The United States has an obligation to protect international stability due to its unique military strength.  The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is one of the lynchpins on which the current Western-led international political and diplomatic order is dependent.1,2 Just as any normal legal system requires laws that are predictable and enforceable, so too does the international system. The Non-Proliferation Treaty provides this level of consistency and control over states’ nuclear assets.  In particular, one of those key principles is the assumption that once a country enters a treaty it will abide by its terms. If a country can leave a treaty at will, it means that no policy can be made with any degree of predictability. States are not able to formulate plans for future policies and development strategies if analysts and politicians are prevented from making reliable predictions about neighbouring state’s behaviour, economic policies and territorial ambitions.  This is particularly important with treaties relating to armaments, and of vital importance when it comes to Nuclear Weapons, because other countries choose to participate in military alliances and actions based on such assumptions.  Historically, arms build-ups and wars have occurred when the Great Powers fail to uphold the international legal system – fail to regard it as binding and inherently valuable and consequential. For example Germany’s willingness to disregard Czechoslovakian sovereignty prior to World War II. For that reason the United States has a vested interest in upholding the principles of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This is because the US is the major beneficiary of the present international system, both economically and politically.  Economically, the major loser in any upheaval around the world is almost guaranteed to be the United States or its corporations. However, the political incentives for the USA to continue upholding the non-proliferation treaty- by force if necessary- are far greater. A failure on its part to act will not just lead to nuclear proliferation, but also undermine other treaties banning chemical weapons and guaranteeing human rights as nations’ realize they are only pieces of paper.  1. ‘The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons’, 2005 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), 1 July 1968,   2. Kasprzyk, Nicholas, ‘Nuclear Non-proliferation and Regional Changing Strategic Balances: How Much Will Regional Proliferation Impinge Upon the Future of the NPT?’, in Krause, Joachim and Wenger, Andreas eds., Studies in Contemporary History and Security policy, 2001,