Posts Tagged ‘nuclear disarmament’

Canada’s Parliament Endorses a Nuclear Weapons Convention

As the US White House and Senate continue to wrangle over a complex set of compromises that may or may not lead to ratification of the New Start Treaty,[i] elsewhere, notably in the Parliament of Canada, there is growing recognition that before too long global nuclear disarmament will require the guidance of a formal roadmap – i.e. a nuclear weapons convention.

In an extraordinary show of unity in support of nuclear disarmament, earlier this week the House of Commons unanimously passed a resolution (which had already gone through the Senate) encouraging the Government of Canada to join “negotiations for a nuclear weapons convention” and to “deploy a major world-wide Canadian diplomatic initiative in support of preventing nuclear proliferation and increasing the rate of nuclear disarmament” (full resolution below).

While the idea of a nuclear weapons convention has wide public appeal, some governments which support the idea in principle, including Canada’s to date, argue nevertheless that now is not the time. First, they say, existing commitments need to be fulfilled and more of the specifics of the agreed nuclear disarmament agenda need to be completed – notably the entry into force of the test ban treaty and the negotiation of a treaty to halt production of and establish controls over fissile material for weapons purposes. When more of those basics are settled a comprehensive nuclear weapons convention will become feasible. But others argue that the convention is precisely what is needed to re-energize the pursuit of those specifics and to guide the disarmament measures that are yet to come.

The same ambivalence was present at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference earlier this year,[ii] but most states concluded that a clear roadmap is needed – that is, there needs to be an agreed legal framework for disarmament and a clear time line. Those are, after all, two key missing ingredients that a nuclear weapons convention would bring to the disarmament effort.

The fact that the Parliament of Canada, both the Senate and the House of Commons, now clearly agrees that such a convention should be pursued does not mean that the global ambivalence will be swept aside and that negotiations will begin. Internationally, most states support the call for a nuclear weapons convention, but of course the states with nuclear weapons are not among them.

While that means serious negotiations will not be beginning soon, it also means that the idea has enough international support, and in Canada a strong Parliamentary mandate, to prompt the arms control community, including expert and civil society policy groupings, to redouble its efforts in exploring the wide range of conditions and agreements that will be essential to the achievement of a nuclear weapons convention. Studies are needed to clarify the likely focus, scope, and verification measures for a convention, and in April 2011, for example, an Ottawa seminar will look at ways to further advance the setting of the legal, technical, and security foundations on which the irreversible elimination of nuclear weapons can rest.

And, given Parliament’s strong statement, we can now hope, and even expect, that the current Government of Canada will also mandate the Department of Foreign Affairs to redouble its diplomatic and technical work in pursuit of conditions conducive to nuclear disarmament.

The Parliamentary resolution is essentially the product of an initiative by Murray Thomson, a Canadian disarmament veteran, in which he (along with former Disarmament Ambassador Douglas Roche and Nobel Laureate John Polanyi) invited Order of Canada recipients to sign the following statement:

“We call on all member States of the UN – including Canada – to endorse, and begin negotiations for, a nuclear weapons convention as proposed by the UN Secretary-General in his five point plan for nuclear disarmament.”

The project grew to more than 535 signatures – all signatories being Members, Officers, or Companions of the Order of Canada – including a broad range of leaders from business, finance, political, arts, and arms control communities.[iii] One of the signatories, Sen. Hugh Segal, began the Parliamentary process with the resolution in the Senate, inviting the House to take the same action. All-party agreement in the House of Commons was assured through the efforts of a number of people from all parties. The resolution was then introduced in the House of Commons by MP Bill Siksay, Chair of the Canadian Section of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament, and passed without objection.

The resolution specifically supports the five-point plan of the Secretary-General which makes the pursuit of a convention or a broad framework for disarmament measures its central feature:[iv]

The full resolution:

That the House of Commons:

                (a) recognize the danger posed by the proliferation of nuclear materials and technology to peace and security;

                (b) endorse the statement, signed by 500 members, officers and companions of the Order of Canada, underlining the importance of addressing the challenge of more intense nuclear proliferation and the progress of and opportunity for nuclear disarmament;
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                (c) endorse the 2008 five point plan for nuclear disarmament of Mr. Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations and encourage the Government of Canada to engage in negotiations for a nuclear weapons convention as proposed by the United Nations Secretary-General;

                (d) support the initiatives for nuclear disarmament of President Obama of the United States of America;

                (e) commend the decision of the Government of Canada to participate in the landmark Nuclear Security Summit and encourage the Government of Canada to deploy a major world-wide Canadian diplomatic initiative in support of preventing nuclear proliferation and increasing the rate of nuclear disarmament.

eregehr@uwaterloo.ca

Notes

[i] See posts here: November 6, 2010 – http://disarmingconflict.ca/2010/11/06/new-start-messy-but-urgent/; November 18, 2010 – http://disarmingconflict.ca/2010/11/18/why-the-international-silence-on-new-start/.

