Many of the clearest risks of conflict, violence and instability around the world have received widespread media attention. But a variety of other risks and threats have been smoldering quietly. The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) is engaged in a variety of peacebuilding and conflict management efforts in many of the countries where these lesser-known risks are emerging. In a series of articles, the Institute examines some of these “sleeper risks” through the analytical lens of USIP experts. | Read more about USIP’s series on sleeper risks

The nuclear challenges posed by North Korea and Iran have become perennial national security issues for the United States and other countries. Years of diplomatic effort, along with United Nations condemnation and economic sanctions, have not led North Korea to make the decision to abandon nuclear weapons. Nor have they steered Iran away from suspect activities that are widely seen as steps toward the development of a nuclear weapons capability.

The striking lack of progress on both fronts receives plenty of attention, but less noticed is the slower-moving, corrosive effect on the global nuclear nonproliferation regime. The damage to the nonproliferation regime could make it harder for states of good will to continue their cooperative efforts; it is also likely to prompt some destabilizing actions by some countries that feel the need to respond to a more dangerous strategic environment. Just when such reactions might occur is unclear, but some of the early moves could come in 2013 or not long thereafter, according to two arms control specialists at USIP.

“The nonproliferation regime could crumble a whole lot more in the coming year. Time is working against us,” said Michael Lekson, director of gaming for the Academy for International Conflict Management and Peacebuilding and a former deputy assistant secretary of state for arms control.

The bedrock of that regime is the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which came into force in 1970. It has 190 members. All are barred from having nuclear weapons except for five officially recognized weapons states: the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, and France. Those five states are obliged by the treaty to pursue nuclear reductions and, ultimately, disarmament. All NPT states complying with its other provisions are free to develop peaceful nuclear programs within the treaty’s safeguards.

The NPT itself provides what Lekson calls “the whole basis of arms control, putting a cap on the nuclear weapons threat.”  It was only after the NPT was in place that Washington and Moscow began to negotiate limits on their nuclear weaponry, leading in time to dramatic reductions from their Cold War levels.  The NPT also led to the international agreements banning chemical and biological weapons.

Only three nuclear-capable countries have not ever been NPT members: South Asian rivals India and Pakistan, as well as Israel. North Korea was a member but withdrew in 2003 after ordering out inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which polices the NPT. It has since conducted two nuclear test blasts and is threatening a third. It has also conducted a successful test launch of a ballistic rocket.

Iran remains a member, but it is in violation of IAEA and United Nations Security Council demands for full cooperation and access to its nuclear facilities, some of which are suspected of hosting research related to the bomb construction. Despite technical problems, Iran has been building its stockpile of enriched uranium and its capacity to produce more. Such fuel could be further enriched to a level where it could be used in weapons.

On Iran, Lekson and fellow USIP arms control veteran Bruce MacDonald, the senior director of the Nonproliferation and Arms Control Program with USIP’s Office of Special Initiatives, are concerned about steps by countries in the region to hedge their bets against a possible Iranian nuclear breakout, what MacDonald calls “just-in-case steps.” They could include such moves as ramping up a “peaceful” nuclear program modeled on Iran’s or undertaking covert, exploratory dealings with the nuclear black market. “A lot of people are going to start saying that Iran has a virtual nuclear capability in the next year or two,” said MacDonald, who has served as a National Security Council staff member and State Department official. Countries such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt have been cited by analysts in the past as among those in the region that might want to take steps toward a weapons capability in this kind of scenario.

On North Korea, further developments could also put more pressure on the non-nuclear commitments of South Korea and Japan. Pyongyang’s successful multistage rocket test in December was condemned by the U.N. Security Council on January 22, and further sanctions were authorized. But the North Korean launch demonstrated significant technical advances on multistage ballistic rocketry– a prerequisite for developing ballistic missiles capable of striking the United States. Lekson and MacDonald, among others, are watching for signs that the North is also able to make progress on miniaturizing nuclear warheads to the point that they could be mounted atop ballistic missiles—“marrying” a lighter warhead with a more capable, longer-range missile.

If North Korean and perhaps Iranian nuclear weapons become a permanent feature of the strategic landscape, despite sanctions, diplomacy and U.N. resolutions, the NPT will clearly have failed, not once but twice. Other states are likely to respond, perhaps including quiet steps to edge into activities that could support nuclear weapons production. “You could have the next Hugo Chavez deciding to ramp up a new nuclear weapons program,” said Lekson.

Moreover, nuclear states like Russia and China, Lekson says, might become more reluctant to embrace further arms control measures that limit their own capabilities. Russia is already showing reluctance to negotiate further nuclear reductions, due both to its interest in preserving its substantial tactical nuclear arsenal and to its stated concerns about U.S. missile defense programs, Lekson and MacDonald point out. New moves toward the proliferation of nuclear weapons, they say, could well harden Russian resistance to further cuts in its own arsenal.

At the same time, the lack of progress on key arms control measures has been gnawing away at the strength of the nonproliferation system. The prospect of a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) helped convince many countries to agree to an indefinite extension of the NPT in 1995, and it was made a formal part of the NPT work program. The CTBT was negotiated and signed by all nuclear or nuclear-capable states except India, Pakistan and North Korea. But it has not entered into force because not all have ratified it—including the United States, where it was defeated in the U.S. Senate in 1999. Efforts to negotiate a cutoff of the production of fissile material – another key part of the NPT work program –have also been blocked, first by China and now by Pakistan, which is currently producing more fissile material and nuclear weapons than any other country.

Meanwhile, the technologies to manufacture fissile material—enriching uranium or reprocessing plutonium—have continued to spread in an era where some terrorist groups have shown interest in gaining access to nuclear materials. The international review conference on the NPT set for 2015 may be left to paint a rather bleak picture—“no progress on any front,” as Lekson says.

MacDonald likens the accumulating troubles for nuclear nonproliferation to “a once mostly quiet volcano that’s starting to rumble.”

The USIP specialists believe that there is no good alternative to renewing international efforts to strengthen the NPT—with leadership from the United States.

“The NPT is like a bicycle. If you don’t move forward, you can fall over,” said Lekson. “If in the future North Korea and likely Iran are seen to have ridden that bicycle to the point where they possess the very weapons that the treaty is designed to keep them from having—and to have gotten away with it—the treaty and the credibility of the whole nonproliferation regime will be undercut.”

“Nonproliferation has always been the ultimate nonpartisan issue,” adds Lekson. “The NPT was negotiated by a Democratic administration and ratified by a Republican one, with strong bipartisan support in the Senate. Preserving the NPT and the regime that it underpins is not something the U.S. can do on its own, but without American leadership it won’t happen at all.”

Explore Further

• Academy for International Conflict Management and Peacebuilding
• Assessing North Korea’s Missile Launch
• Looking Back on the Cuban Missile Crisis, 50 Years Later
• North Korea’s Nuclear Threats Resume
• "Detect, Dismantle, and Disarm: IAEA Verification, 1992-2005"

Read Features in This Series

• Syria: Regional Fallout from the Civil War (January 29, 2013)
• The Israeli-Palestinian Standoff: More Risks Emerging (February 5, 2013)
• Jordan Election Turnout Masks Risk of Shaky Economy and King’s Restive Base (February 7, 2013)
• Sudan: Economic Pressures Building (February 12, 2013)
• South Sudan: Undemocratic Tendencies on the Rise (February 14, 2013)
• Pakistan’s Militant, Nuclear Threats Mask Underlying Risk: Water (February 19, 2013)
• Afghanistan Land Conflicts Pit Nomads Against Villagers, Power Brokers Against Each Other (February 21, 2013)