The nuclear non-proliferation regime is a global framework of norms, practices, and diplomatic agreements — underpinned by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) — designed to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. The regime has had both failures and successes over the decades. Perhaps the biggest challenge in recent years came from Iran. The country’s nuclear activities raised international concern, prompting diplomatic, economic, and covert efforts to constrain it. Iran is a signatory to the NPT and has argued that it was not pursuing a nuclear weapon but rather engaging in legitimate civilian nuclear activities. However, its activities prompted suspicions that it was seeking to become a threshold state that possesses the ability to quickly develop a nuclear weapon if the government felt it was necessary.In June 2025, despite ongoing talks with Iran, the United States and Israel launched airstrikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities. The current conflict, which began on Feb. 28, goes far beyond those targets, but American and Israeli leaders have listed destroying Iran’s nuclear program among their key reasons for going to war. We asked four experts to consider how the war might affect the nuclear non-proliferation regime.Read more below.Ankit Panda Stanton Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Host of War on the Rocks’ Thinking the Unthinkable podcastThis war will not succeed in the complete elimination of Iran’s capacity to seek nuclear weapons. In the short term, the key concern will be whether the political effects of this war within Iran — paired with substantial attrition of the country’s conventional deterrent capabilities — will prompt Tehran to seek the bomb. In the longer term, this war will allow the seeds sown after the 12-Day War — the idea that only nuclear weapons can deter strategic attacks — to germinate in
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