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The world has been conscious of this risk for some time. The Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons came into effect with enough signatures in 1970. Some 191 nations signed the treaty. North Korea tiptoed to the edge before exiting. India, Pakistan, Sudan and Israel never signed. These countries also pose an environmental threat, if not as bombastically declared as North Korea. Even Israel, as rational as its leadership may be, has indicated it will do whatever is required if faced with an “existential threat.”

Under the treaty, countries acknowledging a nuclear arsenal (the Big Boys) agreed that they would reduce their arsenals with the ultimate (if difficult to imagine) goal of completely eliminating weapons of this type, like poisonous gas munitions, to note the 1925 Geneva Protocol as a precedent.

Russia and the United States went through one reduction exercise. That was it. Their bargain was effectively nullified more recently as they “replenished stocks,” not technically an expansion, and invented new, smaller, artillery applications that might make the use of nukes more acceptable in war — say, in the Ukraine.

As a matching treaty trade-off to Big Boy reductions, those who joined up without having developed nukes agreed never to do so, hence the title “Nonproliferation.” The Big Boys agreed also to share peaceful nuclear technology with those who eschewed bomb development. Nonproliferation worked, taking the heat off many countries that otherwise might have had to show their military manhood by developing nuclear arms. It also served as a precedent for the Iran agreement.

Despite the treaty agreement, nations possessing nuclear arms are estimated still to have arsenals totaling around 22,000 weapons, easily enough explosive and radiation capacity to make life on Earth impossible for mammals.