Broadly, treaties involving nuclear weapons can be classified into five categories:

1. Treaties creating alliances in which nuclear weapons states claim to provide "nuclear umbrellas" to their partners. The most prominent remaining example of this kind of treaty is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), led by the United States.

2. Treaties by which nuclear weapons states agree to some restraints on their nuclear weapons or related programs. Examples are the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties between the United States and Russia (START I and START II), and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

3. Treaties to prevent the spread of and promote the elimination of nuclear weapons. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) imposes restraints on the development of nuclear weapons by non-nuclear weapons states and obligates the five nuclear weapons states that are signatories to pursue nuclear disarmament. It also commits all signatories to share commercial nuclear technology with one another.

4. Bilateral basing agreements or treaties. (The strategic functions of these treaties are of great interest - see note at the end of this article.)^*

5. Treaties restricting nuclear weapons-related activities, such as those creating "nuclear weapon free zones." These agreements place various restrictions on nuclear weapons within the specified zone, such as non-deployment of weapons in a country or on the seabed or in Antarctica. These treaties generally do not effectively restrict all nuclear weapons-related activities. For instance, transit of nuclear weapons can still take place through many such zones.

There have been other agreements about nuclear weapons among countries besides treaties. These are bilateral or multilateral agreements to share and/or restrict trade in nuclear technologies. An important one is an agreement between a group of industrialized countries called the Nuclear Suppliers Group (led by the United States) that restricts exports of nuclear technologies to countries that are not members of the group, independent of the countries' compliance with the NPT. There are also local (sub-national) laws or regulations that restrict or ban nuclear weapons and/or other nuclear activities (for example, municipalities that have declared themselves nuclear weapon free zones).

Some of these treaties have made important contributions to nuclear arms reductions. The two recent Strategic Arms ReductionTreaties (START) and the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) are the most important examples. However, the status of START II is unclear, since it gives certain advantages to the United States. The Russian Duma has so far not ratified it, despite President Yeltsin's urging that it do so. Russia would like to have far deeper cuts than START II requires because the specific pattern of cuts under START II would mean Russia must build new weapons if it is to maintain nuclear parity with the United States, which it cannot afford. But the United States, having agreed to a framework for modest reductions beyond START II, has not agreed to a further treaty until the Russian Duma ratifies START II. In the meantime, the dangers of accidental nuclear war continue to mount.

Among these treaties and agreements, five nuclear weapons states, the United States, Russia, China, Britain, and France, have committed themselves to nuclear disarmament in only one treaty, the NPT. Article VI of the NPT does not explicitly state that signatory nuclear weapons states must actually achieve nuclear disarmament within a reasonable time frame. But the International Court of Justice of the United Nations (also called the World Court), in a unanimous advisory opinion in July 1996, found that the treaty does require the signatory nuclear weapons states to actually achieve complete nuclear disarmament (see box in article "The Nature of Post-Cold War Nuclear Dangers).

The World Court is the only authoritative official body to have rendered any kind of interpretation of Article VI. Its opinion must therefore be regarded as definitive until it rules on Article VI again in the process of an actual dispute brought before it involving the NPT. Moreover, the World Court's opinion is in accord with the views of the vast majority of NPT signatories.

Achieving Treaties But Not Disarmament

Apart from Article VI of the NPT, there is no clear pattern towards disarmament among these treaties. Some treaties legitimize nuclear arsenals and are significant roadblocks to nuclear disarmament. Foremost among these are NATO and the US-Japan Security Treaty. The sum total of these treaties, when coupled with the actual behavior of nuclear weapons states, indicates that treaties are not going to be enough to create complete and enduring nuclear disarmament. This is because the nuclear weapon states have come to see their security, their power, and their position in the world as being linked to the possession and deployment of nuclear weapons. Moreover, the United States, Russia, Britain, and France have not renounced first-use of nuclear weapons. In fact, the US and Russia have explicitly maintained that such use is their prerogative.

US spokespersons have also stated that the prerogative of first-use is being maintained because without it Japan and Germany might build their own nuclear weapons. How these countries and other members of military treaties with United States can be regarded as "non-nuclear states" under these circumstances is unclear under the terms of the NPT, which is silent on such treaty arrangements. The US and its allies maintain that an expansion of such arrangements is permitted under the NPT. But that interpretation has not been clarified by the World Court or any authoritative body.

