[spopejoy]

Non-proliferation treaties were a thing until the US decided not to play ball in the 90s. It is entirely feasible to conceive of nuclear containment via treaties, and indeed the world was headed in this direction after the cold war.

It doesn't help that any nuclear plant can make a "dirty bomb" btw, which is one more reason to be anti-nuclear. No nukes, no nuke weapons. Not a bad tradeoff all by itself. (And yes, such bans can be enforced, look no further than Iran's difficulty getting nuclear power going).

[dragonwriter]

> Non-proliferation treaties were a thing until the US decided not to play ball in the 90s.

The Non-Proliferation Treaty is still a thing, and the US still plays ball with it.

Arms limitation treaties were an important thing until the US scrapped the ABM Treaty in 2002, followed almost immediately by Russia dumping START II, which is the closest real thing I can think of to what you said, differing in the kind of treaty involved and the decade the wheels came off.

[spopejoy]

It's oversimplifying a lot to say Russia "dumped START II" given the dishonesty surrounding US nukes in Europe at the time. NATO's "nuclear sharing" makes a mockery of NPT. There's the USs historic support of Israel not joining NPT. And so on ... the US is not serious about non-proliferation, to say the very least.

[dragonwriter]

> It's oversimplifying a lot to say Russia "dumped START II"

It is perfectly accurate to say that they did so (and that it was a direct response to the US withdrawing from the ABM Treaty.)

> NATO's "nuclear sharing" makes a mockery of NPT

NATO’s nuclear sharing agreements predate the NPT, and no new ones have been entered since the NPT, and the continuation of the existing ones is consistent with the NPT.