Source: Abolition Debate Series
Enforcement and the Relative Silence on VerificatiMany distinguished experts acknowledge the salience and difficulty of the enforcement challenges we raise in Abolishing Nuclear Weapons (2008). Some who criticize us for underemphasizing the benefits of abolition or focusing too much on obstacles do not actually address how these enforcement problems can be resolved. It seems inescapable that the potential to authorize use of force, and to muster effective instruments of coercion, would be necessary to secure a world without nuclear weapons.
In this vein, Jonathan Schell and Pan Zhenqiang rightly criticize us for paying too little attention to the problem of enforcing a nuclear weapon prohibition if one of the major military and economic powers, for example the United States or Russia, were found in noncompliance. We noted that smaller economic and military powers would feel inhibited from undertaking economic sanctions or military action against a great power, but the issue deserves greater consideration. States that now rely on their own nuclear deterrents or extended nuclear umbrellas against larger powers would need to be convinced that reliable means would exist to deter or defeat a larger adversary that breaks out from a nuclear weapon prohibition.
It seems inescapable that the potential to authorize use of force, and to muster effective instruments of coercion, would be necessary to secure a world without nuclear weapons.
Some might argue that the major military powers would be the least likely to violate a nuclear weapon prohibition, because they would have adequate conventional military power to deter aggression against themselves or those whose security they guarantee. Yet, if conventional military balances among the major powers—say, the United States, Russia, and China—were not managed to give each confidence in its sufficiency, one or more of these powers could be tempted under duress to take measures that could raise questions about compliance. Obviously this is a circular dynamic: The major powers would not agree to eliminate their nuclear arsenals if their relations and military balances were not stable. Still, in the near to medium terms, the history of moves to abrogate or violate arms control agreements, as occurred when the United States withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and Russia was found not to have eliminated all its biological weapons as required under the Biological Weapons Convention, have to be overcome.
Ernesto Zedillo advances the enforcement discussion thoughtfully in his analysis of the impediments posed by the veto mechanism in today’s Security Council. He argues persuasively that “[t]here is no obvious reason why an enlarged Security Council would inherently be more functional than the present one.” Functionality—effectiveness—would be determined more by the rules of the council’s decision making. “[F]ailure to accomplish veto reform,” Zedillo writes, “would leave the abolition process in a dead end.”
V. R. Raghavan’s point that “India would be unlikely to find it in its interests to join … a coalition of enforcers” seems to reflect a belief that India’s attainment of a permanent seat on the Security Council would meet with objections that India would not want to exacerbate by having council membership related to disarmament enforcement. But if India were a permanent member, and the Security Council had a role in enforcing a prohibition on nuclear weapons, which seems inevitable, wouldn’t India have to participate? How else would the nuclear disarmament that India now advocates be enforced? Raghavan writes that “[t]he power to enforce would also need to be subordinated to the intent of all states represented in the United Nations.” But among other questions, this raises anew the problem of ensuring that enforcement would be reliable and timely.
Verification cannot be perfect, and even if it were, the challenges of deterring and defeating an actor that chose to break a prohibition would remain.
Similar questions of timeliness and efficacy would also seem to confound Zia Mian’s interesting suggestion that “the International Court of Justice, rather than the Security Council, could serve as the body that adjudicates disputes over compliance involving nonproliferation, arms control, and abolition agreements.”
In contrast to enforcement, verification attracted relatively little attention. This may reflect our contention in Abolishing Nuclear Weapon that verification is important but ultimately not as vital as political-security dynamics and enforcement because verification cannot be perfect, and even if it were, the challenges of deterring and defeating an actor that chose to break a prohibition would remain. Patricia Lewis correctly notes that historically the process of verification has been much more effective than enforcement mechanisms, which both affirms our argument that enforcement is the major challenge and corrects the impression we might have left that verification difficulties render abolition infeasible.
Somewhat paradoxically, governments of nuclear-armed states show some willingness to commission studies of verification and to discuss these issues with each other, but they resist tasking officials to explore political-security issues. We can only speculate that modern states are more comfortable dealing with technical issues than political ones, acting as if technical solutions might be found to what are in reality political problems. (This is also true when it comes to managing nuclear industry, as discussed below.) This is not to devalue the work being done by national laboratories in the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, and Norway to develop verification technology. Confidence could be built and useful practices and technologies could be developed through such cooperation.
Governments of nuclear-armed states show some willingness to commission studies of verification...but they resist tasking officials to explore political-security issues.
Harald Müller suggests that research and development oriented to establishing effective verification of a fissile material cutoff treaty could prepare a basis for subsequent nuclear archaeology of fissile material production that has occurred outside of safeguards, as would be necessary to achieve nuclear abolition. His observation emphasizes that including stocks in a fissile material cutoff treaty would significantly enhance its value as a step toward disarmament.
There are other more political issues related to verification. Patricia Lewis’ contribution offers many insights in this regard, including a cogent argument that the costs of nuclear disarmament should be considered as part of the full life-cycle costs of nuclear weapons. Among the verification questions she engages are: cost, civil society monitoring, challenge inspections, and the role of national intelligence agencies. Although these are probably not the hardest political issues to resolve, they are sensitive and therefore also deserve to be engaged by international research institutions and, where possible, government representatives.