REINVIGORATING NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT
by Roderic Alley Roderic Alley comments on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference of 2000. From 24 April until 20 May 2000, the Sixth Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was held at United Nations headquarters in New York. Prospects for an effective outcome appeared inauspicious. Preparatory conference sessions -- in particular the 1998 session derailed by acrimony over nuclear proliferation in the Middle East -- did not bode well. This engendered apprehension, since Review Conference consensus failure erodes the NPT's standing and efficacy. Notwithstanding such foreboding (possibly on account of it), the 155 treaty states attending did reach a consensus statement, something that preceding review conferences in 1990 and 1995 had failed to achieve. Opened for signature in 1968, the NPT entered into force two years later, and by January 2000 comprised 187 members, including the five nuclear weapon states. Non-signatories include India, Pakistan, Israel and Cuba. Currently the most widely subscribed to disarmament treaty, the NPT seeks to curb the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, promote co-operation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and achieve nuclear and general and complete disarmament. The Treaty enshrines two central agreements: in return for forgoing the option of acquiring nuclear weapons, non-nuclear weapon states have under key Article VI the formal commitment of the nuclear weapon states to pursue good faith measures leading to nuclear disarmament and, under Article IV, unimpeded access to nuclear energy for non-military uses. Through the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the treaty maintains a safeguards system conducting inspections designed to detect and warn against diversions of nuclear materials and equipment for the production of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. These safeguards are not applied to countries the NPT defines as nuclear weapon states, namely those that manufactured or exploded a nuclear device before January 1967 -- in effect the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. That is one of the perceived asymmetries that have kept the treaty's thirty-year implementation politically contentious, along with claims that the nuclear weapon states have not kept faith with their Article VI obligations. After substantial nuclear weapon states pressure, the 1995 Review Conference approved the NPT's indefinite extension. This was in return for strengthened review procedures and a designated set of Principles and Objectives. They sought to universalise adherence to the NPT, establish a zone free of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East, negotiate a fissile material cut-off treaty, develop nuclear weapon free zones, and have a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in place by the end of 1996. NPT Article VI commitments systematically and progressively to reduce nuclear weapons, including the ultimate goal of their entire elimination, were reaffirmed.(1) In evaluating the overall integrity of the non-proliferation regime, the 2000 Review Conference provided the first opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of the 1995 Principles and Objectives. Partial discharge Although the CTBT was duly finalised in 1996, most NPT members viewed its overdue arrival as doing no more than partially discharge nuclear weapon states' obligations to NPT Article VI requirements. Perceptions then hardened that nuclear disarmament had lost momentum. This was manifest in delay and obstruction over strategic arms limitation (START II); the United States' assertions that it did not rule out nuclear weapons use in retaliation against chemical or biological attacks; consequential doubts about the value of nuclear weapon states' negative security assurances; growing Russian reliance upon tactical nuclear weapons; delays over CTBT ratification; complications in the orderly management, custody, and stocktaking of fissile material inventories; and a stalemated nuclear disarmament agenda at the Geneva Conference on Disarmament epitomised by failure to launch negotiations for a fissile materials cut-off treaty By early 1998, senior UN disarmament official Jayantha Dhanapala justifiably claimed that `the importance of 1995 as a watershed demanding a fundamentally different approach to the review process does not appear to have been fully grasped. Instead, a "business as usual" attitude is being self righteously adopted by some countries'.