Nuclear Disarmament

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference opened in New York today – a good occasion to recall the size of the nuclear arsenal that the Treaty promises, through Article VI and earlier Review Conferences, to eliminate.

The short answer to the question of how many nuclear warheads actually exist is that it’s a secret. But it’s not really a very well-kept secret – the number is about 22,500, give or take a few hundred (any one of which, if detonated over a major population centre, could alone produce deaths in the millions).

We owe much of the fact that the global nuclear arsenal is a largely open secret to the careful and long-term monitoring work of the US based Natural Resources Defense Council[i] and the Federation of American Scientists,[ii] and to the researchers Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen. Their work is published regularly on their organizational websites, as well as in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists[iii] and theYearbook of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.[iv]

Current numbers can be found in three recent reports:[v] Russia, 12,000; US, 9,500; France, 300; China, 240; UK, 185; Pakistan, 90; Israel, 80; India, 80; North Korea, 10. All are estimates, but based on public disclosures at various times and calculations of production (and dismantlement) rates linked to fissile material inventories, relevant facilities, and so on.

Russian and American nuclear warheads need to be divided into several sub-categories: deployed strategic (US 2,000; Russia 2,600); strategic warheads in stockpiles and available for deployment (US 2,500; Russia 4,600); awaiting dismantlement (US 4,500; Russia 3,000); non-strategic warheads deployed and available for deployment (US 500; Russia 2,000).

In a May 2 posting, Kristensen refers to a new US fact sheet which says US deployed strategic warheads are now down to 1,968, indicating significant progress toward reaching the limits set out in the New START agreement.[vi]

The US will lift part of the veil of secrecy today, according to a New York Times report,[vii] releasing “long-classified statistics about the total size of America’s nuclear arsenal.” If that comes to pass it will be a significant development on the transparency and accountability front.

Non-nuclear weapon states in the NPT have been calling for that kind of reporting since 2000 when a formal reporting provision was included in list of key and practical disarmament steps. The Americans have offered more transparency than other nuclear weapon states, but they have yet to lift the veil of basic secrecy – we’ll say whether that changes today.

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes

[i] http://www.nrdc.org/

[ii] http://www.fas.org/

[iii] www.thebulletin.org

[iv] http://books.sipri.org/index_html?c_category_id=1

[v] Status of World Nuclear Forces 2010, Federation of American Scientists. May 3, 2010.http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/nukes/nuclearweapons/nukestatus.html

The US Nuclear Arsenal, 2009, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March/April 2009.http://www.thebulletin.org/files/065002008.pdf.

Russian Nuclear Forces, 2010, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January/February 2010.http://thebulletin.metapress.com/content/4337066824700113/fulltext.pdf.

[vi] “United States Moves Rapidly Toward New START Warhead Limit,” 2 May 2010.http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2010/05/downloading.php#more-3065.

[vii] David E. Sanger, “U.S. Releasing Nuclear Data on Its Arsenal,” New York Times, 2 May 2010.http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/03/world/03weapons.html.

NATO Foreign Ministers met in Estonia last week, and the opportunity they missed was the one to rethink the presence of US nuclear weapons in Europe.

It was an opportunity occasioned by a somewhat guarded joint letter from the Foreign Affairs Ministers of Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Netherlands, and Norway,[i] calling on the surface for little more than a NATO discussion on nuclear disarmament. It welcomed President Obama’s disarmament initiatives and then suggested that the Tallin meeting explore what the Alliance might do in Europe “to move closer to [the] overall political objective” of “reducing the role of nuclear weapons and seek[ing] peace and security in a world without nuclear weapons.”[ii]

But the context – growing European support for the withdrawal of US non-strategic nuclear weapons from Europe – was more interesting than the content. Germany’s new Foreign Minister, Guido Westerwelle, had explicitly supported the removal of US nuclear weapons from German soil.[iii] “We want to send a signal and fulfill our commitments under the NPT 100 percent,” is how a German Government spokesperson put it.[iv]

Beyond that, reports had Turkey accepting the idea that US extended deterrence does not necessarily require forward deployed nuclear weapons in Europe. Italy had indicated openness on the question. And even Poland, generally regarded as fiercely committed to a European-based deterrent, was reported to be less adamant, with elements of Poland’s security establishment suggesting nuclear capabilities are not the only or even most significant indications of Alliance solidarity. Then, of course, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Norway all publicly and explicitly oriented themselves toward the German view.[v]

But then came the meeting. The Obama Administration’s formal approach was, as expected, to defer the question of tactical US nuclear weapons in Europe to the fall summit that is intended to approve a new NATO Strategic Concept. The signals sent by US Secretary of State Clinton were, however, more pointed. She insisted that while cuts in US battlefield nuclear weapons still in Europe were possible, they should not all be removed until Russia agrees to cut its arsenals. “We should recognize that as long as nuclear weapons exist, NATO will remain a nuclear alliance,” she said. Adding that, “as a nuclear alliance, sharing nuclear risks and responsibilities widely is fundamental.”[vi]

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen took a similar line, emphasizing Alliance unity and that “decisions on nuclear policy will be made by the Alliance together,” also reinforcing the Clinton point about nuclear sharing.

These are the hard the line voices. They equate North Atlantic extended deterrence and defence cooperation with the physical presence of nuclear weapons in Europe, and they are out of sync with, not only the sentiments of central Europeans, but also the US Nuclear Posture Review (NPR).[vii]

The NPR, to no one’s surprise, reinforces US extended deterrence, but it goes on to explain that this “nuclear umbrella” comes in different guises, including “the strategic forces of the U.S. Triad, non-strategic nuclear weapons deployed forward in key regions, and U.S.-based nuclear weapons that could be deployed forward quickly to meet regional contingencies.” The point is there is no intrinsic requirement that extended deterrence, whatever one thinks of it, requires the presence of nuclear weapons throughout the geography of the American nuclear umbrella. The NPR also acknowledges that “the risk of nuclear attack against North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members is at an historic low.” It is thus non-prescriptive on the fate of US nuclear weapons in Europe, noting only that “any changes in NATO’s nuclear posture should only be taken after a thorough review within – and decision by – the Alliance.”[viii]

The west European States behind the call for change have emphasized that they are looking for a collective decision in NATO and are not contemplating unilateral action, and, notably, that they do not equate the removal of weapons from Europe with either the “denuclearization of NATO”  or with an end to US extended deterrence covering Europe.[ix] Their stance essentially follows the model of the US nuclear umbrella over North-East Asia. The latter is a region that is rather less stable than Europe, and yet there are no US nuclear weapons deployed to any states under its nuclear umbrella there.[x] In fact, Japan, while continuing to claim the American nuclear deterrent for itself, insists, through its three nuclear principles,[xi] that no nuclear weapons be on its territory.

