Nuclear Disarmament

While nuclear weapon states, including their non-nuclear weapon state allies (see last posting, Dec. 12) continue to plan for the long-term retention of nuclear weapons, despite their Treaty commitment to disarm,[i] a group of Nobel Peace Laureates warns that “a world with nuclear haves and have-nots is fragmented and unstable.”

The declaration goes on to remind us that “The NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) is a bargain in which nonproliferation is obtained based on a promise by nuclear weapons states to negotiate nuclear weapons elimination and offer peaceful uses of nuclear technology.” But, they say, “nuclear weapons states want to keep their weapons indefinitely and at the same time condemn others who would attempt to acquire them.”

That of course is an apt description of NATO’s insistence on its long-term need for nuclear weapons and the UK’s modernization plans. “Such flaunting of disarmament obligations,” they say, “is not sustainable.”

The Nobel Laureates also say they “are gravely concerned regarding several current developments such as NPT stakeholders enabling rather than constraining proliferation” – an equally apt description of the US initiative for civilian nuclear cooperation with India and accepting India as a de facto nuclear weapon state.

Those taking part in the Summit were: Frederik Willem De Klerk, Mairead Corrigan Maguire, Lech Walesa, Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, International Atomic Energy Agency, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, International Peace Bureau, United Nations Organization, United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees, United Nations Children’s Fund, International Labour Organization, Médecins sans Frontières, American Friends Service Committee, Red Cross, International Campaign to Ban Landmines, Pugwash Conference. Guests of honour were: Mayor of Hiroshima and President of the World’s Mayors for Peace Tadatoshi Akiba, Nobel Laureate for Medicine Rita Levi Montalcini, Man of Peace 2006 Peter Gabriel, Representative of the Weapons of Mass Distruction Commission Jayantha Dhanapala, President of the Foundation on Economic Trends and Greenhouse Crisis Foundation Jeremy Rifkin,

Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations Nobuaki Tanaka and Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations Jose Antonio Ocampo.

The 7th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates took place in Rome from November 17 to 19 and was held, as were previous Summits, on the initiative of Mikhail Gorbachev and the Mayor of Rome, Walter Veltroni.[ii]

[i] Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

[ii] The Declaration is available at http://www.gsinstitute.org/docs/Rome_Declaration_2006.pdf.

While the United Nations Security Council struggles to achieve the verifiable disavowal of nuclear weapons by Iran and North Korea, Europe and North America are busy championing nuclear weapons as the ultimate security trump card and the preeminent emblem of political gravitas, thereby building a political/security context that is increasingly hostile to non-proliferation.

At the end of November in Riga, though NATO leaders may have quarreled over Afghanistan , they were of a single mind in reaffirming the political and security advantages of nuclear weapons.[i] The leaders declared the continuing relevance of, and their full satisfaction with, the alliance’s 1999 strategic doctrine,[ii] which declares that “the Alliance ‘s conventional forces alone cannot ensure credible deterrence. 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.”

It is an assertion that begs a question almost too obvious to repeat? If NATO, with its collective command of some two-thirds of global conventional military capacity, feels unacceptably vulnerable without a nuclear back-up, what are North Korea and Iran likely to conclude? It is true that North Korea and Iran joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as non-nuclear weapon states and solemnly pledged to permanently disavow nuclear weapons, but so did most of the NATO states, including Canada, that have just proclaimed their enduring commitment to nuclear weapons. Five non-nuclear weapon states (Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, and Turkey )[iii] even host nuclear weapons on their territories.

