By Ray Acheson
This article was the editorial in NPT News in Review, Vol. 21, No. 5, published by Reaching Critical Will on 13 May 2026 and is republished with the kind permission of the author. The Reaching Critical Will NPT News in Review is the primary daily analytical journal covering the Review Conferences and Preparatory Committees of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Published during these landmark UN summits, the journal tracks real-time debates across the treaty's three pillars: non-proliferation, disarmament and peaceful uses of nuclear energy.
As delegations attending the NPT Review Conference complete their first read-through of the zero draft outcome document, it seems clear that the divergences among states’ positions are as stark as ever—perhaps even more so than in 2022, when the Conference failed to reach agreement in part over language relating to Russia’s war on Ukraine, or in 2015, when the Conference failed at the behest of non-state party Israel. While there is still a week and a half and more draft documents to come, the key sticking points seem clear. When it comes to Main Committee I issues, these include, among other things, nuclear sharing and extended nuclear deterrence (END) arrangements; the mounting uncertainty about states’ commitment to the global norm against nuclear weapon testing; the differing ways states perceive nuclear disarmament as contributing to international security or undermining national security; and the ways in which that impacts how they approach discussions on the humanitarian and environmental consequences of nuclear weapons and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
The divergences are certainly not limited to these issues, and the discussions in Main Committees II and III also reveal more fault lines (including attacks on nuclear facilities, Iran’s nuclear programme, access and export controls in relation to nuclear energy, and more). Then there are the debates in the subsidiary bodies and the closed-door negotiations with Committee Chairs and the Conference President, which aren’t accessible to civil society. But the open discussions once again brought into sharp relief the core problem of the NPT: that some states believe nuclear weapons are essential to their security and they are not willing, despite their legal obligations, to give them up; while most others understand that the devastating impacts of nuclear weapons, coupled with the ways in which these weapons are used as instruments of coercive control, render them inherently unacceptable and categorically illegal. It will be up to states parties to either suddenly figure out how to square these circles, or get creative about what the majority can do to advance peace, justice, and disarmament and prevent acts of nuclear violence.
The strategic stability paradox
Over the many years of the NPT’s existence, as the nuclear-armed states have sought to evade their responsibility for nuclear disarmament, they have pushed narratives around “strategic stability,” “undiminished security for all,” the “international security environment,” and the need to “create the conditions” for nuclear disarmament. These arguments have all been used to forestall undertaking concrete actions that would fulfil their legally binding Article VI obligations to negotiate and achieve nuclear disarmament, and their “unequivocal undertaking” to eliminate their nuclear weapons.
Russia, which has long been arguing that nuclear disarmament can only be taken up in the context of “general and complete disarmament,” is now calling, ironically, for a root cause analysis of geopolitical tensions. Ironic, because it is usually feminist activists and academics that urge root cause analysis, in order to understand the world that militarised states like Russia have built. The root causes that feminists have identified as driving state violence are capitalism, militarism, racism, patriarchy, and other hierarchies of power and dominance. Russia’s understanding of the “root cause” of international tensions seems to just be the United States (US). But US militarism is not a root cause, it is a symptom or output of these underlying factors—arguably the most violent, destabilising, and well-funded manifestation, but it is the result of, not cause of, these constitutive forces.
By asserting its analysis of “root causes,” Russia seems at this Review Conference to be trying to articulate the position that nuclear disarmament, under current conditions (i.e. the conditions of US militarism), would undermine Russia’s national security and is therefore only possible in the context of wider negotiations for global disarmament and demilitarisation. During its intervention to the Main Committee I discussion on the zero draft, Russia’s delegation set out an extensive list of items it would like to see reflected in the outcome document, including affirmations that nuclear disarmament must be pursued in such a way so as to enhance security and not “damage” it. Arguing that nuclear disarmament, nuclear deterrence, and strengthening international peace and security are interconnected, Russia said that to create favourable conditions for nuclear disarmament activities, measures that “improve the international situation,” “reduce international tensions,” and enhance trust must be pursued.
Probably every delegation participating in the NPT Review Conference would like the international situation to improve. But unlike the nuclear-armed states, most understand that nuclear weapons, and nuclear deterrence theory, are not helping the situation. Quite the contrary, it is the policies and practices of nuclear deterrence that have damaged international security. From the threats about their use, to the catastrophic harm generated from their use, testing, and production, to the ways in which states with nuclear weapons through their weight around to dictate the terms of international affairs and economic relations, nuclear weapons are a menace to global politics, not to mention the safety, security, and wellbeing of people and the planet.