[ii] For references to a nuclar weapon convention in the 2010 NPT Review Conference see June 16, 2010 post. http://disarmingconflict.ca/2010/06/16/the-npt-review-conference-i-more-than-empty-promises/.

[iii] Signatories include: William Daniel, former president, Shell Oil; Adam Zimmerman, former president of Noranda and chair of the CD Howe Institute;  Henry Jackman and Lincoln Alexander, former Lieutenant Governors of Ontario;Bruce Aikenhead, the architect who designed the Canadarm used in space; Ralph Barford, president of GSW, Inc.;  Timothy Brodhead, President of the McConnell Foundation; Purdy Crawford, corporate philanthropist; John Ellis, former vice-chairman, Bank of Montreal; Richard W. Ivey, CEO and chair, Ivest Corporation; and Pierre Jeanniot, general manager of IATA and former president of Air Canada; Margaret Atwood, Tommy Banks, Romeo Dallaire, Atom Egoyan, Graeme Gibson, Mel Hurtig, Norman Jewison, Peter Newman, Michael Ondaatje, Christopher Plummer, Fiona Reid, Veronica Tennant, John Turner, Jean Vanier.

[iv] A five-point plan to rid world of nuclear bombs by Ban  Ki-moon. http://www.un.org/sg/articleFull.asp?TID=105&Type=Op-Ed.

1. Pursue negotiations in good faith – as required by the NPT – on nuclear disarmament, either through a new convention or through a series of mutually reinforcing instruments backed by a credible system of verification.

2. Strengthen security in the disarmament process, and…assure non-nuclear-weapon states against nuclear weapons threats.

3. Ensure that disarmament is rooted in legal obligations through universal membership in multilateral treaties, regional nuclear-weapon-free zones, a new treaty on fissile materials, and ratification and entry into force of the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty.

4. Ensure disarmament is visible to the public through greater accountability and transparency – thus countries with nuclear weapons should publish more information about what they are doing to fulfill their disarmament commitments.

5. Recognize that nuclear disarmament also requires eliminating other weapons of mass destruction and limiting missiles, space weapons and conventional arms.

More on NATO’s Strategic Concept: Forward steps amid lost opportunities

The new Strategic Concept of NATO is certainly no nuclear abolitionist document, nevertheless it does, as Canadian NGOs urged a year ago, situate NATO nuclear policy unambiguously under the disarmament imperative of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

In January 2010 a group of Canadian civil society organizations[i] hosted an Ottawa conference of 65 experts, including academics and civil society representatives, and officials, from the UN, NATO, and the US and Canadian governments, to explore “Practical Steps to Zero Nuclear Weapons.” The sponsoring organizations, taking into account the deliberations at the conference, followed up with a set of recommendations directed at the Canadian Government.[ii]

Several of the recommendations dealt with the new Strategic Concept (SC) that NATO was then in the process of developing. Each of the recommendations is repeated below, and is followed by references to the new Strategic Concept[iii] and an assessment of the extent to which the recommended action is addressed. The recommendations were formulated as a message to Canada, but were focused on the changes to the NATO Strategic Concept.

1. The Canadian Government should…encourage a NATO Strategic Concept that: welcomes and affirms the groundswell of calls for a world without nuclear weapons; confirms NATO’s commitment to the objectives of the NPT; and declares that the intent of Article VI is a world free of nuclear weapons.

While not referring to the groundswell of calls for nuclear zero, the new SC does state unambiguously that NATO States “are resolved to seek a safer world for all and to create the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons…” (para  26). That is a new collective statement for NATO and the previous Strategic Concept lacked even basic references to arms control.

Also new is the added statement that a world without nuclear weapons is “in accordance with the goals of the NPT” (para 26). That essentially meets the second and third demands of the above recommendation, namely, that NATO confirm its commitment to the NPT and that the intent of Article VI is a world free of nuclear weapons. The 1999 SC[iv] had only one reference to the NPT (para 19) which acknowledged its indefinite extension and the accession to it of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine.

In line with the last part of the above recommendation, the new SC includes a new commitment to arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation – and that includes the statement that “NATO seeks its security at the lowest possible level of forces” (para 26 – a welcome allusion to Article 26 of the UN charter).[v]

Two of the civil society recommendations focused on removing US nuclear weapons from the territories of European NATO states:

2. The Canadian Government should…encourage a NATO Strategic Concept that: commits NATO to security and arms control policies that ensure full conformity to Articles I and II of the NPT [by eliminating nuclear sharing], and that are designed to achieve the nuclear disarmament promised in Article VI).

