Pros and Cons of the MTCR, and Efforts to Move Forward
Mark Smith 
Fifteen years after it was set up, the Missile Technology Control Regime (MCTR) remains the only multilateral instrument for addressing the challenges posed by missile proliferation. It has continued to function despite growing international concern over the slow but apparently inexorable development of some missile programmes in highly volatile regions of the world, culminating in the great shock of the North Korean Taepodong launch in 1998.
The MTCR has been the subject of criticism from various quarters, ranging from those who argue that it is clearly failing to satisfactorily achieve its objectives, to those who argue that those objectives are actually spurious and that the MTCR has in fact achieved them rather too well, to malign effect in the developing world. This paper aims to highlight the positive and negative attributes of the MTCR, in an effort to show the real nature of its problems and the difficulties of establishing international norms and controls beyond the cartel model of the Regime.
In Denial: What Are We to Make of the MTCR?
If we wish to properly grasp how, where, and why the MTCR has succeeded and failed, then we need to grasp what the MCTR actually does, and (equally importantly) what it does not do. Put simply, the MTCR places a "strong presumption to deny" upon the sale of missiles or missile parts by its members. Most or all of the most advanced missiles are in the hands of MTCR members, or states that adhere to its stipulations without actually joining, and so it can be presumed that sophisticated missile technology is no longer on the market.
The main restrictions are on the technology required to carry a 500 kg payload to a distance of 300 km, which combines the estimated minimum weight of a first-generation nuclear warhead with what was thought to be a reasonably strategic range. In other words, the MTCR was designed to beef up the nuclear non-proliferation regime by cutting off the availability of delivery system technology to first-generation proliferators: a state that somehow circumvented the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and constructed a basic nuclear weapon would also now confront the fact that it would be difficult to actually fire the weapon any significant distance. Later, the rules were extended to cover any missile technology that is "intended" to carry weapons of mass destrcution (WMD). The aim was always to impede, rather than prevent, missile development. That is not to say that the MTCR founders had no wish to see development halted, but that they recognized that export controls could only make the technology difficult to come by.
Judging the success, or otherwise, of the MTCR can only be rationally done on that basis: how successfully have the restrictions been imposed, and how easily available is long-range missile technology on the international market? The good news here is that the MTCR appears to be working reasonably well. The most potent piece of evidence in support of that judgment is the fact that virtually all missiles outside the MTCR are SCUDs or SCUD derivatives. That is to say, Second World War V-2 technology remains the base element for missiles in the developing world.
That is not to dismiss missile proliferation as an international security problem, but to highlight the relatively crude and unsophisticated nature of the programmes of most concern, such as the Taepodong. This also seems to indicate that, even when MTCR members or adherents fail to comply with their obligations, either by design or by lack of enforcement, the missile technology leaking through the export control system is still comparatively basic in nature.
It is true to say that states such as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and Iran have done rather more with SCUD technology than was thought possible when the MTCR was established. Up until fairly recently, it was widely believed that it was technologically infeasible to modify SCUD missiles to go any further than 1000 km at most. The appearance of the Taepodong, which can travel twice that distance, seemed to demolish this so-called "SCUD barrier", and the Taepodong-2 may be able to travel up to 6000 km. This, together with Pyongyang's predilection for missile exports, represents a serious challenge to missile non-proliferation. Nonetheless, it has to be stated that this missile still suffers serious technical limitations, and global missile proliferation outside the regime, especially in Iran, Iraq, Syria, DPRK, and Libya, strongly suggests that the MTCR's original aim of slowing and impeding the development of nuclear-capable missiles has largely succeeded. When all is said and done, the Regime's controls mean that any state looking to develop a long-range missile capability is forced to work with unsophisticated technology.
Second, US intelligence estimates have repeatedly stated that, with the notable exception of the DPRK, the missile programmes of states of concern are import-dependent to one extent or another. The ongoing circulation of DPRK missiles represents a serious problem here, but the fact of import dependence is indicative of the heavy techno-industrial costs and difficulties of establishing an indigenous missile programme.
The positive side of the balance sheet, therefore, suggests that the MTCR's original aim of inhibiting missile proliferation by restricting access to the necessary technology has worked with reasonable success. Those states still in the missile proliferation game are compelled to rely on highly outdated and comparatively crude technology, with similarly crude missiles the result.
