The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) was formed with two basic purposes: first, to prohibit nuclear weapon proliferation and, second, to promote peaceful nuclear use. Since its inception, NPT has been rightfully criticized as a generally flawed institution for its discriminatory character and reinforcement of an unjust global hierarchy.
For example, American historian Shane J. Maddock argues that the US-led nuclear order intensified power disparities between the Western powers, especially NATO allies (and later Israel), and their former colonies. Maddock further contends that the NPT ‘codified nuclear apartheid, leaving in place three types of nuclear states: the five recognized nuclear powers (the United States, Britain, China, France, and the Soviet Union), NATO and Warsaw Pact allies with access to nuclear weapons but not ownership, and a large class of non-nuclear states who renounced their right to go nuclear.’ Professor Shampa Biswas also charges the NPT of committing nuclear apartheid by having one set of rules for powerful nuclear weapons states and another for weaker ones. This is evidenced by its recognition of P5 members’ nuclear weapons, while India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel are termed as Non-Nuclear Weapons States (NNWS) despite also possessing nuclear weapons.
Yet, amidst the abundant critical discourse on nuclear security, the NPT’s questionable distinction between supposedly ‘peaceful’ and ‘non-peaceful’ nuclear uses has largely been overlooked. Framing nuclear weapons as peaceful and nuclear energy as non-peaceful is naïve and misplaced as it captures nuclear power from a standpoint where it is narrowly judged for its commercial potential. So-called ‘peaceful’ nuclear power has a potentially dangerous toll that is ignored for the sake of reaping its commercial benefits. Instead, in analyzing the proliferation of nuclear technology, we must consider the danger it poses to humanity in both its military and commercial applications.
The NPT, therefore, opens itself to several problems and contradictions by prohibiting nuclear proliferation for weapons purposes while encouraging it for commercial purposes. For one, this dual agenda contributes to the problem of ‘false optimism,’ the mistaken belief that nuclear energy proliferation does not in turn contribute to nuclear weapons proliferation. For another, it contradicts research that regards nuclear weapons as a contributor to peace and nuclear energy as an unsafe, accident-prone alternative to clean energy.
False optimism
False optimism is misplaced faith that a recipient of peaceful nuclear information or technology will not ever divert it for weapons purposes. India and North Korea are a few prominent cases in which countries weaponized ‘peaceful’ nuclear programs. However, the argument that this optimism is false does not necessarily assume states’ sinister intentions. Rather, it is merely being realistic about how countries behave in an extremely unequal and unpredictable international system.
This problem of false optimism is symptomatic of what Biswas calls an ‘ontological break.’ The ontological break arises from the implicit assumption in the treaty that there is disconnect (or ‘break’) between nuclear weapons and nuclear energy—that somehow the two are different and unrelated.
This ontological break becomes even more apparent when exercised in the NPT’s projection of ‘acceptable nuclear use’ onto a select few nuclear weapons states (NWS). Simply put, nuclear proliferation for energy purposes is legitimate but for weapons purposes is illegitimate. This is notwithstanding that, often, the former contributes to the latter and that the latter has been viewed as necessary path to security by those that see themselves marginalized by unequal global security architecture.
In turn, such projection effectively depoliticizes the issue of proliferation in favor of one to the other. Though depoliticization helps overcome friction and mobilize consensus on issues of such urgency as nuclear proliferation, the depoliticization of nuclear weapons proliferation in favor of nuclear energy proliferation is more often a tool for systemically silencing any challenges to those whose interests are better served in preserving their versions of nuclear truth as absolute.
Indeed, in most cases, depoliticization serves a minority neoliberal elite, permitting them to act in unfettered, manipulative, and unaccountable ways. An overemphasis on nuclear weapons shrinks space for debates on nuclear energy. An excessive, almost hyperbolic focus on nuclear weapons acquisition by countries like North Korea draws attention away from corporations operating nuclear power plants that have everyday harmful effects on people living in close proximity. This renders it difficult to hold these corporations responsible for their actions (or lack thereof).
Besides, as Biswas argues, eurocentrism underpins the dominant narratives of international relations since WWII that cast the former Allied Powers as ‘bearers of good’ that defeated the ‘axis of evil.’ These narratives also lack accounts of suffering that the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki experienced at the hands of the U.S. atomic bombing. Biswas contends that this explains why a contemporary paradigm persists that promotes a massive nuclear arsenal in the hands of powerful, Western states but regards any proliferation to the rest as dangerous.