3. Support new initiatives within Europe and publicly indicate its support for the removal of all remaining non-strategic nuclear weapons from European soil, in support of longstanding international calls that all nuclear weapons be returned to the territories of the states that own them.

Articles I and II prohibit the transfer of weapons to non-nuclear weapons states and prohibit the receipt of such weapons – and thus the reference to these Articles in the recommendation is a call for the US to remove all nuclear weapons from the territories of non-nuclear-weapon states (NNWS) in Europe.

NATO clearly lost a major opportunity in rejecting that move, but there has been a welcome movement away from NATO’s earlier claim that nuclear weapons in Europe are essential to security and to North Atlantic solidarity. Thus the new SC says the Alliance will “maintain an appropriate mix of nuclear and conventional forces” (para 19), but it drops the earlier reference to such forces being based in Europe.

NATO claims credit for already having “dramatically reduced the number of nuclear weapons stationed in Europe” (para 26) and then promises to “seek to create the conditions for further reductions in the future” (para 26). It then says any decision on future reductions “should take into account the disparity with the greater Russian stockpiles of short-range nuclear weapons” (para 26).

None of this supports the NGO proposal that the elimination of all NATO weapons from Europe, weapons that have no military or deterrent utility, should be undertaken unilaterally as a required action to conform to Articles I and II of the NPT. It is worth noting that the refusal to take such action is undoubtedly related at least in part to domestic US politics and the struggle to get the START treaty through Senate ratification. Part of the Republican opposition to START is premised on the Treaty’s failure to address Russian non-strategic nuclear weapons – so the formulation in the SC is in part an effort to provide evidence that Russian non-strategic weapons are on the radar.

In short, the removal of nuclear weapons from Europe would have been a significant step toward conformity with the NPT and would have signalled a major change in NATO. As it is, the new SC makes a modest but discernable shift. By removing language about the necessity of nuclear weapons in Europe it allows for at least the possibility of withdrawal – but the position taken is rather less than bold, or, more to the point, less than what full compliance with the NPT requires.

Another recommendation addressed relations with Russia.
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4. Support the development of an improved strategic relationship with Russia including initiatives such as upgrading the NATO-Russia Council; promoting continuing strategic dialogue between the US and Russia in support of a new nuclear disarmament treaty; and follow-on measures that engage other states with nuclear weapons, including China.

The new Strategic Concept offers a welcome posture toward Russia along the lines called for. It promises to “use the full potential of the NATO-Russia Council for dialogue and joint action with Russia” (para 34). Two paragraphs (33 and 34) emphasize the importance of cooperation with Russia and NATO declares: “we want to see a true strategic partnership between NATO and Russia” (para 33). There is no reference to China in the Strategic Concept.

There were two additional, broadly formulated, recommendations:

5. Work to forge a consensus within NATO and its NWS member states in support of the global norm, which has existed since 1945, against the use of nuclear weapons; and

6. Encourage the Alliance to take advantage of the present climate of global support for nuclear disarmament to phase out any role for nuclear weapons in its security policies.

Contrary to these recommendations, the new Strategic Concept reaffirms the role of nuclear weapons in the alliance. That said, it also says, as did the earlier version, that “the circumstances in which any use of nuclear weapons might have to be contemplated are extremely remote” (para 17). It claims to “have dramatically reduced the number of nuclear weapon stationed in Europe and our reliance on nuclear weapons in NATO strategy” (para 26).

The 2010 SC adds a reference to ballistic missile defence in one significant sub-paragraph (para 19), a link to the 1999 reference (para 64) to the need for future changes that respond to the changing security environment. the new SC says the Alliance will “develop the capability to defend our populations and territories against ballistic missile attack as a core element of our collective defence, which contributes to the indivisible security of the Alliance.” That reference is at least tempered by the added promise that “we will actively seek cooperation on missile defence with Russia and other Euro-Atlantic partners.”

The declaratory policy of NATO has improved. It is not yet fully in line with the NPT, and NATO continues to be out of step with the global support for zero nuclear weapons. But policy and intention have changed, now its time for civil society to convert intention into implementation.

 eregehr@uwaterloo.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] Practical Steps to Zero Nuclear Weapons: Conference Report, January 25-26, 2010, Ottawa, Canada. http://www.ploughshares.ca/libraries/Abolish/ZeroNukesConfReptJan2010.pdf.

[iii] Active Engagement, Modern Defence: Strategic Concept for the Defence and Security of The Members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation adopted by Heads of State and Government in Lisbon, November 19, 2010. http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_68580.htm.

[iv] The Alliance’s Strategic Concept: Approved by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Washington D.C. 24 Apr. 1999. http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_27433.htm.

[v] Article 26 of the UN Charter reads: “In order to promote the establishment and maintenance of international peace and security with the least diversion for armaments of the world’s human and economic resources, the Security Council shall be responsible for formulating, with the assistance of the Military Staff Committee referred to in Article 47, plans to be submitted to the Members of the United Nations for the establishment of a system for the regulation of armaments.”

