Since the advent of the nuclear age, a great-power monopoly over fissile material and technology has sustained the larger non-proliferation “order”. When this architecture faced threats of sabotage of facilities and theft of materials in the 1990s — “nuclear terrorism” — the US administration’s policy emphasis shifted to “counterproliferation”, a more aggressive form of meeting non-proliferation objectives. It resorted to sanctions, military threats and interdictions to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). These also contributed to the larger War on Terror narrative. A glance at these counterproliferation policies reveals a paradox. While aimed at dismantling, through force, the alleged nuclear weapons programmes of countries like Iraq and Iran, they failed to prevent North Korea from building a nuclear arsenal.…