Furthermore, progress in reducing Russian stocks of tactical nuclear weapons does not depend on the fate of US nuclear bombs in Europe.[xii] In fact, even the late Michael Quinlan, a British security analyst and former Permanent Secretary of Defence who generally resisted changes to the nuclear elements of NATO’s Strategic Concept, argued that the unilateral removal of US nuclear weapons from Europe would “have the effect of depriving Russia of a pretext she has sometimes sought to exploit both for opposing NATO’s wider development and for evading the question of whether and why Russia herself need continue to maintain a non-strategic nuclear armoury that is now far larger than that of anyone else.”[xiii]

What will be essential to Russian nuclear disarmament will be a new kind of strategic relationship with the US and Europe. The huge imbalance in conventional forces between Russia and NATO is a particular challenge. Russia accounts for well under 5 per cent of world military spending while NATO states collectively account for roughly two-thirds.[xiv] As long as Russia regards this overwhelming conventional force as, if not necessarily an overt enemy, a challenge to its regional interests, it is unlikely to be amenable to significant further reductions to its substantial arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons.[xv]

NATO Foreign Ministers missed this latest opportunity to move disarmament forward, but their bosses will get another chance this fall when they are scheduled to set a new strategic direction for NATO – it will be their opportunity to pursue a more imaginative, and practical, approach to NATO’s contribution to “peace and security in a world without nuclear weapons.”

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes

[i] Available from Vrede en Veiligheid: Weblog van Radio Nederland Wereldomroephttp://blogs.rnw.nl/vredeenveiligheid/2010/02/26/letter-on-nuclear-disarmament-of-5-nato-member-states/.

[ii] 26 February Letter to NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, from Fopreign Ministes Steven Vanackere (Belgium), Guido Westerwelle (GermanY), Jean Asselborn (Luxembourg), Maxime Verhagen (Netherlands), and Jonas Gahr Store (Norway).

[iii] Martin Butcher, “The Latest Word on NATO Nukes,” The NATO Monitor, 10 December 2009,http://natomonitor.blogspot.com.

[iv] Oliver Meier, “German Nuclear Stance Stirs Debate,” Arms Control Today, December 2009,http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2009_12/GermanNuclearStance.

[v] Martin Butcher, “The Latest Word on NATO Nukes,” 10 December 2009; “No Public Statements on Nuclear Weapons and the Strategic Concept,” 5 December 2009; “Former Dutch Prime Minister Lubbers Calls for Withdrawal of US Nukes from Europe,” 4 December 2009, The NATO Monitor,http://natomonitor.blogspot.com.

[vi] Mark Landler, “US Resists Push by Allies for Tactical Nuclear Cuts,” New York Times, 22 April 2010.http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/23/world/europe/23diplo.html?sq=NATO&st=cse&scp=3&pagewanted=print.

[vii] Chris Lindborg. “Considering NATO’s Tactical Nuclear Weapons after the US Nucleaqr Posture Review,”BASIC Backgrounder, 7 April 2010. http://www.basicint.org/pubs/BASIC-USNPR-TNW.pdf.

[viii] Nuclear Posture Review Report, April 2010, US Department of Defense, 49 pp.http://www.defense.gov/npr/docs/2010%20Nuclear%20Posture%20Review%20Report.pdf.

[ix] “Allied bid for Obama to remove US European nuclear stockpile,” Agence France Press, 20 February 2010.http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hKwgmbMz92w-InsAzjQo0EX-NS0w.

[x] Martin Butcher, Roundtable on Nuclear Weapons Policies and the NATO Strategic

Concept Review, House of Commons, London, 13 January 2010, Rapporteur’s Report.http://www.pugwash.org/reports/nw/NWP-NATO-Jan2010/NW_NATO_Roundtable_Report_Final1.pdf.

[xi] The three principles being, no possession, no production, and no introduction of nuclear weapons into Japan. Ministry of Foreign Affairs Website. http://www.mofa.go.jp/POLICY/un/disarmament/nnp/index.html.

[xii] ‘Extended deterrence will remain, but US nukes could leave Europe,” Disarming Conflict, 27 February 2010.  http://www.cigionline.org/blogs/2010/2/extended-deterrence-will-remain-us-nukes-could-leave-europe.

[xiii] Michael Quinlan, “The Nuclear Proliferation Scene: Implications for NATO,” in Joseph F. Pilat and David S. Yost, eds. NATO and the Future of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NATO Defense College, Academic Research Branch, Rome, May 2007), http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Digital-Library/Publications/Detail/?ots591=0C54E3B3-1E9C-BE1E-2C24-A6A8C7060233&lng=en&id=31221.

[xiv] International Institute of Strategic Studies. The Military Balance 2008. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2008.

[xv] Ernie Regehr, “NATO’s Strategic Concept, the NPT, and Global Zero,” Ploughshares Briefing 10/1, February 2010. http://www.ploughshares.ca/libraries/Briefings/brf101.pdf.

In 2005 Canada joined five other states to propose a plan to move the four priority issues mired in the stalemated CD into a UN General Assembly process for action. The plan was abandoned in the face of strong opposition, but in the last session of the still moribund CD, Canada suggested it be given another look.

There is a ritual at each closing session of the UN’s Geneva Conference on Disarmament (CD) – the sessions just before a recess or at the close of each year – in which diplomats take up their microphones to lament the failure to reach agreement on a program of work and to broadly bemoan the absence of any negotiations – that being the CD’s main purpose. It is now an 11-year tradition, the length of time the CD has lain essentially dormant due to deep rooted differences that can, according to CD rules, be resolved only through consensus – i.e., unanimity.

