Eight Lost Years? Nixon, Ford, Kissinger and the Non-Proliferation Regime, 1969–1977

Abstract

The years following the signature of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1968 have generally been seen as a period of neglect in US non-proliferation policy. While joining recent scholarship questioning this, the article also shows that the policies that emerged from the Nixon–Ford years were the product of a broad range of factors that constrained both the United States’ ability and willingness to build an effective non-proliferation regime. These included the Nixon administration’s initial skepticism regarding the NPT, as well as the global dispersion of power away from the US, combined with the continued importance of anti-Soviet containment.