FOR years the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty has been moribund. Under the 1968 agreement, states with nuclear weapons must disarm while nations without such weapons can only build civil nuclear reactors. But progress on disarmament has ground to a halt, and the treaty has failed to cope with countries that created nuclear arsenals after 1968, such as Israel, Pakistan and India, or with North Korea, which pulled out of the NPT in 2003.
This week’s accord between US President George Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to begin trading in civil nuclear technology looks certain to shake the NPT and other nuclear control agreements to their…