Contrary to popular belief, the NPT is not an altruistic product of liberal ideals set out to rid the world of the nuclear threat. Rather, the NPT is a mere tool for those at its helm to advance the interests of certain countries and powerful individuals. As German political scientist Joachim Krause argues, the ‘NPT is not and was never a product of an enlightened consensus but rather a bargain in a realist world of substantial power differentials.’ Essentially, the realist critique of the NPT contends that its main goal was not to achieve disarmament but to freeze the nuclear status quo by preventing horizontal proliferation. The NPT was therefore meant to overcome nuclear anarchy. But, with no provision in the agreement forcing the disarmament of existing nuclear weapons states, it also granted a ‘monopoly on nuclear violence’ to those at its helm. This has created a power imbalance between nuclear-haves and nuclear-have-nots. And it is no coincidence that nuclear-have-nots are disproportionately countries formerly colonized by the nuclear-haves.
The NPT is a tool for enforcing the colonial status quo is further evidenced by two ideologies that heavily influenced the creation of the NPT. The first is the great-power mindset. In a realist sense, a great-power mindset argues that a great power sees acquisition of nuclear weapons only in terms of arms competition, which leads to dangerous outcomes like those experienced between World War II, and then Cold War, rivals.
Second, the NPT was influenced by an orientalist mindset. This mindset can be understood in colonial terms, where proponents assume the irrationality of an oriental who ought not be trusted with such sophisticated and dangerous weapons. Maddock shows how statements from American officials reveal the deep-seated problematic ideologies that laid the foundation for the Western-based global nuclear order. For instance, American Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in the 1950s stated, ‘In the past higher civilizations have always maintained their place against lower civilizations by devising more effective weapons.’ As another example President Bill Clinton’s vowed to help other ‘civilized nations’ acquire missile defense technology to protect against nuclear violence by ‘irresponsible’ states and allied ‘terrorists’ half a century later.
Problematic dualism
The NPT is problematic not only for protecting the imperfect, and even unfair, nuclear status quo, but also for propagating dangerous nuclear energy. The abstract framing of nuclear energy use as ‘peaceful’ and nuclear weapons pursuit as ‘non-peaceful’ is at the very root of this problem. This framing does not acknowledge that nuclear power poses dangers to humanity in both its peaceful and non-peaceful uses. Furthermore, the glorification of nuclear energy is reflective of a materialist ideal that sees everything in terms of its potential to maximize capital.
The dual distinctions of weapon/energy and peaceful/non-peaceful are, then, not only naive and misplaced but also mythical and propagandist. The most important danger to come out of nuclear energy use is that of ‘toxic residual waste,’ to which there yet exists no adequate method of safe storage or disposal.
Another danger is the ever-present risk of accident. As Biswas recounts in Nuclear Desire, aligned corporate and state interests created the ‘myth of absolute safety of nuclear power’ to persuade Japanese citizens, already previous victims of wartime nuclear use, of the necessity and reliability of nuclear energy for their 30% energy need. This safety myth was laid bare by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that caused at Fukushima Daiichi the most severe nuclear accident since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. While the cleanup efforts at Fukushima Daiichi are still ongoing and set to take another 30-40 years by Japanese government estimates, another serious problem that plagues it is hazardous spent fuel rods being stored in a now structurally compromised building.
In addition, the distinction reveals that the privilege of the great powers creates tunnel vision, whether unwilling or tacit, for economic well-being rather than the perennial and more serious concerns of survival and independence that smaller states face. By defining peaceful and non-peaceful nuclear use in vague and near-absolute terms, it ignores smaller states’ security concerns and downplays the role disparities in nuclear capability play in continuing the power structures of colonialism. Colonialism may have formally ended soon after World War II, but great-power aggression continues. The recent Ukraine crisis is a perfect demonstration of how nuclear-capable great powers, empowered by effective immunity from hard-power punishments, create insecurity for smaller states still today.
Finally, this peaceful/non-peaceful framing also disregards that nuclear weapons as a deterrent have been widely credited for maintaining general world peace post-World War II. This comes across at first as a platitude, but upon closer examination one finds that international violence has indeed fallen in the absence of major wars. For instance, in the pre-nuclear era between 1900 and 1945, about 50 million Europeans died of the great wars; in the nuclear age between 1945 and 1990, the rate dropped to only about 15,000 in minor conflicts. Nuclear weapons have kept peace, albeit crudely, between the post-colonial rival states of China, India, and Pakistan. In the same vein, it can be argued that Ukraine would have kept Russia at bay if it had not given up on building its own nuclear deterrent. John Mearsheimer, in his article The case for a Ukrainian nuclear deterrent, made an appealing case for why nuclear weapons present the best defense option to smaller states who might find it difficult to mount and sustain a capable enough conventional force to face and defend against more powerful rivals.
In sum, there is no ‘good/peaceful’ nuclear use or ‘bad/non-peaceful’ nuclear use, and to make this dichotomous distinction is regressive and dangerous. To use professor Arthur Ruggles’ proverbial statement, ‘You can make a pretty strong argument that it’s really foolish to burn a resource that’s as special as nuclear energy making something as inexpensive and ubiquitous as electricity.’