NPT News in Review, Vol. 20, No. 4

Editorial: End END Before END Ends Us
6 May 2025

By Ray Acheson

As the NPT Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) continues its work this week, lived horror and potential horror rage outside the conference room. It remains to be seen if the PrepCom can live up to this moment and advance real nuclear disarmament and reduce nuclear risks ahead of the Review Conference (RevCon)—or if there even will still be an NPT or a RevCon to be held by this time next year.

Unspeakable violence

In recent days, the Israeli government announced plans to seize and occupy the Gaza Strip, forcibly displacing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have already been bombed, bulldozed, and starved. The horrors inflicted upon Palestinians by Israel have been relentless—over the past two years in particular, but also since the occupation began. Now Israel has said out loud what has been clear to many for all these decades: the goal is the eradication of Palestine. This is genocide, and Western governments have aided and abetted it in total violation of international law and the “rules-based order” they claim to uphold. Israel has also been attacking Lebanon, Iran, Syria, and Yemen, instigating wider conflict and destablisation in the Middle East, also fuelled by Western weapons.

Meanwhile, India and Pakistan appear to be on the brink of war. Tensions have been rising since the attack in Kashmir on 22 April that killed 26 people. After that, rhetoric, threats, accusations, military exercises, and missile tests escalated. As of time of writing, India has fired missiles into Pakistan and Pakistani-administered territory, attacking multiple locations and killing several people, including civilians. The UN Secretary-General and UN Security Council have urged restraint. But the NPT PrepCom has remained silent, despite the fact that both India and Pakistan are nuclear-armed. Apparently, since neither are states parties to the NPT, it’s not the PrepCom’s business.

The draft recommendations of the PrepCom, issued on Monday, call upon India, Israel, and Pakistan to join the NPT as non-nuclear-armed states and bring their nuclear facilities under safeguards. The recommendations also reaffirm the importance of advancing the full implementation of the 1995 resolution on developing a zone free of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East. But that’s it. Even as the draft recommendations reiterate the importance of universalising the NPT, they don’t say anything about the nuclear cooperation taking place between some states parties and the above non-states parties, in direct violation of the Treaty and universalisation efforts—even though several delegations raised concerns with this during the cluster two discussions.

The facilitation of proliferation

More than that, though, the current violence being committed by each of these nuclear-armed states speaks clearly to the failure of the NPT to address the core problem facing its implementation: some NPT members believe that 1) nuclear weapons guarantee their security, but also believe 2) that no other states should be able to have that security, and 3) that the detrimental impacts of nuclear weapons on the security of everyone else is irrelevant.

“Highlighting the ‘necessity’ of nuclear weapons as an ‘ultimate security guarantee’ de facto promotes and proliferates the concept of nuclear deterrence and the desirability of nuclear weapons,” said Austria. “Requiring nuclear weapons for one’s own states’ security, while demanding that others do not seek to enhance their state’s security with nuclear weapons—has been and remains a central problem of the NPT.”

This philosophy can be most clearly seen in relation to nuclear sharing. Throughout the cluster two debates, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members once again reiterated their defence of hosting US nuclear weapons and/or relying on those weapons in extended nuclear deterrence (END) arrangements. Australia, Japan, and the Republic of Korea also defend their END relationships with the United States.

Belgium asserted that nuclear sharing and END “are the necessary answer to the existential threat posed by our eastern neighbor.” The Republic of Korea similarly argued that it is expanding its END arrangements because of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)’s nuclear and missile threats, arguing this is a “legitimate response to protect the lives and safety of the Korean people when our very security is hanging by a thread.”

Belgium also claimed, “Never in their decades long existence have the sharing arrangements been a source of proliferation nor an obstacle to disarmament.” Several NATO members reiterated their belief that sharing and END have prevented proliferation and strengthened the NPT; the United States even claimed, “These defensive alliances do not only benefit their members; they also increase stability. All nations benefit from protection against an unstable world.”

Of course, what these states don’t say is that the logical conclusion is that every country, or at least every region, should get nuclear weapons. By defining nuclear sharing and END and articulating the “value” of these arrangements for non-proliferation, these states are openly advocating for proliferation. This is a violation of the NPT and stands in stark contradiction to their vocal opposition to specific cases of proliferation (e.g. they are not happy about the DPRK’s acquisition of nuclear weapons or Iran’s nuclear programme.)

