Fighting Last Year's Virus

With appropriate flourishes in Washington, Moscow and London, the final legalisms of ratification were completed last week for the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Ninety-nine nations have approved or formally ratified the pact. Such states as Nepal, Upper Volta and Laos have agreed with the U.S., Britain and the Soviet Union not to develop nuclear weapons if they do not now have any, or if they do, not to help nuclear have-nots become haves.

The treaty was five years in the making. Today it is something of a letdown. Few question the desirability of a freeze on the number of nuclear powers or a declaration that arms cutbacks are to be sought. But the treaty changes virtually nothing in present big-power relationships, and besides, the biggest threats to peace are not the nuclear policies of Washington and Moscow but regional conflicts like the wars in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Such imbroglios would of course be even more dangerous if the participants had nuclear weapons. But since France and Red China are dead set against the treaty, there is no guarantee that smaller nations will not eventually get the weapons anyway. The treaty thus seems almost on a par with vaccine for last year's strain of flu virus; it makes the world a somewhat more healthful place, but it is far from a sovereign remedy.

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