(2) Nuclear tests conducted by India and Pakistan in 1998, and hostility in the Middle East over Israel's refusal to join the NPT or subject its nuclear facilities to appropriate safeguards, highlighted unresolved regional nuclear proliferation threats. In Europe, NATO marked its fiftieth anniversary in April 1999 by announcing a Strategic Concept that would maintain and update as necessary an appropriate mix of conventional and nuclear forces. To NATO, nuclear weapons remained essential to preserve peace. This echoed Presidential Decision Directive (PDD 60) approved by President Clinton in November 1997. It endorsed retention of nuclear weapons as the cornerstone of American security for the foreseeable future. New agenda Against this background, the foreign ministers of Brazil, Egypt, Mexico, Ireland, New Zealand, Slovenia, South Africa, and Sweden issued a June 1998 Declaration on behalf of what was termed the New Agenda Coalition. Designed to reverse the faltering pace of international disarmament, and influenced by the 1996 Canberra Commission's findings, this called for a ban on the production of fissile materials, the creation of additional nuclear weapons free zones, completion of the Strategic Arms Limitation process, and full adherence to the NPT.(3) While the initiative was designed prior to Indian and Pakistani nuclear testing, its launch immediately after this watershed gave it added impetus. With no nuclear weapon state amongst its members to complicate criticisms of nuclear deterrence, the New Agenda Coalition took the opportunity to claim some of the ground now necessarily vacated by nonaligned movement countries. A letter submitted to the UN Secretary-General called on all nuclear weapon states to undertake general and complete disarmament.(4) Although Slovenia withdrew, the New Agenda Coalition built sufficient support and standing within the UN General Assembly to perform a critical brokerage function at the NPT 2000 Review Conference. In the months preceding this conference, conditions for an agreed final conference text appeared bleak. Although signed by 41 states, the CTBT had received only 28 of a required 44 ratifications, the most spectacular setback being the US Senate's October 1999 refusal to ratify. This occurred notwithstanding the joint warning of Prime Minister Blair, President Chirac, and Chancellor Schroder that Senate failure to ratify the CTBT risked fundamental divergences within NATO, and encouraged the spread of nuclear weapons by undermining the NPT.(5) The CTBT's Senate setback aggravated external resentment that long fought for international agreements were being used as pawns within the domestic contest between Congressional Republicans and the Clinton White House. Missile defence Added apprehensions over American exceptionalism accrued as Washington began testing for a national missile defence programme, threatening the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. This harmed Russian-American relations already worsened by NATO enlargement and the Kosovo engagement and fomented divisions within NATO. In October 1999, Russian Strategic Forces Commander Vladimir Yakovlev warned the United States that violation of the 1972 ABM Treaty would make Washington the culprit for disrupting nuclear arms limitation processes, and leaving agreements signed or planned in jeopardy.(6) This provided an incentive for the Russian Duma to ratify START II and the CTBT immediately prior to the NPT Review Conference, a move designed to upstage the United States. However, documents leaked during the NPT Review Conference revealed that United States arms control negotiators had offered assurances to their Russian counterparts that they need not worry about an American national missile defence, since both countries would maintain large, diversified, viable arsenals of strategic offensive weapons over the next decade and thereafter.(7) Although not directly at issue during the Review Conference, the national missile defence controversy was raised in several statements and put United States arms control credibility on the line. Shortly after convening under the determined presidency of Ambassador Baali of Algeria, the Review Conference received a New Agenda Coalition working paper on nuclear disarmament. This focused on critical Article VI questions, and called on the nuclear weapon states to unequivocally undertake the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals through an accelerated timetable under START III and to: * adapt existing policies and postures to preclude the use of nuclear weapons; * proceed to de-alerting, removal of warheads from delivery vehicles, and withdrawal of all nuclear forces from active deployment; * reduce tactical nuclear weapons and proceed to their elimination; * exhibit greater transparency with regard to nuclear arsenals and fissile material inventories; * broaden the existing programme (Trilateral