Recalibrating the U.S. Nuclear Non-Proliferation Effort
Daryl Kimball
For over five decades, the United States and other responsible nations have sought to prevent the spread and build-up of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. During and after the Cold War, many Republican and Democratic policymakers, scientists, doctors, concerned citizens, and dedicated public servants have worked to impose restraints on unbridled weapons competition and worked to prevent their use.
Through arms control, non-proliferation, and effective diplomacy, dozens of states have abandoned their nuclear, chemical, biological, and missile programs. The existing weapons states’ ambitions to develop and stockpile new types of weapons in greater numbers have been blunted. Despite these successes, there are many unfinished disarmament tasks left over from the Cold War, and new proliferation challenges have arisen. The situation requires a re-commitment to core disarmament and nonproliferation principles and objectives and the pursuit of new initiatives to strengthen the regime.
The Value of the Non-Proliferation System
As the international community prepares for the 2005 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference, it is important to recall that the NPT has helped to limit the number of nuclear weapon states to the original five (U.S., U.K., France, Russia, and China), plus three others (India, Israel, and Pakistan) that have not joined the treaty. North Korea’s nuclear
weapon status remains unclear. The use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states has become and remains taboo, though the United States and Russia maintain ambiguous stances on the matter. Co-operation with international inspections and safeguards against weapons proliferation are now a standard expectation of all states. Major suppliers of nuclear technology and ballistic missiles have established export control systems to limit the availability of technologies needed to build and deliver nuclear weapons. Dozens more states might have the bomb today if not for the NPT and associated measures including nuclear export controls, nuclear weapons free zones, and intrusive international weapons inspections.
Non-proliferation and arms control efforts have also reduced the threat posed by U.S.-Soviet nuclear weapons. Bilateral nuclear arms control agreements helped corral the Cold War arms race, prevented a defensive missile arms race, reduced offensive arsenals, and increased transparency and opportunities for diplomacy, thereby reducing instability and the risk of nuclear war. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, new co-operative programs have successfully dismantled and secured vast quantities of Cold War weapons stockpiles at dozens of locations. In addition, decades on-again, off-again efforts to ban nuclear testing culminated in the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the current de facto global test moratorium, which restricts the ability of states to improve their nuclear arsenals.
New Challenges and Imprudent Responses
But even as the non-proliferation system has become more sophisticated, the challenges it confronts have become more complex and there are many parts of the disarmament and non-proliferation agenda that remain unfinished. Over the last decade, the NPT has endured successive crises involving Iraqi and North Korean nuclear weapons programs. Iran has been found to have pursued secret nuclear activities that could provide it with bomb-making capability in the not too distant future. The non-NPT member states – India, Pakistan, and Israel – have advanced their nuclear weapons programs with relative impunity. The specter of terrorism, the proliferation of ballistic missile technology from North Korea, the existence of nuclear black market networks based out of Pakistan’s government-run weapons laboratories have added a new layer of risk.
Meanwhile, the United States and Russia have failed to capitalize on key opportunities to substantially and verifiably dismantle significant portions of their still massive Cold-Warera stockpiles of strategic and tactical weapons, which number over 20,000 bombs. As a result, the United States and Russia maintain outdated Cold War nuclear targeting plans. The latent risk of an accidental nuclear exchange and theft of non-strategic nuclear devices from Russia persists.
In the face of these developments, it has become fashionable for some U.S. policymakers to dismiss arms control and non-proliferation as ineffective against problem states and irrelevant for friendly states, including Russia. The Bush administration has spent much of its first three years in office pursuing policies focused on stopping unfriendly states from getting nuclear weapons. Its approach has downplayed the role of preventive diplomacy and arms control and emphasized military pre-emption or the threat of pre-emption, including the threat of use of nuclear weapons in non-nuclear situations, improved export controls, interdiction of dangerous weapons shipments, and unproven missile defenses.
