Targeting or Protecting the Law
Bombing for non-proliferation and disarmament does not work
One year ago the media celebrated the victorious final of the US-led war in Iraq and the end of the Saddam regime. Did the war really end? Obviously not, as fighting continues until today, at an increasing scale. Was it a victory? Hard to defend this view in face of a country in ruins, chaos and violence. Was it justified? Even those who invented the reasons for invasion now admit being wrong. No weapons of mass destruction could be found to be disarmed. The country is as far from peace and democracy as Mars is from Venus. Terror blooms, hostages are taken, and US troops become targets themselves. Instead of pacifying the Middle East the region is burning. Iran prefers to keep its nuclear option, under a more conservative government. Israel builds fences and assassinates opponents, inspiring more people to blow themselves off to become heroes. Those who supported the war are on the defensive. The “easy war” turned into a disaster, as many warned in advance.
Bombing for disarmament, seeking dominance to stop proliferation is not a promising strategy. It is neither effective nor sustainable nor legal. Building weapons and fighting wars to eradicate threats caused by terror of weapons mass destruction is a contradiction in itself. The current US administration still seems to believe in this logic that became the basis for its war against proliferation. It rather spurs proliferation and undermines the basis of the existing non-proliferation regime.
Certainly the current regime is far from being perfect. At its core is the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that restrains the number of Nuclear Weapons States (NWS) to the USA, Russia, UK, France, and China, who are also the permanent five (P5) in the UN Security Council. All other member states gave up their nuclear weapons option and in return received the “inalienable right” to use nuclear energy (Art. IV), and the obligation by the NWS to stop the arms race and disarm their arsenals (Art. VI). The weaknesses of this deal are obvious: the discrimination between nuclear haves and have-nots created double standards; the proliferation of “peaceful” nuclear energy facilitated the spread of the bomb, despite controls by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); the NWS did not stop the arms race nor get rid of their nuclear arsenals. Some states used “Atoms for Peace” as a cover to conceal nuclear weapons activities, accepting the atoms and neglecting the peace. Among them are Israel, India, and Pakistan, who built the bomb outside the NPT, as well the suspects Iraq, North Korea, and Iran, who pursued their options within.
The current policies by the established and emerging nuclear weapon states hit the NPT at its core. First of all, 15 years after the end of the Cold War, the US and Russia still maintain massive stockpiles of nuclear weapons, more than 30,000 bombs. These huge arsenals provide an excuse for others to go for the bomb and they also generate risks for accidental nuclear war. Even worse, the Bush administration is pushing ahead with research on new nuclear weapons, including mini-nukes and bunker busters, and builds a new bomb factory in Los Alamos. Missile defense and space weapons add to this new strategic triad. In this view arms control, like the former ABM Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), only restrict one’s own military superiority. Even the weak Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty (SORT) of 2002 is already seen as an obstacle.
Driven by these bad examples, the other NWS follow suit, further inspired by concerns that missile defense could make their arsenals obsolete. Whole regions become involved in new arms races, such as the Middle East, South Asia, and North-East Asia. Those who want can serve their interests on black markets, as the case of Pakistan’s A.Q. Khan vividly shows. At the end of the chain the dangerous technology may trickle down to terrorists. Rather than stopping the nuclear chain at its source, the established members of the nuclear club try to keep their options and criminalize those who want to do alike. With its Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), the US government does not restrain the demand or supply of WMD but only attempt “to stop the flow of such items at sea, in the air, or on land.” This policy has found its way into the proposed UN Security Council resolution on “non-proliferation” released on March 24, 2004, creating a blueprint to combat proliferation with military means.
George W. Bush goes even further. Reacting to a proposal by IAEA Director Mohammed El Baradei to operate facilities producing nuclear weapons material only under international control, he suggested to give critical nuclear technologies and knowledge only to those states that already have these technologies. Keeping nuclear power in the hands of the “good guys” has been US policy for a while, but establishing this as international law would require a revision of Art. IV of the NPT. This is unlikely to find consensus and would alienate key developing countries who see this as another form of discrimination. By shattering two main pillars of the NPT, represented by Art. IV and Art. VI., Bush questions the old deal and contributes to the crisis of the NPT without providing real alternatives.
These truly exist: nuclear disarmament and renewable energy. While international law is under attack, it is still time to protect it. As disappointing the existing regime may be, it is all we got. Without the NPT we might well be in a world with more nuclear weapons states, and we had no handle to push the P5 to fulfill their obligations under Art. VI. The NPT is part of a larger system of international law, creating norms which provide a fundament for international security. Non-proliferation, arms control, disarmament, verification, conflict resolution, negotiations, and diplomacy may not have the real-time effect a strike with a cruise missile has in Baghdad. They require more time and patience than military adventurism, but are better suited to build a solid fundament for the future.
This Bulletin focuses on developments that undermine the non-proliferation regime and on activities to protect it. A major focus is on US plans to develop new nuclear warheads (Greg Mello), missiles (Andrew Lichterman), and space weapons (Jeffrey Lewis) and to seek dominance with the PSI (Luis Gutiérrez Esparza). Vertical proliferation is also pushed in the UK (Kate Hudson) and France (Dominique Lalanne). European non-nuclear weapon states rely on the NATO nuclear doctrine, giving them indirect access to nuclear weapons (Karel Koster), together with European plans to militarize space (Regina Hagen).
The dual-use potential of critical technologies is a problem. China’s non-proliferation policy and practices (Zhenqiang Pan) are challenged by the suggested export of the German Hanau MOX facility to China and its possible military uses (Wolfgang Liebert, Michael Sailer). Plutonium production in North Korea is seen as directly devoted to nuclear weapons development (Jungmin Kang). In the case of Pakistan, the gas centrifuge provided a path to the bomb (Alexander Glaser, Pervez Hoodbhoy), leading to the explosive situation in South Asia (M.V. Ramana, Zia Mian).
To prevent these perils for international law, it is essential that the United States reshapes its non-proliferation policy, supported by an action agenda of the international community (Daryl Kimball). Toward the 2005 NPT Review Conference, a variety of useful steps could and should be taken (David Krieger). Among them are more stringent verification norms and practical measures of risk management (Gregor Malich). Single steps need to be viewed in a larger framework of a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World as Janet Bloomfield and Pamela Meidell point out in their Abolition 2000 Report Card for 2003.
Jürgen Scheffran, April 14, 2004
