ABSTRACT
When the third conference to review the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) convenes in Geneva this September, the halls and headlines will be filled with acrimony. Diplomats from nonnuclear-weapons states will charge the superpowers with discrimination, hypocrisy, and failure to live up to their commitments to disarm. Should this drama be taken seriously? No and yes. Excessive rhetoric is a hallmark of such conferences, and it will not necessarily signify an imminent collapse of the treaty. Yet these charges underscore a more basic, longrun security problem that the superpowers have tended to neglect in recent years and that could lead to the failure of the NPT when it comes up for renewal in 1995.