Instead, the threat of nuclear (as well as chemical, biological, and missile) proliferation must be met with firm resolve and dealt with through a balanced and comprehensive array of strategies. The strategy of the Bush administration is out of balance and far too limited in scope and scale. While better controls on the global trade of dangerous weapons are useful, they are insufficient. Pre-emptive military action against states alleged to be seeking nuclear weapons is fraught with peril.
As the recent U.S. experience in Iraq shows, wars cost lives and money and lead to unintended consequences. Iraq’s nuclear program was actually dismantled through special international weapons inspections, which likely would have contained the Iraqi weapons threat if they had been allowed to continue.
Proliferation problems in North Korea and Iran defy easy military solutions. In both cases, multilateral diplomacy aimed at the verifiable halt of dangerous nuclear weapons and missile activities is the preferred course. Strategic missile defenses are not only unproven and costly, but their promotion in the years ahead could exacerbate rather than reduce ballistic missile threats. Some Bush administration officials and members of Congress are actually seeking to ease U.S. enforcement of export controls on the sale of ballistic missile technology in order to encourage greater “missile defense cooperation.”
Rather than pressing forward with meaningful and lasting nuclear weapons reductions with Russia, the Bush administration has insisted on an approach that amounts to little more than a gentleman’s agreement between presidents. The 2002 Moscow Treaty will allow each side to maintain approximately 2,000 deployed strategic weapons with many thousands more in reserve. Its muchtouted strategic nuclear reductions represent long-delayed reductions that were originally endorsed in 1997 minus necessary verification and dismantlement requirements envisioned by earlier U.S. and Russian negotiators.
Worse still, the Bush administration is pressing ahead with new research on new nuclear weapons systems to defeat chemical and biological targets and, in particular, deeplyburied and hardened targets. The White House has recently asked Congress for US$ 27 million for research and system testing of a modified, high-yield bunker-busting nuclear warhead and has outlined a plan to spend another US$ 485 million over the next five years to develop and produce the weapon. New types of nuclear weapons and excessive nuclear force levels are inappropriate and ineffective against likely security threats and they undermine the legitimacy of U.S. non-proliferation efforts.
An Action Agenda
Leading states in the international community – most particularly the United States – must strengthen and adapt preventive diplomacy and arms control to meet today’s security challenges. The evolving nature of the nuclear threat requires a comprehensive, consistent, and energetic global nonproliferation strategy. Here are some key components of such an approach:
1. Improving international nuclear weapons monitoring and inspection capabilities to encourage compliance and detect and deter cheaters
Reliable and credible information is key to mobilizing national and international coalitions to address international security dangers. The Iraq experience underscores the limitations of U.S. national intelligence and the importance of helping to strengthen international weapons monitoring and inspections regimes.
This involves redoubling efforts to persuade more of the NPT States Parties to agree to the Additional Protocol allowing more extensive International Atomic EnergyAgency (IAEA) inspections. The three nonmembers of the treaty – India, Israel, and Pakistan – should also be pressed to allow similar inspections on a voluntary basis. In addition, if key states such as India, Pakistan, China, and the United States were to finally ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, another valuable monitoring system to detect and deter nuclear explosions and to allow short-notice, onsite inspections would become operational.
The United States and others states must also fill existing gaps in the international weapons monitoring system, particularly with respect to chemical, biological, and missile proliferation. For example, there are no international institutions to verify Libya’s pledge to end its biological weapons activities and its ballistic missile work. As a result of a 2001 Bush administration decision to scuttle a seven-year effort to negotiate a verification regime for the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), no such system exists today. Moreover, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which is charged with enforcing the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), is relatively new and untested in conducting the challenge inspections required to verify the end of Libya’s chemical weapons efforts. Some states suspected of chemical weapons possession are not party to the CWC. The U.S. should work harder to achieve universal membership in the CWC and reconsider its opposition to a verification system for the BWC.
