Through the relevant legal instruments, non-proliferation aims for no country to increase their weapons capacity; in other words, the weaponry that already exists is maintained both quantitatively and qualitatively. The idea behind this is to establish some measures that place political or legal restrictions on the type and scope of the technology and military capacity; this is what is encompassed by the term arms control if we include the transfer of weapons. Non-proliferation represents an agreed "balance" in which the countries involved have sufficient self-defence capacity for their national security, and international peace and stability are achieved.

Disarmament measures aim to reduce the military capacity or even prohibit certain categories of weapons that are currently deployed. Fewer advances have been made in this field recently, but they continue to be important. Although it may be a general wish, devising disarmament as a global focus of a policy of peace could be classed as utopian; it is something towards which we must continue to advance.

The main challenge in this field lies in promoting the universality of treaties, conventions and other international instruments and their application at national level, pursuant to the National Security Strategy (2023) and the European Union's strategy against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.