Further, the legality of an integration of European Union member states into one large country with a common defense policy and common nuclear weapons is unclear. The practical effect is not. It would even further increase the number of people whose governments have access to the nuclear trigger.

Achieving enduring and complete nuclear disarmament that is stable will require popular pressure, amendments to or supercession of existing treaties, and a change in at least two central aspects of the nuclear weapons states' political culture as it is commonly expressed. The first is that which regards the five nuclear weapons states recognized by the NPT as the only legitimate and responsible guardians of nuclear weapons, while all others are seen as being "the wrong hands." This attitude is especially prevalent in the United States. However, there are no safe hands to possess nuclear weapons. Different hands simply bring different types of dangers. Even a perfunctory study of nuclear weapons history reveals the deep and intractable dangers in which the US and the Soviet Union put themselves and the world. Consider for instance that:

• the decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki was in part to justify huge expenditures of scarce resources on the Manhattan Project;

• during the Cuban missile crisis, both sides were ready to risk global catastrophe to get their own way;

• the US and Soviet Union have made a number of nuclear threats to non-nuclear weapons countries (see chronology of nuclear threats article);

• nuclear weapons establishments have inflicted immense harm on the people of their own countries from nuclear weapons testing and production under cover of the secrecy afforded by "national security";

• the US and the Soviet Union built up nuclear weapons to such irrationally huge levels that dozens of warheads were targeted upon individual cities;

• although the US and the Soviet Union each had the explicit foreign policy goal of destroying the economic and political system of the other, neither side considered the consequences of the collapse of the other (such as "loose nukes" or black markets in fissile materials);

• despite the rising danger of accidental nuclear war, Russian and US leaders have so far failed to make preventing it a top priority.

The second problem that we must address is that dominant powers tend to disregard treaties when they become inconvenient. Unless there are independent mechanisms for enforcement of treaties in the most powerful countries, treaties meant to achieve progress in non-proliferation and disarmament will remain vulnerable to abrogation. Moreover, they may themselves contribute to the creation of new instabilities and problems, like the NPT and CTBT have done. We shall examine these more closely.

The NPT

Because the framework for the NPT was provided by the United States, it is not surprising that the commitment to disarmament was vague, but the legitimization of the possession of nuclear weapons by five countries and the requirement that other countries not acquire nuclear weapons were explicit. Though the disarmament aspect of the NPT has now been considerably tightened by the World Court's unanimous advisory opinion, the US rejects this interpretation. The NPT also provides for the promotion of commercial nuclear technology among the signatories. Both of these aspects have had serious negative consequences.

The terms of the treaty meant that a number of threshold countries refused to sign, though pressures from the United States over the decades reduced the most important non-signatories to three: Israel, India, and Pakistan. However, US treatment of these three countries is markedly dissimilar. The United States has not only winked at the Israeli arsenal, it has provided Israel with extensive military assistance. By contrast, Pakistan, which is also a non-signatory, suffered US sanctions for developing nuclear capability, even prior to its May 1998 nuclear tests. India's program was similar to that of Pakistan, but larger, and it suffered only mild export restraints.

There are other inconsistencies:

• The controversy around whether a US satellite signal picked up an Israeli-South African nuclear test in 1978 has been smothered by silence.

• North Korea, which violated the terms of the NPT by trying to acquire nuclear weapons, has been rewarded for backtracking somewhat with a promise of two nuclear reactors.

• Iraq, which also violated the terms of its NPT commitments continues to face harsh sanctions that have resulted in the deaths of large numbers of people, especially children.

• Iran is in compliance with the safeguards requirements of the International Atomic Energy Agency, but the US suspects it of pursuing a nuclear weapons program, based on its own intelligence data. The US has subjected Iran to sanctions and is also attempting to prevent Russia from supplying Iran with nuclear power reactors that are legal under the NPT.

