Ebook: Lessons to be Learned from Non-Proliferation Failures and Successes

“History teaches that history teaches nothing”. A group of Western and Russian experts decided to question this proverb by convening the international conference “Lessons Learned from Non-Proliferation Failures and Successes”. Obviously, there should be lessons from numerous “ups” and “downs” in developing the international non-proliferation regime. The problem is whether Western and Russian politicians (and experts) perceive these lessons in comparable terms, and whether their conclusions and recommendations regarding the non-proliferation regime coincide.

The International Conference was initiated by the Center for Political and International Studies (Russia) and researchers from the Hudson Institute (USA), and supported by the NATO Science Programme. Several other organizations, including the Federation for Peace and Conciliation, Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs and the Russian Political Science Association, joined efforts in convening this conference in Moscow in June of 2007. The conference was co-directed by Ioannis Saratsis (Greece/USA) and Alexander Nikitin (Russia). On the basis of debates key participants prepared chapters for this book in 2007–2008.

The dialogue involved experts from 12 countries and 4 international organizations, including formal representation of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The U.S. Embassy in Moscow helped in assuring the participation in the dialogue of experts from the U.S. Department of State. From the Russian side key ministries dealing with non-proliferation issues, namely, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the Federal Agency for Atomic Energy, were represented. Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, a well-known international network of scientists, assisted in selecting international experts and provided some key presentations, while the Federation for Peace and Conciliation and the Russian Political Science Association helped in selecting and involving Russian participants, as well as in organizational aspects of this international dialogue.

Major topics discussed in the forum and thus converted into thematic parts of this book, cover a wide range of issues, from both functional and regional points of view. The first part of the book extends from assessing “sticks” and “carrots” in the non-proliferation arsenal of the world community, to drawing more precise lines between non-proliferation and counter-proliferation measures, and further to comparing UN-based and national level sanctions and efforts aimed at reassuring non-proliferation. Special sections are devoted to Nuclear Weapon-Free Zones and “negative assurances” in their relations with non-proliferation, as well as to risks of WMD terrorism and further proliferation because of the abundance of not so well managed fissile materials in the hands of nuclear powers.

The second part of the book deals with lessons learned (or still to be learned) from the concrete regional cases of proliferation or its risks. This dialogue benefited from the participation of two high ranking Ambassadors of, respectively, India and Pakistan, who shared their approaches to the Indian sub-continent as a kind of “non-NPT zone” which needs to be interfaced with world scale efforts to prevent further proliferation. One of the chief officials of the League of Arab States provided an overview of the proliferation risks in the Middle East and the Arab world. Intensive dialogue on the Iranian nuclear dossier and on the lessons from the Six-Party Talks over the Korean nuclear issue completes the second part of the book.

It should be noted that the whole dialogue was organized on the basis of the “Chatham House” rules of non-attribution, and the same rules apply to published materials: views expressed in chapters and papers represent approaches of individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of organizations or the countries they come from.

In conclusion, the editor of the book and conveners of the conference, Alexander Nikitin (Russia) and Ioannis Saratsis (Greece/USA), would like to recognize the important organizational input into the convening of the forum and preparation of the book by Victor Kamyshanov, Vladimir Petrovsky, Sergey Oznobishchev, Oksana Novikova, Eugenie Andryushina, Yulia Starilova, Adelina Akhmetzyanova, Zurab Bezhanishvili, Eva Kharitonova, Varvara Sinitsyna, Yulia Kudryashova and Oleg Zegonov.

While the current outlook for nuclear power remains mixed, rising expectations with regard to the contribution of nuclear technology to human welfare suggest the possible advent of what many have called a nuclear renaissance. These expectations are driven by nuclear power's good performance record, by growing energy needs around the world coupled with rising oil and natural gas prices, by environmental constraints, by concerns about energy supply security in a number of countries, and by ambitious expansion plans in several countries.

At the same time as this expansion of nuclear power and technologies is contemplated, a number of recent and ongoing verification challenges have again highlighted the potential proliferation risks associated with the most sensitive nuclear technologies – and thus the IAEA's central role in verifying that nuclear activities are exclusively for peaceful purposes. Moreover, recent developments have shed light on a series of other threats, such as the emergence of what the IAEA Director General has called the nuclear supermarket – an illicit network of trade in sensitive nuclear equipment and designs –, and the increased prospect of nuclear or radiological terrorism.

