Posts Tagged ‘nuclear disarmament’

The following commentary by Douglas Roche and Ernie Regehr appeared in today’s Embassy, available at: http://www.embassymag.ca.

There are two ways of looking at the outcome of the month-long Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, which wrapped up last Friday at the United Nations in New York with a standing ovation for its president, Ambassador Libran Cabactulan of the Philippines.

Was it a minor diplomatic triumph or was it yet another delay on the long and tortuous road to the elimination of nuclear weapons?

Undoubtedly, nuclear disarmament activists will be deeply disappointed that the final document does not contain a commitment to immediate negotiations on a time-bound program for comprehensive and verifiable nuclear disarmament. We are in that camp.

Yet we recognize that the political divisions in the world are so deep that only minor steps can be taken in a 190-nation forum where consensus is required. Thus progress is agonizingly slow, far too slow considering “the catastrophic humanitarian consequences,” as the conference put it rhetorically, of any detonation of the 23,000 nuclear weapons still in existence.

The fact that the review conference put a Nuclear Weapons Convention on the international political agenda for the first time was definitely a progressive step. So was the commitment to convene a conference of all Middle East states in 2012 “on the establishment of a Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons and all other weapons of mass destruction.”

Those two steps were enough to mark the review conference a success compared to the debacle at the last meeting in 2005 when American intransigence and Egyptian ire collided, producing paralysis. Thus Egypt proclaimed this conference a “historic success.” The US said the final document “reflects President Obama’s vision.” France said, “It relaunched momentum.” The UK: “A breakthrough after a decade of failure.” Canada: “A modest product,” but containing “seeds of hope.” The best characterization of the conference came from Mexico: “While not bringing us to heaven, it does distance us from hell, the hell of nuclear war.”

There are 64 actions listed in the 28-page final document, covering an array of measures connected to the NPT’s three pillars: nuclear disarmament, stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and furthering peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

But the passage that will be focused on intensely over the next five-year cycle says: “The Conference notes the Five-Point Proposal for Nuclear Disarmament of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, which proposes inter alia consideration of negotiations on a nuclear weapons convention or agreement on a framework of separate mutually reinforcing instruments, backed by a strong system of verification.”

Translated to plain English, this means a verifiable global treaty to ban all nuclear weapons is now possible.

This passage is supported by another section, which says: “The Conference affirms that the final phase of the nuclear disarmament process…should be pursued within an agreed legal framework, which a majority of States parties believe should include specified timelines.”

Unfortunately, neither of these references is contained within the action steps, leaving the nuclear weapons states with the ploy that they are not committed to specific action.

Moreover, when an earlier draft stated that a Nuclear Weapons Convention “contributes towards the goal,” of a nuclear-weapons-free world, even this soft affirmation was removed as the result of a frontal attack by the US, Russia, the UK and France, all of whom united in gutting earlier drafts of decisive action steps.

The nuclear weapons states stoutly stood together in removing a condemnation of nuclear weapons modernization and a call for the closing of all nuclear test sites.

Nuclear weapons states have through the years resisted the “good faith” negotiations on disarmament that are required of them under the NPT’s Article VI. So it is legitimate to question their “good faith” regarding the basic pledge coming out of the 2010 conference: “to seek a safer world for all and to achieve the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” That may be the Obama agenda, but one would never know it by watching his officials in action.

The nuclear weapons states will, of course, be central players in the 2012 Middle East conference and it doubtless would not have even been agreed upon without the approval of President Obama.

Israel will have a hard time maintaining credibility if it refuses to participate in the 2012 conference, the terms of reference of which are the NPT’s 1995 resolution on the Middle East, which calls for a zone free of nuclear weapons as a way to strengthen the Middle East peace process.

For its part, Iran set out an 11-point plan at the conference for “the complete elimination of nuclear weapons within a specified timetable.” The Israel-Iran showdown on the possession of nuclear weapons looms.

Since India, Pakistan and Israel, which all possess nuclear weapons, shun the NPT, a new legal framework that is truly global is desperately needed to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons. That, in fact, is where the Middle East question and a Nuclear Weapons Convention are linked.

A successful Middle East conference may pave the way to global action beyond the NPT. The situation is urgent, but the process torpid.