What these states also don’t say is that the logical conclusion of their position is that they will never eliminate nuclear weapons. While they are legally obligated to do so, their modernisation programmes, nuclear doctrines, and sharing and END arrangements show that they are materially, militarily, and politically invested in possessing nuclear weapons forever. If these weapons are the ultimate guarantor of security, after all, why give them up?

These states also refuse to acknowledge that nuclear weapons facilitate violence. Nuclear weapons facilitated Russia’s unlawful war of aggression against and occupation of Ukraine. Nuclear weapons facilitated Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, and aggressions against other Middle Eastern countries. Nuclear weapons are facilitating violence and threats between India and Pakistan. In no case have nuclear weapons deterred; in every case they have emboldened.

Many delegations articulately pushed back against the factual and historical inaccuracies of nuclear sharing and END during cluster two, which can be read in full in the report on that debate in this edtion. Yet their concerns underscore the broader problem that certain states believe in their right to possess and threaten to use nuclear weapons. Once they have that belief, it is only a matter of time before they believe they have the right to start testing them again—to the detriment of people and the planet—and then, perhaps, to use them. One already has; it is not unfathomable, in this time of grave upheaval and global aggression, that it could happen.

Nuclear weapons do not defend. They enable aggression, occupation, and massive violence. And they will lead inevitably to total destruction if we don’t destroy them first.

Taking meaningful action

Amidst the grave danger and massive violence we are experiencing throughout the world, it is more important than ever to listen to and learn from those who have actual experience with these weapons. Thus, the recommendation to interact with and share “the experiences of the peoples and the communities affected by nuclear weapons use and testing … on the dangers of nuclear war and the urgency required to reach a world free of nuclear weapons,” is essential. Delegates to NPT meetings or officials who work on nuclear weapon issues back in capital must break out of their sterile conference rooms and offices and pay attention to what is happening in the world—to what nuclear weapons have done, to what violence is being perpetrated now, and to what might happen if we don’t act now.

The draft recommendations rightly acknowledge the increasing concerns of non-nuclear-armed states about nuclear weapon modernisation, expansion of arsenals, nuclear rhetoric, nuclear doctrines, and lowering the thresholds for the use of nuclear weapons. Yet it says nothing about nuclear sharing or END arrangements, despite the fact this has been a dominant topic of debate throughout this review cycle. The draft decision on strengthening the review process does, at least, suggest that non-nuclear-armed states could develop a standard reporting template to use for national reporting on nuclear sharing and END—but stops short of making this mandatory or calling for dedicated discussion on this at the RevCon, for which several delegations have called.

There are other positive elements in the draft recommendations, including the reaffirmation of past commitments, the acknowledgment that risk reduction can’t replace disarmament, and the call for meaningful human control over nuclear weapons and delivery systems, among others. And the suggestion in the draft decisions to invite representatives of “relevant independent organisations” to give updates on the state of nuclear disarmament before the presentation and exchange on national reports is a good idea. The proposal for the PrepCom Chairs and RevCon President to “facilitate informal intersessional consultations between States parties and non-governmental organisations” is also welcome.

But at a time when there is “unrestrained strategic competition and deepening geopolitical tensions that are putting at risk the cooperation required for the effective operation of the Treaty,” as the recommendations recognise, we must go further. We need more ambition, more implementation, and less excuses for failures or justifications for proliferation. We need nuclear sharing and END to end. We need modernisation and arsenal expansion and uranium mining and enrichment to end. We need to end all nuclear weapon programmes and apply all of the work undertaken on verification and irreversibility over recent years to achieve disarmament. We need all states to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and join efforts to repair past harms and prevent future ones.

The draft recommendations note that “a world free of nuclear weapons and a safer and more secure world for all is the ultimate goal of the international community.” This is weak language for a Treaty whose original purpose was to prevent nuclear war and end nuclear weapons. The elimination of nuclear weapon programmes is an urgent necessity and legal obligation. Most NPT states parties maintain this position; most of the wider world—certainly those suffering right now under the violence happening outside of these UN halls—would surely say the same.

As the Philippines said, the NPT is not simply as a legal framework, but “a political and moral commitment to ensure that nuclear weapons do not define the security architecture of the future.” This must be the approach of this PrepCom and the upcoming Review Conference—but more importantly, it must be the approach of all of states that are armed with these horrific weapons of mass destruction or claim security from them.

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