Western policy on nuclear proliferation will inevitably shift from containment to accommodation

Evidence

In 1993 the primary goals of the West, as defined in American policy, shifted from nonproliferation to counterproliferation. This change was a realistic recognition of the extent to which some nuclear proliferation could not be avoided. In due course, U.S. policy will shift from countering proliferation to accommodating proliferation and, if the government can escape from its Cold War mind-set, to how promoting proliferation can serve U.S. and Western interests. As of 1995, however, the United States and the West remained committed to a hold-down policy which, in the end, is bound to fail. The proliferation of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction is a central phenomenon of the slow but ineluctable diffusion of power in a multicivilizational world. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 512

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Kissinger-era realpolitik and the broader international-relations theme that great powers eventually accommodate rather than prevent new nuclear states.
• SEED: Angle: ‘the counterproliferation myth’ — why great powers always eventually legitimize the bombs they once tried to stop, from Pakistan to North Korea.