Tag: China
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Third P5 Conference: Implementing the NPT
Following is the text of a joint statement issued by China, France, Great Britain, Russia, and the United States of America at the conclusion of the Third P5 Conference: Implementing the NPT June 27-29, 2012 in Washington, DC.
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The five Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) nuclear-weapon states, or P5, met in Washington on June 27-29, 2012, in the wake of the 2009 London and 2011 Paris P5 conferences to review progress towards fulfilling the commitments made at the 2010 NPT Review Conference, and to continue discussions on issues related to all three pillars of the NPT nonproliferation, the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and disarmament, including confidence-building, transparency, and verification experiences.
The P5 reaffirmed their commitment to the shared goal of nuclear disarmament and emphasized the importance of working together in implementing the 2010 NPT Review Conference Action Plan. The P5 reviewed significant developments in the context of the NPT since the 2011 Paris P5 Conference. In particular, the P5 reviewed the outcome of the 2012 Preparatory Committee for the 2015 NPT Review Conference, continued their discussion of how to report on their relevant activities, and shared views, across all three pillars of the NPT, on objectives for the 2013 Preparatory Committee and the intersessional period. The 2012 PrepCom outcome included issuance of a P5 statement comprehensively addressing issues in all three pillars (NPT/CONF.2015/PC.I/12).
The P5 continued their previous discussions on the issues of transparency, mutual confidence, and verification, and considered proposals for a standard reporting form. The P5 recognize the importance of establishing a firm foundation for mutual confidence and further disarmament efforts, and the P5 will continue their discussions in multiple ways within the P5, with a view to reporting to the 2014 PrepCom, consistent with their commitments under Actions 5, 20, and 21 of the 2010 RevCon final document.
Participants received a briefing from the United States on U.S. activities at the Nevada National Security Site. This was offered with a view to demonstrate ideas for additional approaches to transparency.
Another unilateral measure was a tour of the U.S. Nuclear Risk Reduction Center located at the U.S. Department of State, where the P5 representatives have observed how the United States maintains a communications center to simultaneously implement notification regimes, including under the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), Hague Code of Conduct Against Ballistic Missile Proliferation (HCOC), and Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Vienna Document.
The P5 agreed on the work plan for a P5 working group led by China, assigned to develop a glossary of definitions for key nuclear terms that will increase P5 mutual understanding and facilitate further P5 discussions on nuclear matters.
The P5 again shared information on their respective bilateral and multilateral experiences in verification, including information on the P5 expert level meeting hosted by the UK in April, at which the UK shared the outcomes and lessons from the UK-Norway Initiative disarmament verification research project. The P5 heard presentations on lessons learned from New START Treaty implementation, were given an overview of U.S.-UK verification work, and agreed to consider attending a follow-up P5 briefing on this work to be hosted by the United States.
As a further follow-up to the 2010 NPT Review Conference, the P5 shared their views on how to discourage abuse of the NPT withdrawal provision (Article X), and how to respond to notifications made consistent with the provisions of that article. The discussion included modalities under which NPT States Party could respond collectively and individually to a notification of withdrawal, including through arrangements regarding the disposition of equipment and materials acquired or derived under safeguards during NPT membership. The P5 agreed that states remain responsible under international law for violations of the Treaty committed prior to withdrawal.
The P5 underlined the fundamental importance of an effective International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards system in preventing nuclear proliferation and facilitating cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. The P5 discussed concrete proposals for strengthening IAEA safeguards, including through promoting the universal adoption of the Additional Protocol; and the reinforcement of the IAEAs resources and capabilities for effective safeguards implementation, including verification of declarations by States.
The P5 reiterated their commitment to promote and ensure the swift entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) and its universalization. The P5 reviewed progress in developing the CTBTs verification regime in all its aspects and efforts towards entry into force. Ways to enhance the momentum for completing the verification regime, including the on-site inspection component, were explored. The P5 called upon all States to uphold their national moratoria on nuclear weapons-test explosions or any other nuclear explosion, and to refrain from acts that would defeat the object and purpose of the Treaty pending its entry into force. The moratoria, though important, are not substitutes for legally binding obligations under the CTBT.