So, when the first part of the CD’s 2010 session wrapped up on March 23, the same lamentations were heard yet again – but the Canadian speech came with a refreshing new twist.

Ambassador Marius Grinius again voiced Canada’s disappointment in the CD’s performance, or non-performance, but then added: “If we truly care about disarmament, Canada believes we must be ready to look for alternative ways forward outside of this body. One such alternative was explored in 2005. Five years later, it may be time to re-examine it.”[i]

A commentary in this space in February[ii] pointed to that 2005 proposal, as have many, as a way out from under the CD’s embarrassingly stalemated agenda and as a way for states to move forward with substantive work on each of the four key items on that agenda, and then asked, “Is Ottawa up to the challenge” of reviving that 2005 plan. Now it looks like Canada might just find the will to act.

The CD has long agreed on four priority goals: a Treaty to halt production of fissile material for weapons purposes; legally-binding commitments by nuclear weapon states not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states (negative security assurances); a multilateral forum to advance global nuclear disarmament discussions and planning; and measures to prevent an arms race in outer space. Various states favor negotiations on some and only discussions on others, but all agree that these are the priorities. However, under the CD’s consensus format, unless all agree on which are to be negotiated and which are to be discussed, nothing happens.

The 2005 plan for getting out of this deadlock was the work of six states: Brazil, Canada, Kenya, Mexico, New Zealand, and Sweden. In a draft resolution destined for the UN’s First Committee and General Assembly, but never formally submitted, the six states proposed an Ad-Hoc Committee of the General Assembly for each of the four priority topics:

“The General Assembly, recognizing the importance of resuming substantive work on priority disarmament and non-proliferation issues, concerned with the protracted impasse in the Conference on Disarmament which has prevented it to date from adopting a Programme of Work, mindful of the need to ensure complementarity and avoid duplication between the work of the General Assembly and the Conference on Disarmament, decides, pending agreement on a Conference of Disarmament Programme of Work, to establish open-ended Ad Hoc Committees on the four priority issues…”

The four Ad Hoc Committees were then defined, using the term “negotiate” with regard to negative security assurances and a Treaty on fissile materials, and using the terms “deal with” and “exchange [of] information and views” regarding nuclear disarmament, and the term “deal with” regarding the prevention of an arms race in outer space. The proposed mandates were extensive and pointed to broad ranging studies in the latter two cases and the objective of legally binding instruments in the two proposed negotiation processes.

The draft resolution was explicit in also “deciding” that once the CD began to actually function, the Ad Hoc Committees in the General Assembly would be terminated and the results of their work would be transmitted to the CD, where the negotiations and discussions would continue. It also proposed to name chairs for each committee and provided a detailed work schedule. In an accompanying note, the six sponsoring states said “this resolution is intended to complement the CD and ideally will serve as a catalyst for unblocking that forum.”

In other words, the resolution and the four Ad Hoc Committees, with participation open to any interested UN member state, provided a persuasive solution to the dysfunctional CD – the neglected work of the CD would now be pursued and once the CD became operational again the fruits of that work would return to the CD for continuing work.

But it all came to nothing when the US Bush Administration fired back, sending a two page statement to UN missions. It argued, in not very diplomatic language, that the proposed course of action would undermine the General Assembly’s First Committee, undermine efforts to get the CD to start doing its work, create a “phantom” CD, and would spell the end of the CD.  “The outcome of this resolution will be to retard the very international nonproliferation and disarmament objectives that its sponsors seek to advance.”[iii] Of course, the reality was that leaving the issues to languish in the CD was what was “retarding the very nonproliferation and disarmament objectives” that the US then wanted to retard and block. The US statement went on to say: “We also wish to make it clear that the United States will not participate in any international body to whose establishment the United States does not agree. Moreover, the United States will not consider itself bound in any way by any agreement emerging from such a body.”

In the end the six countries withdrew the resolution, reporting that they had reached an understanding with the incoming Presidents of the CD that they would undertake a structured, though informal, discussion of the core issues within the CD. The latter proved to be a short-term improvement in the operations of the CD, but it was no substitute for actual negotiations, and it was not sustained.

So now Canada has given notice that this initiative, or one like it, could be pursued again this fall at the First Committee. This time, it seems likely that the new US Administration would be less hostile and perhaps even supportive of the plan. It’s a good and urgently needed plan and Ottawa is to be encouraged to see it through. Now, with an international climate unusually disposed toward concrete action on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, the world can’t afford disarmament machinery in perpetual disrepair.

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes

[i] March 23, 2010 speech to the Conference on Disarmament.http://www.unog.ch/80256EDD006B8954/(httpAssets)/501328AAB0863E3BC12576EF003CD2C9/$file/1180_Canada.pdf.

[ii] “It’s time to sideline the Geneva disarmament conference,” February 18.http://www.cigionline.org/blogs/2010/2/it%E2%80%99s-time-sideline-geneva-disarmament-conference.

[iii] The resolution, the accompanying statements by the six sponsors, and the American response were all distributed informally in hard copies and are not electronically available.

The new US-Russia agreement to reduce their nuclear arsenals (which reports say they have now concluded) certainly warrants the Joe Biden phrase for major accomplishments – “a big …ing deal.”.[i] But in one sense it is less than meets the eye.

The very fact of a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty is worthy of celebration. It signals, and locks in, a continued downward trajectory in nuclear arsenals, it gives substance to the Obama/Medvedev commitment to the joint pursuit of a world without nuclear weapons, and it revives essential verification provisions that are absent in the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty (SORT – also known as the Moscow Treaty), signed by George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin.

But when the numbers are fully parsed, some will feel a lot like US health reform enthusiasts, celebrating the reform that was finally accomplished but lamenting that it wasn’t all they had dared to hope it would be.

