Since the advent of the nuclear age, a great-power monopoly over fissile material and technology has sustained the larger non-proliferation “order”. When this architecture faced threats of sabotage of facilities and theft of materials in the 1990s — “nuclear terrorism” — the US administration’s policy emphasis shifted to “counterproliferation”, a more aggressive form of meeting non-proliferation objectives. It resorted to sanctions, military threats and interdictions to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). These also contributed to the larger War on Terror narrative.

A glance at these counterproliferation policies reveals a paradox. While aimed at dismantling, through force, the alleged nuclear weapons programmes of countries like Iraq and Iran, they failed to prevent North Korea from building a nuclear arsenal. The 2003 military invasion of Iraq was undertaken on the premise that the Saddam Hussein regime intended to rebuild its limited enrichment, reprocessing, and centrifuge facilities. Without hard evidence that Iraq planned to develop nuclear weapons, the US-led coalition launched a bombing campaign. The 2001 terror attacks in New York provided the pretext for what was essentially a regime-change operation.

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