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Forthcoming
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Conference Could Backfire on
America
By JONATHAN
POWER
March 29th. 2000
LONDON- Nuclear proliferation could be a lot worse
than it is. That is part of the pitch the American
delegation will make at the forthcoming review conference
of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), opening on
April 24th. No doubt somebody will quote John Kennedy who
foresaw 20-30 nuclear powers by the end of the last
century, and make the point that in fact the number is a
mere 8. Countries which were about to enter this
exclusive deadly club- South Africa, Brazil and Argentina
stepped back at the last moment. AND, as President Bill
Clinton boasted recently to the Indian parliament, the
U.S. and Russia have cut their nuclear arsenals by 13,000
bombs.
Nevertheless, as almost every expert will admit,
Western, and in particular American, non-proliferation
policy is in disarray. This conference is meant to mark
30 years of what the U.S. Secretary of State, Madeleine
Albright recently called "the landmark" Treaty- "the
bedrock of a total effort to reduce the dangers of
nuclear war."
The Treaty is built on a simple bargain- 182
non-nuclear weapon states agreed to forgo any pursuit of
nuclear weapons and in return the then nuclear weapon
states agreed not to help others acquire nuclear weapons
and themselves would negotiate to disarm.
Cuba, India, Pakistan and Israel never signed the
Treaty and have gone their own way; the latter three into
nuclear armaments of their own. Although none of them
threaten America or Europe the last two years has seen a
dramatic shift in opinion by the American military and
political elite. The day when the U.S. seriously- and
contentedly- felt it could rely on the Non-Proliferation
Treaty to keep the non-Soviet and Chinese world from
threatening the U.S. with nuclear weapons seems be
drawing to a premature close. In its place there is a
growing appetite for military options designed to counter
proliferation once it has occurred.
The marker was October 13th 1999 when the U.S. Senate
rejected by a vote of 51 to 48 the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty, which successive American presidents from Kennedy
onwards had laboured mightily to complete. It was a thin
margin, perhaps one that could have been swung to victory
if Clinton had had the persuasiveness of Ronald Reagan or
the single mindedness of George Bush. But it was no
accident. The forces ranged against it were powerful, not
just the usual percentage of right wingers who distrust
the world outside, but such senators as Richard Lugar, a
long time advocate of working in harmony with Nato
allies.
America's reaction to the immediate aftermath of the
Cold War had been very different. The Republican-
appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin
Powell, said "I have trouble finding demons". Yet
bureaucracies and think-tanks abhor a vacuum and, as
Gilles Andreani has written in a recent issue of
Survival, the journal of the International Institute for
Strategic Studies, "the movement of [new threats]
to the top of the U.S. security agenda was a natural
function of the demise of the Soviet Union. Without a
single overwhelming threat to worry about, policy makers
and defense planners largely had to fall back on generic
contingencies and scenarios against which to devise their
strategies and force structures."
The threatening rogue state has become the new
strategic fashion- a "hazy constellation of groups and
states whose antagonism towards the U.S. is presumed to
be unlimited, whose motives are opaque, whose behaviour
is irrational and whose access to modern technology is
rather good".
It seems a scary picture but it does not stand up to
scrutiny. And the price for the rest of the world of
America becoming an intellectual simpleton and sabotaging
all the agreements, treaties and goodwill built up over
30 years is a heavy one. If the U.S. is not interested in
the Test Ban Treaty or is threatening unilateral
abrogation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty or is not
contributing its promised part to the Non-Proliferation
Treaty why should anyone else bother?
The trouble with the current American preoccupation
with missile defense is that it is seriously bereft of
political content. The debate has run away with itself to
such an extent that its protagonists, sensing the upper
hand ever since they defeated the Test Ban Treaty, feel
they only have to mouth the words, North Korea, Iraq and
Iran for the rest of the argument to be self-explanatory.
But it is not.
The main danger, first and foremost, is the alienation
of Russia with whom, pace Mr Clinton, the business of
getting rid of the remaining 47,000 nuclear weapons is
not just way behind schedule as perceived by presidents
Reagan and Bush in their time, it is the central axis of
the bargain of the NPT. If this is not addressed
immediately, now the Russian election is over, Washington
in effect is writing off the Treaty. The incredible
victory the U.S. won five years ago to win an "extension
of the treaty, without conditions, indefinitely" (these
are Mrs Albright's words) is now seen to have been
secured on a lie, a gross misrepresentation of America's
future intentions. If a group of countries is now moved
to re-write what they in turn promised- to abjure nuclear
weapons- who can blame them?
The second danger is to ignore the lessons of
America's own success in dealing with rogues. When North
Korea threatened to break its commitment to the NPT and
perhaps build nuclear bombs there were many voices raised
in the U.S. suggesting all matter of punishment including
aerial bombardment. Mainly because of pressure from South
Korea and Japan, the U.S. elected for a non
confrontational path and one that brought results, at
least thus far. Right now there is no threat of North
Korea of becoming a nuclear ballistic missile capable
power. (And if it were it would be surely deterred by
America's awesome capacity for retaliation.)
Iran is an easier nut to crack than North Korea. It is
no longer a closed regime; it is at least two thirds a
democracy . It can be wooed. It has outstanding issues
with the U.S. but no outstanding quarrel.
That leaves Iraq. Even if Iraq could build weapons of
mass destruction which is exceedingly doubtful with the
sanctions now in place, it would never dare use them
against the U.S.. It didn't use its then stocks of
chemical and biological weapons against the allies during
the Gulf War because it feared revenge. Saddam Hussein
knows that if he should dare to try anything it would be
the end of him.
America's best tools are as they have long been-
diplomacy, deterrence and good sense. If the U.S. is
going to unshackle itself from arms control agreements
which at one time it fought so tenaciously to create and
insists instead on being free to devise any options or
course it deems appropriate, irrespective of what even
its closest allies think, then it could produce the very
result it is trying to avoid.
I can be reached by phone +44 385 351172 and e-mail:
JonatPower@aol.com
Copyright © 2000 By JONATHAN POWER
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