The New York Times reports that warheads are to be cut to 1,550 and warhead delivery vehicles (missiles and bombers) are to be capped at 800.[ii] And the best source for the numbers behind the numbers is Hans M. Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists who tabulates current nuclear force levels for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.[iii]

The reduction of warheads to 1,550 is at least a 25 percent cut from the 2,200 allowed for deployment under the Moscow Treaty (the Obama/Medvedev framework agreement signed at the start of negotiations put the target in the range between 1,500 to 1,675 strategic warheads on each side).[iv] The US has already reached the Moscow Treaty target of 2,200 and Russia is close to being there (2012 being the target date for meeting that level), but both maintain warheads in reserve and still have a significant stock awaiting dismantlement (about 6,700, combined, in the US and 7,300 in Russia). In addition, the Americans have about 500 deployed non-strategic warheads and Russia about 2,000.

In other words, unless both sides reduce their reserve and non-strategic warheads and accelerate dismantling of warheads, the 1,550 deployed warheads on each side could still be accompanied by inventories of up to 7,200 and 9,300 warheads in the US and Russia respectively.

That in turn means that after the START agreement is fully implemented, the two could still have huge inventories of warheads: the US with 8,750 (1,550 deployed strategic warheads, 500 deployed non-strategic, 2,500 in reserve, 4,200 awaiting dismantlement); and Russia with (1,550 deployed strategic warheads, 2,000 deployed non-strategic, 7,300 in reserve and awaiting dismantlement). That means, in theory at last, almost 20,000 warheads could still be held by the two big nuclear powers, with a combined total of another 1,000 or more held by the other states with nuclear weapons.

Now, that is a worst-case scenario and the US and Russia will most certainly have dismantled a substantial number of warheads by then, so the totals will in fact be considerably lower. US arms control watchers report that the Obama administration could accelerate the rate of warhead dismantlement from about 250 per year to 400 a year.[v] So, over the life of the new seven-year START agreement, the US inventory of deployed and stored warheads could decline from the current total of 9,400 to about 6,000 (with experts cautioning that dismantlement is a technically difficult process that must be done safely and can’t be rushed).

As regards delivery vehicles, the missiles and bombers from which weapons would be launched, the framework agreement going into the negotiations set the target maximum at between 500 and 1,100, and, as noted above, the New York Times reports that the new START agreement will set the maximum number at 800 on each side, down from 1,600 agreed to in the earlier START agreement (the Moscow Treaty did not address delivery vehicles).

If the agreed level is indeed set at 800, it will not be difficult for either side to comply since they both are already below that level. The US now has 798 deployed delivery vehicles, while Russia is already below 600 – and both are moving toward further reductions.

The new START agreement is a good start, and there are reasons to believe that both the US and Russia could go even lower than the agreement mandates in their actual deployments. In other words, the Treaty does not set a very high bar, or, in this case, a very low bar, but even at that there will be those in the US Senate who will argue (vociferously, as we’ve come to expect of the US Congress) that it leaves the US weak and defenseless. A big issue will be what the Treaty has to say about ballistic missile defence. The New York Times reports that the preamble to the Treaty acknowledges a relationship between offensive weapons and missile defence, but in non-binding language. For some Republicans in a mood to frustrate the current Administration, that will likely be enough to fire up the oppositional rhetoric.

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes

[i] “Biden on ‘F—ing Deal’,” The Huffington Post, 25 March 2010. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/25/biden-on-big-f—ing-deal_n_512555.html.

[ii] Peter Baker and Ellen Barry, “Russia and US Report Breakthrough on Arms

[iii] The numbers reported here are taken from:

Hans M. Kristensen, “START Follow-On: What SORT of Agreement?” the Federation of American Scientists Strategic Security Blog, 8 July 2009. http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2009/07/start.php.

Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen, “Russian nuclear forces, 2010,” January/February 2010, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. http://thebulletin.metapress.com/content/4337066824700113/.

Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen, “US nuclear forces, 2009,” March/April 2009, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. http://www.thebulletin.org/files/065002008.pdf.

[iv] “Joint Understanding,” signed by Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev, July 2008, 2009. The White House. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Joint-Statement-by-President-Dmitriy-Medvedev-of-the-Russian-Federation-and-President-Barack-Obama-of-the-United-States-of-America/.

[v] Elain M. Grossman, “Obama Team Might Speed Up Disassembly of Older Nuclear Warheads,” Global Security Newswire, 1 March 2010. http://www.globalsecuritynewswire.org/siteservices/print_friendly.php?ID=nw_20100301_9520.

The current nuclear disarmament debate in the United States has been given an unusual twist by a group of US Air Force officials and academics who reject the goal of elimination but argue for radical, and unilateral, reductions in the US nuclear arsenal.

To say that elements within the US Air Force are calling for radical nuclear reductions is, if anything, an understatement. In the current issue of Strategic Studies Quarterly,[i] two Department of Defense academics and a serving Air Force Colonel argue for a nuclear deterrence strategy based on an arsenal of 311 deployed nuclear warheads – 100 on land-based missiles (ICBMs), 195 on submarine-based missiles (SLBMs), and 19 on bomber-based cruise missiles (ALCMs).

In reaching that conclusion, however, these Air Force analysts explicitly reject the vision of a world without nuclear weapons and mount a spirited defence of the enduring benefits of nuclear deterrence and the weapons that deliver it.

Stability in a competitive international environment is preserved to a significant degree by deterrence – that is, an adversary is dissuaded from taking certain destabilizing or aggressive actions by the promise that unacceptable damage will be visited on it in response. Thus, as the Air Force analysts put it, general deterrence policy is designed “to ensure that incentives for aggression never outweigh the disincentives.”

Most states, most of the time, abjure aggression because of persuasive incentives to respect the sovereignty of other states – that is, they benefit from a stable world in which their rights as states are respected and in which military aggression is the rare exception. At the same time, most states also maintain conventional forces to add disincentives – that is, to assure their neighbors and adversaries that aggression would incur costs.

And the most persuasive disincentive or threat is, obviously, the threat of nuclear attack – “nuclear weapons socialize statesmen to the dangers of adventurism,” say the Air Force analysts. Hence, the main thrust of their argument is to support the maintenance of a nuclear deterrent for the long-term foreseeable future. And, they add, it needs to be only a minimal deterrent – a few hundred warheads are capable of delivering all the threats needed to persuade or dissuade any adversary.

