What Future for the NPT?: Scenarios for the Treaty Going Forward

This article examines the durability and fragility of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) through a critical approach to liberal institutionalism and international regime theory. While the NPT has effectively limited nuclear proliferation, it faces growing challenges to its legitimacy and implementation that threaten its long-term resilience. The analysis highlights seven structural challenges: the stagnation of the disarmament agenda, the erosion of verification mechanisms, the underdevelopment of the peaceful uses pillar, decision-making dynamics and institutional paralysis in the NPT review process, persistent legitimacy deficits, the dynamics of multipolarity, and normative fragmentation, especially in light of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). Based on these observations, scenario-based projections are developed for the next ten and twenty years, ranging from incremental reform within the existing framework to deeper fragmentation, new proliferation pressures, or even the consolidation of a multipolar nuclear order. The conclusions suggest that the survival of the NPT will ultimately depend on restoring reciprocity between nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states, addressing concerns about legitimacy, and adapting the institutional design to the new structural realities of the international system.