The Disarmament Sculpture outside the UN building, New York. Luke Redmond/Flickr. Some rights reserved.To the vast majority of people 'disarmament' may sound like an ancient practice that Cold War rivals developed to maintain the balance of power. The concept itself has fallen into abeyance as it has failed to remain high on the agenda of policy-makers. Now considered to be a second-class issue, disarmament affairs rarely attract society’s attention and top officials usually prefer to put them on the back burner and focus on issues deemed more pressing.
The 2015 Review Conference of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) held at the United Nations in New York this year mirrored particularly well this profound malaise at all levels in disarmament affairs.
Sliding backwards?
Weapon modernization has become synonymous with 'national security'. US Air Force/Flickr. Some rights reserved.If it were only about the present lack of political will to put diplomatic muscle behind action points, it would not be of great concern – as reluctance to constrain national armed forces and aversion to changes that might affect national military capabilities have always been states’ main reasons to slow down, if not derail, any progress in disarmament. But what is more worrying than the predictable and expected stalemate in disarmament affairs, is that the international community seems to have engaged in a dangerous backwards slide.
