Today, the nuclear regime is widely perceived to be in crisis. While part of this crisis has to do with direct challenges to the regime posed by the illicit nuclear programs of North Korea and Iran, from the perspective of much of the developing world, the issues facing the nonproliferation regime are overwhelmingly about the justice and fairness of the regime's norms, rules, and procedures. Indeed, it is difficult to identify a security regime today where equity issues are more central (...) to debates about its future than the nuclear nonproliferation regime. Of the three regimes for controlling weapons of mass destruction, it is in the nuclear regime that issues of justice and fairness appear most critical to long-term sustainability and viability. (shrink)

There is much hand-wringing in the arms control trenches these days over the role and future of arms control in U.S. policy. Liberal supporters of arms control lament what they see as a decade of missed opportunities to pursue deep cuts in the world's nuclear arsenals and to strengthen the regimes for controlling the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Those on the right, perceiving grave weaknesses in Cold War–era arms control regimes, prefers to move ahead with “assertive isolationism,” happily (...) unencumbered with the comprehensive test ban or soon, they hope, the Anti–Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. After a promising start in arms control at the beginning of the 1990s, both sides see U.S. arms control policy drifting in purpose and slackening in momentum, with arms control officials spread thin over a proliferating agenda. (shrink)