On the negative side, missile development in Iran and the DPRK might be moving slowly but it is moving, and the MTCR will not be a thumb in the dyke forever. Even if the Taepodong-2 does not materialise as a useable missile, the existence of the Taepodong and the 1000 kmrange Nodong are by themselves enough to generate serious strategic problems. With this technology, a state acquires a military reach for virtually its entire strategic periphery, and thereby the capacity to decisively affect regional stability. In such circumstances, the missile threat to the continental United States evaporates, but the threat to regional states, not to mention to US forces deployed locally, remains. In short, the MTCR is necessary but increasingly insufficient as a means to address the problem.
Second, the MTCR lacks legitimacy: what defensible basis do the US, Britain, France, Russia, etc. have for urging other states not to develop missile capabilities? They are armed to the teeth with such missiles themselves and are unlikely to give them up in the foreseeable future. The experience of the Missile Code of Conduct, described below, is ample evidence of the suspicion with which any non-proliferation initiatives are regarded when they are issued from the MTCR.
Third, the regime may be a wasting asset, as acquiring new members is unlikely to make genuine headway into the problem. To put it another way, the more members the MTCR has, the less incentive exists for non-member missile-producing states to join. This is because the Regime, by virtue of the way it functions, strips the global missile market of suppliers whilst leaving the demand untouched. The missiles exported by the DPRK may be crude and unsophisticated, but the presence of the MTCR means that it is virtually the only state prepared to sell such technology. It has a far larger chunk of the global missile market than it could possibly hope to obtain in other circumstances, and consequently the financial incentives to join the MTCR are in inverse proportion to the number of other missile suppliers that are already members.
The Link With Space
The inherent connection between spacelaunch vehicles (SLVs) and ballistic missiles is well established. They are not identical, but are so closely linked that possessing one almost inevitably means a latent capacity for having the other. This has been the source of most of the complaints about the MTCR from the developing world, since the Regime's controls necessarily cut off access to peaceful applications of the technology in question. India spoke for several states in the developing world at a UN First Committee debate last year: "There has been in recent years an excessive reliance on export controls, in the name of non-proliferation, by select groups of countries. While such measures have not been effective, denial of so called dual-use technology and equipment have done immense damage to the peaceful developmental efforts of developing countries in a number of spheres of economic activity... There is no place for discriminatory mechanisms that deprive developing countries of the benefits of path-breaking scientific and technological developments."
It is true that SLVs may be an entirely peaceful application of technology, but the fact remains that controlling the transfer of missiles necessitates controlling the technology rather than its end-use. In the absence of highly intrusive verification measures and/or a global ban on ballistic missiles, it is difficult to see a way around the problem.
A second potential link between ballistic missiles and space is a possible connection, as yet unproven and highly controversial, between medium- or intermediate-range missiles and basic antisatellite (ASAT) capabilities. The closest comparison is with the Soviet Union's coorbital ASAT capability, developed during the Cold War. The system used a "buckshot" method, in which a satellite was launched into a similar orbit to the target, closed in on it, and then exploded to destroy the target with debris. The test results were not encouraging—nine successes out of 20 attempts—and the system only worked against low earth orbit satellites. A state with an intermediate-range missile (such as the Taepodong) might therefore acquire a very crude ASAT capability, but current reports seem to indicate that this would nonetheless be a huge challenge for most 'states of concern', and it is as yet unclear whether such a capability is even technically feasible.
Moving Beyond the MTCR: The Code of Conduct and Other Damp Squibs
The most pressing difficulties were problems for the MTCR rather than problems of it. That is to say, the problem is not that the Regime is working inefficiently, but that supply-side controls only place prohibitions on export and not on possession. The international missile non-proliferation regime, therefore, is only half a regime, and to blame the MTCR for the current state of global missile proliferation is not only to miss the point, but is, in fact, to misunderstand the nature of the problem. Missiles proliferate because of chronic regional insecurity, a perceived need to acquire a form of status, and because there are no norms against possessing them. The MTCR cannot generate such norms, and it was not established to do so: it can only generate norms against supply.
