Posts Tagged ‘Canadian nuclear policy’

Earlier this week, January 25-26, a group of Canadian NGOs[i] sponsored a conference attended by officials and experts from the United States, Canada, and NATO headquarters to consider and critique a set of recommendations prepared by the sponsoring groups. The recommendations, which focused on issues related to the forthcoming review conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the current review of the NATO Strategic Concept, were presented in the conference briefing paper.[ii] The following is my presentation on three disarmament promises made by NATO states which the current NATO strategic doctrine continues to ignore.

This morning’s focus on NATO is obviously a response to the important opportunity that comes via the current review of the NATO Strategic Concept (the review process is described in the briefing paper for this conference: Canadian Action for Zero Nuclear Weapons.

The review is an opportunity for NATO as well – a chance to make some clear changes (both symbolic and practical) to its declaratory policies and the posture and deployments that follow from them. We’ve argued in the paper that in some of the key elements of its nuclear policy NATO is at serious odds with the NPT and with the re-invigorated attention globally to the pursuit of a world without nuclear weapons.

My comments in the next few minutes will highlight some of the recommendations in the briefing paper, and it is worth noting that the paper does not call on NATO to do anything that individual NATO states have not already promised to do. And in that regard I hope Chris Westdal won’t mind me recalling something he said to the Toronto forum last fall. How about, he said, instead of asking states to make more and more new promises, we insist that they start keeping some already made.

So I want to remind you of three unequivocal promises that have been made by all NATO states, but which the current NATO Strategic Concept does not honor:

a) The first is the obvious promise, through the NPT’s Article VI, to disarm. If the wording of Article VI is a bit ambiguous, the unanimous decisions and declarations in 1995 and 2000, by all states parties to the NPT, clarify once and for all what it means – that is, it is an unequivocal commitment to the elimination of nuclear weapons. The World Court added further clarity when it said that the promise to disarm is a legal obligation that requires not only the pursuit of disarmament, but its achievement.

But then we come to paragraph 46 of NATO’s Strategic Concept. It argues that given “the diversity of risks with which the Alliance could be faced…, the Alliance’s conventional forces alone cannot ensure credible deterrence.” So, the threat of nuclear attack is required to “render the risks of aggression against the Alliance incalculable and unacceptable.”  And thus it concludes that nuclear weapons remain “essential to preserve peace.” So in its formal declaration, NATO insists that, rather than pursuing and achieving disarmament, it “will maintain for the foreseeable future an appropriate mix of nuclear and conventional forces based in Europe” (para 46). So the promise is abolition, the commitment is indefinite retention.

b) A second promise is found in the agreement, reached during the NPT review process, that all states party to the NPT will seek to “diminish the role for nuclear weapons in [their] security policies [in order] to minimize the risk that these weapons will ever be used and to facilitate the process of their total elimination.”

Now look at paragraph 62 of the NATO Strategic concept:  It says the purpose of nuclear weapons is broad – it is to “prevent coercion and any kind of war.” And to accomplish that purpose, NATO nuclear forces are given the “essential role” of “ensuring uncertainty in the mind of any aggressor about the nature of the Allies’ response to military aggression” (para 62). In other words, rather than a diminishing role, NATO continues to prescribe an expansive role for nuclear weapons, including their potential use in response to non-nuclear threats, and, by implication, first use. European-based nuclear weapons, it says, are directly linked, also in paragraph 62, to “the supreme guarantee of the security of the Allies,” namely the strategic nuclear forces of Alliance members.

Furthermore, there has in fact been a geographic expansion of the role of nuclear weapons in NATO, rather than a diminishing role, as a result of the post-Cold War expansion of NATO and its nuclear umbrella.

So for NATO to come into full conformity with the commitments made by its individually, the new strategic concept will have to scale back dramatically on the role assigned to nuclear weapons – a no-first-use commitment would be an appropriate case in point.

c) NATO states, in a third promise, have obviously also signed on to NPT Articles I and II, and thus accepted the treaty’s explicit prohibition on the transfer of nuclear weapons – the Treaty requires that nuclear weapon states not supply nuclear weapons to non-nuclear weapon states; and non-nuclear weapon states are not to receive nuclear weapons.[iii]

In European NATO US nuclear weapons have been transferred to non-nucelar weapon states. Paragraph 63 of the current strategic concept insists, in effect, that there is justification for such transfers (despite the NPT’s clear prohibition) from NWS to NNWS in NATO because credible deterrence requires that European NNWS members of the Alliance “be involved in collective defence planning in nuclear roles” and that nuclear forces be maintained on European territory. Furthermore, those weapons on European soil are also said to be necessary to maintain “an essential political and military link between the European and the North American members of the Alliance.” Thus the current Strategic Concept of NATO promises the Alliance will continue to ignore Articles I and II (this arrangement actually goes back to the origins of the Treaty) and NATO will instead “maintain adequate nuclear forces in Europe” in NNWS (para 63).

