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The 21st century may have started with the 1998 Indian and Pakistani nuclear explosions. The Korean and Iranian crises weaken the non-proliferation system. The great nations have witnessed, all during the Cold War, crises that included the nuclear hypothesis. The multiplication of nuclear actors who do not have the same experience is making the system unstable. Will we again have to experience the Cold War stages, with a new Cuban crisis, this time explicitly nuclear?

Thérèse Delpech, Associated Researcher of the Centre d'études et de recherches internationales (CERI) - Fondation nationale des sciences politiques (FNSP), is also Member of the council of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) of London. She recently published L'Ensauvagement, le retour de la barbarie au XXIe siècle (Paris, Grasset, 2005) and L'Iran, la bombe et la démission des Nations (Paris, Autrement, 2006).