Posts Tagged ‘Disarmament/Arms Control’

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.

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.

September 24 promises a couple of encouraging firsts. It will be the first time a US President has chaired a session of the UN Security Council, and for the first time the Council is expected to pass a resolution that will include substantive disarmament elements relevant to the nuclear arsenals of its five permanent members – all of which are nuclear weapon states. It is an important new start for the Security Council, even if on matters of practical substance it will be a fairly modest effort.

The UN Security Council has certainly not been shy about pronouncing itself on nuclear nonproliferation, or about imposing strict conditions on states viewed to be in violation of nonproliferation requirements, but it has been essentially silent on nuclear disarmament.[i] That will change when President Barack Obama chairs a session of the Security Council on nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation.

The US has now circulated a draft resolution[ii] which strongly affirms nuclear disarmament and the objective of “a world without nuclear weapons.” It recalls the Council’s 1992 Presidential Statement,[iii] not a resolution, which asserts that “the proliferation of all weapons of mass destruction constitutes a threat to international peace and security,” and both the 1992 statement and the draft resolution for the 24th “underline the need for all Member States to fulfill their obligations in relation to arms control and disarmament.”

The draft resolution for the September 24 session affirms the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) as “the essential foundation for the pursuit of nuclear disarmament,” again “underlining the need to pursue further efforts in the sphere of nuclear disarmament, in accordance with Article VI of the NPT.”

A major virtue of the resolution, and it is a big one, is that it marks a sharp American departure from the style, rhetoric, and substance of the Bush Administration’s approach to nuclear weapons and nuclear disarmament. In the Bush years the US was focused on denying that the NPT’s disarmament Article, Article VI, actually requires disarmament,[iv] but the current draft states clearly that the NPT rests on three pillars – disarmament, nonproliferation, peaceful uses. And it says there is a need to strengthen all three. Indeed, the draft resolution sees disarmament as a means “to enhance global security” – a formulation that harkens back to the 1992 statement that identified proliferation (including, implicitly, vertical proliferation) as a threat to security.

So far so good[v] – but then the focus clearly shifts to the nonproliferation pillar. Disarmament is the focus of only five of the 25 operational paragraphs of the draft. To be sure, many of the nonproliferation references and measures have important and positive disarmament implications, but direct commitments or calls for disarmament are confined to calls for further disarmament of existing arsenals, for the entry into force of the nuclear test ban Treaty, negotiation of a treaty on the production of fissile materials, a call for all states outside the NPT to join it, and a reaffirmation of negative security assurances.

All are important, but one unnamed European diplomat is quoted on Politico.Com as emphasizing that this resolution “should contain no wording that could be seen as weaker than what was agreed in previous resolutions.”[vi] It is a test the draft resolution does not pass. Inasmuch as the Security Council has not passed previous resolutions referencing disarmament by nuclear weapon states, this resolution is an important step forward, but the language here is certainly much weaker in important instances than that contained in commitments made by nuclear weapon states in the context of the NPT review process.

There is a welcome call for the Conference on Disarmament (CD) to negotiate a treaty banning the production of fissile materials for weapons purposes, but of course this is a call that is now decades old. There is almost universal agreement that there should be such a treaty, but it is largely the peculiarity of the CD process that keeps negotiations from happening.[vii] Paul Meyer’s recent review of this collective failure says it is time “to challenge CD member states’ apparently infinite capacity to tolerate stalemate at the [CD],” and he challenges nuclear weapon states, perhaps using the forthcoming Security Council session, to finally take action, for example by convening a diplomatic conference dedicated to a fissile materials treaty and focused on how best to get around the still moribund CD.[viii]

And even though the nuclear weapon states have all indicated that they are no longer producing fissile materials for weapons purposes, the draft does not call for a universal moratorium on such production pending the negotiation of a treaty (a call that would be directed toward India, Israel, North Korea, and Pakistan). The draft’s call for the test ban treaty to finally enter into force does call for a testing moratorium in the meantime.