Initiative) between the United States, Russia and the IAEA to include all five nuclear weapon states in an irreversible removal of fissile materials from weapons programmes; * more generally, ensure that a principle of irreversibility apply to all nuclear disarmament, and arms control measures. In response, the five permanent members of the Security Council attempted to hedge any commitment to total elimination by linking it to the word `ultimately', with its inherent connotations of postponement, and by reiterating the need to retain a linkage between nuclear and general and complete disarmament. The New Agenda Coalition then indicated that the total elimination of nuclear weapons was an obligation and priority, neither a distant ultimate goal nor conditional upon general and complete disarmament. In making this rebuttal, the coalition referred to the International Court of Justice's unanimous conclusion, in its 1996 advisory opinion, that `there exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control'.(8) Substantial achievement In essence, this was the interpretation that prevailed, representing a substantial achievement notwithstanding the failure of attempts to insert a 2000-05 timeline for Article VI progress. This result was important in that it ice-picked though the longstanding rigidities that have encased nuclear weapon states' conditionality over approaches to nuclear disarmament. Although surviving into the text of the conference's Final Document, a permanent five claim that `none of our nuclear weapons are targeted at any state' belied credibility.(9) Of greater note was the evident need of these states to confer and, notwithstanding manifest and serious national missile defence differences, emerge to assert the `preserving and strengthening of the ABM Treaty as a cornerstone of strategic stability and basis for further reductions of strategic offensive weapons'.(10) Although China later distanced itself when indicating revision would weaken the ABM Treaty, it was apparent that the permanent five regarded the New Agenda Coalition's confrontation of core deterrence principles sufficiently serious to dampen down their missile defence differences and sideline them from the conference. While disturbed by a possible ABM violation, China bit its lip on the issue as the United States agreed to link future attempts to negotiate a fissile materials ban within the Conference on Disarmament's work programme. In that setting, China has insisted that such a programme address the prevention of an arms race in outer space, an initiative the United States rejects. In effect, the permanent five made a tactical decision temporarily to accommodate their mistrust and promote a united conference front under the rubric of `strategic stability'. Longer term, however, the implications were unmistakable: should an 1972 ABM breakdown flow on to degrade the NPT, then the nuclear weapon states need look no further than themselves to know why. Practical steps to strengthen Article VI implementation and the 1995 Principles and Objectives derived in large part from deliberations in the subsidiary body ably chaired by New Zealand Ambassador Clive Pearson. After protracted and often difficult negotiations, aspects of the original New Agenda Coalition paper were blended with nuclear weapon state calls for a conclusion of START III and the preserving and strengthening of the ABM Treaty as a cornerstone of strategic stability. Related agreed steps included a moratorium on test explosions pending the CTBT's entry into force; a negotiated fissile ban within five years; further unilateral disarmament; increased transparency, diminished role and operational status for nuclear weapons by the nuclear weapon states; and importantly having the principle of irreversibility apply to nuclear disarmament. In building support for stronger Article VI language, the New Agenda Coalition did not oppose the non-aligned movement states' demands included in the final text regarding the `inalienable right of all treaty parties to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes'.(11) Transport concern What, then, of the transfer of nuclear materials? New Zealand highlighted its concerns regarding the maritime transport of nuclear materials and radioactive waste. Although supported by the Caribbean community, Ireland, and some Latin American and South Pacific states, it was New Zealand that pushed hardest for tighter liability, prior notification, compensation, and standards incorporating risk factors such as potential loss of tourism or fishing revenue emanating from risks of contamination. A compromise final text affirmed that transportation of radioactive materials must comply with relevant international standards for nuclear safety, security, and environmental protection without prejudice to rights, freedoms and obligations of navigation provided for in international law.