The United Kingdom followed the NATO paean to nuclear weapons with its own unilateral version. In its just released Defence White Paper, the Blair Government promises a new generation of submarine-based nuclear weapons, albeit reduced by 20 percent from its current arsenal of about 200 warheads.[iv] As the Leader in the Guardian put it, “the words ‚Äònuclear deterrent’ occur more than any other in the defence white paper published [December 4], but at no point is the document clear about who or what a new generation of British nuclear weapons is intended to deter.”[v]

Whitehall, of course, denies that its nuclear modernization program is in violation of Article VI of the NPT, which commits all nuclear weapon states to eliminating their nuclear arsenals, or a betrayal of its pledge, made at the 2000 NPT Review Conference along with other nuclear weapon states, of “an unequivocal undertaking to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals leading to nuclear disarmament to which all States parties are committed under Article VI.”[vi] But it is hard to deny what the UK action says about the spirit of its nuclear disarmament commitments and what it does to the political climate in which nuclear non-proliferation is pursued.

To top it off, the US Administration and Congress then joined up to reward India for its nuclear weapons tests in violation of non-proliferation norms. The US-India nuclear cooperation agreement accepts India as a de facto nuclear weapons state and irgnores, even rewards, its continuing violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1172, which calls on India and Pakistan “immediately to stop their nuclear weapon development programmes, to refrain from weaponization or from the deployment of nuclear weapons, to cease development of ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons and any further production of fissile material for nuclear weapons.”[vii]

In addition to rewarding defiance of the Security Council, implement of full civilian nuclear cooperation with India will arguably put the United States in violation of Article I of the NPT which prohibits nuclear weapon states from assisting, encouraging, or inducing other states to acquire nuclear weapons. Providing India with civilian nuclear fuel assists its nuclear weapons development by freeing up limited domestic supplies for the production of fissile material for its expanding arsenal. And as to encouragement, there is little doubt that India takes encouragement from its new found favour in Washington and the equanimity with which its violations of the Security Council are met.

For North Korea and Iran the lessons are unmistakable. Western non-proliferation policy is not about eliminating nuclear arsenals or even stopping their spread. Instead, it is an art of selection – states within, or being wooed into, a US-defined orbit of friendliness are permitted to violate global non-proliferation norms, while states outside this axis of strategic convenience are to be punished to the full for their, in the case of Iran, much lesser violations.

Hans Blix and his Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission warned against this kind of selective non-proliferation, rejecting “the suggestion that nuclear weapons in the hands of some pose no threat, while in the hands of others they place the world in mortal jeopardy.”[viii]

If it is the intention of European and North American governments to build a political climate that is hostile to non-proliferation, then they will be well-pleased with their work of the last few weeks.

[i] “Comprehensive Political Guidance,” Endorsed by NATO Heads of State and Government on 29 November 2006, Riga, Latvia (http://www.nato.int/docu/basictxt/b061129e.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. on 23 rd and 24 th April 1999 (http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/1999/p99-065e.htm).

[iii] Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen, “Where the Bombs are, 2006,” NRDC: Nuclear Notebook, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists(November/December, 2006, vol. 62, no. 6), pp. 57-58.

[iv] By Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen, ” British nuclear forces, 2005,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,NRDC: Nuclear Notebook (November/December 2005, vol. 61, no. 06), pp. 77-79.

[v] “Why? And why now?” The Guardian, December 5, 2006.

[vi]2000 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Final Document: Volume I, Part I: Review of the operation of the Treaty, taking into account the decisions and the resolution adopted by the 1995 Review and Extension Conference Improving the effectiveness of thestrengthened review process for the Treaty (Article VI and eighth to twelfth preambular paragraphs), para 15(6).

[vii] Security Council, Resolution 1172, June 6, 1998, operative paragraph 7.

[viii] Weapons of Terror: Freeing the World of Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Weapons (Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, 2006, Stockholm ), p. 60.

India and Pakistan have in recent days both carried out tests of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles.[1] The tests are in direct violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1172.

Following the May 1998 nuclear weapons tests by India and Pakistan, an indignant Security Council reflected the global mood when it unanimously passed Resolution 1172 (June 6, 1998) condemning the tests, demanding “that India and Pakistan refrain from further nuclear tests” and called upon “India and Pakistan immediately to stop their nuclear weapon development programmes, to refrain from weaponization or from the deployment of nuclear weapons, to cease development of ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons [emphasis added] and any further production of fissile material for nuclear weapons.”

