Source: Abolition Debate Series
The Nature of Nuclear Disarmament Obligations and In Abolishing Nuclear Weapons (2008), we emphasized the indisputable point that nuclear-armed states can benefit from and afford to take many steps to reduce the numbers and salience of nuclear weapons irrespective of progress on nonproliferation. To bring the world much closer to the horizon from which abolition becomes a visible prospect, we urged joint, simultaneous steps on nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation.
However, some critics find this unrealistic, given the nature of the nuclear-armed states’ (at least those party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT) obligation to eliminate their nuclear arsenals. Key non–nuclear-weapon states plus India and perhaps China think that non–nuclear-weapon states already have taken more steps to facilitate a nuclear-weapon–free world than have the nuclear-armed states, particularly the United States and Russia. Therefore they believe it is unfair and unrealistic to expect non–nuclear-weapon states to take new steps until nuclear-armed states catch up in meeting agreed disarmament benchmarks.
At the same time, American commentators and Bruno Tertrais from France wonder, if nuclear-armed states did more, whether non–nuclear-weapon states would undertake measures such as making the Additional Protocol universal and clarifying procedures for states to withdraw from the NPT? Frank Miller writes: “[T]he nuclear-weapon states have been steadily reducing their nuclear forces and stockpiles.” “While all this was occurring,… North Korea repudiated its treaty obligations and developed and detonated a weapon, Iran is on the brink of developing a weapon, and two other emerging nuclear weapons programs (Iraq and Libya) were terminated by superior force and skillful diplomacy.” “It is not immediately evident therefore that proliferation is linked to the existing arsenals of the five nuclear-weapon states.” Tertrais adds that “there is little evidence that leaders of states advocating nuclear disarmament consider it a top political priority. When they have a face-to-face meeting with the head of a state or government that has nuclear weapons, how often do they mention disarmament? The answer probably is almost never.”
Representatives of non–nuclear-weapon states should take the lead in answering these arguments. But we can first clear away some of the conceptual and historical underbrush. Informed advocates do not argue primarily that nuclear disarmament would change the minds of determined proliferators such as North Korea or perhaps Iran. Rather, disarmament strengthens the willingness of mainstream states—the overwhelming majority of NPT members that are not seeking nuclear weapons—to cooperate in enforcing the treaty against proliferators. Jonathan Schell writes, “the mere example of disarmament would have little sway on proliferators, who are more influenced by local anxieties.” But, Schell continues, “these objections overlook the raw power that would be generated by a concert of all nuclear-armed states, backed by every non–nuclear-weapon state, resolved to stake their security on abolition just as firmly as many now stake it on nuclear arms.” Rather than the current situation in which nuclear-armed states (with varying degrees of alacrity) try to enforce a regime based on a double standard, the abolition framework could mobilize a “global campaign to exert moral, political, economic, and even military pressure against the few holdouts that dared to argue that they alone among the world’s nations had a right to these awful weapons.”
Disarmament strengthens the willingness of mainstream states—the overwhelming majority of NPT members that are not seeking nuclear weapons—to cooperate in enforcing the treaty against proliferators.
As a matter of history, arms reductions by the recognized nuclear-weapon states have helped encourage or pressure others to relinquish nuclear weapons and related programs. Would Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine have agreed to join the NPT as non–nuclear-weapon states if the United States and Russia had not been in the midst of major reductions of their nuclear arsenals? Argentina and Brazil shut down their nascent nuclear weapon programs largely for domestic reasons, but there is no doubt that the post–Cold War environment of nuclear arms reductions created norms that helped pull them in that direction. Had the United States and Russia been insisting at the time that they would never eliminate their nuclear arsenals and had no genuine intention of fulfilling Article VI of the NPT, would Argentina and Brazil have joined the Treaty? South Africa dismantled its secret nuclear arsenal and joined the NPT as a non–nuclear-weapon state also because of internal changes and the disappearance of Cold War–related external threats; but this decision, too, came amidst the most significant U.S. and Soviet arms control treaties. The Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, which eliminated nuclear-armed missiles from Europe, had been concluded in 1987, and by the time of South Africa’s 1991 decision to disarm, Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) was in its final stages of negotiation.
Moreover, contrary to skeptics, the North Korean and Iranian cases do not indicate that disarmament has no value in affecting determined proliferators. North Korea and Iran both began their clandestine efforts to acquire nuclear weapon capabilities before the U.S.–Soviet disarmament process began in earnest. It should also be noted that Iranian and North Korean leaders’ interests in acquiring potential nuclear deterrents seem to be affected by fears of U.S. military intervention in any form. U.S.–Russian reductions that still leave each with thousands of nuclear weapons therefore have not addressed these states’ core concerns.