The draft resolution refers to the Security Council resolutions on North Korea and Iran, but is silent on Resolution 1172 (1998), which called on India and Pakistan, in the wake of their 1998 test explosions of multiple nuclear devices, to end their nuclear weapons programs. Ignoring Resolution 1172 is a way of implicitly acquiescing to the nuclear weapon state status of India and Pakistan, yet, at the same time, the resolution calls on them, as well as Israel and North Korea, to join the NPT. That would mean joining as non-nuclear weapon states – again, it is an old call that has been, and will continue to be, utterly ignored. Yet another such call has little meaning. Promoting universality of the NPT is obviously welcome, but given that it is not about to happen, the urgent task now is to find ways of bringing the outliers meaningfully into the collective pursuit of the envisioned “world without nuclear weapons.”

The draft resolution notably makes no references to the substantial agreements reached in the 1995 and 2000 NPT review conferences. At those events nuclear weapon states not only committed to total nuclear disarmament, they promised interim measures to enhance transparency related to their arsenals, to undertake regular reporting to NPT member states on progress made in implementing Article VI, to de-alert deployed systems, to undertake unilateral disarmament initiatives, to make disarmament irreversible, to pursue more effective verification measures, to place surplus fissile materials under IAEA inspections, and so on – none of these pre-existing promises receive acknowledgement in the draft resolution.

The UN Security Council’s attention to nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation is to be celebrated, and that it will be led by the United States is doubly worthy of celebration. On matters of substance it will be a modest start, but on the political level it promises a genuinely new beginning.

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes

[i] For an account of the UNSC’s approach to disarmament, see: Ernie Regehr, “The Security Council and nuclear disarmament.” Jane Boulden, Ramesh Thakur, and Thomas G. Weiss, eds. The United Nations and Nuclear Orders, United Nations University Press, 2009, pp. 31-51.

[ii] The September 14 draft by the US is available at Politico.Com:   http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/27123.html.

[iii] “Note By The President Of The Security Council, S/23500, 31 January 1992.

[iv] Christopher A. Ford, “Debating Disarmament: Interpreting Article VI of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,” Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 14, No. 3, November 2007.http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/npr/vol14/143/143ford.pdf.

[v] A good statement on what the UNSC resolution should include is offered by the Middle Powers Initiative (September 2009). http://www.gsinstitute.org/mpi/archives/UNSC.pdf.

[vi] Laura Rozen, “Obama’s UN nonproliferation resolution,” 14 September 2009.http://www.politico.com/blogs/laurarozen/0909/Obamas_nonproliferation_resolution_to_the_UN_the_text.html?showall.

[vii] Two recent postings here focus on the CD stalemate:  “Finally, the UN’s Geneva disarmament forum gets to work,” 1 June 2009. http://www.cigionline.org/blogs/2009/6/finally-un%E2%80%99s-geneva-disarmament-forum-gets-work. “Has the stalemate returned?” 13 August 2009.  http://www.cigionline.org/blogs/2009/8/has-cd-stalemate-returned.

[viii] Paul Meyer, “Breakthrough and Breakdown at the Conference on Disarmament: Assessing the Prospects for an FM(C)T. Arms Control Today, September 2009. http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2009_09/Meyer.

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

This statement has at last count been signed by more than 300 Canadians named to the Order of Canada.[i]The initiative, led by Ploughshares co-founder Murray Thomson,[ii] himself an Officer of the Order, has won the support of a wide cross-section of Canadians from scientific, cultural, business, NGO, and political communities, including: aerospace engineer Bruce Aikenhead; writer Margaret Atwood; physician Harvey Barkun; NGO leader Gerry Barr; former UN Ambassador William Barton; artist Robert Bateman; theologian Gregory Baum; fisheries scientist Richard Beamish; Senator and musician Tommy Banks; politician and human rights leader Ed Broadbent; singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn; journalist Peter Desbarats; fashion designer Marielle Fleury; business entrepreneur Margot Franssen.

