International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation

Bulletin 19 - Terror, Counterterror and Nuclear Disarmament

Abolition Before 2100?

Impediments and Preconditions for Nuclear Disarmament

Clifford E. Singer

The year 2000 has come and gone without producing a global commitment to the abolition of nuclear weapons by a date certain. Was this idea unrealistic, or just before its time? Some would say that the idea of abolition is intrinsically unrealistic, given a long history of recurring warfare and the power of mass destruction as the ultimate military force. This view is firmly rooted in the history of Europe and other regions through the Napoleonic Wars. It is buttressed by the failure of the nineteenth century Concert of Europe to find a durable enough process to prevent rivalries amongst the globally dominant European powers from spilling over into catastrophic world-wide conflict in the twentieth century. From this perspective, international war is so firmly rooted in the international system and human condition that resolution of one set of international tensions is likely to be followed by another set ad infinitum, thus making abolition a pipe dream.

Here we present a different point of view. The renunciation of ongoing nuclear weapons programs and holdings by Sweden, Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Belarus suggests that the problems that prevent abolition may be a finite rather than infinite set. In particular we identify seven discrete political impediments that must and may be resolved for global elimination of "assembled nuclear explosives holdings." Six of these involve specific sets of international relations. The seventh is the evolution of a mechanism or mechanisms for overcoming institutional inertia against dismantlement. The primary point of this paper is to discuss these mechanisms, but first some preliminaries must be dealt with.

To begin with, the term "assembled nuclear explosives holdings" is chosen here to deal with the objection that nuclear weapons can not be "uninvented," no matter what the political context. What we envision here is an agreement or consensus that a team of credible experts could if needed be tasked with designing verification mechanisms. These mechanisms would be for verifying that a potentially critical mass of plutonium or uranium is not in a physical or chemical form suitable for directly producing a nuclear explosion or being mated without recasting with other masses to do so. For plutonium this might concentrate on the geometric properties of such masses, while given the greater flexibility in weapons design with highly enriched uranium it might concentrate more on isotopic or chemical composition of enriched uranium.

Within the political context that would allow abolition in this sense, it may not be necessary for such a group to even meet, much less design, build, and operate such mechanisms. It suffices for the present purposes that confidence might be built that inventories of these materials are held in a form that takes days, rather than minutes or hours, to configure and deliver as a massively destructive weapon. At such a point there would be a built-in delay before use that could allow reflection and consultation rather than precipitous decision. More importantly, the political prerequisites for achieving this would reflect a profound yet plausible change in human affairs that would signal a fundamental change in the role of violence in relations between countries with modern industrial capabilities.

Six preconditions

The six relationships we examine here involve Russia and NATO, China and the United States, Kashmir, Palestine, the Persian Gulf, and Korea. In the first and last cases, the essential political preconditions for elimination of nuclear weapons have been met, and in the other four there have been interesting recent developments.

Before the end of the Cold War, only a few influential figures like HansDietrich Genscher and Mikhail Gorbachev could envision the Soviet Union and NATO not being indefinite adversaries. Before 11 September 2001, it was still difficult for many to envision that Russia and NATO would soon become firmly classified as allies. Now there is discussion of considering former Soviet republics for admission to NATO without so adamant Russian objections as before; and mechanisms are being worked out for full Russian participation in NATO short of giving it a veto therein. At least as long as Vladimir Putin is in power in Russia, and quite possibly long thereafter, this looks to be an enduring state of affairs. If so, the only reason for Russia and NATO to maintain assembled nuclear explosives on account of each other is historical inertia.