The P5 discussed ways to advance a mutual goal of achieving a legally binding, verifiable international ban on the production of fissile material for use in nuclear weapons. The P5 reiterated their support for the immediate start of negotiations on a treaty encompassing such a ban in the Conference on Disarmament (CD), building on CD/1864, and exchanged perspectives on ways to break the current impasse in the CD, including by continuing their efforts with other relevant partners to promote such negotiations within the CD.
The P5 remain concerned about serious challenges to the non-proliferation regime and in this connection, recalled their joint statement of May 3 at the Preparatory Committee of the NPT.
An exchange of views on how to support a successful conference in 2012 on a Middle East zone free of weapons of mass destruction was continued.
The P5 agreed to continue to meet at all appropriate levels on nuclear issues to further promote dialogue and mutual confidence. The P5 will follow on their discussions and hold a fourth P5 conference in the context of the next NPT Preparatory Committee.
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Dealing with a Nuclear North Korea
This article was originally published by Politico.
Once again North Korea befuddles.
On the cusp of receiving food aid from the United States as the quid pro quo for opening the Yongbong nuclear complex to international inspectors and a halt in missile testing, Pyongyang wasted little time to turn “progress” into a sink hole.
The rub: a three-stage North Korean rocket set to launch a small satellite into orbit in the next few days. The concern, the data gleaned from the launch will mature Pyonygang’s ambition to build an intercontinental ballistic missile that could threaten the United States with a nuclear warhead.
Maturation has been long in coming. North Korea first replicated the Soviet Scud rockets it acquired from Egypt decades ago, and has slowly developed a healthy inventory of short- and intermediate-range missiles. But the long-range rocket proved to be another matter. Its 2006 and 2009 launch attempts failed.
In anticipating each, Washington first pouted, but then returned to efforts to coax Pyongyang back to the six-party talks to can fulfill the North’s 2005 nuclear disarmament pledge. For a time, Kim Jong Il did return, but winked — attempting to pocket any benefits he could, while continuing to modernize his secret nuclear enrichment enterprise.
This has left Washington uncertain, as the new Kim prepares the missile launch. There are no perfect options. But there are at least four imperfect alternatives to deal with the North’s missile and nuclear programs, First, continue the policy of coaxing. Second, attempt further to isolate the regime. Third, use force to halt the most threatening nuclear elements. Or, fourth, accept what cannot be changed and learn to live with a nuclear armed North Korea.
Coaxing is business as usual. Trying to get Pyongyang to reliably say “uncle” and give up the bomb does not seem to be in the cards. The international community has tried and tried again since South Korea, Russia, China and Japan joined the United States and North Korea in the six-party talks in 2003. The approaching rocket launch, coupled with reports that Pyongyang may yet test another nuclear weapon, suggests that the new Kim intends to continue the path of the old to stay in power.
The second option might be called the Bolton approach. Former U.N. Amb. John Bolton has written many articles pressing for strict isolation of Pyongyang, to bring down the regime. He advocates detaching Pyongyang from “international financial markets, ramping up efforts to prevent trade in weapons…and pressuring China to adhere to existing UN sanctions resolutions.”
The major impediment is that Beijing refuses to go along — making the strategy a chimera.
Force marks a third option. Clinton Defense Secretary William Perry and Assistant Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, writing in The Washington Post and Time magazine in 2006, called on the Bush administration to initiate a submarine cruise missile strike to destroy Pyongyang’s long-range rockets on the launch pad. They argued, “the risk of inaction will prove far greater” for the United States — even at the risk of igniting a new Korean war.
Carter is now deputy secretary of defense. But there is no public talk that his proposal has any traction today in the Obama administration.
This leaves a fourth option — accepting what we can’t change while attempting to reduce nuclear risks. The stark fact remains that without regime change — which was key in the elimination of other nuclear arsenals, including the former Soviet republics and South Africa — North Korea will remain a nuclear armed state. Washington’s challenge is to assure that Pyongyang never uses the arsenal out of malice or fear.
North Korea’s use of its arsenal without provocation seems farfetched. More than anything, the leadership seeks to stay in power. It must know that any nuclear launch would result in the regime’s demise in the devastating U.S. and allied response that would be sure to follow.
