The Obama administration has celebrated its recent efforts to sign a nuclear-weapons accord with Russia and the hosting of a nuclear non-proliferation summit in Washington — all silhouetted against grandiose promises to seek the end of all nuclear weapons on the planet. But from all this, what real progress exactly have we made toward ensuring a world safer from the specter of nuclear annihilation? Aside from the wording of proposed treaties and proclamations, what are the larger philosophical assumptions behind the new utopian approach to non-proliferation?

First, nuclear weapons per se — regrettable though they may be — are not exactly the problem. None of us is terrified that a democratic Britain, France, Israel, or India possesses them. While we might prefer that major autocracies like China and Russia were not nuclear, we do not at present fret about a first strike from either, given that both are invested in, and profit from, the global system of trade and commerce — and, in their more aggressive moments, are subject to classical laws of deterrence.