And that is just a brief selection of names from the first quarter of the alphabet.[iii]

While the idea of a nuclear weapons convention (NWC) has wide public appeal, it has yet to be embraced by the Government of Stephen Harper. While it supports the proposal in principle,[iv] Canada says now is not the time. The Government insists that before an NWC can be credibly advanced, other treaties to prohibit the development and production of nuclear weapons should  be in place, thus apparently seeing the convention more as a way of commemorating the completion of disarmament negotiations than as providing a comprehensive guide, as envisioned by the Secretary-General’s approach, to those negotiations.

Officials generally, and with some credibility, argue that the prospects for adopting an NWC are not promising as long as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is not fully effective, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) has not entered into force, and negotiations on a fissile materials cut-off treaty (FMCT) remain stalled. But by this very logic, the basic conditions for launching negotiations for a NWC are actually in place.

The NPT, for example, is far from ineffective. It has been and remains a successful bulwark against proliferation. Only one state party to the NPT, North Korea, has persistently violated it and withdrawn from it. Of course, the NPT has proven least effective in producing timely nuclear disarmament as required under Article VI. In this case, serious work toward an NWC and a disarmament road map would significantly enhance the effectiveness of the NPT.

And, while the CTBT is not yet in force, it is no longer a matter of serious contention. Negotiations have been successfully concluded. All of the nuclear weapon states that are party to the NPT (China, France, Russia, UK, US) have signed the treaty, with the US and China yet to ratify it, and are adhering to a moratorium on testing pending the Treaty’s entry-into-force. Of the four other states with nuclear weapons, only North Korea has explicitly rejected a moratorium.

Meanwhile, the international community, through the Geneva-based UN Conference on Disarmament, has agreed to begin negotiations on an FMCT. The nuclear weapon states within the NPT have all already halted production of fissile materials. Negotiations within the perennially-deadlocked Conference on Disarmament still need to overcome procedural hurdles, raised most recently by Pakistan, but basic support for a treaty is in place.

Now is, in fact, the ideal time to begin to frame an NWC. It would consolidate multilateral disarmament gains and set out the full requirements, including verification mechanisms, to secure the goal of a world without nuclear weapons within an agreed time frame.

What could Canada constructively contribute if it were to embrace the immediate pursuit of a nuclear weapons convention?

1. The first priority would be to reestablish Canada’s active support for a world without nuclear weapons. The Harper Government has certainly not rejected that goal, but neither has it promoted it. So, the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister should each make an early and prominent speech in which they address nuclear disarmament and reaffirm Canada’s commitment to a world without nuclear weapons.
2. The Government should also acknowledge that while progress toward a world without nuclear weapons will obviously involve a variety of key measures (such as the key agreements mentioned above), ultimately all those measures must be brought together in a single umbrella or framework convention. Thus, Canadian policy should explicitly call for the start of negotiations toward such a convention that sets a clear timeline for irreversible and verifiable nuclear disarmament.
3. Next Canada could and should convene an informal international consultative process involving a core group of like-minded states and representatives of civil society to thoroughly explore the focus, scope, verification, and other elements relevant to a nuclear weapons convention. One outcome of this consultation could be an informal international Contact Group or Nuclear Weapons Convention Action Group to systematically press the issue on the international stage.
4. In the meantime Canada should be thinking about the particular contribution it could make to the international process. The UK, including some joint work with Norway, has for example been focusing on verification measures linked to a nuclear weapons convention.[v] Canada was once active in this area, and still is involved in CTBT seismic verification. Consideration could be given to reviving the verification unit within Foreign Affairs to work with and bolster the UK-Norwegian initiative.
5. Canada could also credibly focus on the development of appropriate transparency requirements and identification of the kinds of institutional and governance arrangements needed to ensure an effective and effectively managed nuclear weapons convention. Canada has championed reporting in the NPT review process as a means of promoting accountability, has put forward proposals to overcome the institutional deficit of the NPT, and has supported the institutionalization of enhanced civil society participation in multilateral disarmament efforts.

There is no shortage of things to do and no credible reason to wait. The pursuit of a world without nuclear weapons requires Canada’s energetic engagement.