Nonetheless, there remains the specter that North Korea could launch due to fear of preemption or as part of an escalating incident. Reducing these risks ought to be the priority.
This requires better communication between Washington and Pyongyang. At the very least, there should be a negotiated hot-line, replicating the Cold War link between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Better yet, full diplomatic relations could reduce the likelihood of major misunderstanding.
Neither a hot line nor diplomatic relations should be seen as reward to the North, but rather the realization that a nuclear Pyongyang is likely to be part of the northeast Asian landscape for the foreseeable future.
Assuming otherwise — without taking the necessary measures to reduce risk — could create is a far greater problem for the United States than either proceeding with the failed policies of the past or the impractical options advanced by some.
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How to Strengthen the UN’s Ability to Maintain International Peace and Security
This article was originally published by the History News Network.
Conservative politicians often portray the United Nations as a powerful monster, poised to gobble up the United States and other countries and put them under alien rule.
The reality, of course, is quite different. When it comes to international peace and security, the United Nations is notably lacking in power. Its resolutions along these lines are often ignored or go unenforced. Frequently, they are not even adopted. This situation leaves nations free to pursue traditional practices of power politics and, occasionally, much worse.
The weakness of the United Nations was illustrated once again on February 4, when Russia and China joined forces to veto a UN Security Council resolution dealing with Syria. The resolution was designed to halt eleven months of bloodshed in that nation, where more than 5,400 people had been massacred, mostly by government military forces. Backing an Arab League plan for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step aside, the resolution was supported by 13 members of the Security Council. But, with Security Council rules allowing even one great power to veto action, the resolution was defeated.
The rules establishing a great power veto were formulated late in World War II, when three Allied nations (the United States, the Soviet Union, and Britain) agreed to create a UN Security Council to maintain international peace and security. The Security Council would have 15 members, but just 5 of them would be permanent members (the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, France, and China), and each of these members would be empowered to veto any resolution or action. Thus, from the start, the great powers made sure that each of them had the ability to frustrate any venture of which they disapproved. And this, in turn, meant that, like the League of Nations, the United Nations was woefully weak when it came to enforcing international peace and security.
In the first decade of the postwar era, the Soviet Union led the way in drawing on the veto to defend what it considered its interests. But, in later decades, the United States surpassed the Soviet Union (and its successor, Russia) in use of the veto to block international security action. Indeed, since the establishment of the United Nations, all of the permanent members have relied upon the veto, which they have used hundreds of times to frustrate the majority in efforts to maintain international peace and security. As in the case of two Security Council resolutions dealing with the mass killing in Syria, this includes action to protect civilians in an armed conflict.
The result has been a dangerous world in which, all too often, rulers of nations (especially, the rulers of the great powers) simply go their own way—squandering their resources on never-ending military buildups, invading other nations, and massacring civilian populations.
In the context of this continuing disaster, wouldn’t it make sense to eliminate the veto in the Security Council? After all, there is no justifiable reason why great powers—and particularly individual great powers—should be legally accorded the right to frustrate the wishes of virtually the entire international community. Although scrapping the veto is no panacea for conflicts among nations, it seems likely to result in a more equitable and more secure world.
Furthermore, even if the veto were abolished, the great powers would still hold onto their permanent seats in the Security Council, thus ensuring that they would retain—albeit in a more democratic fashion—some influence over world affairs. And if, as supporters of the current structure insist, it is important to match authority with power, why not elevate additional great powers to permanent membership in the Security Council? Nations that have sometimes been mentioned as useful additions to that UN entity include Brazil, Germany, India, and Japan.
Plagued by dangerous arms races, bloody wars, and human rights violations, the world desperately needs an alternative form of governance. The great powers have the power to provide it, but not the legitimacy to do so, while the United Nations has the legitimacy but not the power. Hasn’t the time finally arrived to supplement the legitimacy of the United Nations with enough power to maintain international peace and security?
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Tone Deaf US Foreign Policy Announcements Create New Provocations in Asia
This article originally appeared in the January 2012 newsletter of the Global Network Against Nuclear Weapons and Power in Space.
