The failure of the Bush administration to exercise leadership at the recently concluded Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) conference is stunning – emblematic of its wider failure to generate sustained cooperation to address global threats.

America’s "no show" in New York is puzzling at many levels. First, it is puzzling because the administration has argued that nuclear proliferation is the preeminent security threat of our age. Indeed, they may be right – the world is staring at a dangerous new wave of nuclear proliferation in the Near and Far East. So why not take advantage of a rare opportunity to focus the efforts of the world on precisely this problem? Second, it is puzzling because Bush administration officials are actively using NPT commitments as a tool to pressure Iran and other states not to cross the nuclear threshold. President Bush did so again last Tuesday at a news conference in claiming that the Iranians "violated the NPT agreement." So why undermine the clarity and strength of NPT rules and universal expectations precisely when you need them as a benchmark for non-proliferation diplomacy? Third, it is puzzling because the NPT itself has been remarkably successful. The NPT is second only to the UN Charter in the number of participating member states. It enshrines rules and norms that directly advance America’s national security. The NPT provided the framework for the remarkable decisions by South Africa, Brazil, Argentina, Ukraine and Kazakhstan to give up nuclear military ambitions. If the United States wants to seriously prevent a new round of proliferation, it will need to use the political bargains, compliance commitments, and inspection mechanisms that are embedded in the NPT. So why not build up rather than tear down its treaty-based authority? Puzzles, puzzles.

The 1970 NPT entails a bargain between nuclear and non-nuclear states. Non-nuclear states agree to forgo nuclear weapons and to accept safeguards that nuclear materials are not diverted to weapons from non-military programs. In return, nuclear states agree to assist non-nuclear countries with the development of nuclear energy, to make good faith efforts to end and reverse the nuclear arms race, and to foreswear the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states that are party to the treaty. In these ways, NPT states assume obligations but they get enhanced security in return.

Thirty-five years later, this basic bargain is still a good one for states on both sides of the nuclear divide. But the Bush administration has shown little respect for the responsibilities and obligations that are integral to its logic. Rather than reduce the role of nuclear weapons in its security policies, as mandated in the treaty, it has expanded them. Commitments made in the 2000 review of the NPT – to seek activation of the nuclear test ban treaty and negotiate a verifiable treaty to ban production of bomb materials – have been disregarded by the Bush administration. Also, the Defense Department’s 2002 Nuclear Posture Review announced that the U.S. would create new options for the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states, including preemptive attacks using "bunker busting" nukes against biological or chemical weapons capabilities. To make matters worse, the administration’s 2002 National Security Report famously proclaimed an American right to preemptive – even preventive – action in the face of anticipated threats. As a result, the negative security guarantees that are part of the NPT’s underlying political bargain are weakened. Moreover, in the background, the rise of what scholars call American "unipolarity" has made the exercise of power by Washington more worrisome and controversial in various corners of the world. The United States commands roughly 50 percent of world military expenditures. It has a quasi-monopoly on the projection of force world-wide. Other states worry about how the Bush administration will use America’s power advantages. Nuclear deterrence is perhaps the ultimate protection against a unipolar state that speaks openly about solving its security problems through regime change. Countries such as North Korea and Iran are despotic states that both frighten their neighbors and are themselves deeply worried about regime survival. In all these ways, the old NPT bargain is more fragile than ever before.

The point is that to get other states to forgo nuclear weapons, the United States and the other nuclear powers have to make good on their negative security assurances. They need to credibly establish that they will not exploit their nuclear military advantages or pursue offensive policies that would lead non-nuclear states to scramble to acquire a nuclear deterrent. The United States has a keen security interest in seeing that other states do not divert civilian nuclear energy programs into military weapons programs. As time goes on, it will increasingly need international monitoring capacities (read the IAEA) to be able to monitor and verify compliance. But to gain the willing compliance of other states, the United States will need to make good on its part of the bargain – signaling its commitment to reduce its dependence on nuclear weapons and to provide guarantees to non-nuclear states.

Ivo argued in an earlier post that the Bush administration’s neglect of the NPT reflects a preference for regime change over treaties and negotiation as a solution of problems of WMD. This is probably true. But this ideological preference does not come with a workable strategy or even a glimmer of a possibility of success. Quite the contrary – the Iraq debacle has shown the limits of the regime change option. It is ugly, dangerous, costly, and – under any imaginable circumstance – doomed to fail.

The question is not whether the United States will return to the logic of the NPT as a way to counter the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The question is when – and it looks like the moment will come only after the Bush administration leaves Washington.