As long as the control of missiles relied solely on supply-side controls with no demand-side regime to legitimize and strengthen them, the MTCR was likely to be a wasting asset. Regime members recognized this from the mid-90s onwards, but particularly after the Taepodong launch of August 1998 had hammered the point home so firmly. The decisive point came at the MTCR's 1999 Plenary at Noordwijk in the Netherlands, when members submitted national papers on what they termed "responsible missile behaviour". The papers, which ranged from confidence-building measures (CBMs), such as launch notification, up to missile-free zones, were synthesized into the Ballistic Missile Code of Conduct signed by 92 states in The Hague in November 2002.
The Code is a strikingly cautious initiative: despite calling for restraint and reduction in ballistic missile proliferation, in practice it does not require signatories to do anything more than exchange policy declarations and inform each other of forthcoming test launches. Its philosophy is that the best first step is one that the most can make. This is itself driven by two factors. First, missiles are delivery systems rather than weapons in their own right, and stigmatizing them as has been done with WMD is inherently difficult. In fact, it may not be feasible or even desirable. If we accept that delegitimising military technology has to be done on criteria inherent to the technology itself, then the grounds for delegitimising missiles are ambiguous. There are good grounds for regarding missiles as inherently destabilizing, but those grounds are criteria such as range, inaccuracy, and suitability for sudden attacks. There is also, of course, the fact that they are almost automatically linked with WMD, but the existence of such a link is not a reason for conflating control of missiles with control of WMD. The latter can be pursued much more effectively and comprehensively through the existing regimes, but missile control must be established on different grounds.
Second, the existing distribution of missiles makes bans unlikely in the foreseeable future. The divide is between states that possess missiles in the range of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) and refuse to relinquish them (i.e. the permanent five members of the UN Security Council), states that are vertically proliferating and see no reason why they should cease to do so (India, Pakistan, Israel, Iran, the DPRK), and those states that are struggling to find a way to multilaterally establish controls on missiles as quickly as possible (such as Japan and Canada).
The intractability of the problem, which dogged the drafting of the Code of Conduct, was even more strongly felt in the work of the UN Study Group set up to look into The Issue of Missiles in All its Aspects. So much is evident from the exasperated tone of a South African statement to the UN First Committee last year: "The report of the UN Panel of Governmental Experts on missiles in all aspects is a sad reflection on the current state of disarmament affairs. Panel members had vigorous discussions, but could not agree on a single recommendation for a course of action, and couldn't even agree on what the nature of the problem was."
This, and the careful tone of the Study Group's final report, is as emphatic a testament to the daunting problems attendant upon global missile non-proliferation as we could wish for. In that light, however, it must therefore be conceded that to criticize the Code or Study Group in themselves for their lack of success is to confuse cause and effect. It is not that the initiatives have not got to grips with the problem: the far more ambitious Russian proposal for a Global Control System, which contained far-reaching proposals for missile bans and incentive schemes for participant states, has similarly failed to make any headway, and there is no reason to suppose a more ambitious Code of Conduct or Study Group report would have fared better.
So the problem is not the initiatives themselves. Their shortcomings are a symptom, not a cause, of the absence of missile non-proliferation norms. Any initiative will have to establish norms where none currently exist, and the philosophy behind the Code of Conduct is that a stepby-step approach is the best way to produce long-run results. It therefore looked for the lowest common denominator, which turned out to be very low indeed. Despite this (and the fact that several states in the world follow Code-style stipulations already), the signatory list at the launch in November 2002 was disappointing to put it mildly. China, the DPRK, Egypt, Israel, Iran, India, Pakistan, and Syria all stayed away, which is to say that none of the states that would give the Code some credibility beyond MTCR boundaries signed. Libya was the one exception. There is clearly a very long way to go.
Summary
(1) The MTCR is necessary, but not enough, to prevent contemporary missile proliferation.
(2) Given the nature of missile technology and the current distribution of missiles, a gradualist norm-construction approach is the best way forward, despite the fact that this may mean that the problem gets worse before it starts to get better. It is likely that an approach emphasizing missile arms control, rather than missile disarmament, will have the most credibility and practicability.
(3) We should not regard missile defence as generically incompatible with missile non-proliferation. In the right political context it may prove complementary, but the current debate between supporters and opponents is too polarized for constructive thought on the circumstances under which missile defence is a Good or Bad Thing.
This paper was written for the conference "International Arms Control, Transparency and Verification in a European Russian Framework of Cooperative Security" organized by INESAP and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation on January 24-26, 2003, in Berlin, Germany.
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