nuclear-news

Among the big changes in the global strategic landscape since the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty came into force in 1970 is the expansion of the nuclear club from five to nine. All five nuclear powers at that time were recognised as nuclear-weapon states by the NPT. Since then, four more countries have gate-crashed the  exclusive nuclear club: Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea.

The first three have been de facto nuclear-armed states for decades, and North Korea conducted its first nuclear test in 2006. But because of an Alice-in-Wonderland definition in the treaty—nuclear-weapon states are countries that nuclear-tested before 1 January 1967—they can’t be recognised as nuclear-weapon states. The legal straitjacket means the NPT can’t function as the normative framework for the nuclear policies of four of the world’s nine nuclear-armed states: a triumph of definitional purity over strategic reality. …….. https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/india-has-nuclear-bombs%E2%80%94-its-not-defined-nuclear-power-124721