A New Nuclear Age: An Exclusionary Global Order?

Abstract

The global nuclear power play seems to be changing form and altering courses with each passing day. The world has realised the enormous destructive potential of nuclear weapons and has even made reasonable room for curbing and containing their use in the past.
However, whether or not the world leaders today continue to share this wisdom is a matter of contention, as well as high concern. The recently concluded 72nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) witnessed the world leaders discussing some of the most pertinent nuclear issues; however, there was no visible cohesion in their policy narratives, nor any international wisdom in their approach to these problems. The recently adopted Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, on the other hand, failed to see the participation of any nuclear weapon State, or even those States within their broad umbrellas; while the Middle East once again seems to be mired in a fresh crisis, with the Iran Nuclear Deal on the verge of being de-certified and the possibility of Iran no longer being bound by its mandates. This paper attempts to analyse in brief these issues and a few more, and to bring forth the glaring discrepancies in the way they are being dealt with by the global actors.