Make nuclear nonproliferation great again

President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea told the world earlier this month that his country is thinking about building nuclear weapons. Referring specifically to the threat of nuclear-armed North Korea, Yoon likely also has in mind the breakneck nuclear-weapons buildup now under way in China, East Asia’s would-be hegemon, and the risk to the Pacific Rim that would arise were the United States to resile from its century-long commitment to the region’s security.

Yoon was also likely emboldened by Washington’s dwindling enthusiasm for enforcing the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and its requirement that nuclear armed parties pursue negotiations on effective measures to end “the nuclear arms race.”

America’s inattention to this stricture has weakened the case for nonproliferation. China, with its refusal to negotiate meaningful arms limits, though, is the main culprit. As our diplomats had started to do under the Trump administration, the United States should bring all appropriate pressure to bear on China to come to the arms control table. If revived, Article VI would supply the U.S. and our nuclear-weapon state allies diplomatic leverage to hold non-nuclear-weapon states to full observance of their nonproliferation commitments.

Beyond this, and at least as important, enforcing Article VI would prudently answer otherwise unrealistic aspirations embodied in the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). Concluded in 2017 and entered into force in 2021, the TPNW shares with the NPT the goal of disarmament. However, unlike the NPT, the TPNW offers no realistic path to achieve the goal. Sixty-eight countries now participate in the TPNW. Failure to pursue negotiations in accordance with Article VI of the NPT energizes those who seek a larger role for the TPNW.

If the TPNW begins to influence the defense policy of our allies and partners, then the diplomacy to support our nuclear deterrent in many places, including Asia and the Pacific, will become more difficult than at any time during the Cold War. As in the 1980s, such disarmament activism will hardly affect Russia or China. But it will affect democratic nuclear-weapon states members of the NPT — the U.S., UK and France. Reinvigorating the NPT is the readiest step we can take to avoid that pitfall.

The NPT has led an uneasy existence in the security policy landscape of the United States. Security hawks never quite accepted that a treaty calling for nuclear disarmament had realistic prospects in a world of geopolitical adversaries with nuclear weapons. Disarmament activists once thought that the NPT might lead the nuclear-weapon states to disarm, but, as those states have notdisarmed, the activists no longer place their hopes in the NPT and, so, albeit from very different premises, now largely join the hawks in skepticism toward the treaty. The NPT today is a treaty with few friends.

Yet, it would better serve the security interests of the United States if that changed. Ultimately, a world with more nuclear states with ever more nuclear weapons is hardly congenial to the U.S. and its allies. China and Russia are masters of quantity over quality. Stabilizing nuclear numbers and competing in more advanced (and less indiscriminate) forms of warfare is to our advantage and that of international security at large.

How might we and our allies breathe new life into the NPT? Focusing on the negotiations requirement of Article VI, we should challenge China to negotiate meaningful transparency for its nuclear activities, confidence-building measures such as up-to-date nuclear hotlines and accountability for its “civilian” plutonium production.

Another topic for negotiation that is long overdue is the definition of nuclear testing: We mostly agree that a ban on nuclear tests is desirable but disagree what precisely constitutes a “nuclear test.” Also worth negotiating is whether it might strengthen the NPT to give the treaty its own standing institution or secretariat, such as the Chemical Weapons and Biological Weapons Conventions already have.

As we face the risks of a new arms race and widespread nuclear proliferation, no single measure is a panacea. However, the NPT, long the “cornerstone” of nuclear arms control, deserves both dovish and hawkish support to be made great again.

Thomas D. Grant is an international lawyer based at the Lauterpacht Center for International Law at the University of Cambridge. He served during the Trump administration as senior adviser for strategic planning in the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation at the U.S. Department of State.