Under the Clinton administration the idea of a strategic partnership with China was evolving. The new Bush administration entered with the idea of reversing this, but after last September 11 China and the United States found themselves searching for a middle ground. On the one hand, the two countries are dealing in a haltingly constructive manner with immediate practical problems. One of these is whether China will first issue detailed regulations on sensitive exports and the US will then allow Chinese commercial launching of US satellites, or vice versa. On the other hand, China continues to block multilateral negotiation of a treaty banning further production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons programs (FMCT) as long as the United States refuses to discuss limits on missile defense systems in the context of multilateral negotiations on prevention of an arms race in outer space (PAROS). Now the Chinese seem convinced that their country can and will make whatever strategic nuclear missile deployments necessary to preserve the viability of its "deterrent" against US missile defenses. Thus it may eventually become clear in Washington that this more fundamental impediment to improved strategic relations has no other plausible outcome than for the United States to eventually explicitly or implicitly admit that US national missile defenses will be capped at a level that does not require further Chinese fissile materials production. This would be a fundamental and essential step towards putting Sino-American relations on a similar strategic partnership level that common interests have foisted upon NATO and Russia.

Kashmir too has appeared to many to be an intractable conflict between what are now two explicit possessors of nuclear explosives. It is worth recalling, however, that the situation in Kashmir was rather quiet for much of the 1980s, until decisions by the Indian Centre to meddle in Kashmiri state politics and by the Pakistani government to fund Interservice Intelligence (ISI) activities there led to an escalation of conflict. The events of last September 11 fundamentally changed the intensity of interest of outside powers in precipitating a resolution of this conflict. Should it prove durable and effective, the recent change of Pakistani policy on ISI activities could lead to a solution. Even if the current Indian government is not capable of "taking yes for an answer" on this, the outcome of recent state elections suggest a different central government may be forthcoming with key ministers of this opinion not being so close to the prime minister. India has long been an advocate of global nuclear disarmament, and Pakistan is potentially amenable to cooperation in the context of an improved security environment and resumption of development aid that was suspended when it set off nuclear explosives in 1998. Given prospects for progress with nuclear disarmament between Russia, NATO, and China, it is thus not out of the question that India and Pakistan could agree to support long term mechanisms for encouraging such progress on a global basis.

Israel's formal position is to consider a regional elimination of nuclear weapons following the establishment of a lasting regional peace. Given the importance of his country, a recent feeler by the Saudi crown prince suggests that a settlement with Israel's nearer neighbors may be possible if the Palestine problem can be successfully dealt with. Just before the installation of the Sharon government in Israel, a mutually economically beneficial agreement on Palestine ran afoul of the more symbolic issue of whether the status of Jerusalem needed to be resolved forthwith. This reflects a deep underlying problem of the type that can lead to very protracted conflict. Often such conflicts are only resolved once accumulated war weariness overwhelms them, but there are signs that this may indeed be eroding the myth that security can be achieved simply through use of sufficient retaliatory action. While negotiation of a peace accord with the Sharon government might produce a solution most likely to be supported throughout Israel, there is the possibility that the current government might not be able to "take yes for an answer" even if the Palestinians become conflictweary enough to make an otherwise practicable offer. Here again, an alternative Israeli governments are waiting in the wings should the ones in power prove incapable of dealing with the situation to the satisfaction of the voting public.

Since Iraq precipitated the Iran - Iraq war and then refused to cooperate fully with inspections after the Gulf Storm armistice, a Persian Gulf stalemate overshadowed with the potential of development and possible use of nuclear weapons has persisted. A determination to produce a significant perturbation of the status quo has recently been announced by the Bush administration. While many Iraqis would no doubt welcome an escape from the current dilemma, it is nevertheless far from clear that the Bush administration's objectives of changing the regime and eliminating Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) capabilities can be accomplished with anything short of establishment of a defensible US military base within Iraq. The uniformed military will likely advise against all out invasion in the absence of at least one critical NATO country's support, and may also caution that establishment of a useful US base in Iraq would also require a very sizeable operation. A militarily practical alternative is air operations alone, but this is unlikely to have lasting effect, especially if use of nearby airfields is politically precluded. The resolution of this dilemma is far from clear. Since support for Iraq's diplomatic campaign against sanctions appears to be thin, one outside possibility is that Iraq will finally decide that it is better off with giving up on WMD programs and relying on the economic power of increased oil revenues that it could obtain in a sanction-free environment. Another possibility is that the Bush administration will press ahead with ground-based military operations despite cautions from its uniformed military, and that these may even succeed in their objectives. A third and reasonably likely possibility is that resolution of the Iraq problem may have to wait one or more generations until the economic benefits of cooperation become clearer on both sides. If so, there is likely to remain considerable tension over Iran's intentions as well, since Iran is unlikely to completely give up on developing WMD potential if Iraq's WMD programs keep moving forward.