On UN Day, at a panel on Nuclear Disarmament, Secretary General Ban-ki Moon spoke about his 2008 five point proposal for nuclear disarmament, including the requirement for negotiations to ban the bomb. It was dismaying when the next speaker, a retired US Air Force General, Michal Mosley, breezily assured the audience and his fellow panelists that it certainly was now possible to rid the world of nuclear weapons, since atomic bomb technology is thoroughly out of date. He boasted that today “we” have long range attack weapons of such “unbelievable precision and lethality” that we no longer need nuclear weapons in the US arsenal. Our conventional weapons are ever so superior to those of any other nation. He said this as his fellow co-panelists, the Russian and Chinese ambassadors, took in the full import of his braggadocio, to my extreme embarrassment as a US citizen. Did the General consider for a moment the effect his words were having on the Ambassadors and the other non-US participants in the meeting? His astonishing disregard for the effect of such provocative war talk on our fellow earth mates seems to be a major failure of our “tin ear” foreign policy.
Hillary Clinton proclaimed a similarly tone-deaf policy in an article in November’s Foreign Affairs, “America’s Pacific Century”, remarking that now that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were winding down, we were at a “pivot point” and that “one of the most important tasks of American statecraft over the next decade will be to lock in a substantially increased investment—diplomatic economic, strategic and otherwise—in the Asia-Pacific region.” Calling for “forward-deployed” diplomacy, she defined it to include “forging a broad-based military presence” in Asia…that would be “as durable and as consistent with American interests and values as the web we have built across the Atlantic…capable of deterring provocation from the full spectrum of state and non-state actors” She added that just as our NATO alliance “has paid off many times over…the time has come to make similar investments as a Pacific power”.
Citing our Treaty alliances with Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines and Thailand as the “fulcrum for our strategic turn to the Asian-Pacific”, she also spoke of the need to expand our relationships to include India, Indonesia Singapore, New Zealand, Malaysia, Mongolia Vietnam, and the Pacific Island countries. While acknowledging “fears and misperceptions that “linger on both sides of the Pacific”, stating that “some in our country see China’s progress as a threat to the United States; some in China worry that America seeks to constrain China’s growth” she blithely asserted, “we reject both those views …a thriving America is good for China and a thriving China is good for America”. This said as the United States aggressively lines up a host of new nations in an expanded Pacific military alliance, providing them with missile defenses, ships, and warplanes, encircling China. What is she thinking?
Shortly after Clinton’s article appeared, Obama went to Australia to open up a new military base there with a token 250 US soldiers, and a promise of 2500 to come with plans for joint military training, promising that “we will allocate the resources necessary to maintain our strong military presence in this region.” He also adopted the “Manila Declaration”, pledging closer military ties with the Philippines and announced the sale of 24 F-16 fighter jets to Indonesia. Clinton just paid a visit to Myanmar, long allied with China, to re-establish relations there.
In her article’s conclusion Clinton bragged, “Our military is by far the strongest and our economy is by far the largest in the world. Our workers are the most productive. Our universities are renowned the world over. So there should be no doubt that America has the capacity to secure and sustain our global leadership in this century as we did in the last.” Didn’t anyone tell her that the number of Americans living below the official poverty line, 46.2 million people, was the highest in the 52 years the census bureau has been publishing those figures? Or that the United States deteriorating transportation infrastructure will cost the economy more than 870,000 jobs and would suppress US economic growth by $3.1 trillion by 2020, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers?
The tone-deaf quality of US foreign policy pronouncements is like an infant who pulls the covers over his head to play peek-a-boo, thinking he can’t be seen so long as he can’t see out. China has responded as would be expected. A Pentagon report warned Congress that China was increasing its naval power and investing in high-tech weaponry to extend its reach in the Pacific and beyond. It ramped up efforts to produce anti-ship missiles to knock out aircraft carriers, improved targeting radar, expanding its fleet of nuclear-powered submarines and warships and making advances in satellite technology and cyber warfare. What did we expect? And now, having provoked China to beef up its military assets, the warmongers in the US can frighten the public into supporting the next wild burgeoning arms race in the Pacific and what appears to be endless war.