The next fifty years will be about addressing such challenges and ensuring that the Agency has the necessary tools – both legal and technical, as well as the requisite financial resources – to discharge its mission. An evaluation of current trends and priorities in light of the Agency's recent evolution may give us some indication of what the IAEA's role could look like in the future, in the context of safeguards implementation and other activities relevant to nuclear non-proliferation.

The UN Security Council has not practically dealt with the WMD proliferation problems until recently. In extreme cases it used such instrument as resolution.

In 1998 the Security Council passed Resolution 1172 which condemned nuclear tests conducted by India and Pakistan in May 1998.

On October 14, 2006 the Security Council adopted Resolution 1718 condemning nuclear test proclaimed by China, making certain demands of this state and imposing sanctions against it.

On March 24, 2007 the UN Security Council referring to and confirming the provisions of Resolution 1696 from July 31, 2006 and Resolution 1737 from December 23, 2006, unanimously voted for Resolution 1747 which toughened sanctions against Iran for Tehran's refusal to stop its nuclear program. At the same time the Council members also proposed to start new negotiations and renewed the package of technological proposals aimed at making Iran stop the uranium enrichment.

In the two latter resolutions there is a provision that the members act on the grounds of the UN Charter which makes these documents obligatory for all UN member-states. This is the essential difference of Resolution 1172 from 1998.

Though mentioned resolutions are aimed at preventing the WMD proliferation the assessment of their effectiveness is beyond the scope of this study as it requires analysis of causes and motives that induced certain states to launch nuclear programs as well as prognosis of their response.

On April 28, 2004 the UN Security Council approved the document, unprecedented in the history of this international institution – Resolution 1540. The resolution was adopted under the Chapter VII provisions of the UN Charter – “Action with respect to threats to the peace, breaches of the peace, and acts of aggression” – which made it obligatory for all UN member-states.

In accordance with paragraph 4 of the resolution the Committee 1540 was established within the framework of the Security Council. It had to promote the implementation of the resolution by all UN member-states. The Committee was established for the period of no longer than two years and became operational on June 11, 2004. On the basis of Resolution 1673 from April 27, 2006 the UN Security Council extended the activity of the Committee 1540 for another two years.

Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and combat missiles seemed to have lost its urgency in world politics lately. This was partly the consequence of the evident crises in relations between Russia and the West, South and North, connected with the political-diplomatic lagging of their foreign policy approaches. Supported among certain European circles Russian theses about the collapse of the “unipolar world”, Moscow's claim for equal status with the leading world powers without double standards and its new world order concept seemed to have ruined all prospects of Russia's joining the West once again thus underlining the remaining gap in values between the two worlds. Correspondingly, all plans to create a kind of broad front of the states which really make efforts to stop the WMD proliferation and strengthen international security and military-strategic stability including the arms control process seem bleak.

Still, even in the traditional situation of the “war of all against all” on the world arena the issue of nonproliferation and its core element – the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Issues (NPT) – remains urgent. After all, it is in fact a question of the key problem of global security – the survival of Russia and the West in the face of new challenges.

The contemporary security situation is marked by the quick increase of new challenges as a result of the total terror methods including the use of WMD being exercised by the international Islam fundamentalists in their fight against the main enemies – the so-called “infidel” West and Russia, which prevents from attaining world leadership. This phenomenon is called “superterrorism” by some of the experts. Though, obviously, nuclear weapons, compared with other types of WMD and even subversive activities, would be most difficult for adjusting to the cannibalistic plans of the Islamists. But even the minor risk of the use of nuclear weapons concerning their terrible destructive consequences makes treat it seriously.

It is not accidentally that the President of Russia sees the WMD proliferation as the main threat of the XXIst century.

The appearance of new actors possessing nuclear weapons especially in the instability regions let alone radial terrorist groups or irresponsible rogue states compared with the possibility of nuclear-missile conflict between the members of the traditional nuclear powers club poses the main real threat today for the main world powers including the nuclear states. This set of issues also presents the basis for the security dialogue between East and West, North and South; most probably it will form the agenda in the sphere of military building and global security for the nearest future.