The nuclear explosives program of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) appears to be frozen, and will remain so unless there is a breakdown in the existing accord. Such a breakdown is certainly possible, since most of the costs of building the IAEA-inspected power production reactors called for under this accord have yet to be incurred. More generally, however, the DPRK has little to gain and much to lose by actually constructing new nuclear explosives. However close to the brink they may come on this to extract as many concessions from abroad as possible, they will only cross over this threshold by miscalculation on one side or the other. Even then possibilities for severely limiting or rolling back their program will remain.

The chances of all six of these international problems becoming and remaining resolved over the present decade are small. Given generational changes in the relevant countries, the chances are not so low that they may be dealt with in the present century in a way that in themselves they do not require the maintenance of sizeable stocks of assembled nuclear explosives. The question we will address now is whether a mechanism for overcoming inertia reducing assembled nuclear explosives holdings without a prior known lower limit must wait until these problems are resolved or can evolve along with them being addressed.

Mechanisms

The resolution of international tensions that promote nuclear deterrence is a necessary but not sufficient condition for reductions in assembled nuclear explosives holdings. A case in point is the recent decision by the US administration to warehouse rather than dismantle weapons excess to its expected understanding with Russia on deployed strategic weapons. This appears to be an example of a situation where there is insufficient external pressure to overcome bureaucratic inertia. In particular, delaying dismantlement delays some costs, even thought these must eventually be borne and, moreover, the cost of secure storage of extracted weapons pits in a single location is likely to be less than that for comparably secure storage of intact weapons. Delaying dismantlement for a while may also allow deeper cuts in deployment by reducing internal resistance from those who would prefer less change in the status quo. There are, however, examples of where mechanisms related to global agreements can overcome institutional inertia.

There was considerable internal resistance in the United States and elsewhere to the idea of a zero yield limit on nuclear testing. In this case external impetus was available in the form of a commitment made in exchange for indefinite extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), an event which itself was precipitated by German and Japanese insistence that the original treaty come under review in twenty-five years. Even withdrawal from a treaty can produce an impetus to overcome inertia. The Bush administration's insistence on escaping the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty not only provoked external pressure but also provided domestic political cover for in effect unblocking the START III process, albeit with a less formal accord rather than a new treaty on strategic nuclear deployments.

The impasse in the Conference on Disarmament

According to the understanding reached upon indefinite extension of the NPT, negotiation of an FMCT is supposed to follow the opening of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) for signature. However, the Geneva Conference on Disarmament (CD) has been both procedurally and politically at an impasse over the linkage of three proposed agenda items. The essence of the impasse is a disagreement between China and the United States over whether concurrent to negotiations of an FMCT there should be "negotiations" or "discussions" on prevention of an arms race in outer space. The third problem is that some of the declared nuclear weapons states have only rather reluctantly agreed to an ad hoc group for the discussion of the future of nuclear disarmament.

There are some difficulties with the content of the FMCT itself. These include what level of encouragement should be given for countries to declare existing stocks of fissile material excess to weapons programs, and what should be done about the possibility of an eventual restart of production of highly enriched uranium for naval propulsion. Another unspoken problem is the way in which an FMCT might make Israeli tritium production more politically visible. The first of these is amenable to compromise. The second deals only with a very distant eventuality. The third may be avoided by a suitable combination of technical and political stratagems, one of which is to mimic the CTBT outcome so far: establish a global production moratorium without actually having a FMCT enter into force.

All of these difficulties can probably be dealt with if and when the critical Sino-American impasse is resolved and Pakistan is ready to halt production. Pakistan will eventually cooperate so long as Indian production remains consistent with its policy of maintaining a "minimum deterrent" despite China's considerably larger stocks. The timing for this will depend on the importance placed upon it by the United States and other NATO countries, the evolution of the Kashmir question, the conditions Japan imposes on resumption of substantial economic assistance to Pakistan, technical progress with Pakistani production, and of course the evolution of internal Pakistani politics. Under the most favorable of circumstances, Pakistani agreement to a production halt could occur before the end of the present decade, but it could also be delayed by a generation or even more.