Changes to the nuclear elements of NATO’s Strategic Concept

The new Strategic Concept certainly doesn’t cure NATO’s addiction to nuclear weapons, but there are some encouraging moves towards a 12-step program.

Evaluated from a global zero perspective, the Strategic Concept (SC) approved at the 2010 NATO Summit (in Lisbon)[i] represents classic denial – not only are nuclear weapons not acknowledged as a problem, dependence on them as the ultimate cure to security ailments is reaffirmed: “The supreme guarantee of the security of the Allies is provided by the strategic nuclear forces of the Alliance…” (para 18).

Evaluated from the perspective of where NATO has been (as reflected in the 1999 SC),[ii] the new strategy takes some early steps toward a new security approach — albeit with the substantive and difficult steps yet to be taken. Put another way, while still under the spell of demon booze, there is at least a declared intention to pursue sobriety: “We are resolved to seek a safer world for all and to create the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons in accordance with the goals of the NPT” (para 26).

Perhaps the most significant change from the 1999 to the 2010 version of the SC is in the prominent references to disarmament and arms control in 2010.[iii] In 1999, the only such references were in self-congratulatory descriptions of the advances made in the immediate post-Cold War years (para 21, 1999).  In 2010, arms control and disarmament is put forward as a means toward “enhanced international security…” (para 4, 2010).

In addition to the promised pursuit of a world without nuclear weapons, the 2010 SC affirms disarmament with the declaration that “NATO seeks its security at the lowest possible level of forces (an indirect but welcome reference to Article 26 of UN Charter), and that “arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation contribute to peace, security and stability” (para 26, 2010).

These commitments are all qualified by the insistence that disarmament must be “based on the principle of undiminished security for all.” In one sense that is obviously an appropriate objective, especially given that disarmament is acknowledged as an important contributor to security. But, of course, in another sense, that formulation can also be read as saying that if insecurities abound, then nuclear disarmament will be jettisoned – stated, again, in terms of the addiction metaphor, if things really start to look bad, we’re definitely going to be having another drink. While the 2010 SC no longer describes nuclear weapons as “essential to preserve peace,” as did the 1999 SC (para 46), it does say that “deterrence, based on an appropriate mix of nuclear and conventional capabilities, remains a core element of our overall strategy” (para 17, 2010)

Perhaps the biggest disappointment in the 2010 SC is the failure to end the presence of US nuclear weapons in Europe. But there is some modest movement in the right direction. In the 1999 SC, the nuclear forces in Europe were described as “vital to the security of Europe” (para 42). The 1999 document then went on to a fulsome defence of the continued deployment of US tactical weapons in Western Europe: “Nuclear weapons make a unique contribution in rendering the risks of aggression against the Alliance incalculable and unacceptable. Thus, they remain essential to preserve peace….The Alliance will maintain for the foreseeable future an appropriate mix of nuclear and conventional forces based in Europe” (para 46, 1999 – emphasis added).

The 2010 SC no longer insists on those European deployments. While it says the Alliance will “maintain an appropriate mix of nuclear and conventional forces,” it drops the earlier reference to such forces being based in Europe (para 19, 2010).

 In 1999, the SC insisted that for the broad nuclear deterrent to be credible in the European context, European Allies must “be involved in collective defence planning in nuclear roles” and must maintain nuclear forces on European territory. Indeed, according to the previous SC, “nuclear forces based in Europe and committed to NATO provide an essential political and military link between the European and the North American members of the Alliance. The Alliance will therefore maintain adequate nuclear forces in Europe” (para 63, 1999). In 2010 the references to nuclear forces in Europe and to them linking North America and Europe are dropped, but the reference to collective planning for nuclear roles is repeated and presented as “the broadest possible participation of Allies in collective defence planning on nuclear roles, in peacetime basing of nuclear forces, and in command, control and consultation arrangements” (para 19, 2010). But the language here is not specific (calling only for the “broadest possible participation”), and one possible implication is that NATO could accept that such participation could be confined to the UK and France and their European-based arsenals.

 The new SC links further reductions of non-strategic nuclear weapons stationed in Europe to the “disparity” (para 26) that exists between Russia’s large arsenal (which could be about 5,000) and European-based US nuclear weapons (around 200). This linkage is especially unfortunate and makes the same mistake the defenders of US nuclear weapons in Europe have frequently made – namely, ignoring the reality that Russian tactical nuclear weapons are a response to NATO’s massive conventional superiority rather than to its tactical nuclear forces.

