of nuclear weapons in international affairs, reinforcing cynicism among many non-nuclear weapons signatories about the Nonproliferation Treaty. Why, they ask, can nuclear weapons be good for the "haves," but not the "have-nots"?

In the wider world, the growing demand for energy and increasing consciousness about climate change are propelling a "nuclear renaissance." This nuclear expansion does not inherently pose a proliferation risk. But if states that buy reactors also build uranium enrichment facilities (like Iran) or reprocess spent fuel (like North Korea), they will have a convenient cover for nuclear weapons.

The global nuclear order is under severe stress. An independent international commission, on which we served, was asked to assess the global nuclear order in 2020, examine the role of the IAEA, and propose an agenda of actions to strengthen the nonproliferation regime. The commission recommends enlarging the IAEA's mandate and giving it the resources to do the job.

First, IAEA safeguards must be seriously strengthened. While traditional safeguards monitor declared nuclear facilities, the commission calls on all states to adopt the Additional Protocol immediately to increase the likelihood that undeclared nuclear facilities and activities will be discovered.

Second, the commission urges states to "negotiate binding agreements that set effective global nuclear security standards," tough enough to ensure that every nuclear weapon and every cache of plutonium or highly enriched uranium worldwide is reliably protected.

Third, the commission recommends that the current budget of $450 million grow to $900 million between now and 2020 to carry out an expanded mandate. The UN High Level Panel described the IAEA as an "extraordinary bargain." We propose funding an even better bargain.

The fact that in the four decades since the Nonproliferation Treaty was established, only three additional nations - Israel, India, and Pakistan - have acquired nuclear weapons provides no grounds for complacency. The warning lights are blinking. Governments must act now - or we will all suffer the consequences.