This month, Mikhail Gorbachev, in The Nation, observed the US elite’s “winner’s complex” after the end of the Cold War, and the references to the US as a “hyperpower”, capable of creating “a new kind of empire”. He said, “[t]hinking in such terms in our time is a delusion. No wonder that the imperial project failed and that it soon became clear that it was a mission impossible even for the United States.” The opportunity to build a “truly new world order was lost.” The US decision to expand NATO eastward “usurped the functions of the United Nations and thus weakened it. We are engulfed in global turmoil, “drifting in uncharted waters. The global economic crisis of 2008 made that abundantly clear.”
Sadly, the powers in control of US public policy and their far-flung global allies appear to have learned nothing from the extraordinary opportunity we lost for a more peaceful world at the Cold War’s end. We are now repeating those expansionary designs in Asia, and “thus we continue to drift towards unparalleled catastrophe” as Albert Einstein observed when we split the atom which “changed everything save man’s mode of thinking”.
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Stoking an Asian Cold War?
This article was originally published by In Depth News.
Proxy wars between countries was one of the more tragic features of the Cold War between the U.S. and the USSR. Both super-powers fuelled the conflicts supplying military materiel and political support while they piously claimed that nuclear deterrence worked so that they themselves never went to war. The U.S. in particular claimed that the George Kennan doctrine of the “containment” of the USSR worked and ere long the Communist giant imploded obligingly.
Fast forward two decades, and a declining U.S. super power, trapped in economic woes of its own making, is groping for ways to contain a rising China. Proxy wars are no longer possible especially for a super power mired in the morass of Iraq and Afghanistan and encumbered by the unending and ubiquitous “war against terrorism” fighting an unseen enemy.
What better then than to outsource the task of the containment of China to ambitious India and reluctant Japan? That, essentially, is the subtext of the unusually lengthy Joint Statement that came out at the conclusion of President Obama’s recent visit to India and the rationale for his Asian tour. Unsurprisingly both Japan and now India are the chosen candidates of the U.S. for permanent member status in the UN Security Council.
The scenario has been a long time in gestation and operation and spans the presidencies of Bush the Son and of Barak Obama giving it the bipartisan support it needs as national security policy. For India — the world’s most populous democracy unable to match China’s poverty alleviation record and bedevilled by home-grown terrorism — the opportunity to escape the stigma of ostracism following the 1998 nuclear blasts was too good to be true.
The Nehruvian vision of Non-alignment and moral superiority as the key to Great Power status had failed to unlock the door. Now it was self-built economic muscle (and a clever manipulation of the U.S. political system by the wealthy Indian lobby) and a replay of the old “Yellow Peril” cry replayed as a “string of pearls” theory that secured a place at the high table.
The sophistication of Indian diplomacy will ensure that the new game will be played with finesse and without any of the crudity of the earlier proxy wars. It will garner huge bilateral trade and technology-transfer benefits for itself while maintaining normal relations with China competing at the same time for economic payoffs and political influence with China in Asia and Africa with U.S. support.
Japan was settling into a low-key role after brief episode of assertiveness under Koizumi and a succession of bland Prime Ministers with little impact on the international political and economic scene. But China’s ill-conceived saber-rattling over the Diaoyu Tai or Senkaku islands plus Medvedev’s ill-timed visit to the Kuril Islands has made her ready to question China on its intentions in the East and South China Seas, recall its Ambassador from Moscow and play hard ball in the Six Nation Talks over North Korea’s nuclear weapon programme.
It is a dangerous game to play especially since China is able to revive old animosities against the Japanese with its domestic audience and apply economic pressures as well. For the U.S. the revitalization of its old alliance with Japan on the eastern flank of China was long overdue and the rebuff over Okinawa was a sign that Japan had to fall back in line.
While the speculation over the shift of the global centre of gravity from the Atlantic to the Pacific goes on, the Atlantic powers — the U.S. and NATO militarily and the U.S. and the EU economically — are not ready to abdicate their role in global affairs. The logical — and inexpensive — way to continue to exert influence in the Pacific and the Indian Oceans is through allies justifying their selection as a natural alliance among “democracies” with a common allegiance to human rights, anti-terrorism and nuclear non-proliferation (giving the Obama slogan of “a nuclear weapon free world” a rest).
