How many minutes to midnight?

Writing about the Middle East's nuclear surge in the International Herald Tribune, the authors, after discussing Iran's ambitions, say that:

...[the] countries that control over one-fourth of the world's oil supplies are investing in nuclear power programs. This is not about energy; it is a nuclear hedge against Iran. ... Egypt and Turkey, two of Iran's main rivals, are in the lead. Both have...announced ambitious plans for the construction of new power reactors. ... Not to be outdone, Saudi Arabia and the five other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates) at the end of 2006 "commissioned a joint study on the use of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes." Algeria and Russia quickly signed an agreement on nuclear development in January 2007, with France, South Korea, China, and the United States also jockeying for nuclear sales to this oil state. Jordan announced that it, too, wants nuclear power.

There's a real mismatch between the incentives on offer. The short-term financial gains to western suppliers of nuclear technology have far more leverage, currently, than those of us who are concerned both that nuclear proliferation is a problem in itself (if it discourages actions against oppressive states) and a precursor of catastrophe. But the payoff from an exchange of nuclear weapons though large, is diffuse and of uncertain magnitude and timing. The opportunity costs of not selling nuclear technology to the Middle East outweigh, at least in the minds of those making the decision, such nebulous gains.

A Social Policy Bond regime that rewarded nuclear peace - defined as the absence of the explosion of a nuclear weapon - would rebalance the incentives. Currently those who would oppose such an explosion are (presumably) in a massive numerical majority, but have few means of expressing their wishes in a way that is likely to forestall nuclear proliferation. Neither do we know how best to bring sustain nuclear peace. The tendency therefore is to assume that governments will sort it out, with the support of hard-working, well-intentioned non-governmental organizations. But all the evidence points the other way. We need to make the incentives to maintain nuclear peace at least as convincing as those working to undermine it. We might not know exactly how to reduce the chances of a nuclear exchange, but we have no excuse for not encouraging people to find out. We could issue Nuclear Peace Bonds ourselves, or encourage our governments to do so collectively. See here, for a short paper on Conflict Reduction Bonds, which outlines the principles involved.