Thanks for the citation, Hassan. Since you bring up rights of reply, I'll mention my earlier post comparing the Review Conference to the Seinfeldian holiday Festivus (https://markwgoodman.substack.com/p/multilateral-diplomacy-as-festivus). I'm keeping a list of who's naughty and who's nice, but it's all provisional until the conference ends. So far China is at the top of my naughty list, particularly with its gratuitous and factually challenged attack on Japan. China's working paper about Japan is atrocious.
Before I arrange to have this message (below) delivered to the NPT RevCON delegates, I would appreciate some feedback from other experienced NPT "lobbyists". Please respond.
AT
Dear delegate,
After the closing gavel bangs, as you walk out of the conference hall, you may well feel four weeks of your life have been squandered. Rightly so.
The question you need to ponder -- deeply -- is whether, five years from now, you will participate in yet another RevCon charade. You needn't.
There are alternatives to the NPT review process. None of them are easy; none of them guarantee success. But resorting to them relentlessly would send a powerful signal that inertia-as-usual is no longer acceptable.
That is a signal to which people everywhere are primed to respond, including -- or rather, especially -- in the so-called nuclear-weapon states and their complicit allies. And it is that response which provides the greatest hope of diplomatic headway.
It was precisely this interaction between daring diplomacy and dogged public activism that achieved the breakthroughs to prohibitions on nuclear weapon testing in 1963 (partial) and 1996 (comprehensive). The time is ripe for its application to the elimination of:
-- the discriminatory aspects of the NPT,
-- threats to initiate nuclear war, and finally
-- the possession of nuclear weapons.
None of the above can be accomplished via the NPT review process. None. It will only be achieved when the activism of diplomats coordinates with the activism of citizens. Specifically, diplomats uncompromised by nuclear weapon addiction and clear-headed citizens in countries whose leadership is addicted to nuclear weapons.
When this addiction is forthrightly -- "progressively and systematically" -- addressed -- call it "tough love: --the world will truly be on course to the establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free world.
So, shake off the gloom, lift up your spirits: there is work to be done. If you are up for it, we have serious, well-developed proposals for relentless, inspiring action. We look forward to a fruitful collaboration between now and 2045, by which time (if not sooner) the last remaining nuclear weapons shall be dismantled.
Hi Aaron, I'm not going to respond in detail. I'll just say I have a different perspective on the value of the NPT (high) as compared with its review process (medium to low). I spelled this out an article in the Bulletin last year (https://thebulletin.org/2025/08/common-misconceptions-about-the-npt-a-practitioners-guide/). The NPT is as important in periods of retrenchment and backsliding as it is in times of real progress. Without it, the essential goal of preventing nuclear war would only be harder.
Mark, you have set up a false choice: NPT or no NPT. The better alternative is a transformed NPT. Perhaps you discount the possibility of achieving that, if so, please say why. Many US commentators discounted the goal of a multilateral comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty, plugging instead for a plurilateral low threshold treaty. While the CTBT has yet to enter into force, it has set a standard and established verification mechanism that are working. (Even in the face of bogus violation claims.) The same is possible regarding the acquisition of nuclear weapons.
In short it is good that the NPT exists -- despite its feeble review process -- because it provides, for those with the political will to exploit it, the material for transformational improvement. Can we count on you? Aaron
As a former practitioner of NPT diplomacy, I have an aversion to certain ways of speaking about the NPT. I’m all for doing more to build on the foundation of the NPT, but would not call that transforming the NPT. That wording puts unrealistic pressures and expectations on the NPT and its dysfunctional review process. What’s needed is new initiatives, building on but separate from the NPT. I suspect that’s what you have in mind as well.
You suspect correctly. But keep in mind that the review process is not the only multilateral process in the treaty.
"Unrealistic" is a loaded term. Is it realistic or unrealistic to believe that the NPT framework can continue, basically as is, indefinitely without courting nuclear catastrophe some sad day? What I find most disturbing is pervasive complacency. It's time to start rattling the cage.