Canada made a modest effort to strengthen the institutional machinery of the NPT, a worthy goal considering that there is not even a home office for the world’s most important arms control and disarmament treaty. But the biggest opponent of this reform was the US. The end result was the approval of a dedicated staff officer to organize NPT meetings.

A significant Canadian contribution was the presentation to Ambassador Cabactulan, the conference president, of the signatures of 515 members of the Order of Canada calling for work to begin on a Nuclear weapons Convention. Ambassador Cabactulan called this action “meaningful input.”

Former senator and Canadian ambassador for disarmament Douglas Roche’s forthcoming book is How We Stopped Loving the Bomb. Ernie Regehr is co-founder of Project Ploughshares.  His blog, “Disarming Conflict,” is at http://www.cigionline.org/publications/blogs/disarmingconflict.

The just concluded 2010 NPT Review Conference not only avoided the disaster of the 2005 Conference, it managed a major achievement – agreement to finally act on a 1995 promise to pursue the establishment of a Middle East zone free of weapons of mass destruction.

Much of the disarmament language in the agreed final document of the 2010 Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) is familiar and aspirational – pledging to “achieve the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons – but on at least one topic the States Parties to the Treaty got down to some specifics.

The action plan for “the establishment of a Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons and all other weapons of mass destruction” is the signal achievement of the 2010 Review Conference. And that is good news for those with a primary focus on disarmament by nuclear weapon states.

In 1995, when the NPT was transformed into a permanent Treaty, the Middle East was a central point of contention. Arab States were unprepared to commit to permanently disavowing nuclear weapons  when one State in their midst, Israel, was not Party to the Treaty, would not make the same commitment, would not deny that it was in possession of nuclear weapons, and would not open all its nuclear facilities to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). To bridge that commitment gap, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Russian Federation put forward a resolution, agreed to by all Parties to the Treaty, in support of a nuclear weapons free zone in the region.

Article VII of the Treaty provides for the establishment of regional nuclear weapon free zones, and in 1995 it was clear that the Treaty would not become permanent without the promise of action on such a zone in the Middle East. And the promise states made was pretty straightforward. The States Parties “noted with concern the continued existence in the Middle East of unsafeguarded nuclear facilities,” by which they meant Israel (which has pursued unsafeguarded nuclear programs since the 1950s), and called on all states in the region “to accept full-scope International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.” The nuclear weapon states promised to “exert their utmost efforts with a view to ensuring the early establishment by regional parties of a Middle East zone free of nuclear and all other weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems.”[i]

The actions taken since then to fulfill those promises have also been straightforward – that is to say, straightforward avoidance of action.

So now, in 2010, the NPT States made another set of promises – with two core elements:[ii]

First, they promise to convene a conference in 2012, “to be attended by all States of the Middle East.” As of now, Israel says it will not attend.[iii] The conference is to be convened by the UN Secretary-General and the co-sponsors of the 1995 NPT resolution on the Middle East (the US, the UK, and the Russian Federation). In addition, the IAEA and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and other relevant international organizations are tasked to prepare appropriate background documentation.

Second, the UN Secretary-General and the 1995 co-sponsors, in consultation with the States of the region, are to appoint a “Facilitator” with the general mandate to support implementation of the 1995 resolution, to support the preparations for the 2012 conference, to carry out post-conference follow-on activities, and then to report to the 2015 Review Conference.

This time the consequences of inaction will go beyond a simple delay. Even another five years of broken promises will end credible hope of effective nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament in the Middle East. Iran’s determined pursuit of technologies with weapons applications could by then have made the leap to the weapons themselves, and that, along with Israel’s undeclared arsenal, would trigger a potential proliferation stampede in the region – initially focused on civilian programs, but ones that privilege weapons related technologies and create the capacity to move to the weapons themselves on relatively short notice.

And the consequences would extend far beyond that region, effectively halting action, and much of the rhetoric, in support of zero nuclear weapons in the rest of the nuclear-armed world.

So, the action proposed for the Middle East must be understood as a core disarmament action. The failure to act on the new promise would persuasively add to the suspicion that the nuclear non-proliferation system is simply not up to the challenge of dealing with deep-seated proliferation threats. In other words, if Iran, Israel, and North Korea are not dealt with effectively, and if the other two states with nuclear weapon that are outside the Treaty, India and Pakistan, are not drawn into the disarmament and non-proliferation system, then much of the political constituency in support of disarmament in the acknowledged nuclear weapon states, particularly the US and Russia, can be expected to steadily abandon its support for major cuts and progress toward the agreed goal of zero.