But then they add a caveat: “…because the adversary will discount these threats by its assessment of the likelihood that the deterrer will implement them, the deterrer must convey these threats credibly.” In other words, that puts us pretty much back where we were in the Cold War when the Americans and Soviets went to insane lengths (in excess of 70,000 warheads) to demonstrate the credibility of their deterrent.

Credibility isn’t just a minor problem for nuclear deterrence – it is a central characteristic of deterrence and renders it intrinsically unstable.

The Air Force analysts say that nuclear weapons are sufficiently credible to “virtually preclud[e] acts of aggression against states that possess them, and thereby greatly enhance stability.” But that ignores two fundamental, and rather obvious, problems – both of which signal instability.

First, the scenario posits a nuclear state threatening a non-nuclear weapon state, even though nuclear weapon states have since 1996 formally agreed to “negative security assurances” – that is, the explicit commitment never to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states. They make that promise because it is in their interests to do so, and it is in their interests because it is an essential requirement for non-proliferation. If nuclear weapon states issue nuclear threats against states without nuclear weapons, the latter have only two credible options – either become aligned with another nuclear weapon state and thus find solace (and dependence) under its umbrella, or work hard to acquire an independent nuclear deterrent for themselves. Nuclear threats against non-nuclear weapon states produce incentives to proliferate – the opposite of stability. That is why the US is seriously considering the inclusion of a “sole purpose” pledge in its forthcoming Nuclear Posture Review – a pledge that the sole purpose of nuclear weapons is to deter their use by other states. And it is also why non-nuclear weapon states have been demanding that negative security assurance be changed from national declarations to legally-binding international agreements.

So, it is the absence of nuclear threats that contributes to non-proliferation stability. Nuclear deterrence against non-nuclear weapon states creates proliferation incentives and is therefore inherently unstable.

Second, if a nuclear weapon state is in confrontation with another nuclear weapon state, the use of a nuclear weapon – that is, actually carrying out the deterrent threat – would obviously be suicidal because it would trigger a response in kind. Whether it is minimum or maximum deterrence, there is no getting around MAD, mutually assured destruction. That fact obviously undermines the credibility of the deterrent (why would you use it if the guaranteed result was your own destruction?). That in turn creates the perceived need to make the deterrent more credible – by making it bigger, by improved accuracy for counterforce threats to take out large elements of the other side’s weapons to reduce its retaliatory capacity, by ballistic missile defence systems which are also designed to reduce the capacity to retaliate and thus enhance the threat of first use. These moves are then obviously mimicked by the other side. In other words, there is no stability – only the chronic instability of innovation and counter-innovation, otherwise known as an arms race.

Nuclear arsenals are anything but stable. They follow trajectories. In the Cold War it was an escalating trajectory, since the end of the Cold War it has been a descending trajectory. But there are already signs of reversal. China is modernizing. US missile defence is producing escalatory pressures in Russia. Pakistan and India, both declared devotees of minimum deterrence, have not found stability and are both busily building up their arsenals and their stocks of fissile materials. Israel’s refusal to open its nuclear facilities to international inspections continues as a major impediment to consensus within the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review process. States without nuclear weapons in that region are looking to give themselves nuclear options – and the greater the perception that more states, like Iran followed by other Arab states in the Middle East, will acquire the capacity to go nuclear, even if they don’t immediately do so, the more difficult it is to build the political will for radical reductions in nuclear weapon states.

The call by analysts linked to the US Air Force for radical and unilateral reductions in the US arsenal to 311 deployed warheads is a welcome call to continue the current nuclear trajectory on a downward path. At the same time, even minimum deterrence will not serve long-term stability. Deterrence is not a stable condition – the only credible basis for stability is the one envisioned in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, namely, the elimination of all arsenals, backed by a verification system capable of giving credible, long-term assurances that all states are in full compliance.

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes

[i] James Wood Forsythe Jr., Col. B. Chance Saltzman, and Gary Schaub Jr. “Remembrance of Things Past: The Enduring Value of Nuclear Weapons,” Strategic Studies Quarterly, Spring 2010, pp. 74-89.http://www.au.af.mil/au/ssq/2010/spring/forsythsaltzmanschaub.pdf.

The UN’s one disarmament negotiating forum recently seemed set to emerge from a wasted decade of deadlock, but the celebrations were premature. Disarmament is obviously way too important to be left to the Conference on Disarmament, so it’s time to look for another venue – and on that Canada has, or at least had, a great idea.

If diplomatic patience is a virtue, there is a host of saints toiling away at the Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva. For more than a decade diplomats have been showing up for work to implore each other to get down to the business of negotiating disarmament agreements, and without fail they’ve been unable to agree on a “program of work.”

The main elements of the agenda they should be working on are well known and not disputed. More than a decade ago they agreed on four priority objectives:

1. A Treaty to halt production of fissile material for weapons purposes;

2. Legally-binding commitments from nuclear weapon states not to use or threaten to use nuclear  weapons against non-nuclear weapon states;

3. A multilateral forum to advance global nuclear disarmament; and

4. Agreements to prevent an arms race in outer space.

Some in the 65 member CD, the only UN disarmament negotiating forum, favor “discussions” over “negotiations” on some of the issues. It’s a matter that can’t be settled by a simple majority vote because the CD operates by consensus – essentially interpreted as giving each member a veto. In 2003 a group of five ambassadors to the CD developed a formula that was widely agreed. There would be negotiations on fissile materials (these have been unanimously called for by all 188 states parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty – NPT) but only discussions on the other three items (leaving open the possibility for moving towards negotiations in the future). It became known as the A-5 formula[i] and it honored the important principle that the international community not allow certain powerful states or groups to determine where multilateral attention is focused – instead, the priorities of all deserve attention.

