NEGATIVE/NUCLEAR/PROLIFERATION

CURRENT EFFORTS TO COMBAT NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION ARE EXCELLENT

WHILE NOT PERFECT, THE CURRENT NON-PROLIFERATION REGIME OFFERS A SUPERIOR SYSTEM,

Steven Mufson, Washington Post Staff Writer, The Washington Post July 17, 1999, Pg. A01 HEADLINE: Losing the Battle on Arms Control; Pakistan-India Nuclear Race Is Just Part of a Disturbing Trend //Inu-acs

But others believe negotiations still can contain the most lethal weapons, coax India and Pakistan into observing the nuclear test ban and international inspection regimes, and further reduce the stockpiles of the major powers. "Calling it a regime gave it a sense of being an iron castle, which never existed," said Frank Wisner, a former ambassador to India and Egypt who tried to persuade Russia to cut off aid to Iran's nuclear power program. "But the nonproliferation regimes still establish norms of behavior. They are like traffic laws; people still speed."

PAST PREDICTIONS THAT MANY NATIONS WOULD GET NUCLEAR WEAPONS HAVE BEEN FALSE

Steven Mufson, Washington Post Staff Writer, The Washington Post July 17, 1999, Pg. A01 HEADLINE: Losing the Battle on Arms Control; Pakistan-India Nuclear Race Is Just Part of a Disturbing Trend //Inu-acs

For 35 years, the world's small club of nuclear powers has largely kept intact its monopoly on weapons of mass destruction, defying President John F. Kennedy's 1963 prediction that 15 to 20 countries would possess nuclear weapons by the early 1970s.

THE CURRENT NON-PROLIFERATION REGIME HAS SCORED NUMEROUS ROLLBACKS AND VICTORIES

Steven Mufson, Washington Post Staff Writer, The Washington Post July 17, 1999, Pg. A01 HEADLINE: Losing the Battle on Arms Control; Pakistan-India Nuclear Race Is Just Part of a Disturbing Trend //Inu-acs

A nuclear test ban was signed. Brazil and Argentina scrapped their nuclear weapons programs. South Africa announced it had secretly built six nuclear bombs and then dismantled them. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, three newly independent, former Soviet republics gave up their nuclear weapons.

THE NPT REGIME HAS BEEN A HUGE SUCCESS AGAINST NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty has recently been extended indefinitely. The IAEA safeguards regime, which is one of the means of verifying that non-nuclear states are not producing weapons, has been strengthened. Many countries of proliferation concern have either joined the NPT or embraced equivalent constraints in recent years, most notably Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Algeria. China and France also joined the NPT in the years prior to the 1995 review and extension conference.