Center for Political Studies
Institute for Social Research
University of Michigan
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48106-1248

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Harold Jacobson Lecture Archive

David Kay, October 20, 2005 - "What is the Future of Non-Proliferation?"

Efforts to prevent additional States, beyond the initial five, from acquiring nuclear weapons first emerged as the dominant thrust of American arms control policy during the Kennedy Administration. The belief at that time that more than twenty additional states might within a decade acquire nuclear weapons led to the rapid adoption of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and by the mid-1980's this threat seemed to subside. Arms control attention turned to first the daunting stability problems posed by the huge nuclear arsenals of the US and the USSR and subsequently, as the USSR broke apart, how to meet the challenges of a disintegrating nuclear superpower. The revelations of Iraq's efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction revealed in the aftermath of Desert Storm, South Africa's admission of its own nuclear program, Pakistan and India's open testing of nuclear weapons, revelation of North Korea's efforts to acquire nuclear weapons and doubts as to the intentions of Iran have all contributed to a new sense of pessimism about the ability to craft an effective non-proliferation policy. If these open challenges were not enough, we are also having to face the emergence of a global blackmarket in materials and technology for WMD, non-nation state actors seeking WMD and new threats, particularly in the biological area, that may be easier than nuclear to acquire and more frightening in their consequences.

Against this background it is important to examine what worked, what did not work and why when the non-proliferation regime seemed to be effective. This will provide the basis for understanding what sort of structure of treaties, laws, policies, coalitions and military capabilities will be required to address the future of proliferation and make possible a future of non-proliferation.