Strategic Assessment

In the spring of 2006, the United States delegation to the Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva presented a draft text of a mandate for an ad hoc committee to negotiate a treaty, a “Ban on the Production of Fissile Material for Nuclear Weapons or Other Nuclear Explosive Devices.” With this proposed mandate, the US delegation presented a draft text proposal for the treaty. However, this is not a new topic for the CD, since the issue has been raised in the past. The following article presents a brief history of the Fissile Materials Cutoff Treaty (FMCT), a discussion of the US draft texts, the position of the proponents and opponents of the treaty, including Israel, the situation in the spring of 2007, and some outlook for the future.