The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is the latest Cold War era pillar of global order to show signs of fraying and no longer being capable of coping with contemporary challenges. The ninth NPT five-yearly review conference, after four weeks of deliberations and negotiations, ended in acrimony on Friday instead of with a consensus document.
Although regrettable, this was not unexpected. For one thing, based on historical cycles, the 2000 conference was a success, 2005 was a failure, 2010 a success, and so the failure of the 2015 conference fits the pattern of alternating success and failure every five years. For another, the mood of optimism from 2010 had been steadily fading and had given way to outright pessimism by the end of last year, with tensions over Ukraine renewing interest in the role of nuclear weapons, no end to North Korea's nuclear provocations, growing arsenals in all the Asian nuclear armed states, no sign of a Mideast conference on creating a nuclear-weapon-free zone (NWFZ) as called for by the 2010 conference, and even the November deadline for a deal on Iran having been missed.
The framework agreement on Iran in early April set the scene for a marginally more optimistic start to the conference in late April but not, evidently, sufficient to overcome the serious clash of interests, values and perspectives. Two issues proved particularly contentious.