Jonathan Schell

Ten years after the end of the Cold War, nuclear danger is rising. Despite the end of the struggle in whose name the great nuclear arsenals were built, Washington now seeks to stop proliferation while holding on to its own arsenal indefinitely. But as nuclear restrictions falter -- battered by India's and Pakistan's tests, Iraq's defiance, North Korea's missiles, and the U.S. missile-defense plan -- the absence of a middle ground becomes stark. Holding on to nuclear arms is not a deterrent but a "proliferant" that goads others to join the club. Arms control has become a way of avoiding a fateful choice: a world of uncontrolled proliferation or a world with no nuclear weapons at all.