Another important way to strengthen international weapons monitoring and verification is to maintain the UN Monitoring and Verification Commission (UNMOVIC), or create a similar entity under the control of the Secretary-General or the Security Council, as a permanent resource to be activated on a case-by-case basis. It would work in co-operation with the IAEA and the OPCW to deal with difficult proliferation cases and fill existing gaps in weapons monitoring and verification. Former U.S. weapons inspector David Kay’s recent revelations vindicate the IAEA’s and UNMOVIC’s past reporting that there was no evidence that Iraq possessed chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons or had reconstituted its nuclear weapons programs prior to the U.S. invasion.[1]2. Expand and accelerate efforts to secure and dispose of existing nuclear materials and weapons stockpiles
Over the past decade, the U.S.-Russian Cooperative Threat Reduction effort has made the world safer by improving security and taking much of the Soviet-era nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons arsenal and infrastructure out of circulation. Still, more must be done. Russia still needs assistance to eliminate its 40,000 metric ton stockpile of chemical weapons. Russia’s biological weapons research facilities and personnel must be transformed into a non-weapons-producing mode. Russia’s sprawling nuclear infrastructure remains vulnerable, with only half of the facilities fully equipped with modern security systems to prevent theft or diversion of weapons and materials. The Bush administration and Congress must work together to substantially increase the current annual U.S. investment of roughly US$ 1 billion in these programs and remove unnecessary restrictions and bureaucratic obstacles that threaten the continuation of contracts on important projects. European states can and should contribute significant additional resources to this effort, which increases the security of the entire international community.
3. Pursue new restrictions on access to nuclear weapons technologies to make it more difficult for new states to obtain nuclear material for weapons
International efforts to curb the spread and buildup of nuclear weapons arsenals greatly depend on controlling the production and stockpiles of the key ingredients for the bomb: highly enriched uranium and plutonium. However, the NPT’s Article IV guarantee of access to “peaceful” nuclear technology and the broad diffusion of that technology have allowed some states like Iran to acquire the capability to enrich uranium, while other states, like North Korea, could acquire plutonium production facilities useful for weapons.
Better Regulation of the Fuel Cycle: Following the recent disclosures of illicit Pakistani nuclear assistance to Libya and Iran, President Bush has proposed that the 40-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) not sell enrichment and reprocessing equipment to any state that does not already have the capability. He has also proposed that these nuclear supplier states not provide equipment to nations that have failed to agree to a tougher set of IAEA inspections. Although a push for new and tighter nuclear export restrictions through the NSG is long overdue, long-term success requires the application of the same standards to all states and more aggressive efforts to eliminate other means of fissile material production.
Several important, additional issues need to be considered and other options should be explored. First, the Bush formula would allow significant nuclear suppliers not part of the NSG, such as Pakistan, to continue to peddle their wares. The recent disclosures about transfers of uranium and uranium-enrichment equipment from the Khan Research Lab warrant, at the very least, revisions to Pakistan’s lax export-control system and full Pakistani co-operation with IAEA investigators.
In addition, those states currently without enrichment or reprocessing capabilities, such as Brazil and Iran, will strongly resist efforts to deny them access to such technologies. If these and other states are to be expected to agree to tougher restrictions, their access to low-enriched uranium fuel for light-water reactors (LWRs) will need to be assured.
The solution to this obstacle requires the creation of a long-term, multinational nuclear fuel supply that would make national possession of uranium enrichment plants unnecessary and uneconomical. One approach is to develop a new arrangement that would bar enrichment and reprocessing capabilities but continue to guarantee access to nuclear fuel supplies and regulate spent fuel disposition under the supervision of the IAEA. Another option is to provide low-cost access to fuel for LWRs through market-based consortia.
Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty: Another vital step would be a global treaty that would ban the production of highly enriched uranium and plutonium for weapons by all states and could help to establish baseline information on global stockpiles. Since the early 1990s, states at the Genevabased Conference on Disarmament (CD) have sought to begin formal talks on a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT). But FMCT negotiations have been stymied by China since 1999 in an attempt to gain leverage on its priority issue: a treaty for the prevention of an arms race in outer space (PAROS). Unwilling to constrain its ambitious plans for missile defense systems that could include space-based weapons, the United States has said there is no arms race in outer space and will only allow exploratory discussions on the subject.