Achilles Zaluar offers a thought experiment for those who argue that proliferation is not linked to the arsenals of existing nuclear-armed states: “Imagine that nuclear weapons had been acquired by several rival Eurasian powers but that the United States had none. Would the strategic calculus of the United States be affected by the nuclear policies of the nuclear-armed countries in Europe and Asia? The question provides its own answer.”
Setting these historical and analytical points aside, we expect that non–nuclear-weapon states would make a more fundamental argument: reductions are welcome but if they are paired with expectations that nuclear weapons will be retained indefinitely, then the goal under the NPT of an equitable nuclear balance of zero is still being ignored. The failure of the nuclear-weapon states to implement more than four of the thirteen benchmarks of progress toward nuclear disarmament agreed politically in 2000 heightens the equity argument that non–nuclear-weapon states make in resisting new nonproliferation rules to strengthen International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards and other controls on nuclear technology and circumscribe their options to withdraw from the NPT. From the perspective of justice, zero is the issue. Reductions are welcome, but aiming for anything more than zero nuclear weapons is inequitable and problematic. As a political reality, without a clearer commitment to abolition, non–nuclear-weapon states will not cooperate in strengthening the nonproliferation regime and so the issue must not be pushed off the agenda for international analysis and discussion. The politics of gaining the cooperation of non–nuclear-weapon states is missed by those who seek to deflect genuine exploration of abolition.
The politics of gaining the cooperation of non–nuclear-weapon states is missed by those who seek to deflect genuine exploration of abolition.
Frank Miller seems to dismiss arguments over Article VI as rhetoric. But, like frequent American invocations of “freedom,” demands for the equity of a nuclear-weapon-free world reflect genuinely felt values and aspirations. The demanders do not always practice what they preach and undermine their own interests by failing to help strengthen the nonproliferation regime. This regime “prevents one’s neighbors from developing nuclear weapons,” as Miller writes. But the “cynical disdain” that some nuclear-weapon states’ officials display towards serious efforts to abolish nuclear weapons, as Lawrence Freedman notes, intensifies rather than abates demands for the fairness of zero.
Finally, when asked privately, leaders of non–nuclear-weapon states say they do not press nuclear disarmament in meetings with leaders of nuclear-armed states because they know they will be dismissed by these more powerful actors and they have other business that they do not want to jeopardize. This should not be surprising. Even officials and experts within the United States, Russia, and France have, over the years, felt that pressing nuclear disarmament with their leaders and nuclear establishments is not a good career move. (The same is no doubt true at least in Pakistan and Israel, if not in India and the United Kingdom. We can only imagine the caution of nuclear dissidents in North Korea and Iran.) The drawn-out process of completing the Obama administration’s Nuclear Posture Review may reflect such tensions.
Two steps would break the current impasse. First, as Lawrence Freedman suggests, high-level officials from nuclear-armed and unarmed states must become involved in negotiating on these issues. Rather than guess at how non–nuclear-weapon states would respond to disarmament initiatives in NPT-related forums, which tend to be managed by working-level diplomats, American and Russian leaders should consult directly with the leaders of key non–nuclear-weapon states to seek agreement on corresponding measures to strengthen nonproliferation rules.
Second, as many commentators suggested, the United States and Russia must take the lead by doing more to reduce their nuclear arsenals and lower the salience of these weapons as, of course, we urged.
Achilles Zaluar’s view could offer a way through key dilemmas and standoffs if it represents wider international opinion and not merely a small minority:
If combined with a firm political commitment toward the implementation of Article VI of the NPT, moving first from thousands of nuclear weapons with high profile (today) to a few hundred with low profile (an intermediate step toward abolition …) would present many of the benefits and none of the alleged dangers and risks of the abolition scenario. Committing to this agenda of reducing the total number of nuclear weapons globally to the hundreds and taking them out of the foreground of international politics would represent positive change in the direction of the NPT’s ultimate objective. In fact, the change would be so enormous that its consequences would ripple throughout the international system, without the risks that some fear from the tidal wave of going to absolute zero. It would, moreover, provide the international community with a “to-do list” that would take at least a decade—a decade in which the loss of credibility of the nonproliferation regime could be reversed.
This analysis deserves attention and debate. The May 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference would be a good occasion for such a debate; that this is unlikely to occur highlights the limitations of this forum.