The side benefits are to break Non-aligned and G77 solidarity in the UN and other forums like the World Trade Organization’s Doha Round of negotiations and the upcoming Climate Change talks in Cancun isolating China at the same time. Possible irritants in the newly forged U.S.-EU-Japan-India axis will continue to be India’s stance regarding Iran’s nuclear programme, China’s human rights record and Myanmar or Burma’s military junta. The adroit management of this will be a small price to pay rather than giving the Republicans the satisfaction of shredding Obama’s foreign policy as they have done with his domestic policies.
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New Think and Old Weapons
Every four years the White House issues a “nuclear posture review.” That may sound like an anachronism. It isn’t. In a world where the United States and Russia still have more than 20,000 nuclear weapons — and Iran, North Korea and others have seemingly unquenchable nuclear appetites — what the United States says about its arsenal matters enormously.
President Obama’s review was due to Congress in December. That has been delayed, in part because of administration infighting. The president needs to get this right. It is his chance to finally jettison cold war doctrine and bolster America’s credibility as it presses to rein in Iran, North Korea and other proliferators.
Mr. Obama has already committed rhetorically to the vision of a world without nuclear weapons. But we are concerned that some of his advisers, especially at the Pentagon, are resisting his bold ambitions. He needs to stick with the ideas he articulated in his campaign and in speeches last year in Prague and at the United Nations.
These are some of the important questions the posture review must address:
THEIR PURPOSE: Current doctrine gives nuclear weapons a “critical role” in defending the United States and its allies. And it suggests they could be used against foes wielding chemical, biological or even conventional forces — not just nuclear arms. Mr. Obama’s aides have proposed changing that to say that the “primary” purpose of nuclear weapons is to deter a nuclear attack against the United States or its allies. This still invites questions about whether Washington values — and might use — nuclear forces against non-nuclear targets.
Given America’s vast conventional military superiority, broader uses are neither realistic nor necessary. Any ambiguity undercuts Washington’s credibility when it argues that other countries have no strategic reason to develop their own nuclear arms. The sole purpose of American nuclear forces should be to deter a nuclear attack against this country or its allies.
HOW MANY: President George W. Bush disdained arms control as old think, and Washington and Moscow have not signed an arms reduction treaty since 2002. Mr. Obama launched negotiations on a new agreement that would slash the number of warheads each side has deployed from 2,200 to between 1,500 and 1,675. The talks are dragging on, but there is hope for an agreement soon. Both sides should go deeper.
The review should make clear that the United States is ready to move, as a next step, down to 1,000 deployed warheads — military experts say half that number is enough to wipe out the assets of Russia, which is no longer an enemy. China, the only major nuclear power adding to its arsenal, is estimated to have 100 to 200 warheads. The treaty being negotiated says nothing about the nearly 15,000 warheads, in total, that the United States and Russia keep as backups — the so-called hedge. And it says nothing about America’s 500 short-range nuclear weapons, which are considered secure, or Russia’s 3,000 or more, which are chillingly vulnerable to theft.
The review should make clear that there is no need for a huge hedge, and that tactical weapons have an utter lack of strategic value — as a prelude to reducing both. Certainly no general we know of could imagine exploding a warhead on a battlefield. Today’s greatest nuclear danger is that terrorists will steal or build a weapon. That is best countered by halting proliferation and securing and reducing stockpiles and other material.
NEW WEAPONS: The United States built its last new warhead in 1989. So when aides to President George W. Bush called for building new weapons, with new designs and new capabilities, it opened this country to charges of hypocrisy and double standards when it demanded that North Korea and Iran end their nuclear programs.
Mr. Obama has said that this country does not need new weapons. But we are concerned the review will open the door to just that by directing the labs to study options — including a new weapons design — for maintaining the arsenal. The government has a strong and hugely expensive system for ensuring that the stockpile is safe and reliable. Mr. Obama has already vastly increased the labs’ budgets. The review should make clear that there is no need for a new weapon.
ALERT LEVELS: The United States and Russia each still have about 1,000 weapons ready to fire at a moment’s notice. Mr. Obama has rightly described this as a dangerous cold war relic. The review should commit to taking as many of those forces off hair-trigger alert as possible — and encourage Russia to do the same.