Successive CD presidents and, more recently, a group of five ambassadors have tried to bridge the political differences by proposing the start of negotiations on the FMCT in an ad hoc committee, and simultaneously beginning substantive discussions – but not negotiations – on PAROS and, as several non-nuclear weapon states have proposed, general discussions on nuclear disarmament.
In August of 2003, China indicated it could agree to this formula, but the United States has balked. Last November at the United Nations, the U.S. representative voted for a resolution supporting the FMCT. However, he noted that the United States had – after nine years of support – commenced a “review” of the concept. In January, Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control Steve Rademaker told Arms Control Today that “We are looking at the threshold question, does an FMCT make sense?”
From a U.S. perspective, the FMCT is a win-win proposition. A universal measure, it would reinforce the NPT, voluntary nuclear export controls, and help contain the nuclear programs of the three NPT holdout states: India, Israel, and Pakistan.
4. Engage in discussions with “states of proliferation concern” to address underlying conflicts and work to bring such states into the community of responsible nations
Regional conflict and perceptions of insecurity are major factors that lead states to seek nuclear and other unconventional weapons. The pursuit of nuclear weapons in volatile regions such as the Middle East, South Asia, and the Korean Peninsula only undermine long-term global security.
North Korea: The Bush administration’s refusal to resume bilateral talks with North Korea in 2001 and its tough talk and hesitancy to engage in discussions after the leadership in Pyongyang began reviving its plutonium production program have made a dangerous situation worse. It is vital that the United States undertake more serious negotiations toward an agreement leading to the verifiable dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear program.
North Korea has indicated that it will verifiably dismantle its nuclear weapons programs, but it will not do so if its concerns are not also met. Bush’s willingness to discuss a security pledge should signal to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il that he is not only being responsive to his negotiating proposals but to his fears about U.S. aggression.
So long as North Korea agrees to give up its entire nuclear weapons program, allows re-entry of inspectors, and suspends further plutonium separation or uranium enrichment, the Bush administration should pledge not to attack North Korea and allow the resumption on non-nuclear energy aid. The pledge should continue as long as the North is actively dismantling any nuclear weapons and fissile-material production facilities and fully cooperating with on-site inspections, according to the terms and timetable of a new agreement.
Even if a non-aggression pledge changes North Korea’s behavior in the short term, the path forward remains littered with hazards. Conducting effective diplomacy requires more than issuing non-negotiable demands. The President and his closest advisers must overcome internal differences about its negotiating stance and begin to engage in a genuine give-and-take with North Korean officials.
Other States: In the past several months, two other states long suspected of pursuing nuclear and chemical weapons – Iran and Libya – have been persuaded to allow intrusive international inspections through multilateral strategies involving preventive diplomacy, international non-proliferation treaties and inspections, economic sanctions and incentives. Iran’s previously unreported nuclear program activities require that it provides full co-operation with the IAEA to clarify its record and ensure compliance with its legal obligations under the NPT. At the same time, if Iran demonstrates through its actions that it is choosing not to build nuclear weapons, the United States and other leading nations should respond with positive measures to make it clear that compliance with international nonproliferation standards is more beneficial to their security than the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.
The United States and other nations also have an important role to play in reviving the Indian-Pakistani dialogue on limitations on their nuclear and missile competition. While the opportunity for progress appears limited now, such efforts are needed to hold back the steady advance in each nation’s nuclear capabilities and the lingering danger of a regional nuclear war.
5. The United States and other nuclear weapon states must reduce the role of nuclear weapons in their own security policies
In the end, nuclear risk reduction requires more than just pressure on a few of the nuclear “have-nots” – it requires greater restraint and leadership from the nuclear “haves,” particularly the United States. So long as one state continues to possess nuclear weapons, other states will feel compelled or justified to seek nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons and the means to deliver them.
