John Mecklin

Lawrence J. Korb, Sr. died April 20, leaving behind an exemplary career in American national security policy, in teaching, in research and university administration, and in military service.

The 11th Review Conference of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) ended last week as it had in 2015 and 2022, deadlocked over a single regional issue, in this case Iran. The outcome shows why NPT review conferences should not focus on regional issues, even if they cannot be ignored.

Renewed geopolitical competition, accelerating nuclear modernization, and the weakening of arms control frameworks have re-centered strategic stability in

China and the European Union (EU) signed the Joint Declaration of the People’s Republic of China and the European Union on Non-proliferation and Arms

The Cold War-era nuclear order—in which the United States and the Soviet Union held sway, establishing treaties that set the nuclear rules for the whole world—has clearly and irreversibly come to an end, but a new order to replace it has not yet coalesced. The drift toward multi-polar power dynamics makes a reshaping of the current world order imperative. To be effective, that reshaping should be accomplished via incremental reform.

The world nuclear order exists only in the minds of those who postulate it. The history of nuclear power over the last 80 years is much more the story of an order in search of itself, and of the many attempts to fix it.

US extended nuclear deterrence is inherently both stabilizing—through its nonproliferation outcomes—and destabilizing. But its absence could also be destabilizing, and the United States, its allies, and its rivals will need to come to terms if such a profound change in the international system indeed takes place.

Although the Trump administration has not decided to engage in a NATO kind of nuclear sharing within it Asian alliance, there are signs of a burgeoning regional arms race and the potential for nuclear proliferation—developments that could, in turn, lead the Asia Pacific region to a tipping point of war and peace.

To build trust in the current global security situation, China and the EU should focus on the transparency of strategic intentions, both through dialogue among experts and in high-level defense and security discussions. These talks would allow European countries and China to communicate strategic intentions in depth, to inform each other after major adjustments of defense policies, and to provide advance information on major military activities. China and European countries could also collaborate via reciprocal visits to military facilities and opportunities to observe each other's military exercises.

The road toward transparency about nuclear weapons—both within the Western political tradition and during the Cold War rivalry with the Soviet Union—was long, gradual, and deeply contingent. The tools developed during the US-Soviet experience cannot simply be replicated in the Chinese context. The European experience may serve as a potential catalyst for developing new frameworks of strategic engagement with China.