The good news this month is that South Africa marks the twentieth year of the end of its nuclear weapons program this July. That may have removed a significant threat but elsewhere in the impoverished and war-ravaged continent the increasing quantities of conventional weapons make any observer of African politics nervous. According to some reports, in 2010, Africa imported arms worth nearly one billion dollars from Ukraine alone.

Russia has chosen to back India’s accession to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), a non-treaty based group seeking to limit the spread of sensitive nuclear technology. While the NSG in name was formed as a near-direct consequence of India’s 1974 so-called “peaceful” nuclear test, Russia and other nuclear powers are now seeking to admit New Delhi into the select group which asserts control over nuclear exports, allowing India a say into the group’s future decisions and moving to erase remaining doubt as to the legitimacy of its nuclear arsenal.

Terrorist attacks in Mumbai on July 13, 2011 brought back to the forefront the issue of national security in South Asia. The bombings in India’s financial center will likely be connected to groups based in nearby Pakistan, just as previous attacks had been. While proliferation talks these days often circle around North Korea and Iran, the long and deep enmity between India and Pakistan has been considered the world’s greatest nuclear flashpoint for years.

Whether the world is ready to admit it or not, non-proliferation in North Korea has failed. 

Iran and European Union representatives have engaged in negotiations over Iran’s nuclear enrichment program for the better part of the last decade. Last month, yet another round of talks failed for the same reason previous negotiations fell through: a lack of compromise on both sides.