ABSTRACT
An arms control regime is more dangerous, some analysts argue, than no control regime at all. The regime will enjoy misplaced confidence, and states will be lulled into taking inadequate measures for their security. One form of the argument for zero nuclear weapons (ZNWs) "nonenforceability" is that defecting states have successfully escaped from strictures of prior arms control agreements. These cases contribute to design of a robust ZNW regime, if ways can be devised to make it less vulnerable to similar evasions. Abolition requires both politics—collective consideration and action as part of normal relations—and institutions through which security can be maintained even if agreement fails. What makes an abolition agreement worth seeking is, by this logic, exactly the possibility that it could prove unenforceable. The decisive barrier to a nuclear device—not having fissile material—must be jealously guarded.
