While the US military budget alone is now $380bn, the nations of the world cannot even find one thousandth of that to sustain the $330m budget that the International Atomic Energy Agency needs to check up on nuclear materials. Its representative spoke at the UN in the aftermath of September 11 and complained, in the restrained style of international bureaucracy, that:

"This review of some of the IAEA's activities makes it clear that the scope of our work continues to expand. In the environment of zero real growth budgets, to which the agency has been subjected for over a decade, some of these priorities cannot be accommodated.

"The compromises achieved to date to resolve near-term budget issues should not be mistaken for long-term solutions. If the agency is to fulfil its mandate while maintaining the required balance among its priority activities, we must find better ways to ensure adequate and predictable funding. We must also have the foresight, when planning our activities, to invest in preventive measures rather than simply responding to crises - when it is often too late and much more costly."

Looking ahead into the middle of the century, where do current trends with weapons of mass destruction take us? A number of possible futures present themselves. One is where US hegemony presides over a relatively stable state of armaments and where potential adversaries have been either cajoled or bombed into acquiescence. Another is one where there is sporadic use of weapons of mass destruction in western cities and between third world nations and nations seek succour in missiles and anti-missile systems.

Japan and the European Union develop their own nuclear weapons. We learn to live with it.

Then again, there may yet be global holocaust. The fear of attacking for fear of retaliation - the so-called deterrence theory - has always been risky and in this scenario fails, given a less and less rational and predictable world. A major world war breaks out in which hundreds of millions are killed while the follow-on economic and environmental impact threatens the survival of humanity itself.

Nuclear arms, genetically engineered biological weapons and weapons yet to be thought of combine to produce world war, with consequences that defy the imagination. It is easy to forget that in 1914 there had been no war in Europe between the great powers since 1870 and many people thought it impossible.

In all of these scenarios, the global village takes a beating. Whole blocks are burned out. With no police and no gun control, village life as we know it becomes a thing of the past.

There is a brighter, less defeatist vision, in which every effort is made to eliminate the threat of weapons of mass destruction and to limit all other forms of armaments. War becomes as unthinkable as it is today between Germany, France and Britain. Civil wars are much reduced.

At this time of serious destabilisation of international security, it is necessary to create a different and positive dynamic. Governments and pressure groups alike should adopt as comprehensive an approach to weapons management and elimination as that used for military planning. The approach should aim to build on coalitions of like-minded states and draw in the US, Russia, China and other major powers, through the UN system when possible.

The European Union should become a world leader in weapons management and elimination. This would be a more useful means of countering the negative aspects of US policy than trying to compete militarily.

There needs to be a combination of short- and long-term measures, with preliminary work begun immediately to enable the larger longer-term objectives to reach fruition.

Recommended measures:

· The following programme should provide the political context for weapons of mass destruction in South Asia and other areas of regional proliferation.

· The UK and like-minded states should implement the provisions of the biological weapons verification protocol. This would make it harder for guerrilla groups to gain access to these materials and enable future detection efforts to "eliminate potential suspects from their inquiries", so saving time and increasing confidence, experience and political momentum.

· Increase funding for the nuclear inspectorate of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

· Implement the agreement made in 2000 at the Non Proliferation Treaty review conference on a 13-point programme. The House of Commons should initiate a joint defence and foreign affairs committee investigation of this programme. The short-term British contribution should be to remove the warheads from Trident and put them in storage. The Trident submarines would still be exercised at sea. This measure was turned down in the Strategic Defence Review in 1997 because sending the submarines to sea would send too strong a signal. This is a strange argument, as normally deterrence is described as being all about signals.

· NPT implementation should involve the timed and phased elimination of nuclear weapons by 2020.

· A combined verification and enforcement regime for nuclear, chemical and biological weapons should be developed.

· Initiate a programme to control and eliminate conventional weapons, building on the provisions of the INF and CFE treaties and covering naval vessels, with the objective of a verified halt to the production and trade in such weapons by 2010 and the elimination of most major weapon systems by 2020.

· No new major military production contracts should be made after 2010.

· The UK and other European states should not participate in the US missile "defence" programmes and should base their opposition on the offensive nature of these systems. At a minimum, support should be linked to full implementation of the NPT and other arms control regimes by all states, including the USA.

Dan Plesch is a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies. This is the text of a speech he delivered to the Guardian / RUSI conference in London

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