Ferment in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Regime
Harold A. Feiveson
Up to now, the nuclear non-proliferation regime and its cornerstone element – the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) have worked very well. Only three countries have remained completely outside the treaty – India, Pakistan, and Israel; and only one country – North Korea has withdrawn from the treaty. Essentially all declared civilian nuclear facilities in the non-nuclear-weapon states are under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards. Many of the non-nuclear countries within the treaty have ended nuclear weapon programs which they once had or were exploring – including South Africa, Libya, Germany and Japan, Argentina and Brazil, Switzerland, Sweden, and others.[1]
There are gathering clouds, however. First, the violation of the NPT by North Korea, and its subsequent withdrawal, has put a spotlight on the uncertain enforcement mechanisms of the treaty. Second, the discovery in 2003 and 2004 of the machinations by the A.Q. Khan network showed glaring weaknesses in the effectiveness of international safeguards and of controls established by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), a group of the major exporters of nuclear technologies. The Khan network of suppliers and middlemen had for several years been supplying centrifuge technologies (and possibly also a nuclear weapon design) clandestinely to a number of countries, including North Korea, Iraq, Iran, and Libya, all of which were parties to the NPT and subject to IAEA safeguards. Third, Iran’s pursuit of centrifuge technologies, heavy water production, and other nuclear technologies has dramatized the risk of “latent proliferation” that a country in good standing under the NPT and subject to IAEA safeguards could nevertheless, under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, move to the edge of a nuclear weapons capability, months away from nuclear weapons once a decision was made. Finally, it is clear that many of the non-nuclear countries are growing increasingly restless with the seeming indifference of the nuclear weapon states in fulfilling their obligations as called for in Article VI of the NPT.
One way for the international community to deal with this ferment in the non-proliferation regime is to focus on the two countries of immediate concern – North Korea and Iran (with Iraq’s nuclear program already settled!). Such has been the approach of the U.S. Administration. But the problems recently highlighted go beyond just these countries and must be addressed by more global undertakings. This is all the more apparent if the international community is to effectively confront the threat of nuclear proliferation to non-state actors – to terrorists. Here it is critical that fissile materials – plutonium and high-enriched uranium – be rigorously protected and safeguarded in all countries, not only in those few who the U.S. and others brand as rogue or dangerous. Therefore, the challenge now for the nonproliferation regime is to address not just the special cases of North Korea and Iran but as well the enduring and interconnected problems these cases have highlighted – enforcement, safeguards, latent proliferation, and the obligations of the nuclear weapon states.
Enforcement
Article X of the NPT allows a country to withdraw from the treaty upon due notice. However, it is of critical importance, especially in light of the latent proliferation discussed below, for the parties to the treaty and the U.N. Security Council to determine whether a country could use fissile materials or production facilities (including those of indigenous origin) acquired prior or while they were parties to the NPT to make weapons after its withdrawal from the treaty. If the determination is not to allow this, the Security Council could state that the withdrawal of a country from the NPT in this fashion would constitute “a threat to the peace” under section VII of the U.N. Charter and be prepared to authorize an escalating series of sanctions against any country that does so. There is a precedence of sort. At the level of heads of state and government, the Security Council in January 1992 noted that “The proliferation of all weapons of mass destruction constitutes a threat to international peace and security.”
In another valuable precedent, the Security Council took an impressive step in April of 2004 by adopting Resolution 1540.[2] Under the Resolution, the Security Council requires among other stipulations “that all States … shall adopt and enforce appropriate effective laws which prohibit any non-State actor to manufacture, acquire, possess, develop, transport, transfer or use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and their means of delivery;” that States “develop and maintain appropriate effective measures to account for and secure” nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons and materials; and that States “establish, develop, review and maintain appropriate effective national export and trans-shipment controls over such items, including appropriate laws and regulations to control export, transit, trans-shipment and re-export” of such items, along with appropriate penalties for violations.
Safeguards
While a party to the NPT and subject to IAEA safeguards, Iraq, prior to the first Gulf War, had assembled a massive program designed to make nuclear weapons and hidden from safeguards. As a consequence of the failure of safeguards in Iraq, the IAEA in 1997 developed an Additional Protocol (INFCIRC 540)[3] which allows the Agency to look for undeclared weapons activities, through environmental monitoring and such. The value of this Protocol has been further underscored by the revelations of the A.Q. Khan network. It will be important for all countries to adhere to this Protocol, a result which could be furthered by the Nuclear Suppliers Group requiring such adherence by countries importing nuclear technologies.