There is obviously no short route to a Middle East that is free of all weapons of mass destruction, but the pursuit of that goal is integral to pursuing disarmament in all its dimensions. The decision of NPT States to give it some serious attention is an important development.

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes

[i] The full resolution is available on the Reaching Critical Will website, http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/legal/npt/1995dec.html.

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

[iii] Amy Teibel, “Israel rejects UN call to come clean on nuclear program,” The Globe and Mail, 30 May 2010.http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/israel-rejects-un-call-to-come-clean-on-nuclear-program/article1585886/.

Canada has managed the extraordinary feat of presenting its opening statement to the NPT Review Conference without any substantive reference to “disarmament” – one of the three foundational pillars of the Treaty.

Actually, the statement by Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon did make one, and only one, mention of disarmament – a reference to the DPRK’s “complete disregard for nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament objectives.”

It is fair to describe Canada’s opening speech to the 2010 Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as extraordinary in the sense of it being starkly out of the ordinary – out of sync with the focus and urgency with which other speeches of the opening day (May 3) spoke of disarmament and of the opportunities now before the international community.

For example, the European Union Statement[i] began by pointing out that the NPT is “based on the three mutually reinforcing pillars of non-proliferation, disarmament and the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.” Canada’s 10 paragraph speech devoted 3 paragraphs to pillar one (nonproliferation), one paragraph to pillar three (peaceful uses), and none to pillar two (disarmament). There was one paragraph on North Korea, two on Iran, one on universality (urging the three states outside of the Treaty – India, Israel, and Pakistan – to join the Treaty as non-nuclear-weapon states, but linking that to the resolution of regional security issues). There was one paragraph on Canada’s important NPT institutional reform proposals, and a final paragraph noting that this is a time of challenge and opportunity. To Mr. Cannon’s credit he added a spoken phrase, not included in the written and distributed document, linking challenge and opportunity to “support of the common goal of a world without nuclear weapons.”

But on the substance of disarmament there was nothing.

The European Union welcomed the new US/Russia Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and called for “its swift ratification.” The EU also “encouraged both States concerned to work towards new agreements for further, comprehensive reductions of their nuclear arsenals, including non-strategic weapons.”

The Indonesian Foreign Minister spoke on behalf of NAM states and called for “full implementation of the Treaty in a balanced [all three pillars] manner.” The Minister acknowledged the new START agreement but said that the obligations of nuclear weapon states under the NPT required further “reductions applying the principles of transparency, irreversibility and verifiability at a significantly faster pace.”

The Dutch Foreign Minister raised the issue of US nuclear weapons in Europe and said “American sub strategic nuclear arms in Europe are going to be subject of arms reduction talks between the United States and Russia.[ii] Nonproliferation and disarmament,” he said, “are mutually reinforcing.”

Brazil’s Minister of External Relations said that “Brazil is convinced that the best guarantee for non-proliferation is the total elimination of nuclear weapons. As long as some states possess nuclear arms, other states will be tempted to acquire or develop them. We may deplore this perverse logic, but we cannot deny it.”

Ireland, through its Foreign Minister, addressed the urgency of nuclear disarmament: “The horrors which nuclear weaponry can unleash on mankind and on the planet we inhabit defy description. In addition to death and destruction on a massive scale, the environmental costs are profound and long-lasting. Scientists tell us about the effects on the Earth’s stratosphere of the detonation of nuclear weapons. A ‘nuclear winter’ caused by sunlight being blocked out for months or even years is a nightmare scenario which we must all work to prevent.”

Then he made the key point that perfectly illustrates the failure of vision on the part of the Canadian political leadership: “Selective approaches which stress the urgency of non-proliferation while downplaying the need for progress in relation to disarmament serve merely to weaken the Treaty. The NPT’s enduring role as the foundation of the international disarmament and non-proliferation regime requires that it be implemented inall its aspects.”

All of these and other speeches also spoke urgently about nonproliferation, in much the same vein as Canada, but what they managed to convey was the importance of balance – that disarmament and nonproliferation are mutually reinforcing; that the retention of nuclear weapons by some is not irrelevant to efforts of others to acquire them.

