ABSTRACT
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the broader nonproliferation regime it anchors are widely thought to be facing a moment of truth. This chapter reviews the central features of the first nuclear era and the significant developments marking the emergence of the second nuclear era. It describes the paradigmatic challenge emerging from the Bush administration's nonproliferation policy initiatives. The chapter concludes that neither the prevailing nor the challenging paradigms adequately suit the nature of nuclear dangers in the second nuclear era, and calls instead for the articulation of a third paradigm retaining nonproliferation, arms control and disarmament (NACD) prioritization and multilateral consensus-building approaches but incorporating due attention to broader political contexts at both regime-specific and regional security levels. The end of the Cold War relieved many nuclear dangers and so brought encouraging progress in fulfilling the practical and normative NACD goals defining the NPT regime.