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes

[i] Jeff Davis, “Order of Canada Recipients Demand Worldwide Ban on Nuclear Weapons,” Embassy (Ottawa, 26 August 2009). http://www.embassymag.ca/page/view/ban_weapons-8-26-2009.

[ii] He is supported by former Senator and Ambassador for Disarmament Douglas Roche and Nobel Prize laureate John Polanyi. The author is a signatory.

[iii] There are plans for the complete list to be available online soon.

[iv] At the UN Canada was one of only two NATO countries to abstain (generally indicating agreement in principle but objection to specific details) on resolution A/Res/63/49 in the General Assembly which calls on states to immediately begin “multilateral negotiations leading to an early conclusion of a nuclear weapons convention prohibiting the development, production, testing, deployment, stockpiling, transfer, threat or use of nuclear weapons and providing for their elimination.” All other NATO states voted “no.” Canada joined its NATO colleagues to vote “no” on another resolution calling for negotiations on such a convention (A/Res/63/75) – in this case the resolution also affirmed that any use of nuclear weapons would be in violation of the Charter (a legitimate affirmation but not one likely to be supported by members of a military alliance whose doctrine claims nuclear weapons are essential to their security).

[v] The UK together with Norway is undertaking research, for example, on the verification of nuclear warhead reductions and hosted a meeting of nuclear weapon states (September 3-4, 2009) to “discuss confidence building measures including the verification of disarmament and treaty compliance.” Seehttp://www.fco.gov.uk/en/fco-in-action/counter-terrorism/weapons/nuclear-weapons-policy/disarmament.

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

This statement has at last count been signed by more than 300 Canadians named to the Order of Canada.[i]The initiative, led by Ploughshares co-founder Murray Thomson,[ii] himself an Officer of the Order, has won the support of a wide cross-section of Canadians from scientific, cultural, business, NGO, and political communities, including: aerospace engineer Bruce Aikenhead; writer Margaret Atwood; physician Harvey Barkun; NGO leader Gerry Barr; former UN Ambassador William Barton; artist Robert Bateman; theologian Gregory Baum; fisheries scientist Richard Beamish; Senator and musician Tommy Banks; politician and human rights leader Ed Broadbent; singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn; journalist Peter Desbarats; fashion designer Marielle Fleury; business entrepreneur Margot Franssen.

And that is just a brief selection of names from the first quarter of the alphabet.[iii]

While the idea of a nuclear weapons convention (NWC) has wide public appeal, it has yet to be embraced by the Government of Stephen Harper. While it supports the proposal in principle,[iv] Canada says now is not the time. The Government insists that before an NWC can be credibly advanced, other treaties to prohibit the development and production of nuclear weapons should  be in place, thus apparently seeing the convention more as a way of commemorating the completion of disarmament negotiations than as providing a comprehensive guide, as envisioned by the Secretary-General’s approach, to those negotiations.

Officials generally, and with some credibility, argue that the prospects for adopting an NWC are not promising as long as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is not fully effective, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) has not entered into force, and negotiations on a fissile materials cut-off treaty (FMCT) remain stalled. But by this very logic, the basic conditions for launching negotiations for a NWC are actually in place.

The NPT, for example, is far from ineffective. It has been and remains a successful bulwark against proliferation. Only one state party to the NPT, North Korea, has persistently violated it and withdrawn from it. Of course, the NPT has proven least effective in producing timely nuclear disarmament as required under Article VI. In this case, serious work toward an NWC and a disarmament road map would significantly enhance the effectiveness of the NPT.

And, while the CTBT is not yet in force, it is no longer a matter of serious contention. Negotiations have been successfully concluded. All of the nuclear weapon states that are party to the NPT (China, France, Russia, UK, US) have signed the treaty, with the US and China yet to ratify it, and are adhering to a moratorium on testing pending the Treaty’s entry-into-force. Of the four other states with nuclear weapons, only North Korea has explicitly rejected a moratorium.

