Crossposted from European Tribune.
Part I here.
Non-production and -supply of nuclear material
To these ends, as well as to guard against nuclear terrorism, President Clinton first proposed the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty in 1993, vowing to “press for an international agreement that would ban production of these materials [highly enriched uraniam and plutonium] for weapons forever.” That hopeful prospect was one of the incentives motivating non-nuclear states to accept an indefinite extension of the NPT in 1995.
When the five acknowledged nuclear powers promised a fiss-ban at the NPT review in 2000, it was meant to be an effectively verifiable one. Indeed, the stance of most countries is that it must have a verification mechanism, administered for example by the IAEA, to be at all credible. However, a year ago, in a sudden reversal of policy that baffled arms control experts and put the US at odds with close allies like Australia, Canada, and Japan, the Bush administration saw fit to discard the principle of ‘trust but verify.’ The Washington Post reported:
Which may well have been the goal. The move seems designed to benefit a select group of US allies: Israel, India, and, paradoxically, the latter’s arch-enemy Pakistan, whose fleet of nuclear delivery-capable F16s the Bush administration has been replenishing since 2002. Thus, besides the betrayal of its commitment to the non-nuclear countries, it callously boosts the South Asian arms race, which puts billions at risk from what a fresh report by the Congressional Research Service identifies as the most likely prospect for the future use of nuclear weapons by states.
Implementation of the agreement would break domestic US law, but Bush has pledged to lobby for these laws to be amended. Robert Einhorn, formerly the State Department’s top nonproliferation official, told an American Enterprise Institute program that the nuclear agreement will make it harder to advocate stricter rules for Iran and North Korea. “The administration lowered the bar too far,” he said.
The US move is widely seen as a geostrategic attempt to counterbalance China, which in result is less likely to join a future fiss-ban treaty even in the declawed form promoted by the USA. In one sense, however, the move merely codifies established policy, inasmuch as the sr. Bush administration sold at least 1 500 nuclear dual-use items to Israel despite requirements under the NPT that the existing nuclear powers not help another country’s nuclear weapons program ‘in any way.’
The hypocrisy over Israel led to much contention at the NPT Review Conference in New York in May this year, where even close US allies like Egypt, which has a peace treaty with Israel, found it unacceptable. But perhaps the most vexing issue was one that the Bush administration declined to discuss at all: ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
Like the fiss-ban treaty but even more so, the CTBT has been seen as key to nuclear disarmament for over four decades. A complete ban on nuclear tests, it would prevent the nuclear quintet from developing new nuclear weapons, which only self-imposed moratoria on testing currently do. When the NPT was extended in 1995, the non-nuclear signatories – including Iran – agreed to do so on the background of the nuclear powers’ promise soon to finalize a CTBT.
Again, Clinton blazed the trail: Having lobbied hard for the treaty, he became the first world leader to sign it on September 24, 1996. And again, Republicans proceeded to quash his achievements. On October 13, 1999, the Republican Senate majority rejected ratification. Subsequently the Bush administration has not only refused to ask the Senate to reconsider but declared, in August 2001, that it will not provide financial or technical support for on-site inspections related to the treaty.
According to European diplomatic sources, progress toward a joint statement at the May 2005 conference foundered during the final days as the US refused to meet a Russian demand to promote the CTBT. The resultant non-result of the conference was described by delegates from around the world as “extremely regrettable” (Japan), “profoundly disappointing” (Norway), “unfortunate” (Ukraine), and a source of “frustration” (Chile and Brazil). One of the more instructive comments was made by the President, Sergio de Queiroz Duarte. Asked if the United States had been fully committed to success, he replied that every party to the Treaty was fully committed to the success of the Conference, “as each participant defines success.”
Quite so: Not a single high-ranking US official bothered to attend. According to the May 11 issue of Newsweek, US Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton – now the recess appointee to the post of ambassador to the United Nations – cut off pre-conference negotiations six months in advance.
Non-deployment against non-nuclear states
Bolton, to be sure, has never missed a chance to sabotage the vision of a world free from nuclear fears. Back on February 21 2002, he single-handedly repealed the 24-year-old US pledge, issued by the Carter administration, not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states. On the next day, a State Department spokesman dutifully reaffirmed US commitment to the pledge. But it soon turned out that Bolton may have been more forthright, or better informed. For the following month, a leaked Pentagon report revealed contingency plans to use nuclear weapons against China, Russia, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Syria and Libya. The plan “identified four areas where the US should be prepared to press the button”:
Conclusion
So where, in all this, is the NPT with its vision of, and legally binding commitment to, a phasing out of nuclear weapons? Shockingly if unsurprisingly, the Bush administration has suggested that the 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament agreed to in 2000 is now merely a ‘historical document.’ And presumably, so is the Non-Proliferation Treaty, negotiated by terminal enemies at the height of the Cold War but relegated to the dustbin of history by the winner – except for the bits that suit its interest.
The last Soviet President, Mikhail Gorbachev, who contributed more than anyone to ending the Cold War on peaceful terms, does not mince his words:
He said the United States should not suggest that other countries have no need for nuclear weapons while it retains a large arsenal itself.
“They say other people don’t need it, but what kind of law is this that they are advocating? It’s the law of the jungle,” he said.
Among the many who echo his words is one of the architects of US nuclear policy in the postwar era, Secretary of Defense in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, Robert S. McNamara:
Which brings us back to Bush’s lofty words in March: “We cannot allow rogue states that violate their commitments and defy the international community to undermine the NPT’s fundamental role in strengthening international security.” Or, as he put it in February 2004: “See, free societies are societies that don’t develop weapons of mass terror and don’t blackmail the world.”
Good to know.