As the United Nations conducts its five year review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Secretary of State John Kerry and Energy Secretary Earnest Moniz said it remains “at the heart of the global effort to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, and it has helped keep the world safe for 45 years.” The following are excerpts from their joint op-ed in Foreign Policy.
The NPT is elegant in its simplicity: Under the treaty, parties that do not possess nuclear weapons agree to forego them, parties that possess nuclear weapons agree to work in good faith toward nuclear disarmament, and all parties are able to access peaceful nuclear benefits like nuclear medicine and energy.Nearly every country in the world has joined the NPT. The treaty is the irreplaceable foundation for international efforts to achieve the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons, a goal repeatedly affirmed by President Barack Obama as part of his ambitious Prague agenda.
The NPT opened the door to reducing the world’s stockpiles of nuclear weapons — and reducing the threat of nuclear war. Since the United States signed the NPT in 1968, we have cut our nuclear arsenal by almost 85 percent. Through 20-plus years of cooperation with Russia, together we turned the equivalent of 20,000 Soviet nuclear warheads into energy that is lighting homes and offices across America.
The barriers to proliferation are strong and growing stronger. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) plays an essential role in verifying that nuclear energy programs remain peaceful. The organization will be critical to verifying Iran’s compliance under any final understanding and monitoring the means adopted to prevent Iran from acquiring or misusing technologies and materials that could be used to secretly to build a bomb.
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The United States knows that future nuclear reductions will require enhanced verification methods and that all nations share the responsibility to identify and develop them. We recently started the International Partnership for Nuclear Disarmament Verification, which will bring countries together to develop the best techniques and tools for monitoring nuclear stockpiles at lower numbers.
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Through word and deed, the United States is fighting nuclear dangers across the board, but there is still much to do. Reducing and eventually eliminating the nuclear threat will never be easy, but the NPT is our best tool in this fight. The accord represents a heroic, if quiet, triumph of pragmatic cooperation to protect the world from nuclear dangers while promoting the safe, peaceful uses of the atom that can benefit mankind.
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