(12) Relevant diplomatic linkages here included co-operation with the Alliance of Small Island States, which has a substantial South Pacific component and is chaired by Ambassador Tuiloma Neroni Slade of Samoa. This was evident over resistance to Iran's attempt to have nuclear energy linked with sustainable development, and resolved by wording stating that sustainable development should be a guiding principle for nuclear energy use.(13) Following the disclosure of Iraq's previously secret nuclear weapons programme, the IAEA developed stronger surveillance measures through a Model Additional Protocol approved in 1997. Although all the permanent five states have joined, the Protocol's implementation has been tardy. While accepting IAEA inspectors as part of its 1994 light water reactor bilateral agreement with the United States under which it agreed not to build nuclear weapons, North Korea remains non-compliant with NPT safeguards obligations. Because Iraq withdrew co-operation with the IAEA from late 1998, the agency has been unable to provide assurance that Baghdad is compliant with UN Security Council Resolution 687. Deadlock between the United States and Iraq prior to this terminology being determined almost derailed the conference during its final stages. That was prevented by some skilled committee chairing by Canadian Ambassador Westdal, who, like Pearson, performed some vital consensus forming functions. Egypt and Arab states insisted that Israel be named as the only Middle Eastern county not to have acceded to the NPT but, in agreeing to this, the United States demanded that Iraq also be named as non-compliant with the treaty. Permissive approach Elsewhere, the final conference text displayed permissiveness to some nuclear suppliers. It notes that credible assurance about an absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities -- particularly relating to enrichment and reprocessing -- could permit corresponding reductions in verification of the declared, less sensitive materials in that state.(14) This could ease the IAEA's burdens, but it is unclear what constitutes permissible reduction of traditional verification. The conference reaffirmed a 1995 Principles and Objectives component that acceptance of full scope safeguards constitutes a necessary condition of the supply of special fissionable material to non-nuclear weapon states. China's opposition to this principle saw its exclusion from the final conference text. In the final rush to conclusion, potentially useful conference text language on export control and safeguards was jettisoned.(15) Other important conference agreements, permitted only brief mention here, included demands that India and Pakistan join the CTBT and the NPT; support for nuclear weapon free zones, with calls for the nuclear weapon states to support them; and recognition of the need to establish legally binding negative security assurances. The NPT Review Conference succeeded to the extent that its agreed final text represented far more than a lowest common denominator agreement. New Agenda Coalition activism tilled a fertile ground of resentment at the permanent five's vacillation over the 1995 Principles and Objectives. This enhanced political incentives for non-nuclear states in NATO, most with an eye to domestic opinion, to push the nuclear disarmament agenda harder. Indeed, among some NATO non-nuclear states resentment was evident that the United States negotiated key conference outcomes with the New Agenda Coalition -- the very grouping Washington was anxious they ignore barely a year earlier.(16) Hence the New Agenda Coalition emerged as an established grouping that was taken seriously. It proved flexible, avoiding the snags of North-South differences that have complicated exchanges between nuclear weapon and non-aligned movement states on Article VI questions at previous NPT review conferences. Dead hand To help loosen the dead hand of nuclear weapon state inertia and interservice rivalry that has dictated the current mix of permanent five nuclear weapons capabilities, the New Agenda Coalition will need institutionalisation and greater public support. The conference's permanent five commitment to an unequivocal elimination of nuclear weapons stays matched by the determination of those powers to maintain doctrines of nuclear deterrence. To date at least, the permanent five regard abolition as unthinkable, and will treat the NPT's reaffirmed Principles and Objective programme as practical only to the extent that they do not upset existing security postures. Indeed, current upgrades of the American nuclear arsenal point to enhanced hard target, counterforce and accuracy capabilities likely to further unsettle Russian command and control systems.