No New Nuclear Weapons: At times, some current officials in the Bush administration say the right things. In 2002, Secretary of State Colin Powell said that he told the leaders of nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, which were then teetering toward war, that “I can see very little military, political, or any other kind of justification for the use of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons in this day and age may serve some deterrent effect, and so be it. But to think of using them as just another weapon in what might start out as a conventional conflict in this day and age seems … to be something that no side should be contemplating.”
But the Bush administration has refused to apply the same logic to its own policies. To date, the Bush administration has reinforced and expanded the role of nuclear weapons by pursuing research leading to the development of new nuclear weapons and stating that U.S. nuclear weapons may be used in non-nuclear conflicts. If Congress does not block the Bush administration’s plans to research and develop a new class of nuclear weapons, hawks in the United States may push for the production and deployment of bunker-busting nuclear weapons with yields in the range of 100 kilotons, or even for the resumption of nuclear testing of a new warhead type, within the next two to three years.
The rationale for these new nuclear weapons is described in the United States’ 2002 National Security Strategy, which considers nuclear weapons as a mere extension of the continuum of conventional weapons in the U.S. arsenal. According to a January 31, 2003, Washington Times article, President Bush approved a national security directive that specifically allows for the use of nuclear weapons in response to biological or chemical attacks. According to the article, the classified National Security Presidential Directive 17 states that “The United States will continue to make clear that it reserves the right to respond with overwhelming force – including potentially nuclear weapons – to the use of [weapons of mass destruction] against the United States, our forces abroad, and friends and allies.”
This is the wrong course. Current U.S. efforts to enhance the credibility and range of options for the use of nuclear weapons blur the bright line that has separated nuclear and conventional warfare since the bombing of Nagasaki. Coming from the United States, the world’s pre-eminent military and political power, such policies only undermine nonproliferation efforts by suggesting to other states that nuclear weapons are legitimate and necessary tools that can achieve military or political objectives. So long as nuclear weapons exist, national policies on their use should limit them to deterring a nuclear attack launched by another nuclear weapon state. No new nuclear weapons are required or justified, and the United States should also maintain its nuclear test moratorium and reconsider ratifying the CTBT.
Accelerate and Dismantle Excess Arsenals: Meaningful U.S.-Russian strategic nuclear reductions have been effectively stiff-armed as a result of the so-called Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty of 2002. Under the agreement, each side has pledged to reduce operationally deployed strategic forces to roughly 2,000 warheads. But thousands of U.S. and Russian nonstrategic warheads remain unregulated. Further eroding its security value, the current U.S. proposal would allow either side to exceed the numerical limits on deployed warheads by simply notifying the other party. Worse still, in keeping with the new U.S. National Security Strategy, the treaty will allow Washington to rapidly redeploy a “hedge arsenal” of about 2,400 stored warheads when the treaty expires in 2012.
While discussions on transparency measure related to the treaty continue between the two governments in Geneva, there has been very little progress. Discussions on nonstrategic nuclear weapons are not on the agenda of either side.
In the next year, the United States and Russia should agree to resume formal talks on new verification measures to increase confidence that the planned strategic withdrawals are proceeding apace. Both sides should also agree to make public the details on their warhead stockpiles, the pace of their reductions and dismantlement activities, and agree not to deploy nuclear weapon systems with fundamentally new military capabilities.
Conclusions
The danger of nuclear weapons and nuclear proliferation remains but can be addressed with the right set of strategies and more effective leadership from the international community. But, the mix of policies and strategies outlined and pursued by the George Bush administration is out of balance. Success hinges on crafting and energetically pursuing a comprehensive and consistent approach to make the acquisition, accumulation, and use of nuclear weapons more difficult and to reduce the saliency and allure of these terror weapons.
Nuclear non-proliferation policies must not only address the problem of “rogue” states and terrorists, but also the arsenals of the existing nuclear powers and the states that are outside the non-proliferation system: India, Israel, and Pakistan. These efforts should draw from existing programs and activities, reinforce and expand bilateral and global arms control measures, and be pursued in collaboration with U.S. allies and friends through the UN and other bilateral and multilateral bodies.
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