To be fair to Canada, the opening statement to the Review Conference is only a brief summary statement. Officials will make additional statements of substance as the three pillars are addressed in greater detail. Canada has submitted a report[iii] to the Review Conference on its actions in support of implementing the NPT, which includes an extensive account of Canada’s support for Article VI (the disarmament Article) and the 13 practical disarmament steps agreed to in 2000. So Canada’s policy commitment to the elimination of nuclear weapons is not in doubt, and it is confirmed, as the Canadian report points out, by virtue of Canada’s co-sponsorship of, and vote in favour of, the General Assembly resolution on “Renewed determination towards the total elimination of nuclear weapons” (resolution 64/47).

What is in considerable doubt is the level of enthusiasm within the political leadership of the current Government of Canada for any determined push on nuclear weapons states to accelerate their implementation of the disarmament pillar, while also pressing, of course, for strict implementation of the nonproliferation pillar.

Unfortunately, the statement by Foreign Minister Cannon continues the Harper Government’s unsoiled record of silence in the public and political arenas on the subject of nuclear disarmament. If the objective was to sorely annoy non-nuclear-weapon states in the non-aligned movement, whose support is absolutely essential to any strong action on nonproliferation, then this must be judged a successful speech.

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes

[i] All statements are available on the UN’s Website at http://www.un.org/en/conf/npt/2010/ and the Website of the NGO Reaching Critical Will at http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/legal/npt/revcon2010/statements.html.

[ii] The Minister failed to note, unfortunately, that on April 22 his own Parliament passed a resolution (tabled by the Socialist and Green Parties) requesting the Netherlands government to inform the US that the Netherlands does not regard the presence of American nuclear weapons as essential to the protection of Europe and regards the withdrawal of these nuclear weapons as desirable. Information provided by email by Socialist Party Researcher Karel Koster.

[iii] “Implementation of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear weapons,” Report submitted by Canada, 18 March 2010 (NPT/Conf.2010/9). http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N10/279/58/PDF/N1027958.pdf?OpenElement.

The report includes, in an Annex, the summary of the Project Ploughshares report on NPT Reporting: “Transparency and Accountability.” The full report on reporting is available at  http://www.ploughshares.ca/libraries/Abolish/NPTreporting02-09.pdf.

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.

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 signs are growing that over the next year there could be an agreement to remove all remaining US nuclear weapons from Europe.

Both the forthcoming US Nuclear Posture Review and the current NATO Strategic Concept Review could set the stage for dispatching at least one Cold War relic — namely, the ongoing positioning of US nuclear gravity bombs in Europe. It is a policy defended till now as confirming US extended nuclear deterrence and cementing the transatlantic security relationship.

Josh Rogin of Foreign Policy provides a very helpful update on the oft-delayed US nuclear posture review – initially it was scheduled for release in late 2009, then early February of 2010, then early March, and now mid to late March. He reports on inside-the-beltway speculation that while “the document will not call for nuclear withdrawal, …it may say it’s up for discussion or even go so far to say that NATO no longer requires nukes in Europe.”[i] He suggests that the US Defense Department’s Quadrennial Defense Review also seems to point in that direction when it refers to the development of new “regional deterrence architectures” that will “make possible a reduced role for nuclear weapons in our national security strategy.”[ii]

At the same time, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, The Netherlands and Norway are calling for all American warheads in Europe to be returned to the US. Their initiative is pursued within the context of NATO’s review of its strategic doctrine. [iii]

Earlier, under its new Foreign Minister, Guido Westerwelle, had taken up the same call, characterizing it as both a disarmament nonproliferation measure.[iv] The NATO Monitor blog has also reported that Turkey has made it known it “would not insist” that NATO maintain forward deployed nuclear weapons in Europe, and also that Italy would be open to reconsidering NATO’s nuclear posture.[v]

The west European States behind the coming call 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 NTAO”  or with an end to US extended deterrence covering Europe.[vi] Their stance essentially follows the model of the US nuclear umbrella over North-East Asia It is a region that is rather less stable than Europe, and yet there are no US nuclear weapons deployed in any states there.[vii] In fact, Japan, while continuing to claim the American nuclear deterrent for itself, insists, through its three nuclear principles,[viii] that no nuclear weapons be on its territory.