The resolution also “requests the Secretary-General to report urgently to the Council on the steps taken by India and Pakistan to implement the present resolution.” The Secretary-General has yet to report back to the Security Council on the matter, and it would be correct to conclude that no implementation steps have been taken.

Coincidentally, while the Indians and Pakistanis were testing their ballistic missiles in definace of the Security Council, the US Senate voted to support proposals by the Bush Administration to enter into civilian nuclear cooperation arrangements with India – arrangements that accept and actually welcome India as a de facto nuclear weapons state, facilitate the further production within India of fissile materials for weapons purposes, and ignore India’s refusal to sign, much less ratify, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

In contrast, Washington and the Security Council have been following Iran ‘s civilian uranium enrichment program with unwavering vigilance. While India’s actual acquisition of nuclear weapons has the White House in search of ways to accommodate it, Iran ‘s uncertain and future pursuit of a weapons capability is met with a full-court press of diplomacy and Pentagon planning for pre-emptive attack. It would be wrong to treat Iran’s uranium enrichment capability as fully benign, but it is also worth remembering that to date there is no conclusive evidence that a nuclear weapons program is Iran ‘s real goal.[2]

What drives Washington these days is selective non-proliferation – the issue isn’t the spread of nuclear weapons, but who is getting them. In the hands of the friends of the United States, and currently Israel, India, and Pakistan all fit into that category, nuclear weapons are not seen as a danger. Not all agree, however – notably, Hans Blix and his commission on weapons of mass destruction urge the world to hold fast to non-proliferation principles and “reject the suggestion that nuclear weapons in the hands of some pose no threat, while in the hands of others they place the world in mortal jeopardy.”[3] (p. 60)

[1] Archana Mishra, “India Test-Fires Nuclear-Capable Missile,” The Associated Press, Nov. 19, 2006 [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/19/AR2006111900156].

[2] Seymour M. Hersh, “Is a damaged Administration less likely6 to attack Iran , or more?, New Yorker, Nov. 27, 2006 [http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/061127fa_fact].

[3] Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission. 2006. Weapons of Terror: Freeing the World of Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Arms. Stockholm . http://www.wmdcommission.org (p. 60).

The main elements of a satisfactory end to the North Korean nuclear crisis have been in place for more than a decade.

North Korea receives economic assistance, especially energy assistance such as fuel oil or electricity. Nuclear supplier states promise to explore assisting it in building a light water nuclear power plant. North Korea’s sovereignty is clearly acknowledged and security assurances that take regime change off the table are provided.

In return, North Korea commits to a denuclearized Korean Peninsula, terminates all military nuclear programs, places all its nuclear programs and facilities under full international inspections to confirm that none support military objectives, and returns to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as a non-nuclear weapon state.

That was essentially the arrangement under the 1994 “framework agreement” between Pyongyang and the Clinton Administration. [1] Its core elements held until 2002 when the Bush Administration imposed unilateral sanctions in response to North Korea’s currency abuses, included North Korea in the famous “axis of evil,” and used the Pentagon’s nuclear posture review to issue thinly veiled nuclear threats against North Korea, Iran, and other states in Washington’s bad books. TheUSalso accused North Korea of mounting a uranium enrichment effort with help from Pakistan’s famous nuclear smuggler A.Q. Khan, but the Koreans denied it and to date no public evidence of the program has been presented.[2]

Former President Jimmy Carter, who has served as an informal envoy to North Korea during the Clinton Administration and beyond, found North Korea’s precipitous response – expulsion of the inspectors, resumption of the production of nuclear bomb materials, and withdrawal from the NPT – fully predictable. [3] The North, he says, has always responded more favorably to positive inducements, especially those that are understood to take regime-change strategies off the table.