The United States and Russia are still engaged into several strategic arms control agreements. Among them: the 1991 Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty (START) and the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty (SORT, Moscow Treaty). The role of the bilateral strategic arms control faced dramatic change during last 40 years. Recently, due to the expiration of the START I in December 2009, the last chapter of this formerly central bilateral and, sometimes, global issue might be witnessed. The SORT, which will expire in May 2012, cannot exist without START verification provisions. Therefore, abolition of the START without negotiating another follow-on agreement could transform the 2002 Moscow Treaty into meaningless legally binding declaration of intentions.

For four decades, the strategic nuclear arms control plays important role in the US-Russian relations. Some of the bilateral arms control agreements including their approaches and provisions have demonstrated their viability. In late 1960s the US President Lindon Johnson and the Soviet Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin started the process. It has survived rise and fall of the détente policy, war in Afghanistan and President Reagan's star wars, collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War and the NATO enlargement.

At the same time, radical transformation from late 1980s affected the role and implementation of the bilateral arms control regime. Mainly, the regime was based on the Cold War imperatives and under approximate parity in sizes of strategic nuclear forces of both countries. The regime's erosion, which became evident in early 2000s, emerged not because of tactical considerations and occasional events. It has happened due to fundamental changes both on the global level and in the realm of bilateral US-Russian relations.

Over the last fifty years the idea of establishing nuclear-weapon-free zones (NWFZ) has gained broad support and became a serious factor in the big politics. Along with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), system of the IAEA safeguards and export control structures NWFZs are the key elements of the nuclear non-proliferation regime which is most mature among the other non-proliferation regimes of WMD and means of their delivery. The creation of NWFZs had started during the Cold War and continued after it ended. Latin America and the Caribbean, the South Pacific, South East Asia, Africa and Central Asia have been already proclaimed as the nuclear-free zones. The struggle for the creation of nuclear-free and WMD-free (WMDFZ) zones in the regions of political-military tension (the Middle East, the Korean Peninsula etc.) is being underway. The specific situation of establishing each NWFZ left an imprint on its international-legal design and therefore the study of the specific NWFZ agreements allows analyzing the emergence of this important phenomenon of the nuclear non-proliferation regime.

Negative security assurances (NSA) were conceived as a quid pro quo for the renunciation of nuclear weapons by non-nuclear-weapon states under the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). They are called “negative” because they amount to a non-use obligation. However, NSA have never been a decisive incentive to join the Treaty. Economic interests, in particular the need to engage in peaceful uses of nuclear energy, played a more important role. Argentina and Brazil would have probably not given up their nuclear-weapon aspirations, had they not feared to be deprived of fuel for their civilian nuclear reactors. With the passage of time, the link between the NSA and the NPT has weakened, practically to the point of non-existence. India, Pakistan or Israel—the three holdouts from the NPT - would certainly not bargain away their nuclear posture for a great-powers' pledge not to use nuclear weapons against them. Nor was North Korea deterred from leaving the NPT; it will not rejoin it in exchange for a mere promise of non-aggression with nuclear weapons. All this means that restrictions or a prohibition on the employment of nuclear weapons may now be treated as potential arms control measures and be negotiated by all states, regardless of their association with the NPT. According to the doctrine of belligerent reprisals, a ban on use does not exclude retaliation. Countries possessing nuclear weapons would, in fact, be committed only to no first use.

At the moment a complicated situation is emerging in the nuclear non-proliferation sphere. The NPT Review conference held in 2005 almost failed – the participants could not reach agreement and no substantive document was adopted. And though no one claimed that the Treaty had exhausted itself it does not solve all the tasks which it was created for. More and more states doubt the effectiveness of the NPT and their own security. At the moment the situation with Iran develops in such a way that the possibility of its withdrawal from the NPT is not ruled out. Under the conditions when the US leadership discusses the possibility of military solution of the Iranian issue Iran has progressively less reasons to keep its non-nuclear status. Other states may also choose moving away from the Treaty and eventually withdrawing from it.

Non-nuclear states are “disappointed” with the situation with nuclear disarmament which either does not exist or it is carried out too slowly; nuclear states do not carry on negotiations on nuclear disarmament as required by Article IV of the NPT.

The latest Preparation Committee for the NPT Review Conference in Geneva in May 2008 showed that non-nuclear states are irritated at the fact that in their view they had ultimately received very little in return for their consent to the indefinite prolongation of the Treaty in 1995.