The lack of commitment to disarmament and the inequity in the substance and process of NPT enforcement played a role in the decision of India to refuse to sign the NPT and to test nuclear weapons. With the overt expansion of the nuclear "club" there is now no way to accommodate the new realities within the NPT framework. If the NPT is amended to include the three other nuclear weapons states, it would be even more encouragement to others to create arsenals, thereby increasing dangers, especially in the Middle East and in East Asia. At the same time, India, Pakistan and Israel will not accede to the NPT as non-nuclear weapons states, thereby making the NPT less relevant to non-proliferation.

Sanctions have been used as a means of maintaining the reliance of the NPT, but they are not an appropriate response, because they are part of the double standard of nuclear politics. The main enforcers of the NPT are the very nuclear weapons states that are currently violating the treaty by refusing to agree to a plan for complete nuclear disarmament, or even for definitively ending the nuclear arms race.

The provisions promoting nuclear power in the NPT are similarly corrosive. They spread the technology and know-how for making nuclear weapons, creating new proliferation dangers - amply demonstrated by the case of Iraq. At the same time, signatory countries in good standing like Iran are being denied access to nuclear technology based on unilateral decisions of the United States, however well-founded US information might be about Iranian intentions.

In sum, the NPT has had considerable success over almost three decades in stemming the number of nuclear weapons states. But it is being corrupted and destroyed by some of its own provisions, by the arbitrariness of its implementation, and by the lack of good faith on the part of the nuclear weapons states to achieve complete nuclear disarmament, as required.

The CTBT

The CTBT, long sought by the vast majority of the world's countries as an instrument of nuclear disarmament, is already being subverted even before it has been ratified. On one hand, it represents great progress towards nuclear disarmament in that it bans all nuclear explosions, including those by signatory nuclear weapons states. (India, Pakistan, and North Korea have not signed.) But the signatory nuclear weapons states are pursuing modernization of their arsenals by creating and maintaining expensive facilities for laboratory testing and computer simulation of nuclear weapon designs. They also insist that laboratory explosions that use only thermonuclear fuel are allowed, though the ban on all nuclear explosions in Article I clearly applies (see article on pure fusion weapons):

During the negotiation of the CTBT, the five recognized nuclear weapons states also refused to make a commitment to disarmament, as demanded by India, whose Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru called for a test ban as an instrument of disarmament as early as 1954. Instead, they insist on the right to withdraw from the treaty on grounds of "supreme national interest" and on maintaining huge nuclear weapons design and testing infrastructures.

For instance, the United States currently spends more on nuclear weapons design and testing than the average of such expenditures during the Cold War. Only France has closed its test site as a result of signing the treaty and that only after conducting an extensive series of tests during CTBT negotiations. Finally, though India adamantly refused to sign the CTBT because the treaty had been essentially transformed into an instrument of non-proliferation only to the practical exclusion of disarmament, it was included on the list of countries that would need to ratify it before the CTBT could enter into force. India's isolation and the prospect of sanctions it faced were a contributing factor in its decision to test in May 1998. The great irony of the CTBT is that it has contributed to the decision to test by a country that had long sought a test ban, and in so doing, aggravated post-Cold-War nuclear disarray. Significantly, India announced its own "stockpile stewardship program" at the time of its nuclear tests.

While the NPT and CTBT provide important components to nuclear disarmament, it is clear that treaties are not enough when the powerful that must obey them want to subvert their intent. Given the increasing threats of accidental nuclear war, black markets in warheads or nuclear materials, and the emerging nuclear danger in South Asia, it is crucial that the lessons of the NPT and CTBT be applied to future disarmament efforts. The achievement of enduring nuclear disarmament will require not only a strong treaty abolishing nuclear weapons, but the creation and maintenance of conditions that make it more likely that there will be adherence to the letter and spirit of these treaties by all countries.

In fact, the acquisition of US bases around the world in the late 1940s and early 1950s did have nuclear weapons as a crucial consideration. See "Joint Chiefs of Staff Decision on J.C.S. 2215/1, A Report by the Joint Strategic Survey Committee on Joint Chiefs of Staff Views on Department of Defense Interest in the Use of Atomic Weapons," (J.C.S. 2215/1, National Archives Document Reference: RG 218 - CCS 471.6, Dec. 11, 1951), paragraph 2 of enclosure.