The same deal of positive inducements and commitment to a denuclearized Korean peninsula was again agreed to by North Korea in the September 2005 Joint Statement by the parties to the Six-Nation talks. [4] The 1994 and 2005 agreements stated the deal in terms of the positive commitments made by all the parties. The UN Security Council Resolution No. 1718, unanimously adopted October 14, 2006 following North Korea’s October 9 nuclear warhead test, repeats the deal but focuses on the negative consequences that are to be visited on North Korea until it meets the central demand to end all military programs and return to the NPT under safeguard inspections. Until that time, it will be denied economic cooperation and a broad range of punitive economic measures will be imposed. [5]

What could be simpler? It is really only a matter of managing the appropriate mix of threats and incentives. But that’s where it gets complicated. The North Korean regime regards itself as largely immune to military attack – not because of its elementary nuclear weapons capability, but because of its million-strong conventional army. That army would not save it in any war, but it would guarantee a level of such extraordinary devastation that its neighbors continue to conclude that any militarily forced end to the regime would be much worse than the status quo.

Kim Jong-il’s fierce resistance to threats is not evidence of his presumed invulnerability, but of his view that threats and punitive sanctions show that the US, and now also the Security Council, is reneging on those elements of the September agreement that call for security assurances and normalization of relations. In the Joint Statement the US affirmed that it “has no intention to attack or invade the DPRK with nuclear or conventional weapons,” and agreed that the two countries would “respect each other’s sovereignty, exist peacefully together, and take steps to normalize their relations subject to their respective bilateral policies.”

For Resolution 1718 to be implemented, the United States will once again have to provide North Korea clear security assurances and evidence of progress towards the normalization of relations, including a relaxation of unilateral sanctions which effectively block North Korea from all access to international financial institutions.

But nuclear weapon states will also have to make some changes – perhaps not to get the current deal outlined in Resolution 1718, but certainly if non-proliferation is to be honored in the long run.

You can’t persuasively preach temperance from a bar stool, but that is exactly what the UN Security Council is trying to do. All five permanent members of the Council (P5) are recognized as nuclear weapon states under the NPT and as such are obliged to dismantle their nuclear arsenals according to Article VI of the Treaty and as confirmed in the 1996 World Court opinion. [6] In 2000 they reaffirmed their rhetorical commitment to abolish nuclear weapons – through their “unequivocal undertaking,” at the NPT Review Conference, “to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals leading to nuclear disarmament” [7] – but the P5 remain determined nuclear retentionists.

China and the United States refuse to ratify the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty, even though they obviously want North Korea and all other states to abide by it. They refuse to negotiate an agreement to cut-off the production of fissile materials from weapons purposes, even though they obviously want North Korea and all others states to end all production of such fissile materials. All five continue to modernize their arsenals, elaborate nuclear use doctrines, and pursue selective non-proliferation (e.g. accepting nuclear testing in some cases, such as India and Pakistan, while opposing even the development of civilian nuclear fuel technologies in others).

Mohamed ElBaradei, Nobel Peace Laureate and Director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, agrees that a roll back of North Korea’s bomb is both essential and eminently achievable. He emphasizes dialogue and security assurances and is wary of punitive sanctions: “Once you start applying penalties, it brings hardliners into the driver’s seat.” [8]

We can also add that it wouldn’t hurt if the advocates of nuclear temperance in North Korea would begin to address their own addictions.

[1] Agreed Framework between the United States of America and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. 1994. October 21.http://www.kedo.org/pdfs/AgreedFramework.pdf.

[2] “Little is known about North Korea’s alleged uranium enrichment program–where it might be located, its state of development, or how many centrifuges might be operational. The United States has not provided any public information that substantiates its existence. Following the U.S. manipulation and distortion of intelligence about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, some countries and analysts are now skeptical of any U.S. allegations regarding other nations’ nuclear programs. [8] A March 20 Washington Post report that the White House misrepresented intelligence on the supposed transfer of nuclear material from North Korea to Libya may have further undermined the Bush administration’s credibility, even though the White House denied the report.”

