NATO Nuclear Doctrine and the NPT
A Dangerous Contradiction
Karel Koster
There is a peculiar ambiguity in the NATO defence doctrine. Sixteen of the nineteen member states of NATO are defined as being ‘non-nuclear weapons states’ in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). At the same time they belong to an alliance that regards nuclear deterrence as a key part of its military doctrine. This contradiction has long exerted a negative influence over attempts by the international community to take serious steps towards nuclear disarmament. Criticism of the 1998 Indian and Pakistan nuclear tests; the active support of the war against Iraq by European NATO member states on the basis of the alleged presence of weapons of mass destruction; the diplomatic offensive directed against Libya, Iran, and North Korea, supported by NATO non-nuclear-weapon states – all these political manoeuvres highlighted the obvious contradiction between relying on a nuclear deterrent on the one hand and condemning its adoption by any other state on the other.
The ambiguity came to the fore at the NATO summit held in April 1999 in Washington D.C. In the Strategic Concept adopted at that summit, paragraphs 62 and 63 reaffirmed the “essential role” played by the “nuclear forces of the Allies.”[1]
At the same time, a Summit Communiqué was released, in which an opening was created for an evaluation of NATO nuclear policy. Paragraph 32 states: “All Allies are States Parties to the central treaties related to disarmament and non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention, and are committed to the full implementation of these treaties.”[2] A year later, the so-called “paragraph 32 report” reaffirmed the contradiction: Section 4.2.1, paragraph 72 says: “To protect peace and to prevent war or any kind of coercion, the Alliance will maintain for the foreseeable future an appropriate mix of nuclear and conventional forces based in Europe and kept up to date where necessary, although at a minimum sufficient level.” And paragraph 103 states: “As States Parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, all Allies are committed to and will continue to pursue vigorously the principles and objectives of the NPT as the cornerstone of the nuclear non-proliferation regime and the essential foundation for the pursuit of nuclear disarmament.”[3]
There is, thus, a clear contradiction concerning nuclear strategy within the Alliance. Official opposition to existing policy was first formulated publicly by the German and Canadian Foreign Ministers in the second half of 1998. Fischer argued for a No First Use clause to be included in NATO’s new Strategic Concept, while Axworthy called for “new initiatives” and “new thinking” to resolve the “evident tension between what NATO allies say about proliferation and what we do about disarmament.”[4] Although the new Strategic Concept did not go as far as either Minister urged, the Communiqué language quoted above highlights at least a degree of hesitation and reflectiveness in NATO circles over its nuclear posture.
NATO’s Nuclear Infrastructure and Arrangements
NATO not only underwrites a nuclear strategy, it also has access to the wherewithal to implement it. The British and French ballistic missile submarine fleets “contribute to the overall deterrence and security of the Allies.” Four US Navy Trident submarines are assigned to the NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) and, most significantly, the aircraft of six member states are equipped to deliver air-launched free-falling nuclear bombs. Of especial political importance is the status of these bombs and the weapons systems used to deliver them. While the French, British, and US submarinelaunched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) are under the respective national control of the nuclear weapons states, the gravity bombs made available to the NATO planners have a status all their own. 180 nuclear bombs are stored at as many as 15 airfields in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Turkey, Greece, and the UK.[5] They are in fact American, while designated for use not only by US aircraft, but also by the air forces of the six non-nuclear weapons NATO states mentioned above.
It is this particular status which lies at the root of much discussion concerning the NATO nuclear ‘umbrella’ and the Alliance’s collective obligation under the NPT. The fact is that these bombs are available for use in case NATO as a whole should go to war. In such an eventuality, the bombs would be dropped on their targets by aircraft flown by NATO pilots, in accordance with plans and using tactics developed by NATO staff.
In view of this clear involvement of the non-nuclear weapons member states of the Atlantic Alliance, two key questions arise:
- Under which conditions will the NATO nuclear weapons be used?
- Is such use in accordance with the NPT and other international commitments signed by the NATO member states?