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In April, Mr. Obama will host a much needed summit meeting on the need to better secure nuclear material from terrorists. In May, Washington will encourage a United Nations-led conference to strengthen the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the bedrock, and battered, agreement for curbing the spread of nuclear arms.
President Obama will also have to persuade the Senate to ratify the Start follow-on treaty, and we hope he will quickly press the Senate to approve the test ban treaty. He is also working with allies to revive nuclear talks with North Korea and to impose tougher sanctions on Iran. Getting the nuclear posture review right is essential for moving all of this ahead.
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Much Ado about Something: North Korea’s Missile Tests
North Korea’s missile tests triggered condemnations from capitals worldwide and may soon be taken up by the UN Security Council. But do these launches really represent an escalation of North Korea’s threat to global security? The answer is both yes and no.
First the facts. The launch of the long-range Taepodong missile had been anticipated for weeks; the United States and Japan had already threatened dire consequences if North Korea followed through. While its estimated range includes Alaska, the rocket had never been tested, and Tuesday’s failure early in its flight offers no evidence it’s ready for prime time. The 1998 test of an earlier Taepodong version was more successful, overflying Japan before failing in its third stage. North Korea has successfully developed and deployed the shorter-range Nodong (Rodong) missile, several of which were also launched on Tuesday. But the accuracy and reliability of these missiles is mediocre.
North Korea almost certainly has enough fissile material for six to ten nuclear weapons and has probably fashioned at least one explosive device. The 1994 agreement with the United States freezing North Korea’s nuclear program (the “Agreed Framework”) collapsed at the end of 2002, freeing North Korea to expand these capabilities. But North Korea is not known to have conducted a nuclear test and is not likely to have yet fashioned a nuclear warhead small, light and durable enough to ride any of its missiles.
In short, a credible North Korean nuclear threat to North America is a long way off. Vancouver is safe. So why all the fuss?
First, if left unchecked, North Korea is on course to develop these capabilities eventually. While this prospect may be at least a decade away, uncertainty over North Korea’s technological prowess shortens the “worst-case” time estimates.
Second, North Korea’s missiles can now reach Japan, a core Western ally; and North Korea continues to sustain considerable conventional capabilities, including thousands of artillery tubes at the demilitarized zone that could devastate Seoul, South Korea’s capital. North Korea has little rational reason to unleash these forces offensively; but their existence is threatening nonetheless.
Most importantly, though, the missile tests are a demonstration of Pyongyang’s sustained will and current mood. While the North Korean regime does not respond predictably to either confrontation or overtures, its one consistent behavior over the past fifteen years has been to act provocatively whenever engagement is stalled and US interests are focused elsewhere. Such has been the circumstance this spring.
Pyongyang’s diplomatic brinkmanship has born fruit in the past. The 1998 missile test deepened short-term tensions but got Washington’s attention: resuscitated engagement led to North Korea’s 1999 unilateral moratorium on missile tests, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s visit to Pyongyang in 2000, and negotiations (not concluded) to eliminate North Korea’s missile program entirely. In 2002-3, with such engagement shunned by the more hostile Bush Administration, Pyongyang exercised a more aggressive brinkmanship, breaking out of the nuclear freeze agreement just as Washington was gearing up for war with Iraq, thereby maximizing prospects for minimal US response. The Bush Administration blinked, and North Korea’s nuclear capabilities have been expanding since.
Similar conditions prevail now. A renewed engagement effort in 2005 through the so-called “Six-Party Talks” led to a statement of agreed principles in September, but when that consensus proved fleeting the Bush administration retreated to a posture of slow siege, applying economic and political pressure where it could (such as on counterfeiting operations) but resisting direct engagement. Meanwhile, the Pyongyang regime has undoubtedly noticed how Iran, skillfully following North Korea’s own playbook, has parlayed a far less advanced nuclear program into increasing attention and sweetened offers – now including the prospect of light-water reactors similar to those promised to North Korea under the Agreed Framework but terminated when that deal collapsed. A new provocation from Pyongyang was almost inevitable.
