International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation

Bulletin 19 - Missile Defense and North-East Asia

Efficiency and Inefficiency of the MTCR

Mark Smith

The Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) remains the only multilateral regime specifically set up to address missile proliferation, despite recent efforts to establish more comprehensive, less discriminatory controls.^[1] Multilateral missile non-proliferation has noticeably lagged behind the rest of the global weapons of mass destruction (WMD) non-proliferation regime, and represents the missing piece of that system.

The MTCR therefore operates largely by itself - uniquely, global non-proliferation on missiles relies almost entirely upon supply-side controls. This generates a number of difficulties, not all of which can be blamed upon the MTCR itself. An assessment of the efficiencies and inefficiencies of the MTCR, therefore, ought to take account of this fact and note of problems outside the MTCR itself. In other words, it should acknowledge what the MTCR cannot do, as well as highlight what it could achieve more effectively. With that in mind, this paper will look firstly at what the MTCR can and has achieved, and follow this by looking at how it might function more efficiently. The concluding section looks at what the MTCR cannot achieve by itself: it is here that the most serious problems exist.

What the MTCR can do

The original goal of the MTCR was to coordinate restraint in technological transfers, in order to restrain missile proliferation. So the question here is how efficiently transfer restraint has been coordinated, and how effective that has been in restraining missile proliferation.

The aim at the beginning was essentially to halt the horizontal spread of missile technology to regions like the Middle East. Scud-B missiles were spreading in the region, but although the development of nuclear-capable missiles required further transfer of highly advanced technology, disturbing links between space-launch programmes in South America and states in the Middle East were emerging. So the MTCR was originally conceived as a vital adjunct to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) - a way to beef up nuclear nonp-roliferation by controlling missiles. The idea was to keep this technology in the possession of the small number of states that already had it, in the hope that this would deter others from trying to develop the technology themselves. If they were not put off by the unavailability of technology, it was thought that the Scud barrier would be a sufficient obstacle to all but the most determined indigenous programme.^[2]

It is not always easy to identify successes for the MTCR. Like deterrence, it can be assumed to be working if nothing happens, but the causal relationship may not be clear. Like deterrence again, failures can be glaringly obvious. Early successes were the termination of the Argentinian and Brazilian long-range missiles. Longer-term indicators are that ballistic missile proliferation outside the MTCR still appears to be Scud-based - the Nodong and Taepondong missiles are essentially modernised Scuds. Thus Second World War V-2 technology still appears to be the base element in ballistic missiles outside the P5 nuclear weapon states (i.e. those with a permanent seat at the UN Security Council). This is perhaps the best indicator of the efficiency of the MTCR. Useable ICBMs still seems to be solely in the hands of the P5, and according to US intelligence estimates that is likely to be the case for at least 5 years and perhaps a decade.

The challenge is vertical proliferation in states like Iran and the DPRK, India and Pakistan, as well as horizontal proliferation to non-missile states. The prime challenge is to prevent development upwards - Medium Range Ballistic Misiles (MRBM) to ICBM, Space Launch Vehicles (SLV) to ICBM. Here, we are down to very difficult cases. By 2001, DPRK (North Korea), Iran, Pakistan, Israel, and India had all tested or deployed missiles with ranges of 1,200 km or more, and many had been highly critical of the MTCR. The Scud barrier is also becoming less of an obstacle than it had been; Aaron Karp pointed out last year that there is no such thing as obsolete technology in missiles.^[3] Moreover, developments in propulsion and propellants meant that it was possible to do more with basic technology than was thought possible at the MTCR's inception (although probably not as much as some National Missile Defese advocates claim).

It has become increasingly evident that there are leaks in the loose framework of the MTCR. Over recent years, evidence has been emerging that ballistic missile proliferation outside the MTCR is not all indigenously produced. Intelligence reports, particularly in the US, regularly cite Russia and China as suppliers of missile technology. Earlier this year, the CIA Director, George Tenet, testified to the Senate "The three major suppliers of missile or WMD-related technologies continue to be Russia, China and North Korea".^[4] Tenet's remarks are representative of official thinking in Washington, as was evinced by Defense Secretary Rumfeld's public remark that "Russia is an active proliferator. They are part of the problem. They are selling and assisting countries like Iran and North Korea."^[5]