Latent Proliferation
Iran has put a spotlight on the dangers of the proliferation of uranium enrichment – one of the two routes (along with the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel) to the production of nuclear explosive materials. Although reprocessing and enrichment in civilian nuclear programs remain limited at present to a small number of facilities, most of them in the nuclear weapon states, several non-nuclear countries – including notably Iran – assert the right under the NPT to engage in these activities as long as they are for civilian purposes and under IAEA safeguards. The spread of these technologies to more and more countries, however, will place these countries very close to nuclear weapons. Civilian reprocessing, which though being done or planned on a large scale in the U.K., France, Russia, and Japan, does not have clear economic value at present, and thus may not be an immediate problem. But uranium enrichment is a critical part of the civilian nuclear fuel cycle; and countries, such as Iran and Brazil, argue that they need their own, national enrichment facilities for fuel cycle independence and/or for commercial reasons – to allow them to sell enriched uranium on the world market.
The uranium enrichment process that today is the most economic is centrifuge enrichment. And the spread of centrifuge technologies is particularly troubling. From a proliferation view, centrifuges are a nightmare. For one, even a substantial centrifuge cascade producing significant quantities of weapon-grade uranium could produce few emissions detectable outside of the facility, and the facility itself could be inconspicuous. Second, a centrifuge cascade could in a matter of hours be converted from one producing low-enriched uranium for reactor fuel to one producing weapon-grade uranium. Third, in part by virtue of the Khan network, centrifuge technology has now become widely available. And finally, weapon-grade uranium can be incorporated into a weapon far more readily than could plutonium, even by a relatively unsophisticated country, and conceivably also by a terrorist group.
To discourage the proliferation of centrifuge (and also reprocessing) technologies, the Director of the IAEA, Mohammed ElBaradei, and an expert group established under the auspices of the IAEA, have championed the creation, through voluntary agreements and contracts, of multinational enrichment and reprocessing facilities, in which these activities would be outside of strictly national control.[4] The U.S. Administration and the G-8 have also sought to stop the proliferation of reprocessing and enrichment technologies to countries that do not now have them through the imposition of strict export constraints.
The prevention of the proliferation of reprocessing and enrichment technologies is a vital goal for the nonproliferation regime. However, any enduring policy will likely have to be universal or near-universal in its application. It will not be possible in the long run to sustain a policy that forbids certain civilian technologies to some countries and allows them in others.
Obligations of the Nuclear Weapon States
The strengthening of enforcement protocols, safeguards, and limits to latent proliferation will all require actions by the non-nuclear countries, possibly including a reinterpretation of the NPT by the parties to the treaty. But such new undertakings and interpretations by the non-nuclear countries will not be possible if the nuclear weapon states walk away from their own obligations under Article VI of the treaty.
At the 2000 Review conference of the NPT, the parties agreed to a 13-step program toward nuclear disarmament. These 13 steps included: early entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty; conclusion within five years of a verifiable fissile material cutoff treaty; an unequivocal commitment by the nuclear weapon states to full nuclear disarmament; and a commitment by the nuclear weapon states to allow the inspection and disposition for peaceful purposes of all excess fissile material.[5]
None of this has happened. Even so, it is still in the interest of most of the non-nuclear parties to the treaty to remain in the treaty – few countries will want their neighbors to be free of safeguards obligations. However, if the nuclear weapon states continue pointedly to turn their backs on the 13 steps, a few countries at least might consider withdrawing from the treaty – perhaps not with the initial intention of acquiring nuclear weapons, but nevertheless initiating an unraveling of the NPT.
And this connection to nuclear proliferation is but one reason for the nuclear weapon states to address seriously their own nuclear arsenals. Quite apart from the (rightful) concerns over proliferation, the existing arsenals continue to pose grave risks. These include nuclear war in South Asia and, in the greatest nightmare scenario, an accidental or inadvertent nuclear exchange between the U.S. and Russia, a danger made more palpable by the incongruous fact that nearly 15 years after the end of the Cold War, each of them keeps over 1,000 nuclear warheads on high alert, ready to be launched within tens of minutes of an order to do so.