“North Korea’s nuclear program, 2005,By Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen
May/June 2005 pp. 64-67 (vol. 61, no. 03) © 2005 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

( http://www.thebulletin.org/article_nn.php?art_ofn=mj05norris)

[3] Carter, Jimmy. 2006. Solving the Korean stalemate, one step at a time, The New York Times, October 11.http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/opinion/11carter.html?_r=1&oref=slogin.

[4] Joint Statement of the Fourth Round of the Six-Party Talks, Beijing, September 19, 2005. 2005.http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2005/53490.htm.

[5] United Nations Security Council. 2006. Resolution 1718. October 14. http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N06/572/07/PDF/N0657207.pdf?OpenE….

[6] International Court of Justice. 1996. Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons. Advisory Opinion. Found at The Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy.http://www.lcnp.org/wcourt/opinion.htm.

[7] NPT. 2000. 2000 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Final Document.http://disarmament.un.org/wmd/npt/2000FD.pdf.

[8] “ElBaradei warns on sanctions on N. Korea, Iran,” Reuters, October 23, 2006.

At least one western constituency is celebrating Kim Jong-il’s nuclear test – the folks who toil in the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and the beltway publicists who promote their cause in the public square.

The morning after the test, David Frum, the former Bush speech writer and current fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, was in the New York Times[i]advocating a central role for accelerated deployment of ballistic missile defence (BMD) in the panoply of threats and punishments that he wants visited on North Korea and China. The next day Frank Gaffney Jr., another Washington neo-conservative and former official in Ronald Reagan’s Pentagon, was in the Globe and Mail[ii]urging the US to “greatly ramp up [its] effort to deploy the sort of effective anti-missile defences first sought by Mr. Reagan” (a much more far-reaching, and fantastical, plan than the current Pentagon program).

From its earliest days the MDA has depended heavily on cooperation from Kim Jong-il and his generals in preserving the North Korean threat – a primary rationale offered by BMD’s Congressional advocates. And of course, the North Koreans are nothing if not accommodating. The North Korean long-range missile test last June and the nuclear warhead test on October 9, despite the outright failure of the former and the ambiguous results of the latter, have injected new energy into a program that was languishing due to a lack of purpose and attention from a White House and Congress with other things on their minds.

The timing of Mr. Kim’s gift to the BMD lobby in Canada could also not have been better. Just days before the Korean nuclear test, the Senate Defence Committee recommended, in a report it entitled “Managing Turmoil,”[iii] that Canada “enter into discussions with the US Government with the aim of participating in the Ballistic Missile Defence program.” Interestingly, the Committee made no reference to North Korea in its supporting argument, arguing instead that participation would cost nothing and it might even work.

The Senate argued for BMD because “it is not offensive and not a threat to any other nation.” Frum argued for it because it is highly threatening – particularly to Chinese interests, and punishment of China was very high on his strategic to do list (he also advocated for Japan to go nuclear for the same reason).

Kim Jong-il and North American BMD advocates may find common cause for the moment, but in the end, it is likely that more prudent minds will prevail. Serious strategists recognize that any possible protection that BMD would offer from a North Korean missile would be immediately undercut by a manifold increase in the Chinese nuclear threat.

The politics of BMD will ultimately be fought out between Washington’s beltway mythmakers and the American taxpayers, and sooner or later, reality will raise its expensive head. As they say, the Americans usually end up doing the right thing, once all the other options have been exhausted. In this case, the other options involve great cost and no security payoff. And if the present Korean crisis were to be properly handled, the BMD publicists could end up losing a valued ally.

[i] David Frum, “Mutually Assured Disruption,” The New York Times, October 10, 2006.

[ii] Frank Gaffney Jr., “Dealing decisively with the enemy,” The Globe and Mail, October 11, 2006.

[iii] Available at: http://www.parl.gc.ca/39/1/parlbus/commbus/senate/com-e/defe-e/rep-e/Rep….