The point is obviously not to champion extended nuclear deterrence, but is to recognize that extended deterrence is not a credible argument, or excuse, for the continued physical placement of nuclear weapons in Europe or on the territories of any States claimed under a nuclear umbrella.

Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada wrote to US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton late last year, reasserting the relevance of US extended nuclear deterrence while at the same time welcoming US nuclear arms reductions. He did ask for the US to explain its plans to retire the nuclear armed Tomahawk Land Attack Cruise Missiles (TLAM/N), which are in storage in the US but nevertheless linked to deterrence in the North-East Asia region. The Arms Control Wonk blog elaborates with its usual detail and verve. It also debunks the myth that if the US fails to maintain its current nuclear arsenal, extended deterrence will be weakened and Japan will be driven to acquire its own nuclear deterrent.^[ix] The Japan Times made the same point in its report in late February that the US had already informed Japan that the Nuclear Posture Review will confirm the retirement of the sea-based TLAM/N – adding that this would not affect the nuclear umbrella.^[x]

Now the obvious question is, where’s Canada in all this? Will Ottawa be championing the new European initiative?

There are currently estimated to be between 150 and 200 nuclear weapons, all US B61 gravity bombs, held in five countries in Europe – Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey.[xi] All of the European countries hosting these US nuclear weapons are non-nuclear weapon states parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a fact, it is worth noting, that puts those countries and the US, the nuclear weapon state that owns those bombs, in violation of Articles I and II of the NPT.[xii]

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes

[i] Josh Rogin, “Nuclear Posture Review delayed until mid to late March,” The Cable, Foreign Policy, 25 February 2010.http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/02/25/nuclear_posture_review_delayed_until_mid_to_late_march.

[ii] Quadrennial Defense Review Report, February 2010, Department of Defense.

http://www.defense.gov/QDR/images/QDR_as_of_12Feb10_1000.pdf.

[iii] “Allied bid for Obama to remove US European nuclear stockpile,” Agence France Press, 20 February 2010.http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100219/wl_afp/usnuclearnatodefenceeurope. Their letter to NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen was made public on Feb 26.

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

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

[vi] “Allied bid for Obama to remove US European nuclear stockpile,” Agence France Press, 20 February 2010.http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100219/wl_afp/usnuclearnatodefenceeurope.

[vii] 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.

[viii] 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.

[ix] “The Strategic Posture Commission Report [a Congress-mandated study which is a forerunner to the coming nuclear posture review] contains at least one outright howler — the claim that the deployment of nuclear-armed cruise missiles is essential to extended deterrence in Asia: ‘In Asia, extended deterrence relies heavily on the deployment of nuclear cruise missiles on some Los Angeles class attack submarines—the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile/Nuclear (TLAM/N). This capability will be retired in 2013 unless steps are taken to maintain it. U.S. allies in Asia are not integrated in the same way into nuclear planning and have not been asked to make commitments to delivery systems. In our work as a Commission it has become clear to us that some U.S. allies in Asia would be very concerned by TLAM/N retirement. Let’s be very, very clear that as a result of the President’s 1991 Nuclear Initiatives, all TLAM/N nuclear weapons have been removed from U.S. Navy vessels. So, if extended deterrence to Japan relied heavily on the deployment of nuclear cruise missiles on some Los Angeles-class attack submarines, we would be hosed….[L]et’s not pretend these useless relics of the Cold War sitting in a climate-controlled warehouse are all that stand between us and nuclear-armed Japan. Because they aren’t.” [Jeffrey Lewis, Arms Control Wonk (8 May 2009).http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2284/japan-tlamn.]

[x] “US to retire nuclear Tomahawk missiles,” The Japan Times, 23 February 2010.http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100223a2.html.

[xi] Kristensen, Hans, “Status of U.S. Nuclear Weapons in Europe 2010,” Federation of American Scientists.http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/nukes/images/euronukes2010.pdf.

[xii] See, “Reshaping NATO’s Nuclear Declarations,” DisarmingConflict post, 30 January 2010.  http://www.cigionline.org/blogs/2010/1/reshaping-nato%E2%80%99s-nuclear-declarations.

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.