As the NPT celebrates its 40th anniversary this week, the non-proliferation regime of which it is part has come under such tremendous strain recently that it might not be salvageable. Strains began to show when India and Pakistan tested nuclear devices in 1998, but the international community led by the United States found that challenge manageable; that same community seems to have no idea of how to respond to newer challenges that have since arisen. North Korea is a nuclear-weapon state while Iran seems to be moving steadfastly in the same direction.

Increasing complicity between the so-called “rogue” states is creating a second-tier of nuclear states that refuse to play by Cold War nuclear norms. Iran may have provided North Korea with data from its missile tests; North Korea in turn may be supplying Iran with engineering suggestions for further testing. It may also be trying to raise hard currency by peddling nuclear missile technology in the global black market. It was already known that the A.Q. Khan network sold uranium enrichment technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya; it now emerges that it may have even sold blueprints for a sophisticated and compact nuclear weapon, though it is not clear who received these blueprints.

The US has repeatedly claimed that it would not tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran or North Korea, but it does not have a clear strategy to deal with either. If nothing is done with regard to Iran and North Korea, other states like Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Taiwan, Japan and Brazil may be tempted to go nuclear. Moreover, when nations are willing to trade their nuclear and missile technologies in the global black market, those technologies might fall into the hands of terrorists.

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