On May 8 an American citizen with alleged ties to the al-Qaeda terror network was arrested on suspicion of plotting to build and detonate a radioactive "dirty" bomb in the United States. On May 31, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda of Japan -- the emotional touchstone of antinuclear sentiments for having been the only country to suffer atomic-bomb attacks -- provoked an uproar by suggesting that Japan's ban on nuclear weapons could be reviewed. Over the same period, India and Pakistan raised the risk of a nuclear war to the greatest level since the U.S.-Russia Cuban Missile crisis of 1962.
Contemplation of these three alarms make it worth our while to examine the merits of setting up an international commission to propose a results-based set of measures to deal with the problem.
In retrospect, 1996 was the zenith of progress on arms control. The nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, or NPT, was indefinitely extended in 1995; the World Court affirmed the NPT's disarmament obligations in July 1996; and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, or CTBT, was approved in September. Unfortunately, events over the next six years dashed hopes for meaningful progress.