With these preliminaries in hand, we now turn to the other sides of the CD triangle. First we look at a possible resolution of the impasse over PAROS. Then we consider discussions on the future of nuclear disarmament and how they might eventually lead to a mechanism for overcoming inertial resistance to dismantling assembled nuclear explosives holdings.

PAROS

The formal Chinese position on PAROS is that military use of outer space should be so constrained that it is not even used as it has been in the past for reconnaissance, communications, positioning, and targeting in active "conventional" military campaigns. On the other hand, there are influential proponents of a very aggressive expansion of all feasible types of US military operations in space, save perhaps for placing weapons of mass destruction in orbit.

What these parties want is one thing, and what successor governments will insist upon is another. Eventually it should become clear that the United States has neither the means nor the will to build national missile defenses (NMD) faster than China can counter them with increased deployments of missiles and penetration aids. Alternatively, there is an off chance that China will follow Russia in deciding that opposing US missile defenses is not worth the cost, in the expectation that US NMD will turn out to be marginally effectively or marginally politically relevant in any case. Then so long as the United States continues to show adequate restraint in providing spillover theater missile defenses to the Pacific Rim, it may be possible to strike a compromise over PAROS in the CD on a set of "discussions on the understanding that these are meant to lead to negotiations." The question will remain of what sort of discussions these might plausibly be.

Currently, the United States does not appear to be planning military activities involving the International Space Station, satellites beyond geosynchronous orbit, or materials of extraterrestrial origin. The following material on possible PAROS discussion topics along these lines is taken from Clifford Singer and Amy Sands' recent submission to The Nonproliferation Review entitled "Keys to Unblocking Multilateral Nuclear Arms Control," which should be consulted for deeper background on its relationship to the impasse in the CD.

The International Space Station is already demilitarized by agreement, but not by treaty as in the case of Antarctica. The space station will represent a capital investment larger than that in the World Trade Center and is also of major symbolic importance. It is highly vulnerable to complete destruction by a simple sounding rocket with an accurate guidance system. However, there is no international agreement aimed specifically at detecting, preventing, or interfering with preparations to do this. It might also conceivably be useful to have a prior international understanding on how unsuccessful or successful attempts to destroy the International Space Station would be dealt with on a legal and political basis, whether unilaterally or bilaterally or multilaterally.

The idea of military activities beyond geosynchronous orbit might now seem as remote as the idea of military utility of Antarctica was before that continent was demilitarized by international treaty. However, this very fact makes discussing the complete demilitarization of outer space beyond geosynchronous orbit politically plausible, and the amount of space involved in this case is of course literally astronomical.

Finally, the energy cost of recovering materials from some earth-approaching asteroids or the moon for such uses as rocket fuel is lower than launching such materials from the earth. With sufficient experience with manned and unmanned operations in space, it would eventually become the case that the dollar cost is also lower. The Outer Space Treaty already bans the use of the moon and other celestial bodies for military purposes. However, it is mute on the question of use of materials derived from such bodies, and it also lacks clarification and verification mechanisms. This is thus a third avenue that might prove politically allowed should formal discussions on PAROS become possible.

The future of nuclear disarmament

The FMCT and PAROS deal only peripherally with the question of reducing assembled nuclear explosives holdings. To overcome institutional inertia on this, a mechanism is needed. In principle, the year 2000 NPT review conference extracted a hard-won "unequivocal" commitment to nuclear disarmament from the nuclear weapons states parties to the NPT, to be implemented following discussions in the CD. Not surprisingly, so far this has been a hollow victory. The current approach and progress in dealing with this in the CD hardly reflects what one would sensibly call an unequivocal commitment. Here we examine a more unitary approach to providing institutional impetus for continuing progress on nuclear disarmament. We also examine whether this might be addressed in the CD, in a special United Nations session on disarmament, or through a more informal process linked in part to the question of tritium production.

