ABSTRACT
The entire human race-not one territorial constituent of it-must become the conscious beneficiary of all alternative security initiatives. But established and respected procedures for multilateral peacekeeping and for the mediation, conciliation, arbitration, and adjudication of international disputes, preferably within the framework of the United Nations but desirably also at the regional level, would seem nevertheless necessary even if not sufficient for the maintenance of world peace and security. A North Atlantic Treaty Organization-Warsaw Pact non-aggression regime would seem a minimal necessity for a nuclear weapons ban and, indeed, for a post-nuclear security system as a whole. The enforcement of relevant existing international law norms, which interdict virtually any currently planned strategic and tactical use of nuclear weapons, is seriously encumbered by a tradition of political leadership—Machiavellian in character—that typically indulges self-serving interpretations of the legal status of controversial uses of force.