So, we have at least three basic promises made which are not being honored through the current Strategic Concept. And NATO also says that, as of now, these promises will not be honored in the foreseeable future. The promise to disarm is met with a commitment to indefinite retention. The promise to reduce the role of nuclear weapons is met with a commitment to the continuing threat to be the first to use nuclear weapons, even in response to non-nuclear threats. The promise not to transfer nuclear weapons is met with the continuing deployment of  US nuclear weapons on the territories of non-nuclear weapon states.

The most immediate political repercussion of NATO’s essentially “non-compliant” nuclear posture can be expected to be found in nonproliferation dynamics, rather than in disarmament. After all, if it is legitimate for Canada and other NATO NNWS (all of which reside in the most stable neighborhoods of the world and are backed by the overwhelming conventional military superiority) – if such states can credibly claim that they are so vulnerable that their security requires an ongoing nuclear deterrent (against “any” threat), then it is really hard to think of any states anywhere that could not make a much more credible case for nuclear deterrence. Think especially of Iran and the Arab states in the Middle East who really do live in rather unstable and threatening environments. By what logic can Canada, while insisting that nuclear weapons are essential to its security, appeal to Pakistan, India, and Israel to forego nuclear deterrence and join the NPT as NNWS?

If we are going to insist that all states be subject to the same standards with regard to nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament, then NATO has some critically important changes to make (and the paper sets out what some of those changes should be). If we are prepared to make the argument that not all states need to be bound by the same nonproliferation and disarmament standards, then, I’m afraid will also have to be prepared to see the nonproliferation regime unwind.

The briefing paper and its recommendations are proffered as an appeal to the government of Canada to muster the courage of its promises and to insist that NATO, taking advantage of this timely review of its strategic concept, make changes that will honor the promises all NATO states have already made. We have generally summarized the needed change as follows:

Canada should encourage a new NATO Strategic Concept that a) welcomes and affirms the groundswell of calls for a world without nuclear weapons; b) confirms NATO’s commitment to the objectives of the NPT and declares that the intent of Article VI of the NPT, and of the Alliance, is a world free of nuclear weapons; and c) commits NATO to security and arms control policies that conform to Articles I and II (which prohibit transfers of nuclear weapons) of the NPT and that are designed to achieve the nuclear disarmament promised in Article VI.

These are the changes that NATO could make immediately, at no cost to the security of its members – indeed it would be to the security benefit of its members inasmuch as it would contribute to the strengthening of the nuclear disarmament imperative.

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes

[i] The Canadian Network to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, the Canadian Pugwash Group, Physicians for Global Survival, Project Ploughshares, and World Federalist Movement – Canada.

[ii] Available at: http://www.ploughshares.ca/libraries/Abolish/ZeroNukesBriefPapJan2010.pdf.

[iii] Article I: “Each nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to transfer to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons…”

Article II: “Each non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to receive the transfer from any transferor whatsoever of nuclear weapons…”

A November 13-14 public forum at Toronto City Hall looked at the opportunities and obstacles to nuclear disarmament. The program and details are available athttp://zeronuclearweapons.com/. The following notes are part 2 of my comments, focusing on Canadian disarmament diplomacy priorities.

The first, and really most urgent, priority is for Canada to rediscover its traditional of disarmament diplomacy.

Canada has an important history of active support for nuclear disarmament. Later today you’ll be hearing from two terrific former Canadian Ambassadors for Disarmament – they and many other Canadian diplomats and officials have been deeply engaged in bringing constructive Canadian influence to bear upon the NPT Review Process and other multilateral disarmament forums.

Of course, there has always been a strong element of ambivalence in Canadian disarmament policy. Remember that, when Canada joined the newly-negotiated NPT in 1968 as a non-nuclear weapon State, some 250-450 nuclear weapons^[i] were deployed with Canadian forces in Canada and Europe. Put another way, in numbers of warheads, Canada’s arsenal was a lot bigger than is China’s today. While all nuclear weapons had been withdrawn from Canadian territory or deployment with Canadian forces by the early 1980s,^[ii] direct participation in nuclear weapons-related operations continued, and remains today, through membership in NATO and NORAD.^[iii]

In recent years, certainly at the highest levels of Government, ambivalence seems to have turned to indifference. The Harper Government has not rejected Canadian policy in support of the elimination of nuclear weapons, but neither has it championed it. The first priority now needs to be a clear decision to re-assert Canadian disarmament diplomacy. It is urgent that the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, as should every Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, find early and prominent opportunities to publicly address nuclear disarmament and reaffirm Canada’s commitment to a world without nuclear weapons.

A second priority is to recognize that an important impediment to disarmament is a seriously flawed set of disarmament institutions.

The Conference on Disarmament has been famously deadlocked for more than a decade – and recent reports of a breakthrough turned out to be premature. Multilateral disarmament will continue to founder in the absence of disarmament machinery that is effective and trusted.