NATO First Use
According to well informed sources, a revised version of a classified NATO document (MC 400/2) describing the Alliance’s military doctrine – the translation of the Strategic Concept into operational terms – apparently retains the possibility that nuclear weapons could be used against states armed with biological or chemical weapons, even if they have signed the NPT. This document was unanimously adopted at the North Atlantic Council on May 16, 2000, after the Military Committee had agreed to it on February 7.[6] That is, NATO doctrine allows the North Atlantic Council to advise its members to use nuclear weapons against states using, threatening to use, or even simply possessing weapons of mass destruction. Luke Hill, at that time Brussels correspondent of the US-based Defense News, quotes one NATO official as stating that nuclear weapons “are our only weapons of mass destruction. Nuclear weapons could constitute, in case there is a threat against NATO or any member through (weapons of mass destruction, including biological and chemical), the only deterrent we have.”[7] Such a policy bears a not altogether coincidental similarity to that adopted in 1996 by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, which allows for nuclear strikes against states or even “actors” using or preparing to use weapons of mass destruction against US targets.[8]
NPT Obligations
According to paragraphs I and II of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, nuclear weapons may not be transferred or received by the signatories.[9] So if the procedure followed in wartime actually transferred nuclear weapons to the ‘sharing’ state, it would be illegal. Officials of the states concerned counter this reasoning in a number of ways.
According to one line of argument, an exception for paragraphs I and II was created when the treaty was being negotiated in 1968, based on the contention that the prohibitions were designed to define normal peacetime practice and would not apply to conditions of general war. Such a line was followed, for example, by the Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs Louis Michel on May 11, 2000. Asked in Parliament about the legality of NATO attacking states armed with WMD, he replied that the NPT “does not apply in time of war. According to the Vienna Convention arms-related treaties or treaties with such implications are suspended in time of war.”[10] Amazingly, however, then-Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Jozias van Aartsen, when asked the same question in June 2000, took issue with his Belgian colleague: “I disagree with this statement. There has also been an exchange of opinions about this with Belgium at civil servant level. In the opinion of the Government there is no question of a violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, not even in time of war.”[11] Dutch diplomats at the NPT Review Conference in 2000 also insisted both that the NPT would remain valid in time of war and that Articles I and II would not be violated by NATO during any conflict, as there would be no question of transferring control of the nuclear weapons to the sharer states. The pilot, plane, and nuclear device would be under the command of SACEUR, who, not unimportantly, is always an American. By means of this structure, there would be no transfer to another entity at all: neither NATO nor the NATO allied pilot would control the bomb.
Negative Security Assurances
This somewhat convoluted logic is also applied to the ‘negative security assurances’ (NSAs) given to NPT members. When the Treaty was extended indefinitely in 1995, this was a question of vital importance. The member states, in exchange for repudiating in perpetuity any intention to develop nuclear weapons, demanded that the nuclear weapons states would guarantee that they will never attack them with nuclear weapons. In UN Security Council resolution 984 (1995), such guarantees were apparently given. However, official documents published by the Russian and US Governments call the pledges into question. On January 10, 2000 the Russian Federation officially reaffirmed the ‘first strike’ option it had first adopted in 1993.[12] The US Joint Chiefs of Staff document from 1996 stated that “offensive operations against enemy WMD and their delivery systems should be undertaken once hostilities become inevitable or commence.”[13]
The Nuclear Posture Review presented to the US Congress at the end of 2001 in combination with the National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction (December 2002) reaffirmed this basic tenet of US strategic offensive doctrine.[14]
Of course, NATO nuclear doctrine is not the same as that of the US. Historically, however, US nuclear doctrine has tended to be adopted by NATO. After all, the ‘shared’ nuclear weapons are American. There is even a paragraph in the Nuclear Posture Review that directly refers to NATO nuclear doctrine.[15]
And the June 2002 NATO Nuclear Planning Group Communiqué adopted ministerial “guidance to further adapt NATO’s dual-capable aircraft posture.”[16]