Meanwhile, the international community, through the Geneva-based UN Conference on Disarmament, has agreed to begin negotiations on an FMCT. The nuclear weapon states within the NPT have all already halted production of fissile materials. Negotiations within the perennially-deadlocked Conference on Disarmament still need to overcome procedural hurdles, raised most recently by Pakistan, but basic support for a treaty is in place.

Now is, in fact, the ideal time to begin to frame an NWC. It would consolidate multilateral disarmament gains and set out the full requirements, including verification mechanisms, to secure the goal of a world without nuclear weapons within an agreed time frame.

What could Canada constructively contribute if it were to embrace the immediate pursuit of a nuclear weapons convention?

1. The first priority would be to reestablish Canada’s active support for a world without nuclear weapons. The Harper Government has certainly not rejected that goal, but neither has it promoted it. So, the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister should each make an early and prominent speech in which they address nuclear disarmament and reaffirm Canada’s commitment to a world without nuclear weapons.
2. The Government should also acknowledge that while progress toward a world without nuclear weapons will obviously involve a variety of key measures (such as the key agreements mentioned above), ultimately all those measures must be brought together in a single umbrella or framework convention. Thus, Canadian policy should explicitly call for the start of negotiations toward such a convention that sets a clear timeline for irreversible and verifiable nuclear disarmament.
3. Next Canada could and should convene an informal international consultative process involving a core group of like-minded states and representatives of civil society to thoroughly explore the focus, scope, verification, and other elements relevant to a nuclear weapons convention. One outcome of this consultation could be an informal international Contact Group or Nuclear Weapons Convention Action Group to systematically press the issue on the international stage.
4. In the meantime Canada should be thinking about the particular contribution it could make to the international process. The UK, including some joint work with Norway, has for example been focusing on verification measures linked to a nuclear weapons convention.[v] Canada was once active in this area, and still is involved in CTBT seismic verification. Consideration could be given to reviving the verification unit within Foreign Affairs to work with and bolster the UK-Norwegian initiative.
5. Canada could also credibly focus on the development of appropriate transparency requirements and identification of the kinds of institutional and governance arrangements needed to ensure an effective and effectively managed nuclear weapons convention. Canada has championed reporting in the NPT review process as a means of promoting accountability, has put forward proposals to overcome the institutional deficit of the NPT, and has supported the institutionalization of enhanced civil society participation in multilateral disarmament efforts.

There is no shortage of things to do and no credible reason to wait. The pursuit of a world without nuclear weapons requires Canada’s energetic engagement.

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes

[i] Jeff Davis, “Order of Canada Recipients Demand Worldwide Ban on Nuclear Weapons,” Embassy (Ottawa, 26 August 2009). http://www.embassymag.ca/page/view/ban_weapons-8-26-2009.

[ii] He is supported by former Senator and Ambassador for Disarmament Douglas Roche and Nobel Prize laureate John Polanyi. The author is a signatory.

[iii] There are plans for the complete list to be available online soon.

[iv] At the UN Canada was one of only two NATO countries to abstain (generally indicating agreement in principle but objection to specific details) on resolution A/Res/63/49 in the General Assembly which calls on states to immediately begin “multilateral negotiations leading to an early conclusion of a nuclear weapons convention prohibiting the development, production, testing, deployment, stockpiling, transfer, threat or use of nuclear weapons and providing for their elimination.” All other NATO states voted “no.” Canada joined its NATO colleagues to vote “no” on another resolution calling for negotiations on such a convention (A/Res/63/75) – in this case the resolution also affirmed that any use of nuclear weapons would be in violation of the Charter (a legitimate affirmation but not one likely to be supported by members of a military alliance whose doctrine claims nuclear weapons are essential to their security).

[v] The UK together with Norway is undertaking research, for example, on the verification of nuclear warhead reductions and hosted a meeting of nuclear weapon states (September 3-4, 2009) to “discuss confidence building measures including the verification of disarmament and treaty compliance.” Seehttp://www.fco.gov.uk/en/fco-in-action/counter-terrorism/weapons/nuclear-weapons-policy/disarmament.