(17) The conference outcome will likely assist the pressure that Canada is exerting to have NATO conduct a review of its nuclear policy -- in particular the alliance's continued opposition `to no first use'. The NPT implications of nuclear sharing in NATO did not feature strongly at the conference but may now resurface. The conference's unambiguous message on the need for a revitalised nuclear disarmament outcome has added support to growing scepticism towards national missile defence as more a spur to proliferation than any form of `silver bullet'.(18) Given the pessimism surrounding the conference's inception, its achievements represented timely retrieval of ground lost through vacillation over the 1995 Principles and Objectives. Building on the International Court of Justice's 1996 ruling, the conference further exposed nuclear deterrence as a critical determinant of proliferation. Should permanent five commitments to NPT Article VI principles subsequently emerge as having been no more than expedients deployed to soften political pressure for nuclear disarmament, then the nuclear weapon states face increasing political alienation from the international community. In the meantime, the 2000 Review Conference has reinvigorated the treaty's standing as a mechanism demanding that the major powers take its principles of reciprocal obligation seriously. The Sixth Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was held in New York in April-May 2000. Despite doubts about the likelihood of a successful outcome, the 155 states managed to reach a consensus statement -- a considerable advance on that was achieved at the two previous such gatherings. This represented a timely retrieval of ground lost through vacillation over the designated set of Principles and Objectives which had emerged from the 1995 Review Conference in return for the indefinite extension of the NPT's. The 2000 Conference in further exposed nuclear deterrence as a critical determinant of proliferation and reinvigorated the NPT's standing as an instrument of nuclear disarmament. | |
Estimated Nuclear Weapon State Nuclear Stockpiles: 1990-2000
Year US USSR/Russia UK France China
1990 21,000 38,000 300 504 432
1991 19,500 35,000 300 538 434
1992 18,200 33,500 300 538 434
1993 16,750 32,000 300 524 434
1994 15,380 30,000 250 512 434
1995 14,000 28,000 300 500 400
1996 12,900 26,000 300 500 400
1997 12,245 24,000 260 450 400
1998 11,425 22,000 260 450 400
1999 10,925 20,000 185 450 400
2000 10,500 20,000 185 450 400
| | Source: `Nuclear Notebook', Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, vol 56, no 2 (2000), p.81. NOTES (1.) NPT/CONF. 1995/L.5, para. 4.3. (2.) J. Dhanapala, `The NPT Review Process: Identifying New Ideas to Strengthen the Regime', UNIDIR Newsletter, no 37 (1997), p.9. (3.) `Towards a Nuclear-Weapon Free World: The Need for A New Agenda', in R. Green, Fast Track to Zero Nuclear Weapons: The Middle Powers Initiative (Cambridge, Mass, 1998), pp.50-1. (4.) UN General Assembly doc A/53/ 138. For joint declaration, see also CD/1542, 11 Jun 1998, reprinted in UNIDM Newsletter, no 39, pp.39-40. (5.) Reuters, 9 Oct 1999. (6.) Associated Press, Moscow, 7 Oct 1999. (7.) ABM Treaty `Talking Points', Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, (www.bullatomsci.org/issues/2000). (8.) Dispositif reprinted in Green, p.38. (9.) Details of targeting under the current US strategic plan are described by Bruce Blair, `Trapped in the Nuclear Math', New York Times, 12 Jun 2000. (10.) Text: Final Document Issued by 2000 NPT Review Conference, Article VI, 15 (7). (11.) Ibid., Article IV preambular paras 6,7. (12.) Ibid., Article IV, Safe Transport of Radioactive Material, para 10. (13.) Ibid., Article IV, para 8. (14.) Ibid., Article III, 21. (15.) Rebecca Johnson, `The 2000 NPT Review Conference: A Delicate, Hard Won Compromise', Disarmament Diplomacy, no 46 (2000), p.12 (www.acronym.ora.uk). (16.) Ibid., p.8. (17.) See Greg Mello, `That Old Designing Fever', Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, vol 56, no 1 (2000), pp.51-7. (18.) See, eg, `Don't Rush into Missile Defences', Economist, 3 Jun 2000; `Nuclear Nightmare', Washington Post, 14 Jun 2000; `Tortured Ideas on Missile Defense', New York Times, 19 Jun 2000. A 11 May 2000 letter by MIT scientist Theodore Postol to the White House claimed that despite rigged tests Pentagon test data showed the missile interceptor `will be defeated by the simplest of balloon decoys'. Chicago Tribune, 11 Jun 2000. Dr Roderic Alley is a member of Victoria University of Wellington's Political Science Department. |
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