Furthermore, as South Africa noted in an intervention to the Main Committee I discussion of the zero draft, it is incorrect that Article VI can be interpreted in such a way as to assert that nuclear disarmament can only happen in the context of general and complete disarmament. It pointed out that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion in 1996 affirmed that Article VI contains an obligation to pursue and achieve nuclear disarmament. In a previous edition of the NPT News in Review, John Burroughs of the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy explained that from a legal point of view, a political commitment perspective, and based on historical precedent, nuclear disarmament is not contingent on general and complete disarmament.
These arguments, though, about the security environment, strategic stability, and general and complete disarmament, are not just about deferring nuclear disarmament. They are also drivers of proliferation.
Sharing is not always caring
Claims by nuclear-armed states that the atomic bomb is essential to their security, and assertions that nuclear disarmament would harm their security, are walking advertisements for the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The wars, genocides, interferences, intimidations, and other tactics of coercive control that nuclear-armed states exercise against non-nuclear-armed states is also treated as a compelling justification for more countries to acquire nuclear weapons.
A clear and prescient example is the current situation in Europe. Members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), ostensibly all non-nuclear-armed states under the NPT, have spent an inordinate amount of time defending their nuclear deterrence doctrines and sharing arrangements throughout this NPT review cycle. One of their common refrains is that nuclear weapon sharing and “extended nuclear deterrence” has enabled NATO to countries to feel secure without having acquire their own nuclear weapons.
This claim does a lot of work. For one, it indicates that non-nuclear-armed NATO members see nuclear weapons as essential to their security. Yet these same countries claim to be ardent supporters of the nuclear non-proliferation regime. So essentially, they are claiming that only NATO members have the right to feel secure in the world—nuclear weapons are essential security tools, but only they can have them. Any other country that would host a nuclear-armed states’ bombs on their territory would be condemned as a violator of the NPT and a proliferator of nuclear weapons, as we have seen with the case of Belarus.
This claim about NATO nuclear sharing also suggests that they view the catastrophic humanitarian and environmental consequences of nuclear weapons as a reasonable risk in exchange for their perception of security. This puts into question their credibility as governments that claim to value human rights, ecological and environmental wellbeing, economic justice, and planetary survival.
Their claims that nuclear sharing and extended nuclear deterrence are a necessary response to threats to European security by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine are confusing, as they simultaneously argue that these arrangements were in place before the NPT was ever negotiated. How can these arrangements both have existed prior to 1968 and be a response to Russian actions in 2022? (They did exist previously, the point is that the pretext of Russia’s actions is strange, in that regard.)
The NATO members also claim that their nuclear sharing and extended deterrence policies and practices have prevented proliferation, because, as the United States argued, “since the arrangements were put in place, none of these countries has sought or acquired a nuclear weapon.” Unfortunately, this overlooks the fact that many of these states are now openly discussing the possibility of acquiring nuclear weapons or constructing new “forward deterrence” arrangements. And we have reached this point precisely because nuclear sharing and nuclear deterrence has been allowed to persist—against logic, against the law, against human needs.
The longer that nuclear weapons persist in the doctrines and deployments of nuclear-armed states and in nuclear sharing and extended deterrence agreements, the more entrenched nuclear weapons become in the imaginations of states that seek security. And who isn’t looking for security, especially when you have multiple nuclear-armed bullies looking to shape the world order to suit their interests at the expense of everyone else’s? The proliferation incentives embedded within the doctrine of deterrence are boiling over in this volatile “international security environment” that the nuclear-armed states have created.
Boiling into a chain reaction
This boiling point that it feels like we are reaching also means, unfortunately, that we don’t just have proliferation to worry about. The addiction to nuclear weapons as mythical sources of power and privilege means that the governments that possess them will always want more, “better” weapons. Chasing that high of the first nuclear explosion in the deserts of New Mexico, the next generation of nuclear-armed megalomaniacs apparently want to experience the glory of the mushroom cloud for themselves. Unsatisfied with laboratory experiments and subcritical tests, it seems, the US is trying to manufacture consent, or at least cover, for it to restart explosive nuclear testing.