 On the overall purpose of nuclear weapons, the 2010 version of the SC is more vague, but, implicitly at least, also more limited. In the 1999 SC the purpose of nuclear weapons was to “prevent coercion and any kind of war,” and, to accomplish that, 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”. Ultimately, as already noted, “the supreme guarantee of the security of the Allies” is described as being “provided by the strategic nuclear forces of the Alliance, particularly those of the United States”(para 62). The “supreme guarantee,” as also noted, is maintained in 2010 (para 18), but the other broad purposes are not included. In both cases, the circumstances under which any use of nuclear weapons might be contemplated are described as “extremely remote” (para 64, 1999 and para 17, 2010).

The 2010 version of the SC retains a basic affirmation of deterrence: “as long as nuclear weapons exist, NATO will remain a nuclear alliance” (para17, preface). But that should not come as a surprise. There was no chance that NATO would reject nuclear deterrence while the world still hosts more than 20,000 nuclear weapons. Furthermore, the commitment to deterrence is simply a restatement of what President Obama said in his landmark speech in Prague on nuclear disarmament: “Make no mistake, as long as these weapons exist, the United States will maintain a safe, secure and effective arsenal to deter any adversary, and guarantee that defense to our allies.”[iv] That is really just another way of saying that nuclear disarmament must be mutual – and must be pursued to the point of making deterrence irrelevant.
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NATO’s new Strategic Concept can be taken as a genuine step toward breaking the nuclear addition and nuclear disarmament – a step that is far too modest for some of us, to be sure, but a step.

eregehr@uwaterloo.ca

Notes

[i]  Active Engagement, Modern Defence: Strategic Concept for the Defence and Security of The Members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation adopted by Heads of State and Government in Lisbon, November 19, 2010. http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_68580.htm.

[ii] The Alliance’s Strategic Concept: Approved by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Washington D.C. 24 Apr. 1999.

http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_27433.htm.

[iii] The following are three early, critical, and helpful responses to the new Strategic Concept:

 Martin Butcher, “Nuclear Weapons Aspects of the Strategic Concept,” The NATO Monitor, 20 November 2010. http://natomonitor.blogspot.com/2010/11/nuclear-weapons-aspects-of-strategic.html.

“Experts Call NATO Strategic Concept ‘Missed Opportunity to Reduce Role of Obsolete Tactical Nukes from Europe’,” Arms Control Association, 19 November 2010. http://www.armscontrol.org/pressroom/NATOMissedOp.

Hans M. Kristensen, “NATO Strategic Concept: One Step Forward and a Half Step Back,” Federation of American Scientists, 19 November 2010. http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2010/11/nato2010.php.

[iv] Remarks by President Barack Obama, Hradcany Square, Prague, Czech Republic. 5 April 2009. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-barack-obama-prague-delivered.

Why the international silence on New START?

The New START agreement between the US and Russia may have only two signatories, but in truth it is a global Treaty that is at the core of the struggle to stop the uncontrollable spread of nuclear weapons. Why then is the rest of the world, including Canada, so reticent to press the American Senate to ratify this nuclear arms control milestone?   

Richard Burt, who as a conservative Republican was Ronald Regan’s arms control chief, and who now campaigns energetically for nuclear disarmament, told the PBS News Hour last night that “there are only two governments in the world that wouldn’t like to see this treaty ratified, the government in Tehran and the government in North Korea.”[i]

 The Senate Republicans seem tenaciously committed to lifting spirits in Tehran and Pyongyang, but why is the rest of the world staying on the sidelines?

Preventing the expansion of nuclear arsenals in places like North Korea, and preventing their spread to places like Iran and well beyond, is inextricably linked to disarmament progress in the major powers. It’s a bilateral Treaty, but we’re all stakeholders of the first order. The point was made with particular eloquence this past weekend by Ramesh Thakur (Political Science Prof at the University of Waterloo and former Senior Vice Rector of the United Nations University and Assistant Secretary-General). In a speech to the annual meeting of the Canadian Pugwash Group he said:

“Either we aim for controlled nuclear reduction and abolition or we learn to live with slow but certain nuclear proliferation and die with the use of nuclear weapons. In public debate, we must confront all who dismiss us as naive and utopian dreamers to confront this stark reality. If, rather than commit to nuclear abolition, they are prepared to sign on to a world of cascading proliferation with many more countries acquiring nuclear weapons, including North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia and others as their preferred alternative, let them say so publicly and accept the resulting public opprobrium. If not, force them into the corner of asking: so who is being unrealistic? The idea that a self-selecting group of five can keep an indefinite monopoly on the most destructive class of weapons ever invented defies logic, defies common sense, defies all of human history. With realists like these…”

Reluctance to wade into the debilitating spectacle of Washington’s political gridlock is obviously part of what’s behind the reluctance to come to the energetic defence of New START (the designation given to the US-Russia agreement to reduce deployed nuclear warheads to no more than 1,550 each). Because it can’t be doubts about the Treaty itself.