But with that agreed, the CD was still in dispute over the scope of the negotiations on fissile materials – that is, should a fissile materials treaty simply ban, or cut off, future production, or should it also place controls on stockpiles and require reductions of already produced fissile materials for weapons purposes? Again, it’s not a new disagreement and was in fact essentially solved back in 1995 when Canadian Ambassador Gerald Shannon, having been asked to find a way through this dispute, set out a basic compromise: the formal mandate for fissile materials negotiations would focus on a “ban on the production of fissile material,” but it would also allow delegations to raise other issues, including controls on and reductions of existing stocks, during the course of negotiations. This compromise became known as the Shannon mandate.[ii] The Shannon mandate also reflected an important principle – that the international community not permit a single state or a small group of states to set pre-conditions or define in advance the limits and parameters of multilateral negotiations on a particular issue.

The Administration of George W. Bush added another barrier to action when it insisted that a fissile materials treaty could not include verification provisions.

The US position has now changed and in May 2009 there was agreement to move forward on the 4-point program of work — both the A-5 formula and the Shannon mandate being key elements of the agreement.[iii]To reach agreement they had to expand the priorities to seven – there was, of course, no consensus on the issues themselves, but all were deemed worthy of immediate attention in a work program that would include the following:

1. Negotiations on a fissile materials treaty;

2. A working group for discussions on nuclear disarmament generally;

3. A working group to discuss preventing an arms race in outer space;

4. Another working group on negative security assurances (assurances against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon state parties to the NPT);

5. The appointment of a coordinator to gather the views of states on new and emerging weapons;

6. Another coordinator to seek views on “comprehensive” disarmament; and

7. A coordinator to seek views on transparency.

Now, however, Pakistan has withdrawn its consent. Concerned about its imbalanced security relationship with India, Pakistan insists that the fissile materials negotiations must be defined in advance as including fissile materials stocks (to address India’s larger inventory). The Shannon mandate would allow Pakistan to raise stockpile issues during the course of negotiations, but Pakistan now rejects that arrangement. It has further suggested that the CD agenda be expanded to include regional conventional arms control – an expansion India will not countenance.[iv]

So that’s where we stand once again, with nothing happening – the only thing to survive is the CD’s saintly patience.

CD diplomats are slow to talk of alternatives that would sideline a body that earlier successfully negotiated the comprehensive test ban treaty – but Canada did have a plan to circumvent the stalled CD. In 2005 it joined five other states – Brazil, Kenya, Mexico, New Zealand, and Sweden – in putting forward a resolution in the UN General Assembly asking it to mandate, by simple majority vote, four special committees to work on the four priority disarmament issues included in the A-5 formula.

The point was to take these four crucial issues out of what the Canadian Disarmament Ambassador called the “consensus prison” of the CD. By working as Committees of the General Assembly, they would not be bound by consensus rules and thus states would finally be allowed to deal substantively with issues that are widely understood to be key to advancing global nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. The drafters of the resolution were careful not to strip the CD of its function, but built into their resolution a commitment to transfer the results of the work of these four ad-hoc committees back to the CD as soon as it finally agreed on its proposed agenda of work and was actually prepared to start negotiating.

The plan failed then, and the resolution was withdrawn, because an angered Bush Administration accused the resolution’s sponsors of “souring” what it inexplicably called the “positive reform atmosphere” of the day and of compromising the work of the CD – the same CD that had at that time done no work for eight years. Washington also declared it would not participate in any of the proposed committees.

But now there truly is a largely positive international atmosphere with regard to disarmament prospects. The same proposal today could take the CD’s stalemated agenda and transfer it to specially mandated committees of the General Assembly. The committees could get down to work immediately – and if and when the CD decided to become relevant the work and the results to date could be transferred back to the CD. Is Ottawa up to the challenge?

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes

[i] Initiative of the Ambassadors Dembri, Lint, Reyes, Salander andVega. Proposal of a Programme of Work revised at the 932^nd plenary meeting on Thursday, 26 June 2003. CD/1693/Rev.1, 5 September 2003.http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/political/cd/A5.pdf.

[ii] Report of Ambassador Gerald E. Shannon of Canada on Consultations on the Most Appropriate Arrangement to Negotiate a Treaty Banning the Production of Fissile Material for Nuclear Weapons or Other Nuclear Explosive Devices. CD/1299, 24 March 1995. Available athttp://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/political/cd/shannon.html.

[iii] Discussed here on June 1: “Finally, the UN’s Geneva disarmament forum gets to work.” http://www.cigionline.org/blogs/2009/6/finally-un%E2%80%99s-geneva-disarmament-forum-gets-work

[iv] “Pak stonewalls talks to ban fissile material,” The Times of India, 23 January 2010.http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Pak-stonewalls-talks-to-ban-fissile-material/articleshow/5489692.cms.

Two former German security officials have responded, not entirely helpfully, to former NATO Secretary-General George Robertson’s sharp rebuke of the German Government’s call for the removal of US nuclear weapons from its territory.[i]

Accusing Robertson of relying on “outdated perceptions” that are rooted in the Cold War, Wolfgang Ischinger and Ulrich Weisser make some good points.[ii]

First, they say it “would be a grave mistake for NATO and its members to cling to the Cold War perception that Russia is a potential aggressor…” Russia must be a strategic partner they say, that being essential to long-term stability in Europe.

Second, they reject the argument that there must be US nuclear weapons on German soil (tactical gravity bombs) to keep Germany under the American nuclear umbrella – a point, they say, clarified 15 years ago by then US Defence Secretary William Perry.

Third, they say the role of nuclear weapons has “changed fundamentally” and that “any residual benefits of nuclear arsenals are now overshadowed by the growing risks of proliferation and terrorism.”

But when they set out the way forward, the argument goes somewhat awry.

First and foremost, they call on the alliance as a whole to “reaffirm its reliance on the US nuclear umbrella and on extended deterrence.” Really? So they claim that NATO countries, which represent virtually two-thirds of global conventional military might, are so threatened, so vulnerable are they in the most politically stable geography on the planet, that they must have the cover of American weapons of mass destruction and the threat of annihilation for them to feel safe? As for those states that really do live in threatening neighborhoods – say, in the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, or South Asia – they are presumably expected to be the real pioneers in the drive for zero global nuclear weapons while Europeans and North Americans continue to cling to them.