In their statements they stress that in the military doctrines of nuclear states the role of nuclear weapons is still very high. Russia reserves for itself the right to use nuclear weapons responding to the use of nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction against itself or its allies as well as to a large-scale aggression with the use of conventional weapons in the situations critical for Russian national security. France is ready to use nuclear weapons to defend its vitally important interests. The UK can use nuclear weapons in response to chemical or biological attack against itself. The USA are ready to use nuclear weapons in case of any WMD attack as well as the threat of such attack – the possibility of pre-emptive strike with the use of nuclear weapons is foreseen.

In such circumstances the problem of negative security assurances gains new relevance as one of the ways of strengthening the NPT and the whole nuclear non-proliferation regime. One can hardly deny that the confidence of a state in the no use of nuclear weapons against itself increases the sense of its own security and reduces the need for developing or acquiring nuclear weapons. In this concern it is necessary to find such conditions of granting negative security assurances which could suit both nuclear and non-nuclear states whose positions significantly diverge at the moment.

Today these problems are being discussed both within the framework of the NPT review process and the Conference on Disarmament as well as the UN General Assembly`s First committee. Non-nuclear states still insist on granting them universal, unconditional and legally binding security assurances, the nuclear ones mainly think that the provided assurances are already quite enough.

I represent the Global Security Institute, the non-governmental organization that proudly houses the Middle Powers Initiative, and we are but one NGO that seeks to make a contribution to enriching the public debate and perspective of official decisionmakers by advancing nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament based on principles of global security and the rule of law. In other words, we are not constrained by the prism of purely national interests and can approach an issue from a universal perspective. We firmly believe that threats posed by nuclear weapons are best understood in that framework.

The reality in South Asia is that the two biggest countries, India and Pakistan are de facto nuclear powers. These neighboring countries with a long land border have a history of hostility, conflict and wars because of unresolved territorial and border issues. They are self declared nuclear weapon states and have evolving nuclear programs that involve progressive improvement in nuclear and technical facilities, systems and delivery means. India set the tone for this in her draft nuclear doctrine by stating an intention to develop a triad of strategic forces. Both countries have stated that their development strategy is based on the concept of a ‘minimum credible deterrence’ but the minimum for credibility has never been defined. It can be assumed that both have growing stockpiles as they have never considered capping production nor have they bilaterally discussed such a possibility. The fact that India seeks to deter or match China while Pakistan focuses on India further complicates the problem by making it a tri-state issue. As the Carnegie report on Universal Compliance noted china would look at its imbalance with Russia who in turn would consider its own imbalance with the US. Thus the nuclear capability in the group of three - India, Pakistan and Israel cannot be undone. It is there to stay.

India's nuclear program and its policies has been the subject of considerable comment.

Many commentators have expressed apprehensions and fears about India's intentions. Such criticism is not justified, because of India's unblemished record as a strict adherent of Non Proliferation, even though India has not signed the pact by that name: the NPT. This paper seeks to provide some answers to commonly asked questions about India's intentions with regard to its nuclear policies.

Security in the M.E. is a dynamic concept that is developed on the basis of threat perceptions and defence requirements of the states in the region. The development of a regional security and arms control framework has always been a particularly difficult and daunting task due to the multi-polar nature of the region. All through the 20^th Century, the M.E. has been, and still is, plagued with competing centers of power, internally and externally, which manipulate a number of deeply rooted ethnic, national, and religious conflicts, notwithstanding the painful process of liberation and decolonization that many countries in the region had to go through and is still part of the collective national memory of these nations.

Today, the Middle East is poised at yet another critical juncture in its long and turbulent history. With the recent rapid changes in the security structure of the region, all the regional powers are cautiously re-assessing their political strengths and weaknesses and re-evaluating their perceptions of threats and challenges.

Iran and the most important international actors are still on a confrontation course. Iran is in the process of developing its uranium enrichment capabilities—and has no intention of suspending these activities. This suspension, however, is what the international community is demanding. The international community—and the United States in particular—are insisting that there will be no negotiations with Iran until this precondition has been fulfilled. Preconditions, in general and here in particular, hinder negotiations.

The post Cold War world is evolving towards complex dependency and multi-polar structure of international relations in both economic and security spheres, thus making international security co-operation a challenging task for the XXI century. New key elements of security and cooperation architecture in Asia, including North East Asia sub-region, are based on the Human Security and Human Development approaches; peacekeeping and peace enforcement by regional organizations; civil/military co-operation and co-ordination in fighting against international terrorism.