This rhetoric has been toned down lately, but intelligence reports have so repeatedly cited Russia and China as chief offenders (China is a partner rather than a member, but has pledged to abide by MTCR provisions on nuclear-capable missiles), that the post-September 11th restraint in US rhetoric is a lull rather than a change of heart.^[6] It does seem as though missile technology is leaking from the MTCR: a recent report by the Carnegie Institute described the missile programmes of India, Pakistan and North Korea as visible failures of the MTCR - i.e. the missiles were not entirely indigenous in origin.^[7]

Two aspects of the regime may contribute to this. First, the lack of transparency and legal mechanism. The MTCR works by policy coordination, and has no real verification and compliance mechanism. There is no multilateral mechanism to identify non-compliance, and the ability and will of some members to implement their controls may be open to question. Second, this loose policy coordination model of the MTCR requires a close identification of political and strategic objectives. This was the case in 1987 when the regime was set up, but much less so now. It is no longer possible to rely on like-mindedness to be a guarantee of compliance, because the regime membership has expanded well beyond the original group, and because the political and strategic context has changed so much.

Thus there are problems with how the MTCR works: its lack of formal status, lack of enforcement and compliance mechanisms to identify transgressors - be they states or companies. The US has vigorously pursued sanctions against noncomplying states or companies, but other members have been reluctant to follow suit. The MTCR could almost certainly work more efficiently than it does. However, by no means are all of the MTCR's troubles due to inefficiencies within the regime itself. In fact, the real problems lie outside the regime, and moreover are problems that the MTCR was not designed to address by itself. This raises the issue of what the MTCR cannot be expected to do.

What the MTCR cannot do

Firstly, the MTCR cannot set norms. It began with a fragile or non-existent normative base; the anti-missile proliferation norms came from the like-mindedness of its founders, but were not written into the regime at the beginning. Thus the regime was always going to struggle to gain legitimacy outside its membership. Most of the world's stock of Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBMs) and all of its ICBMs are in the hands of MTCR members or partners, which unavoidably implies that ballistic missile proliferation is not generally destabilising, but destabilising for MTCR members.

Second, the MTCR cannot address the causes of missile proliferation. It addresses one cause - 'dabbling', or a missile programme based more on opportunistic imports than genuine commitment - and cuts it off effectively, but does little or nothing about other drivers such as chronic insecurity.^[8] Thus there is no incentive for states outside it to follow non-proliferation, other than the fact that missile technology is hard to come by. But the fact that missiles with a range of 1,200 kmplus are now in the hands of non-members made that no longer the case. The Scud barrier seems to be collapsing or at least eroding, and most of the Scud modernisers are not only non-members of the MTCR, but are actively hostile to its goals.

These two problems were highlighted in emphatic fashion during last year's UN debate on the missile issue. Pakistan's statement noted "states which reserved the right to deploy thousands of missiles were now seeking to prevent developing countries from developing missiles for legitimate self-defence. The international community must resolutely resist that discriminatory trend. The need to promote the peaceful uses of missile technology was not adequately covered in the draft resolution. Pakistan hoped the resolution would allow the evolution of greater equity in the field of missiles."^[9]

This view of the MTCR appears to be widespread. To change its discriminatory image was thus a key challenge for the MTCR, as was the need to be equitable: members could not be seen to be advocating commitments that they were not prepared to take on themselves. A second challenge was to somehow separate SLVs from ballistic missiles.

The lack of demand-side norms is therefore corrosive, since the norms the MTCR is trying to pursue struggle to gain legitimacy outside the regime. Moreover, to note a third problem, a law of diminishing returns may be setting in and making the MTCR a victim of its own success. The MTCR constructs norms against supply while leaving demand unchanged, and thus the more suppliers join it, the less economic incentive there is for remaining suppliers to also join up, since they have the market to themselves. This may be particularly the case with MTCR 'target states' that have already made some substantial investment in their missile programme, since the MTCR offers no recompense for the original investment. In short, for a state that has sunk funds and expertise into missile development, the economic reasons for staying out of the MTCR may be considerably stronger than those for joining it. Supply-side strategies alone may therefore help to create the conditions for their own failure.

Conclusions

The MTCR is not a non-proliferation regime, and it cannot become one. It is a component of a non-proliferation regime, with the vital other part - demand-side norms - missing. Thus the real problem is not with the MTCR itself, but with the absence of a demand-side regime.

These are problems for the MTCR. The biggest problem of the MTCR is its discriminatory nature. Thus it is not only the demand-side regime that needs to be constructed - it is also a more self-critical and equal approach to missile holdings within the regime. The demand-side regime will struggle to get off the ground without some show of willingness among MTCR members.

Mark Smith , Mountbatten Centre for International Studies, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK: mjs10@soton.ac.uk.