Second, they call for negotiated reductions in tactical nuclear weapons, “based on the principle of reciprocity.” Again, they’re not paying attention Michael Quinlan’s rejection of reciprocity (discussed here last week). Quinlan argued instead that the unilateral removal of US nuclear weapons from Europe would “have the effect of depriving Russia of a pretext she has sometimes sought to exploit both for opposing NATO’s wider development and for evading the question of whether and why Russia herself need continue to maintain a non-strategic nuclear armoury that is now far larger than that of anyone else.”[iii]

Finally, they say if tactical nuclear weapons cannot be immediately eliminated, which they say would be the most easily verifiable approach, “a good alternative would be to move all tactical nuclear weapons from their forward bases for centralized storage deep inside national territory.” That would indeed be a sensible interim step toward zero tactical nuclear weapons, provided of course, they mean the “national territory” of the nuclear weapon states that own those weapons Russia and the US) – and not the “national territory” of the non-nuclear weapons states that now host them (Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey).

Ischinger and Weisser offer some effective counterpoints to George Robertson’s Cold War call to preserving NATO’s nuclear strategy and weapons, but they end up with some Cold War assumptions of their own.

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes

[i] See last week’s post on “Nukes out of Europe: Now the Backlash.”http://www.cigionline.org/blogs/2010/2/nukes-out-europe-now-backlash.

[ii] Ischinger was formerly deputy foreign minister, and Weisser was director of the policy planning staff  of the German defence minister. Their response to Robertson appeared in the New York Times, “NATO and the Nuclear Umbrella,” 15 February 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/opinion/16iht-edischinger.html.

[iii] Michael Quinlan, “The Nuclear Proliferation Scene: Implications for NATO,” in Joseph F. Pilat and David S. Yost, eds. NATO and the Future of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NATO Defense College, Academic Research Branch, Rome, May 2007), http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Digital-Library/Publications/Detail/?ots591=0C54E3B3-1E9C-BE1E-2C24-A6A8C7060233&lng=en&id=31221.

When the German Government became explicit in calling for the removal of nuclear weapons from German territory^[i] some energetic backlash was to be expected. Now it’s started.

Most thought strong reaction to removing the remaining US tactical nuclear weapons from Europe would come from the likes of Poland – an east European country not yet fully confident that its alignment with the west has left it permanently beyond Moscow’s grasp. But now some exaggerated push-back has come from a former alliance Secretary-General – one safely ensconced in the UK. The former NATO leader George Robertson, also a former British Defence Minister, has authored a new briefing together with two US security analysts to give urgent voice to alarms deeply rooted in the 1980s.[ii]

Their bottom line is that the defence of the North Atlantic region, in spite of it being in possession of almost two-thirds of the world’s conventional military capacity, still requires nuclear weapons in Europe. Furthermore, if Germany wants shelter under a nuclear umbrella it needs to have nuclear weapons on its soil – anything less is “irresponsible.” The latter is a judgment that will come as a surprise to the likes of Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Norway, and, incidentally, Canada, none of which has nuclear weapons on its soil and all of which are nevertheless gathered within the arc of America’s extended nuclear deterrence – to the genuine chagrin, it must be added, of majority populations that repeatedly tell pollsters they want nuclear weapons and umbrellas permanently eliminated.

Germany, having actually noticed the escalating demand for nuclear disarmament, and having absorbed an appreciation for the risks to the nonproliferation regime that come with a refusal to disarm, took a second look at the Cold War relics it hosts in the form of US nuclear gravity bombs and decided it could advance two policy priorities through a single initiative. By removing nuclear weapons from Europe, NATO could advance the pursuit of disarmament in sub-strategic weapons and it could shore up respect for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) by bringing NATO states into full compliance with Articles I and II.[iii]

Pressing both of these issues in advance the NPT Review Conference coming in May, the German government explained that “we want to send a signal and fulfill our commitments under the NPT 100 percent.”^[iv]

Robertson et al regard that as a dangerous signal. They further worry that officials close to President Obama also support the repatriation of US tactical nuclear weapons back to the US mainland. No doubt Mr. Robertson and his co-authors would be even more troubled by the views of the late Michael Quinlan, a former Permanent Secretary of Defence in the UK who shared many of George Robertson’s assumptions about deterrence. Despite his commitment to nuclear deterrence, Quinlan expressed doubts about the value of US nuclear weapons in Europe – “I doubt whether their permanent presence remains essential nowadays either in military and deterrent terms or as a symbol of continuing US commitment to the security of its European allies.”[v]

Quinlan also rejected the argument advanced by Robertson that reductions to tactical nuclear weapons in Europe should be negotiated to win reciprocal and greater reductions in Russia’s larger arsenal of such weapons. Quinlan argued instead that the unilateral removal of US nuclear weapons from Europe would “have the effect of depriving Russia of a pretext she has sometimes sought to exploit both for opposing NATO’s wider development and for evading the question of whether and why Russia herself need continue to maintain a non-strategic nuclear armoury that is now far larger than that of anyone else.”[vi]

But Robertson puts the onus for reductions primarily on Russia, expecting it to reduce down to levels that produce Russian-American parity, ignoring the huge imbalance in conventional forces between Russia and NATO. Russia accounts for less than 6 per cent of world military spending while NATO states collectively account for more than 60 per cent.[vii] As long as Russia regards this overwhelming conventional force as, if not necessarily an overt enemy, then a challenge to its regional interests, it is unlikely to be amenable to significant further reductions to its substantial arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons.

Robertson and his co-authors make a number of additional arguments why NATO nuclear weapons must remain in Europe, but their ultimate and surprisingly frank appeal is to what they regard as the shared interests of all nuclear weapons states – and that boils down to regarding partial arms reductions as tactical moves designed to ease disarmament pressures in the interests of long-term nuclear retention. “Russia, like the US and other nuclear powers, has an interest in preserving its right to hold nuclear weapons under the NPT while stemming their spread to other states” (emphasis added).

Mr. Robertson needs to check in with his own Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, who sent the following message to the just concluded Global Zero meeting in Paris: “I believe that a world free of nuclear weapons is not only achievable, but one of the most important policy objectives of our times.”[viii]

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes

[i] Oliver Meier, “German Nuclear Stance Stirs Debate,” Arms Control Today, December 2009,http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2009_12/GermanNuclearStance.