States outside the US, especially the 188 that are States Parties to Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), made their support ratification of the New START clear through the final document of last May’s Treaty Review Conference. All endorsed the US-Russian commitment in Action 4 of the “conclusions and recommendations” section of the final document: that is, “to seek the early entry into force and full implementation of the Treaty….” States also encouraged the two major nuclear powers “to continue discussions on follow-on measures in order to achieve deeper reductions in their nuclear arsenals.”[ii]

That was also the last reference by the Government of Canada to New START. In his speech to the Review Conference, Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon said that “…we welcome the New START agreement between the United States and Russia as an important step toward a world without nuclear weapons.”[iii] Since then, nothing.

In recent days, the Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs Jonas Gahr Støre has said Norway awaits the ratification of New START.[iv] And the German Foreign Minister, Guido Westerwelle, used his Nov 11 address to the German Bundestag to note that “we very much hope that this Treaty will be ratified by the US, notwithstanding the changes wrought by the congressional elections, so that it can come into effect.”[v]

But these are rather modest, and isolated, appeals. There is still time for a louder set of international voices to join the domestic American voices urging support for the beleaguered Treaty.

The Arms Control Association in Washington has been a leader in the fight for ratification and it recently published the Treaty endorsements of a very long list of current and former military leaders and former Senior Government Officials.[vi]

General Kevin Chilton, Commander of U.S. Strategic Command, spoke to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on June 16, 2010: “If we don’t get the treaty, [the Russians] are not constrained in their development of force structure and… we have no insight into what they’re doing. So it’s the worst of both possible worlds.”

Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor in the Nixon and Ford administrations, spoke to the same Committee on 25 May 2010: “The current agreement is a modest step forward stabilizing American and Russian arsenals at a slightly reduced level. It provides a measure of transparency; it reintroduces many verification measures that lapsed with the expiration of the last START agreement; it encourages what the Obama administration has described as the reset of political relations with Russia; it may provide potential benefits in dealing with the issue of proliferation.”
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At York University a group of students linked to the Global Zero campaign is urging Prime Minister Harper to get more actively on board. The students are circulating the following petition:

“Like most Canadians, we, the undersigned, are deeply concerned about the nuclear threat. We are convinced that Canada must be in the forefront of the ongoing international efforts to reduce nuclear weapons to Global Zero. The new US-Russian START Treaty signed by Presidents Obama and Medvedev on April 7 in Prague is an important step toward this goal. Mandating 30% reductions in the world’s biggest nuclear arsenals, this Treaty is in the best interests of Canada and the world. Now that it has been submitted to the US Senate for consideration, we urge you to communicate to President Barack Obama, in a form you might find appropriate, Canada’s unequivocal support for the Treaty’s ratification.”

 It is still possible to see and sign the petition online at http://www.globalzerocanada.org/get-involved/sign-the-petition (in the meantime the list of signers to date, along with their comments, has gone to the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, and the leaders of the other  parties in the House of Commons). 

 The stakes are high, but the attention has been strangely muted outside Washington.

 eregehr@uwaterloo.ca

 Notes

[i] “Can New START Treaty Survive Partisan Divide in Congress?” PBS NewsHour, 17 November 2010.  http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec10/start2_11-17.html.

[ii] 2010 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Final Document (NPT/CONF.2010/50 Vol. I), p. 20.  http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=NPT/CONF.2010/50  (VOL.I).

[iii] 2010 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Statement by the Honorable Lawrence Cannon, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada, NEW YORK, MAY 3 2010. http://www.canadainternational.gc.ca/prmny-mponu/canada_un-canada_onu/statements-declarations/general_assembly-assemblee-generale/03.05.2010_review_conference_dexamen.aspx?lang=eng

[iv] Address at the Kazakhstan–Norway Conference on Nuclear disarmament strategies, non-proliferation and export control, Oslo, 12 October 2010. http://www.regjeringen.no/en/dep/ud/aktuelt/taler_artikler/utenriksministeren/2010/kazakhstan_conference.html?id=620691.

[v]Foreign Minister Westerwelle’s statement to the German Bundestag on NATO’s Strategic Concept, 11 November 2010.  http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/diplo/en/Infoservice/Presse/Reden/2010/101111-BM-BT-Nato-Rede.html.

[vi] “U.S. Military Leaders and Bipartisan National Security Officials Overwhelmingly Support New START,” Arms Control Association, 12 November 2010. http://www.armscontrol.org/issuebriefs/bipartisanNewSTARTSupport.

New START: messy but urgent

In his post-election press conference, President Barak Obama acknowledged – in the context of recalling health care reform – that getting things done in Washington can be “an ugly mess when it comes to process.” True to form, the effort to get the new US-Russia nuclear arms deal through the US Senate has accumulated a string of unsavoury compromises, but successful ratification will be well worth the mess.