Last year, the US President demanded the resumption of US nuclear testing. Throughout the Review Conference, the US delegation has been reiterating its accusation that six years ago, China conducted a low-yield nuclear weapon test. The US has also been actively trying to undermine confidence in the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT)’s International Monitoring System and in other countries’ moratoria on nuclear testing. At the same time, the US delegation also urged states to stop focusing on the entry into force of the CTBT—even though the entry into force of this treaty would make those moratoria legally binding, and would improve the capacity of the CTBT Organization to detect nuclear test explosions and conduct on-site inspections.
Based on all of these remarks and actions, it seems clear that the US government is signalling its intention to once again violate international law. The CTBT was long-fought and hard-won. It took decades of organising and advocacy by ordinary people around the world demanding an end to nuclear testing. It took the collection of baby teeth from across the United States, boycotts of French wine, marches and protests in Nevada and Semipalatinsk, the sharing of testimony from survivors in the Pacific.
The history of nuclear testing is a history of colonialism. Radioactive fallout, waste, as well as fire, blast, and heat from the tests themselves, were imposed upon the people, land, and oceans around the world. These tests had catastrophic impacts on human health, animal life, and ecologies. These impacts have been felt across borders and generations. There has been no comprehensive, effective reparation or remediation. The legacy of nuclear harm persists today; and now, we are being collectively threatened with the resumption of this global nightmare.
Catastrophic consequences, or compliance
As Cameroon warned, the CTBT is a key disarmament measure, but it is fragile and reversible. We are facing the risks of that reversibility now. At the same time, some countries are also trying to reverse the progress that has been made on acknowledging and understanding the impacts of nuclear weapons. Back in 2010, NPT states parties expressed by consensus “deep concern at the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and reaffirms the need for all States at all times to comply with applicable international law, including international humanitarian law.” Since then, the nuclear-armed states have tried to backtrack from this language—claiming that these impacts would only result from nuclear war, not a limited exchange or single detonation, and therefore need no further investigation; or claiming that these impacts are obvious and need no further investigation; or claiming these impacts are false and need no further investigation.
Investigations, however, have continued. Many scientific studies have been undertaken since 2010, illuminating with ever more granular detail how nuclear weapons cause devastating harm across borders and generations, to food and health and ecosystems and more. But the nuclear-armed states and some of their nuclear-supportive allies deny these realities and try to downplay their significance. They are now even demanding the replacement of the 2010 consensus language with the language from the NPT preamble, “Considering the devastation that would be visited upon all mankind by a nuclear war.” This shocking and offensive suggestion, which was made by Denmark in Main Committee I, was endorsed by the United Kingdom and others.
It turns out, unsurprisingly, that the reason the nuclear-armed and nuclear-supportive states are trying to get rid of the language on the humanitarian and environmental consequences of nuclear weapons, is because they believe it has been “instrumentalised” by the non-nuclear majority to develop the TPNW. This was Russia’s argument as it, along with Lithuania and Poland, called for the deletion of any reference to the TPNW in the NPT outcome document.
In response, Austria called on states to look at the scientific facts: that any use of nuclear weapons would have catastrophic consequences and even a limited exchange would produce global effects. This is underpinned by research and should the starting point for conversations about the international security environment, which is what the nuclear-armed and nuclear-supportive states raise as the reason they can’t or won’t achieve nuclear disarmament. They pit the risks of nuclear deterrence theory—a human construct that rests on a chain of assumptions about rationality, all of which are put into question by historical record—against the reality of the catastrophic consequences of nuclear weapons. And non-nuclear-armed states are asked to bear this acute asymmetry, said Austria. They are asked to accept this risk as a byproduct of other states’ security doctrines. And now they are being told that they are instrumentalising this concern to put pressure on nuclear-armed states. On the contrary, Austria argued, these are scientific facts and security concerns that should be taken seriously by all states, especially those relying on nuclear deterrence.
The TPNW is a good faith effort by non-nuclear-armed states to commit themselves to never acquire or use nuclear weapons, and to set the framework for the total elimination of nuclear weapons, which is legally mandated by Article VI. For all of the claims the nuclear-armed states and their supportive allies make about their commitments to the NPT, they are failing in this simple fact: they are completely and utterly out of compliance with Article VI. No grandstanding about their intentions or lamentations about the security environment can escape the fact that they are violating international law and putting the entire world at risk. There is no other way out of this mess than full and urgent compliance with the law these states signed up to of their own free will more than fifty years ago. If states are serious about confronting the root cause of current global tensions, they would do well to look within their own nuclear arsenals and militarist policies that perpetuate death and violence. It’s time to rip out nuclear weapons by the root, to give us a chance to grow something beneficial to our collective survival instead.