What Happens to Safeguards if the NPT Goes?

Abstract

Since 1989 the international scene has changed almost beyond recognition. It was then possible to speculate that the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) might lapse because the United States and the Soviet Union would fail to reverse the nuclear arms race and that large numbers of nonnuclear-weapon states (NNWSs), exasperated by the contempt with which the nuclear-weapon states (NWSs) appeared to regard their obligations under the NPT, would oppose any significant extension of the treaty. Or that, in an even worse case, a continuing nuclear arms race would lead to a crisis in superpower relations and put an end to their cooperation in nonproliferation matters. They would no longer be able to work together in preventing the termination of the NPT; the international community would plunge into a crisis of insecurity and the rest of the world would turn to the nuclear option.