Thanks for the citation, Hassan. Since you bring up rights of reply, I'll mention my earlier post comparing the Review Conference to the Seinfeldian holiday Festivus (https://markwgoodman.substack.com/p/multilateral-diplomacy-as-festivus). I'm keeping a list of who's naughty and who's nice, but it's all provisional until the conference ends. So far China is at the top of my naughty list, particularly with its gratuitous and factually challenged attack on Japan. China's working paper about Japan is atrocious.
Before I arrange to have this message (below) delivered to the NPT RevCON delegates, I would appreciate some feedback from other experienced NPT "lobbyists". Please respond.
AT
Dear delegate,
After the closing gavel bangs, as you walk out of the conference hall, you may well feel four weeks of your life have been squandered. Rightly so.
The question you need to ponder -- deeply -- is whether, five years from now, you will participate in yet another RevCon charade. You needn't.
There are alternatives to the NPT review process. None of them are easy; none of them guarantee success. But resorting to them relentlessly would send a powerful signal that inertia-as-usual is no longer acceptable.
That is a signal to which people everywhere are primed to respond, including -- or rather, especially -- in the so-called nuclear-weapon states and their complicit allies. And it is that response which provides the greatest hope of diplomatic headway.
It was precisely this interaction between daring diplomacy and dogged public activism that achieved the breakthroughs to prohibitions on nuclear weapon testing in 1963 (partial) and 1996 (comprehensive). The time is ripe for its application to the elimination of:
-- the discriminatory aspects of the NPT,
-- threats to initiate nuclear war, and finally
-- the possession of nuclear weapons.
None of the above can be accomplished via the NPT review process. None. It will only be achieved when the activism of diplomats coordinates with the activism of citizens. Specifically, diplomats uncompromised by nuclear weapon addiction and clear-headed citizens in countries whose leadership is addicted to nuclear weapons.
When this addiction is forthrightly -- "progressively and systematically" -- addressed -- call it "tough love: --the world will truly be on course to the establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free world.
So, shake off the gloom, lift up your spirits: there is work to be done. If you are up for it, we have serious, well-developed proposals for relentless, inspiring action. We look forward to a fruitful collaboration between now and 2045, by which time (if not sooner) the last remaining nuclear weapons shall be dismantled.
Hi Aaron, I'm not going to respond in detail. I'll just say I have a different perspective on the value of the NPT (high) as compared with its review process (medium to low). I spelled this out an article in the Bulletin last year (https://thebulletin.org/2025/08/common-misconceptions-about-the-npt-a-practitioners-guide/). The NPT is as important in periods of retrenchment and backsliding as it is in times of real progress. Without it, the essential goal of preventing nuclear war would only be harder.
Mark, you have set up a false choice: NPT or no NPT. The better alternative is a transformed NPT. Perhaps you discount the possibility of achieving that, if so, please say why. Many US commentators discounted the goal of a multilateral comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty, plugging instead for a plurilateral low threshold treaty. While the CTBT has yet to enter into force, it has set a standard and established verification mechanism that are working. (Even in the face of bogus violation claims.) The same is possible regarding the acquisition of nuclear weapons.
In short it is good that the NPT exists -- despite its feeble review process -- because it provides, for those with the political will to exploit it, the material for transformational improvement. Can we count on you? Aaron
As a former practitioner of NPT diplomacy, I have an aversion to certain ways of speaking about the NPT. I’m all for doing more to build on the foundation of the NPT, but would not call that transforming the NPT. That wording puts unrealistic pressures and expectations on the NPT and its dysfunctional review process. What’s needed is new initiatives, building on but separate from the NPT. I suspect that’s what you have in mind as well.
You suspect correctly. But keep in mind that the review process is not the only multilateral process in the treaty.
"Unrealistic" is a loaded term. Is it realistic or unrealistic to believe that the NPT framework can continue, basically as is, indefinitely without courting nuclear catastrophe some sad day? What I find most disturbing is pervasive complacency. It's time to start rattling the cage.
Hi Aaron, I'd love to continue the conversation in private, but at this point I'll just sum up by saying the NPT is necessary but not sufficient.
Me, too! aaron.tovish@gmail.com