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One reflection on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: Every year that I teach my nuclear history course, I have the students do a mock-NPT treaty exercise (instead of a midterm, because I hate grading tests). (thread)
In the exercise (which I'm happy to send copies of to other academics who are interested), the students role-play as a few of the key countries who were involved in the NPT negotiations, based roughly on Mohamed Shaker's history of the NPT.
Each of the "delegations" are given talking points and ultimatums from their heads of state, reflecting the real-world positions of the countries in 1968. (Usually the ones I use are US, USSR, UK, Ireland, India, Brazil, Egypt, Poland, and Mexico, which give a lot of options.)
And the delegations are given a few options in how they construct their treaty that reflect some of the issues of 1968, e.g., Does basing of weapons in a foreign nation count as proliferation? What do the non-nuclear countries get in exchange for signing? Etc.
Anyway, things are weighted (in the "secret" memos to the delegation) so that MOST of the time the end result is pretty similar to the final NPT — it is one of the possible ways to reconcile enough of the different requirements to get a majority vote.
But there are deliberately some choices that, if they align in the right way, can produce a different treaty. And if that happens, then often things (again, deliberately) will go off the rails — e.g., the US won't be able to sign it, which triggers the USSR to not sign it.
At the end of the exercise, we have a "debriefing" where we talk about how it went and how it compared to the actual history. And when it goes off the rails, the students often want to know how "realistic" a possibility that would have been.
And the answer is simple: pretty realistic! In fact, it is what happened *every other time* a similar treaty was proposed, prior to 1968 (Ireland started pushing for a treaty of this sort over a decade before). There was nothing fated about what happened in 1968.
Such is the nature of treaties and diplomacy. After the fact it is easy to say, "of course it had to work out that way." But in reality these things are always tetchy at the time. And hardly obviously successful from the first day.
Even the NPT had MANY non-signatories originally. Including three nuclear nations (China, France, Israel) and several emerging nuclear powers (Brazil, Argentina, India). It took until the 1990s until it really became more of an absolute "norm" to be a NPT member state.pic.twitter.com/oA5wYx8uVP
The students always rate it highly in their evals. Not just because they are not taking a test, I think, but because it gives them a first-hand glimpse into how tricky diplomacy is, how contingent history is, and how even iron-clad norms take decades to really evolve.
Anyway. Happy 50th birthday, NPT! You're not perfect, but what product of true diplomacy really is? Let's hope you still have some good years left in you.
I would LOVE more info on this assignment. Can I DM you my email?
Send me an e-mail (wellerstein@gmail.com) and I'll send you a copy.
Thank you so much! Email sent.
What if... You add a "whistleblower" stage in which the secret government instructions are leaked to all?
Thoughtful tweet. Would you consider doing exploring SALT, the world’s first strategic arms limitation treaty, instigated by the US during a highly dangerous period of the Cold War?
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