In a prescient Foreign Affairs article published in 1961, Fred Charles Iklé succinctly asked, “After Detection—What?” In doing so, Iklé, who would soon be appointed to the directorship of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, highlighted what would become one of the fundamental and much neglected aspects of the international nonproliferation regime—that of detection. Today, that deceptively simple and direct question is more pertinent than ever before when evaluating dilemmas faced by the nonproliferation regime.

Then, as now, a disproportionate amount of attention was lavished on the technical attributes of detection, which came to dominate not only the domestic debate, but also the international one. Focusing almost solely on detecting breaches of nuclear agreements or treaties, however, is not a sufficient undertaking. As Lawrence Scheinman and William Potter emphasize (“The Nuclear Conundrum,” Winter 2005) a critical factor must be “an awareness of the interrelated nature of political leadership, robust verification safeguards, and strong institutional arrangements.”

To adapt to potential violators, it is important to harness the synergies derived from combining the above tools. Implicit to this task is realizing that the risk of detection by itself will not deter a potential violation. From a violator’s perspective, the deterrence calculus will be conducted according to what will be gained from the breach as opposed to what will be lost.

Even in the face of severe sanctions on their vulnerable economies, India and Pakistan deemed such punitive measures to be acceptable. The manner in which these countries entered the nuclear weapons club has raised the bar for the nonproliferation regime, but did not deliver the deathblow that many pundits had predicted at the time.

At present, Iran’s efforts to gain nuclear weapons capability and North Korea’s ongoing nuclear drama do not undermine the validity of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the International Atomic Energy Agency, but rather push forward the evolution of a resilient and adaptable regime.

With each episode and crisis, the regime acquires institutional memory regarding technical methods, supply networks, and chronologies. In doing so, the nonproliferation regime creates the opportunity to adjust to new practices, choices, and realities. As both Scheinman and Potter point out, the proliferation dilemma will grow, evolve, and present new challenges and new possibilities for solutions. However, as the two proposals to address Iranian proliferation—the Bush proposal, which proposes strengthening the Nuclear Suppliers Group, and the El Baradei proposal, which proposes strengthening multinational agreements safeguardeing waste and fuel— are debated and discussed, the nonproliferation regime will commensurately evolve. As it does so, the question mark in the title of Iklé’s Foreign Affairs article will fade.