The progressive accommodation of de facto nuclear weapons states and the persistence of doctrines and alliances based on the possibility of nuclear weapons use seems to point in the direction of growing critique of the NPT and of a new international division based on three state categories: i) those who have nuclear weapons de jure or de facto; ii) those who do not have nuclear weapons, but profit from their protection, under alliances or “nuclear umbrellas”; and iii) those which, genuinely, may be called non-nuclear armed states. For this last category — which includes Brazil — there is a special concern, the difficult access to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, set forth in the Article IV of the NPT , and the development of new military doctrines that foresee the use of nuclear weapons not only against exclusively nuclear threats, but also against various other types of threats, including those related to conventional arms or non-state actors. The ambiguity of the so-called Negative Security Assurances’, granted by states which have nuclear arms, aggravates the already worrisome expansion of the threat spectrum that nuclear weapons would supposedly dissuade. States with nuclear weapons refuse to grant to states without such weapons security guarantees, which are not ambiguous, non-conditional and backed by binding international legislation. Among the goals set for Brazil, the following points stand out: • non-proliferation and disarmament are inter-related, mutually reinforcing processes; • the reversion of asymmetries inherent to the NPT and the effective reduction of risk of nuclear war can only happen through the complete elimination of nuclear weapons; and • disarmament and non-proliferation efforts should not be directed in detriment to the right to use, develop and research of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. Brazil holds consolidated credentials in the field of non-proliferation. The Federal Constitution forbids the use of nuclear energy for non-peaceful purposes. The arrangement instituted for the Brazilian-Argentine Agency for Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials (ABACC) is unprecedented and subjects the Brazilian Nuclear Program to two international organizations, which carry out auditing, accounting and the application of safeguards in an independent manner. DEFENSE WHITE PAPER 43 CHAPTER 2 — THE 21st CENTURY STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENT Over a decade later, little was done. The decrease in numbers of nuclear weapons does not mean, in general, a reduction of the importance of such weapons in strategic doctrines.