- Global nuclear stocks show a new upward trend.
- Trust is eroding under the non-proliferation treaty.
- The summit risks finding itself in an impasse amid tensions between Ukraine and Iran.
UNITED NATIONS: Signatories to the historic nuclear non-proliferation treaty will meet at the UN from Monday as hopes of reaching a deal fade and tensions soar between the atomic powers.
In 2022, during the latest revision of the treaty considered the cornerstone of non-proliferation, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that humanity was “just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation.”
Since then, the situation has only gotten worse.
“I think there is, if you like, a sense of crisis shared by all state parties,” said Izumi Nakamitsu, the United Nations high representative for disarmament affairs.
“We have no bilateral arms control agreement between the two largest nuclear-weapon states,” she said, referring to the February expiration of the New Start treaty between Moscow and Washington.
“We are also beginning to see a quantitative increase in nuclear capabilities across all nuclear-weapon states.”
Nakamitsu said rising geopolitical tensions had halted the post-Cold War trend toward disarmament.
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), signed by almost every country on the planet – with the notable exceptions of Israel, India and Pakistan – aims to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons, promote complete disarmament and encourage cooperation on civilian nuclear projects.
The nine nuclear-armed states – Russia, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea – possessed 12,241 nuclear warheads as of January 2025, according to the latest report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
The United States and Russia hold nearly 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons and have carried out major programs to modernize them in recent years, according to SIPRI.
China has also rapidly increased its nuclear stockpile, SIPRI said, with the G7 sounding the alarm on Friday over the strengthening of its nuclear capabilities by Moscow and Beijing.
US President Donald Trump has indicated his intention to carry out further nuclear tests because “other countries are doing it too”.
In March, French President Emmanuel Macron announced a radical change in nuclear deterrence, including an increase in the atomic arsenal, which currently numbers 290 nuclear warheads.
The NPT could “collapse”
“It is clear that trust is eroding, both inside and outside the NPT,” said Seth Sheldon of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), a Nobel Peace Prize winner. AFP.
He questioned the likely outcome of this four-week summit.
Decisions on the NPT must be adopted by consensus, with the previous two conferences failing to adopt final political declarations.
In 2015, the impasse was largely due to opposition from Washington, Israel’s main ally, to the creation of a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East.
In 2022, the impasse was mainly due to Russian opposition to references to Ukraine’s Moscow-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
This year’s summit could face many obstacles.
The ongoing war in Ukraine, Iran’s nuclear program and war there, non-nuclear states’ fears over proliferation and North Korea’s arsenal development could all stand in the way of the deal.
If there is a third consecutive failure, the treaty “may not implode overnight,” said Christopher King, the conference’s secretary-general.
But there is a risk “that it will deteriorate over time”.
Artificial intelligence could be a major problem as some countries call on all parties to maintain human control over nuclear weapons.