Furthermore, NATO itself did not officially adopt the negative security assurances given in resolution 984. This was explained by The Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs van Aartsen as follows: “There is no question of a contradiction between the relevant NATO policy and the negative security assurances provided by the nuclear weapons states. This is because decisions about the use of nuclear weapons are the responsibility of the nuclear weapons states and not NATO. The nuclear weapons states are committed to the NSAs which they have themselves given.”[17] Van Aartsen also expressed agreement with the opinion of his Danish counterpart, Niels Helveg Petersen, that the NPT does not prohibit the use of nuclear weapons against states armed with biological and nuclear weapons.[18]
Criticism of NATO Nuclear Policy
Criticism of NATO Nuclear Policy Such reasoning has a distinctly evasive and theological air, a quality which has not gone unremarked on by NPT states. In a Working Paper
presented at the 1998 NPT Preparatory Committee (PrepCom), the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), representing 113 States Parties, called on the nuclear weapon states “to refrain from nuclear sharing with nuclear weapons States, non-nuclear weapons states and States not party to the Treaty for military purposes under any kind of security arrangements.” [19] At the 1999 PrepCom, Egypt explicitly attacked NATO nuclear ‘sharing’ procedures: “Neither Article I nor Article II suffer any exceptions. Notwithstanding the clear and unambiguous nature of articles I & II of the NPT, NATO’s so-called ‘nuclear sharing’ arrangements and its concepts regarding nuclear deterrence … raise significant doubts over the extent of compliance of some NATO members with the provisions of both these articles…”[20]
A widely shared concern has been that NATO expansion will increase the number of states involved in the Alliance’s nuclear structure. As South Africa argued at the 1997 Prep-Com: “The planned expansion of NATO would entail an increase in the number of non-nuclear weapon states which participate in nuclear training… [and] which [would] have an element of nuclear deterrence in their defence policies.”[21] Although no nuclear weapons are stationed on the territory of Poland, Hungary or the Czech republic, they, like all NATO member states except France, are involved in the planning arrangements for the use of the nuclear weapons in time of war. Neither has NATO given cast iron guarantees not to deploy nuclear weapons on the territory of new member states, stressing only that it has no plans to do so. In fact the enlargement of NATO amounts to a process of creating nuclear-weaponsfree-zones-in-reverse.
Annual votes at the United Nations on the resolutions of the New Agenda Coalition (NAC), which call for more definite steps towards nuclear disarmament and stress that “each article of the NPT is binding on the respective States Parties at all times and in all circumstances,” also confirm this tendency. In the 1999 vote, for example, the US, UK, France, Poland and Hungary voted against the resolution, while the rest of NATO abstained.[22]
The NAC resolution of autumn 2000, by adopting slightly weaker language taken from the final document of the NPT Review Conference earlier that year gained the support of all the NATO countries except France, which abstained.
Later versions of the annual NAC resolutions failed to achieve a better result than abstentions from the NATO European member states (with the notable exception of Canada) and opposition from the nuclear weapons member states US, France, and the UK. The existing nuclear deterrents of these states as well as NATO nuclear doctrine formed an obstacle to more outright support of the NAC efforts.
Shifts in NATO Policy – A Credible Option?
The question now is, can the cautious criticism voiced in the past in a number of fora by a small number of NATO states be transformed into a more substantial process? Unfortunately, informal statements by Dutch diplomats and politicians the last few years suggest that the process may be limited to transparency and confidence building measures. In itself this would be a positive development, but in terms of addressing the basic contradiction between NATO nuclear policy and commitments under the NPT, such a narrow reform agenda is clearly inadequate.
More recently the main thrust of critical comment from NATO member states has come from Canada, acting largely on its own. Germany made a number of suggestions in a separate position paper presented at the NPT PrepCom 2002 in New York, while Belgium, Norway and the Netherlands did the same at the PrepCom 2003 in Geneva.[23]
Taken at face value, there is certainly some goodwill in the Alliance towards making serious moves in the direction of the final document of the NPT Review Conference. That document, it should be noted, included an “unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear-weapon states to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals leading to nuclear disarmament to which all States Parties are committed under Article VI,” an unprecedentedly clear declaration of intent backed by a programme of clearly defined intermediate policy objectives. These include a commitment to apply the “principle of irreversibility” to “nuclear disarmament, nuclear and other related arms control and reduction measures,” and the following steps “by all the nuclear-weapon states leading to nuclear disarmament in a way that promotes international stability, and based on the principle of undiminished security for all:
- Further efforts by the nuclearweapon states to reduce their nuclear arsenals unilaterally.
