WASHINGTON, March 5. /TASS/. The international community is on the verge of a nuclear war and there can be no delay in preventing it, said Peter Kuznick, Professor of History and Director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University on the 55th anniversary of the entry into force of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

"Now that the US has begun disengaging militarily from its erstwhile NATO partners, the French are rushing in to fill the void. They have begun to float the idea of replacing the U.S. nuclear umbrella in Europe with a French nuclear umbrella. The only umbrellas the world needs from the bellicose French are the kind that Catherine Deneuve peddled in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg in 1964, but the overall state of our fragile, shaky planet in 2025 makes clear that we’d better find more leaders who understand what a dangerous moment this is and work to defuse tensions or the people will have to rise up and take matters into their own hands. We’re far too close to [nuclear] midnight to dally any longer," he told TASS.

Kuznick said that if conflicts in the Middle East, Ukraine and in the Pacific are "played out fully, can lead to a third world war and the possible use of nuclear weapons." The expert said many people in South Korea and Japan, who previously opposed nuclear weapons development, now support it.

"Given Japan’s abundant stores of plutonium and uranium, industrial capabilities, and scientific and technological proficiency, it could build a bomb in a matter of months," Kuznick added.

The NPT is a multilateral international document developed by the United Nations Disarmament Committee with the purpose of preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and minimizing the potential for armed conflict involving such weapons. The Treaty was adopted on June 12, 1968, during the XXII session of the UN General Assembly and was opened for endorsement on July 1, 1968, in London, Moscow, and Washington.

Great Britain, the USSR, and the US are the depositaries. It entered into force on March 5, 1970, after the deposit of the ratification instruments by 40 nations. Currently, 191 countries are parties to the treaty.