The suggestion examined here is based on the following excerpts from a Declaration on Nuclear Explosives Holdings by the present author that was published previously in the Washington Quarterly. This calls for an approximately exponential decline in a universal common upper limit on any country's assembled nuclear explosives holdings. The full text of the draft Declaration calls for subsidiary agreement on qualitative improvements of nuclear explosives design. It explicitly notes that countries are also encouraged to take other measures to further limit the production, testing, possession, and means of delivery of nuclear weapons (e.g. eschewing regional nuclear arms races, more aggressive build-down schedules, or joining or cooperating with the broader application of nuclear weapons free zones). The initial limits and parameters affecting the rate of decline of the limit on nuclear explosives are deliberately left blank. This is to encourage agreement on the underlying idea of continuing reductions without a priori given lower bound before hassling over the more difficult details of how fast such reductions should proceed.

I. Limits on possession of nuclear explosive devices

1.   Beginning on (___) the number of nuclear explosive devices held by any country subscribing to this Declaration will be no more than (___).

2.   Subject to the limitations under Article II of this Declaration, the limit on the number of nuclear explosive devices held by any country subscribing to this Declaration [hereinafter, Adherent] shall be reduced by a factor of (___) at the end of every subsequent (___) year period.

II. Exemptions from lowered limits

1.   Any Adherent may exempt itself from a lowering of the limit on the number of nuclear explosive devices it may possess by giving notice (___) years in advance of the effective date of such lowered limit. This notice shall include a statement of the reasons for its refusal to accept a lower limit.

2.   The limit on the number of nuclear explosive devices held by any active Adherent shall not be increased.

Article II here buttresses the apparently inevitable escape clause of withdrawal to avoid jeopardizing supreme sovereign interests. It does so by providing for a less drastic provision that irreversibly freezes previous reductions while the difficulties preventing new ones are worked out. From a practical political point of view, for the foreseeable future several nuclear weapons states would insist on such a provision before even considering discussing such a proposal. One the other hand, considerable background work has suggested to the present author that India and China might also entertain such an approach, even though their stated preference is for a process leading more certainly to the complete global elimination of assembled nuclear explosives holdings.

In principle, such a declaration could provide a focal point for more productive discussions in the CD than might otherwise be possible. In practice, institutional inertia within the CD itself seems likely to preclude this if the current impasse is resolved within the next few years. Should there be a longer delay, however, it is conceptually possible that with enough preparation such an approach could at least be brought up for consideration in the CD.

A special United Nations session on disarmament could in principle have the advantage of taking a broader look at the future of nuclear disarmament without the burden of a mandate to follow through itself with more detailed negotiations. In this context, discussion of the sort of concept outlined above could be quite useful. In practice there are enormous political obstacles to convening such a session, and its high political visibility could in any case prevent rather than promote really productive discussion. Thus, a tremendous amount of well organized political effort would need to occur on a global scale for there to be a chance of this happening within the next one or two decades.

Another possibility involves the coupling between nuclear explosives holdings and the decay of the tritium that is integral to the performance of strategic nuclear weapons in modern arsenals. It is to this topic that we now turn.

Tritium

Tritium has a half life to radioactive decay of 12.3 years. Depending on the rate of (normally small) weapons management handling losses and modest rates of use or sequestering for other purposes, this means that without new production the amount available to boost the yield of nuclear explosives reduces by a factor of four about every 20 to 24.5 years. It has been suggested that an agreement banning renewed tritium production be adopted as a forcing function for nuclear disarmament, but this has several disadvantages.

First, for arsenals ranging in the hundreds rather than many thousands of tritium-boosted nuclear weapons the cost savings from avoiding tritium production are a very modest fraction of overall military expenditures. This means that budgetary impetus in the United States is by itself not now likely to be sufficient to overcome the institutional obstacles to making an agreement. Second, a universal ban on tritium production and trade would be unacceptable to states other than Russia and the United States, because it would lead to the inefficacy of their own tritium-boosted weapons long before those of would provide considerable impetus for producing and possibly testing new weapons designs that give high yields with less tritium. Fourth, a ban on tritium without controls on overall assembled nuclear explosives holdings would produce a military impetus to retain larger numbers of lower yield weapons by way of compensation. This would work directly against a goal of reducing overall stocks of assembled nuclear explosives.

