These high-tech systems of monitoring are a part of the International Monitoring System of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, and are a crucial part of creating a safer nuclear-weapons-free future. If brought into force, the Comprehensive Test Ban would require on-site inspections of suspected violations and would ensure an effective and verifiable monitoring system to detect nuclear tests, including even underground devices many times smaller than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War Two. By making it impossible to conduct tests of new weapons in secret, the test ban treaty and international monitoring system can help stop nuclear proliferation and reduce dangers around the world. As Daryl Kimball of the Arms Control Association explains,

"without additional testing, China cannot perfect the technology to arm its missiles with multiple warheads...ratification by Egypt, Iran, and Israel would reduce nuclear weapons-related security concerns and bring those states further into the nonproliferation mainstream...the Indian-Pakistani rivalry could be eased by converting their unilateral test moratoria into a legally binding commitment...[and] national and international capabilities to detect and deter possible clandestine nuclear testing by other states [such as North Korea] will be significantly greater with the CTBT in force."

Today, North Korea's rudimentary efforts in nuclear weapon and missile design are a troubling but not panic-inducing phenomenon. Far greater nightmares can be imagined to emerge from Pakistan, already in possession of dozens of weapons. Pakistan faces both the threat of a destabilizing insurgency on one front and the ongoing standoff with India, and the prospect that their weapons could be stolen or transferred to terrorist groups. There is also Iran's continued uranium enrichment; the most likely devastating consequence of Iran developing a nuclear weapon is the nuclear arms race it would spur as countries including Egypt and Saudi Arabia raced to develop weapons of their own.