Finally a functional regime: the reconvening of the Nuclear Suppliers Group in the 1990s

This article revisits the origins and evolution of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG)—the main mechanism through which nuclear exporting states coordinate to ensure nuclear trade does not contribute to nuclear weapons programs. The article examines newly released archive materials to argue that the NSG as it was created in the 1970s was incomplete and that the NSG was only completed as a functional regime in the 1990s. The reasons for this delay are traced through examination of archival information to France’s position, and to the changing priorities of the US during the 1970s. The implications of this delayed emergence as a functional regime are examined, as is how the NSG ultimately emerged as a functional regime in the 1990s.