On the other hand, establishing a track record of a continual decline in numbers of operational nuclear weapons could help eliminate the bureaucratic, public relations, and budgetary problems of restarting halted tritium production in the United States and Russia. It could also eventually free other countries from the need to operate new tritium production facilities as old ones reach the end of their operational lifetimes. Consider, for example, a politically aggressive schedule for reductions under the above declaration, starting with a universal limit of 2,048 in the year 2010 and reducing by a factor of two every ten years (i.e. at an average annual rate of about seven percent). Under this schedule Russia and the United States could reach rough parity with China and the combined European Union countries at an upper limit of 526 in 2030. All countries that have not presently abjured possession of nuclear weapons might reach rough numerical parity at 128 in 2050. Continuing progress would pass upper limits through 64 in 2070 on the way towards 16 in 2090. Assuming concomitant limit on weight or yield per weapon, before the end of the century the nuclear explosive power of arsenals would pass below that of "conventional" capabilities readily available to industrial states, leading possibly to a single-step elimination of remaining nuclear explosives holdings. Necessary conditions for all of this are new perspectives on the above-mentioned political problems, so that the relevant governments no longer perceive a compulsion to hold assembled nuclear explosives in numbers that exceed these limits.

While formal agreement to a Declaration of the type outlined above seems highly unlikely within the present decade, the reduction of operational nuclear explosives holdings below levels that require restart of tritium production in the United States or Russia during the current decade is instead reasonably probable. For there is no foreseeable political need for the United States to re-deploy strategic or "tactical" nuclear weapons in larger numbers than can be supported without renewed tritium production in this decade. Nor does it now seem likely that Russia will abandon the cooperative threat reduction program with the United States that is helping to secure materials made excess through downsizing Russian assembled nuclear explosives holdings to more closely match those of the United States.

Thus a potentially productive focal point for those interested in the prospects for abolition of assembled nuclear explosives holdings is to encourage nuclear stockpiling policies to remain compatible with a continuing moratorium on tritium production by the United States and Russia. This could then eventually be broadened to stockpiling policies consistent with a universal moratorium on tritium production for weapons. This is compatible with and does not necessarily exclude working for a more aggressively builddown schedule, perhaps also within the generic format provided for in the above Declaration. This admittedly does not fully address a more rigorous ethically driven demand for an immediate commitment to abandoning possession of weapons of mass destruction as instruments of national policy. However, it does provide a mechanism for trying to ensure that some of the children and grandchildren born and nurtured in the present decade may one day live in a world free of assembled nuclear explosives.

Notes

This paper draws on results from public and private meetings in London, Paris, Beijing, Islamabad, New Delhi, Geneva, and Washington in the Spring of 2001. For a summary see Clifford Singer and Amy Sands, Unblocking Multilateral Nuclear Arms Control, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security (ACDIS) Occasional Paper, September, 2001. Additional details are given in Clifford Singer, editor, Multilateral Nuclear Arms Control, A Parallel Bilateral Approach: Trip Report and Project Conclusions, ACDIS Occasional Paper, November, 2001. The latter report can be accessed through "Publications" at http://www.acdis.uiuc.edu. For a full draft of a Declaration Concerning Nuclear Explosive Holdings, and a discussion of the rationale behind it, see Clifford Singer, Look before You Leap: A Practicable Step towards Reduction and Possible Eventual Elimination of Assembled Nuclear Explosives Holdings, The Washington Quarterly 20, Summer, 1998, p. 199-210; www.acdis.uiuc.edu/homepage_docs/pubs_docs/PDF_Files/LookLeap.pdf, accessed on 1 March, 2002.

Clifford E. Singer is director of the Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security (ACDIS) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 359 Armory Bldg, 505 E Armory Avenue, Champaign IL 61820; c-singer@uiuc.edu; www.acdis.uiuc.edu.