The current US Senate has one brief session left before the newly-elected one takes over in January, so it has one last chance to keep the nuclear disarmament momentum going by ratifying the US-Russia Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (referred to as New START). A two-thirds majority is required, which means garnering the support of at least some Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats, and that won’t happen without some heavy horse trading that has already gone from messy to odious.

The standard objections to New START are threefold: inadequate verification of Russian compliance, limits on future US ballistic missile defence (BMD) prerogatives, and concerns about the reliability of remaining warheads in the US arsenal. On the first two there aren’t really any further deals to be made.

Verification of the Treaty is reciprocal, it largely follows earlier START models of inspections, and if ratification fails there will be no verification of any kind, and no US inspections of Russian nuclear facilities. The 2002 Moscow Treaty (the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty – SORT) promised to reduce US and Russian arsenals to no more than 2,200 deployed warheads each by 2012, but without any verification provisions there is no guarantee of compliance.

On ballistic missile defence, New START prevents both the US and Russia from using existing missile silos for BMD interceptor launchers. But, as a recent editorial in  Air Force Magazine pointed out, the US Missile Defence Agency has no intention or interest in doing that, and, furthermore, BMD advocates have been given assurances that the treaty in no way restricts future missile defense programs or capabilities.[i]

On those two issues, Senators will either be persuaded or not; Washington isn’t in a position to unilaterally change verification or BMD references, even if it now wanted to. On the third, the question of warhead “reliability,” there has already been plenty of controversial compromise.

Indeed, compromise has come rather more easily to the Obama Administration than one dared to hope, in part because the worriers about warhead reliability include his own Defense Secretary, Robert Gates. Before the 2008 election he argued that arsenal reductions could not be accepted without allowing either tests on remaining stocks or building new warheads to replace existing ones.

In the election campaign, then Senator Obama rejected both of those options – arguing that the reliability of a reduced arsenal could be assured without warhead testing or replacing existing warheads with new ones.[ii] That was and is certainly the overwhelming view in the scientific arms control community, and President Obama has remained firm. But warhead “replacement” has been traded for warhead “modernization” (replacement of some components) and a major infusion of new money into the US nuclear weapons establishment.

The Obama Administration is spending at least 10 per cent more than the George W. Bush Administration did to extend the life of existing strategic nuclear warheads and to expand and modernize the nuclear weapons infrastructure (but it’s worth noting that the same infrastructure also supports arms control and non-proliferation capacity). In the decade of 2010-2020 the bill for the nuclear weapons maintenance system will come to more than $80 billion.[iii] Another $100 billion will go to maintaining their missile and bomber delivery systems.[iv]  

The path to a world without nuclear weapons should not have to go through an expanded US nuclear weapons infrastructure, but to be fair, President Obama’s compromises have not betrayed his election campaign promises or his 2009 Prague speech. In both cases he insisted that while the commitment to a world without nuclear weapons is firm, as long as other states still have nuclear weapons the United States will maintain a nuclear deterrent arsenal.
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It is the kind of messiness that should not obscure the extraordinary achievement that New START ratification would represent. For without real and treaty-compelled reductions in the nuclear arsenals of the major powers, without a legally binding commitment to prohibit both warhead testing and the production of fissile materials for weapons, the struggle to keep nuclear weapons out of the arsenals of smaller powers will fail. Not immediately, but inevitably.

Achieving major cuts in nuclear arsenals and legal blocks to further weapons development involves some messy compromises – and that still doesn’t guarantee that they’re going to get it done. But we can be sure of one thing, if the New START and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty are not ratified, things will get a whole lot uglier.

(Published as “Nuclear disarmament can be a messy business,” The Record, Waterloo Region, 9 November 2010)

eregehr@uwaterloo.ca

Notes

[i] Adam J. Hebert, “Arms Control, On Schedule.” Air Force Magazine, October 2010. http://www.airforce-magazine.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2010/October%202010/1010edit.aspx.

[ii] See Disarming Conflict post, 5 January 009. http://disarmingconflict.ca/2009/01/05/complication-and-compromise-on-obama%e2%80%99s-ctbt-action/

[iii] “The New START Treaty – Maintaining a Strong Nuclear Deterrent,” n.d., US State Department New START Fact Sheets. http://www.state.gov/t/avc/newstart/c39906.htm.

[iv] “The New START Treaty – Maintaining a Strong Nuclear Deterrent,” n.d., US State Department New START Fact Sheets. http://www.state.gov/t/avc/newstart/c39906.htm.

…except in the UK

While global military spending seemed recession proof as it continued its upward climb in 2009 (see previous post), fiscal reality has finally closed in on the UK in 2010 – and the Ministry of Defence will not escape the consequences.