[ii] Franklin Miller, George Robertson and Kori Shake. “Germany Opens Pandora’s Box,” Briefing Note, Centre for European Reform. February 2010. http://www.cer.org.uk/pdf/bn_pandora_final_8feb10.pdf

[iii] Article I requires nuclear-weapon states (in this case the US) not to transfer nuclear weapons to any other state, and Article II requires nuclear weapon states (in this case German, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy and Turkey) not to receive nuclear weapons from any state.

[iv] See note #18.

[v] Michael Quinlan, “The Nuclear Proliferation Scene: Implications for NATO,” in Joseph F. Pilat and David S. Yost, eds. NATO and the Future of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NATO Defense College, Academic Research Branch, Rome, May 2007), http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Digital-Library/Publications/Detail/?ots591=0C54E3B3-1E9C-BE1E-2C24-A6A8C7060233&lng=en&id=31221.

[vi] See Note i.

[vii] International Institute of Strategic Studies. The Military Balance 2008. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2008.

[viii] Messages from President Obama, President Medvedev, and Prime Minister Brown to the Global Zero meeting are available at: http://www.globalzero.org/en/opening-day-statement-global-zero-leaders.

This commentary by Douglas Roche and Ernie Regehr in the February 3, 2010 issue of Embassy: Canada’s Foreign Policy Newsweekly,  grows out of last week’s conference, “Practical Steps to Zero Nuclear Weapons.”

High-ranking officials of the US State Department, NATO and the United Nations were in Ottawa last week to meet with the leaders of five national nuclear disarmament groups and experienced civil society leaders. It was all designed to move the Canadian government to actively support US President Barack Obama’s commitment to a nuclear weapons-free world.

Did it? Time will tell and we want to remain optimistic.

The two days of speeches and panels were sobering. Entitled “Practical Steps to Zero Nuclear Weapons,” the conference noted at the outset that because of President Obama, a new opportunity exists to make substantive reductions in the 23,000 nuclear weapons still in existence, halt proliferation and set the world on an irreversible path to zero nuclear weapons.

But the president is fighting rearguard actions in his own country, and the international community is still focused on stopping the spread of nuclear weapons rather than negotiating their complete elimination as called for by the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

In short, Obama needs the help of friends. Canada should support the president by making it clear that this country does not want to be used as an excuse for the US maintaining its nuclear umbrella over allies, said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association based in Washington, DC.

Similarly, participants argued that Canada should use its influence to have NATO stop calling nuclear weapons “essential,” and to harmonize its nuclear policies with not only the Obama goal but the legal requirement imposed by the NPT for total elimination.

Participants focused on the proposal by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that a model Nuclear Weapons Convention, drafted a number of years ago, now become the starting point for comprehensive negotiations. A Nuclear Weapons Convention would be a global treaty prohibiting the development, testing and deployment of nuclear weapons. Already, 124 states at the UN have voted for such a global ban. Mayors for Peace, representing 3,500 mayors around the world, has been calling for it. And polls show that a majority of citizens around the world would favour it.

The sponsors of the conference—the Canadian Network to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Canadian Pugwash Group, Physicians for Global Survival, Project Ploughshares and World Federalist Movement-Canada—thus recommended that Canada press the forthcoming NPT Review Conference to begin preparatory work on a convention.

Though Obama spoke out for nuclear disarmament 10 months ago, the Canadian government has remained mute. While the government has certainly not rejected Canadian policy supporting the elimination of nuclear weapons, neither has it championed it at this new moment of opportunity. Officials from the departments of Foreign Affairs and National Defence attended the conference, but their contributions were limited to procedural matters because they had no instructions from their ministers.

Liberal Foreign Affairs critic Bob Rae gave a major speech calling for a new dynamic thrust in Canadian foreign policy, and NDP Foreign Affairs critic Paul Dewar laid out a well-considered plan for Canada to support elimination by working on verification and related issues.

But no Conservative Party representative was in attendance. We personally delivered a formal letter of invitation in early December to a high-ranking Conservative official and were told the invitation would have to be relayed to the PMO. There was no response, and there was general surprise at the conference that the government was not represented.

The sponsors led off their recommendations by stating: “It is urgent that the 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.”

Canada’s chairmanship of the G8 and G20 meetings in Canada this year, the NPT Review Conference, and NATO’s current review of its policies all provide important opportunities.

Already, the opportunity to rid the world of nuclear weapons provided by President Obama shows signs of slipping away. Obama’s vice-president, Joe Biden, bragged in the Wall Street Journal that the US is increasing investments in its nuclear arsenal and infrastructure. The president is receiving insufficient support for his initiatives in his own country and, without demonstrable support, may not be able to sustain any momentum. The foreign ministers of Germany and Japan have come in behind him, but many other countries that should be championing his efforts are waiting to see what will happen.

It became clear at the conference that the world risks falling into a trap. Those who claim that nuclear weapons are still necessary do not usually oppose “eventual” nuclear disarmament, but they keep “eventual” so far over the horizon as to be meaningless.

In retaining “eventual,” nuclear defenders will so solidify the justification for nuclear weapons that proliferation to more states is bound to occur, and the more proliferation in the years and decades ahead, the harder it will be to even claim that nuclear disarmament has legitimacy.

The nuclear weapons cycle, 65 years old, must be broken now before a new and exceedingly dangerous spurt of nuclear proliferation takes place. That is why two of Obama’s priorities—ratification of the ban on testing and a permanent ban on the production of fissile material for weapons—now need Canada’s urgent support.

It is also important for Canada to commit now to preparations for a Nuclear Weapons Convention. This is a direct request by 481 members of the Order of Canada, who represent a cross-section of Canadians deeply involved in the well-being of our country. In 2002, DFAIT began such work, but it lapsed in the Bush era. Obama provides a new opportunity. But will Canada seize it?

Retired senator Douglas Roche, is Canada’s former ambassador for disarmament. Ernie Regehr is senior policy adviser to Project Ploughshares. Both are Officers of the Order of Canada.

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…”