Canada has prominently advanced proposals for shoring up the disarmament institutional infrastructure. An innovative proposal to take key issues out of the CD and pursue them in specially created working groups mandated by the General Assembly, was a case in point a few years back. Canada’s effort to strengthen the NPT’s institutional and accountability mechanisms is an important initiative that Canada has persisted in throughout the current NPT review process. Some of the most energetic opponents of that effort are members of the G8 – which suggests using the forthcoming G8-G20 meeting in Canada to try to shore up support. To make headway will require Canadian leadership that has the courage of its formal policy declarations, supplemented by a coherent strategy and a diplomatic offensive to gather a credible supporting coalition of like-minded States.

A sub-element of institution building is the need to enhance and regularize the role of civil society in the NPT review process.

The research and public engagement work of disarmament NGOs and think tanks is widely recognized as an important element of developing the political will to act on the particulars of the disarmament agenda. In 2003 Canada submitted a working paper to the NPT to encourage a more prominent role for civil society and diplomats actively pursued support for the initiative. The Harper Government has not only given up on advocacy on the matter, but has ended the long-standing practice of including civil society representatives on its delegations to the NPT Review Conferences.

Canada has also championed Transparency and Reporting in the nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation regime.

Institutional fixing and transparency regulations definitely lack an air of the heroic – these are not causes likely to enflame public passions. But this is a case of the mundane being not only important, but essential. These are foundational questions of accountability and of the ending of nuclear impunity. In 2000 the NPT Review Conference agreed on a provision for “regular reports” on progress made in implementing Article VI. The nuclear weapon States have actively resisted the idea that there is actually any actual multilateral transparency obligation involved (as distinct from bilateral transparency/verification), but the degree to which nuclear weapon States are prepared to report reflects the degree to which they regard themselves as accountable to other States Parties to the Treaty.

It is a principle that Canada has championed and needs to continue to press with some vigor.

Ultimately, disarmament will require a nuclear weapons convention.

Finally, we need the Government to acknowledge that while progress toward a world without nuclear weapons will obviously involve a broad range of incremental measures and agreements, ultimately, all such measures must be brought together in a single umbrella or framework convention. Thus, Canadian policy should explicitly call for, and work toward, a nuclear weapons convention that sets a clear timeline for irreversible and verifiable nuclear disarmament.[iv]

The nuclear threat is an eminently solvable problem. Compare it with all the other perils this troubled planet faces:  from the economic crisis, to climate change, energy deficits, burgeoning pollution, acute water shortages, unrelenting hunger, grossly inadequate health services, and chronic armed conflict. Solving these problems requires a vast array of complex social and behavioral transformations. But nuclear disarmament really only needs only a few clear decisions by a relatively small cadre of leaders. A very small number of leaders can decide to take weapons of high-alert and immediately make the world a much safer place. Similarly, it takes only a small number of leaders, most of whom have now declared their commitment to a world without nuclear weapons, to make the decisions needed to progressively remove weapons from deployment and into the dismantling shops.

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes

[i] John Clearwater is the leader in documenting the history of nuclear weapons in Canada. In his 1998 book,Canadian Nuclear Weapons: The Untold Story of Canada’s Cold War Arsenal (Dundurn Press) he concludes that “at the height of the Canadian nuclear deployments, the greatest number of weapons which could have been available to Canada would have been between 250 (low estimate) and 450 (high estimate),” p. 23. The November/December 1999 issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reported (by Rpbert S. Norris, William M. Arkin, and William Burr, pp. 26-35) on a Pentagon document received through the Freedom of Information Act entitled: History of the Custody and Deployment of Nuclear Weapons:  July 1945 through September 1977. One graph shows a peak of just over 300 nuclear weapons in Canada in the late 1960s. The Clearwater upper end estimate is higher because his totals include the weapons with Canadian forces in Europe, while the Pentagon report would show those as being in Germany.

[ii] It was also under Trudeau’s watch that all the nuclear weapons within Canadian territory and deployed with Canadian forces in Europe were withdrawn – a development that was primarily a function of technological advances in fighter-interceptor aircraft and conventional air-to-air missiles.

[iii] The North American Aerospace Defence Agreement — While the NORAD air defence role declined significantly when the main Soviet threat switched to intercontinental ballistic missiles from bombers, NORAD was also the primary ballistic missile early warning agency.

[iv] What could Canada constructively contribute if it were to embrace the immediate pursuit of a nuclear weapons convention? Canada could and should institute informal international consultations involving a core group of like-minded states and representatives of civil society to thoroughly explore the focus, scope, verification, and other elements relevant to a nuclear weapons convention. One outcome of this consultation could be an informal international Contact Group or Nuclear Weapons Convention Action Group to systematically press the issue on the international stage. In the meantime Canada should be thinking about the particular contribution it could make to the international process. The UK, sometimes working with Norway, has been focusing on verification measures linked to a nuclear weapons convention.4 Canada was once active in this area, and still is involved in CTBT seismic verification. Consideration could be given to reviving some of this work to bolster the UK-Norwegian initiative.