Military spending is to be cut by 8 per cent (well short of the average of a 19 per cent cut across all departments)[i] over the next four years.[ii] All the services – Air Force, Army, and Navy – are to see significant cuts, as will civilian staff. Notably, the final decision on the long-planned renewal of Trident nuclear forces has been put off to 2016, and in the meantime there will be a reduction of nuclear warheads from 160 to 120.

Commentators and analysts have been largely critical of a process that has reduced defence policy making to a budget making exercise, but the Guardian singled out the changes to the nuclear deployments as part of the good news: “CND [the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament] welcomed [Prime Minister Cameron’s] decision to reduce Britain’s stockpile of nuclear weapons by 25%. The delay in the decision to start construction of new submarines to replace the Vanguard class which carry the Trident nuclear deterrent is also welcome – but only as a precursor to scrapping these weapons, which even Tony Blair now acknowledges can never be used independently.”[iii]

eregehr@uwaterloo.ca

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[i] Thomas Penny and Gonzalo Vina, “Osborne to Slash Jobs, Tax Banks in U.K. Budget Cuts,” Bloomberg, 20 Oct0ber, 2010. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-20/osborne-pledges-8-billion-reduction-in-u-k-debt-costs-amid-spending-cuts.html.

[ii] “Defence review at-a-glance,” BBC News, 19 October 2010. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11574573.  Richard Norton-Taylor, “Strategic defence review means end of Iraq-scale military interventions,” guardian.co.uk, 19 October 2010. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/oct/19/strategic-defence-review-military-cuts.

[iii] “Defence and security review: Groping for a strategy,” The Guardian Editorial, guardian.co.uk, 20 October 2010. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/20/defence-and-security-review-strategy.

The NPT Review Conference IV: Reaffirming the basic disarmament agenda

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The NPT Review Conference III: Reporting and Transparency

The centrality of transparency in nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament was acknowledged and even advanced at the 2010 Review Conerence.

When the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was indefinitely extended in 1995, the agreement included a collective commitment by States Parties to strengthen the Treaty’s review process. States called in particular for a heightened acknowledgement of mutual accountability for actions taken, or not taken, in support of the implementation of the Treaty and the furtherance of it aims and objectives.

Then, in 2000, that such accountability would be advanced by the adoption of a more formalized approach to reporting by each State Party to its Treaty partners. There was a call for regular reports, providing information on the actions taken and policies followed to meet the requirements of the Treaty and to implement additional measures agreed to in the review process.

The framers of the reporting obligation understood reporting―as they understood the review process itself―to be a potential prod to more effective pursuit of nuclear disarmament. The 2010 Review Conference reaffirmed and recommitted to the reporting provision from 2000 – a matter of more significant than one might think, given the fact that a main feature of the 2005 was the repudiation by the United States in particular of the commitments made in 2000.

So the primary reference to reporting in the 2010 Action Plan is a repetition of the 2000 agreement:[i]

“States Parties should submit regular reports, within the framework of the strengthened review process for the Treaty, on the implementation of this Action Plan, as well as of Article VI, paragraph 4© of the 1995 Decision on ‘Principles and Objectives for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament’, and the practical steps agreed to in the Final Document of the 2000 NPT Review Conference, and recalling the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice of 8 July 1996” (A20).

To that is added a more specific call for Nuclear Weapon States (NWS) to report:

“As a confidence building measure all the nuclear-weapon States are encouraged to agree as soon as possible on a standard reporting form and to determine appropriate reporting intervals for the purpose of voluntarily providing standard information without prejudice to national security. The Secretary-General is invited to establish a publicly-accessible repository which shall included the information provided by the nuclear-weappons states” (A21).

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At first the NWS were reluctant to submit formal reports – that is, they were reluctant to accept the fact that they are accountable to all States Parties for action taken, or not taken, to meet their obligations under Article VI of the Treaty. However, there are signs of that resistance is breaking down. China and Russia reported formally in 2005 and did so again in 2010.[ii] The United States also reported, but still refused to acknowledge its paper as a report under the reporting provision. Instead it referred to its document as “United States information pertaining to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.”[iii]

Transparency and accountability linked to the NPT are but a means to another end – but it is also true that without openness and accountability very little progress will be made on the substantive disarmament measures that are called for in the 2010 final document.

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes

[i] The final document as approved (NPT/Conf.2010/L.2) is available from Reaching Critical Will at:http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/legal/npt/revcon2010/DraftFinalDocument.pdf.

[ii] Documents NPT/CONF.2010/31 and NPT/CONF.2010/28 respectively.http://www.un.org/en/conf/npt/2010/statespartiesreports.shtml.

[iii] NPT/CONF.2010/45. http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=NPT/CONF.2010/45.

The NPT Review Conference I: More than empty promises

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The NPT Review Conference II: The Institutional Deficit

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