Nuclear weapons, nuclear powers, arms race, arms control, disarmament: lines are shifting

This article continues the reflection begun in PSEI 9 on the disturbances affecting the nuclear file. Two major contradictory tendencies are increasingly apparent: the growing protest of nuclear weapons and nuclear powers, the result of which was the TIAN, and the widening and intensification of the arms race, the modernization and development of nuclear arsenals. These two trends form the strategic context for the late 2010's. They largely explain the North Korean and Iranian episodes, which represent huge failures from a non-proliferation perspective. These two episodes bear witness to the discord, carried by the arms race, among the States endowed and they fuel it. It is inevitable, under these conditions, that the 'strategic framework' established between the United States and the USSR/Russia, is increasingly delirious and tends to end, which raises the question of finding a successor for it. Another question, which we hardly dare ask, when all the disruptions in succession are doing so, is the future of the NPT. Article published in 'Paix et Securite Europeenne et Internationale' - PSEI, no. 12. Full text available online at: http://revel.unice.fr/psei/index.html?id=2010