- Increased transparency by the nuclear-weapon states with regard to the nuclear weapons capabilities and the implementation of agreements pursuant to Article VI and as a voluntary confidence-building measure to support further progress on nuclear disarmament.
- The further reduction of nonstrategic nuclear weapons, based on unilateral initiatives and as an integral part of the nuclear arms reduction and disarmament process.
- Concrete agreed measures to further reduce the operational status of nuclear weapons systems.
- A diminishing role for nuclear weapons in security policies to minimise the risk that these weapons ever be used and to facilitate the process of their total elimination.
- The engagement as soon as appropriate of all the nuclear-weapon states in the process leading to the total elimination of their nuclear weapons.”[24]
In terms of the limited review apparently underway, the principle of irreversibility would prevent the taking back into NATO service of the hundreds of American tactical nuclear weapons removed from Europe during the last decade. Transparency measures, meanwhile, are particularly popular with officials from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who unfortunately at the same time continue to adhere to the official ‘no confirmation/no denial’ policy on the presence of the nuclear bombs. In Holland and elsewhere this has taken on a rather ridiculous air in the face of open references to the weapons by parliamentarians, including those of governing parties. Anti-nuclear activists have also collected and published an impressive amount of supporting documentation.[25]
The enthusiasm of NATO Governments for the removal of the free-fall bombs is doubtful. The ambiguity of NATO’s doctrine has remained right through to the North Atlantic Council Meetings of Dec 2003. For example the Dec. 2003 communiqué stated:
“9. The nuclear forces based in Europe and committed to NATO continue to provide an essential political and military link between the European and North American members of the Alliance.
10. (…) We reaffirmed our full commitment to the NPT and to the goal of universal adherence to it. We recognised the NPT as the cornerstone of the global nuclear non-proliferation regime and reiterated our continuing commitment to all our obligations under this Treaty.”[26]
Furthermore, the NATO commitment to the 13 “practical steps for the systematic and progressive efforts” of the Final Document of the NPT Review Conference partly quoted above have steadily weakened, more or less in parallel with the increasing emphasis by the Republican administration of US President Bush on the horizontal proliferation aspect of the NPT, to the detriment of the vertical proliferation side, i.e. the obligation in Article VI to move towards nuclear disarmament.
This wariness, however, may be transformed in the light of recent developments in the direction of a European Security and Defence Policy. Such a basic, long-term shift has become ever more visible, even in traditionally Atlanticist Dutch foreign policy, and similar movements in the policies of other member states may have significant consequences for Alliance nuclear policy. In the intermediate term, this might result in a withdrawal of US substrategic nuclear weapons from the territory of European NATO member states.[27]
This will, however, confront the anti-nuclear movement with a new challenge: the UK and French nuclear strike forces. In the past French ministers have openly suggested that the French and UK nuclear forces could be turned into a European nuclear deterrent.[28] If this were carried through a new violation of the NPT might arise if these national nuclear forces were transferred to a new entity, a European supra-national decision-making body. In that case removal of the US sub-strategic weapons assigned to NATO would not mark the end of a nuclear-armed Europe but unfortunately a new beginning.
Conclusion
In the absence of any popular mass movement against nuclear weapons, it has become increasingly clear that only pressure from within NATO may persuade the Alliance’s three nuclear weapons states that international arms control is not only a viable option but ultimately safer and more rational than any attempt to impose unilateralist policies against proliferation on the rest of the world. To encourage this approach, it would be useful if the NATO states which have occasionally shown themselves prepared to move faster in other contexts – Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, and Norway – were to follow the example of Canada’s increasingly vocal and forthright stance in favour of nuclear reform. A strong, broad pro-reform voice will provide the best opportunity for serious steps to be taken to counter a possible renewal of the nuclear arms race.
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