Sixty years ago, the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, followed by one on Nagasaki three days later. The killing and injuring of hundreds of thousands of people ushered in an age that threatened nuclear annihilation. Since the East-West confrontation ended 15 years ago, the world has tended to move away from the risk of a major nuclear conflagration, yet it remains far from eliminating nuclear weapons. Rather, in the past couple of years, the world has suffered setbacks even in its endeavors to curtail their spread.
A series of events have hampered antinuclear moves. For example, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty review conference failed, and North Korea and Iran have been pushing their own nuclear programs. Their development efforts may not yet be at the stage of producing large bombs, but it has reached the extent where they worry their neighbors and destabilize regional peace.
The NPT review conference held in New York in May did not produce any agreement to further strengthen the NPT regime because of a rift between nuclear and nonnuclear-weapons states. While nonnuclear-weapons states insisted that nuclear-weapons states cut their nuclear arsenals and refrain from developing new nuclear weapons, the latter, in particular the United States, demanded that the NPT member countries focus on the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea. The failure of the review does not necessarily mean the collapse of the NPT regime, but it is certain that it has weakened the momentum of efforts to rid the world of nuclear threats.