What’s the best response? North Korea’s frantic gesticulations do demand attention – ignoring them would simply encourage Pyongyang to escalate down the road. The question is not how seriously to take the missile tests, but rather how to take them seriously. Knee-jerk counter-threats and aggressive posturing hardly answer the need. Indeed, the compounding failure of the recent policies of the United States and its allies must be a principal focal point.
Many Bush officials came to power highly critical of their predecessors’ 1994 deal with North Korea, convinced it was giving up too much for too little, and were at best ambivalent to that deal’s subsequent collapse. But they have now presided over North Korea withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), expelling International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) monitoring, recommencing nuclear fuel reprocessing, declaring itself to be nuclear armed, and breaching its moratorium on missile tests – in effect giving up much more for much less.
The call by ex-Clinton defense officials Ashton Carter and William Perry for a pre-emptive US attack on the Taepodong expressed a frustration with the ineffectualness of current US policy as much as with North Korea itself. This restiveness is increasingly shared by knowledgeable Republicans in both houses of the US Congress, some of whom have renounced the Bush Administration’s refusal to meet North Korea directly. But what would a fresh approach entail?
A first step is to recognize clearly that the collapse of the 1994 nuclear freeze agreement allowed North Korea to cross key thresholds in its ambitions: what had been a national proliferation problem has metastasized into a regional security problem with important economic, energy and social dimensions. Previously, solving the North Korean nuclear issue has been seen as a way to catalyze greater East Asian regional security cooperation; now, such cooperation is a prerequisite. Abating North Korea’s nuclear ambitions requires, more than ever, grappling with the “hermit kingdom’s” long-term regional role.
From a human security perspective, this also means facing honestly the difficult dilemmas posed by the poverty and oppression millions endure just because they happen to live on the northern portion of the Korean Peninsula. Neither human rights resolutions nor unqualified food aid are long-term answers – the human security imperative compels a comprehensive solution.
An immediate need is for the United States and China to find an enduring common ground. And, indeed, the missile tests may make China more amenable to US calls for more coercive pressures. Decision-makers in Beijing are no doubt frustrated and angry, not least because Tuesday’s launches (as in 1998) will bolster support for US-Japan missile defense cooperation many Chinese regard as really aimed at them. The tests were also a slap in the face, coming on the heels of the announcement that China and North Korea would soon exchange top-level visits.
But US and Chinese concerns in Korea are far from convergent; in particular, Beijing won’t support actions aimed at “regime change” in Pyongyang. In Washington, though, the missile tests are likely to reinforce hardline positions that view regime change – through either pressure or patience – as a necessary prerequisite to a final solution. Many of this persuasion are also most vocal in concerns over a “rising China.” Hence, the further ascendance of this approach will tend to push China farther from, rather than closer to, US positions on North Korea, neutralizing the effect of the missile tests themselves. Less directly involved states, such as Canada, can play important roles to smooth these frictions in US-China coordination.
Another pressing need is to find a way to sustain meaningful engagement between North Korea and the United States even when public diplomacy is stymied. When circumstances prevent engagement through the front door, it should be pursued around the back. Canada, with both diplomatic ties to Pyongyang and a trusted voice in Washington, is uniquely situated to facilitate such private contacts.
What is not needed are more grandiose overstatements of the threat North Korea currently poses or more chest-pounding warnings of further dire consequences to follow. That’s North Korea’s game. It’s time to change the rules.
Wade L. Huntley, Ph.D. is Director of the Simons Centre for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Research at the Liu Institute for Global Issues, University of British Columbia.
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An Open Letter to Vladimir Putin – Why?
The Russian agreement to the U.S.-initiated agreement to cut their strategic nuclear forces by two-thirds is astounding, given that this is playing directly into U.S. plans for global supremacy. For one thing, the U.S. is not going to actually destroy but only shelve the above cuts, at any time able to retrieve them from storage. The Russian nuclear military regime, on the other hand, is in shambles. Retrieval for them will be more difficult. At the same time, the Russians are actually requesting U.S. assistance to rationalize their nuclear regime, providing the U.S. with important intelligence data, such as the stored missile site.
But even worse, the basic motive of the U.S. in initiating these strategic missile cuts is to improve the effectiveness of their anti- ballistic missile defences, radically reducing the number of targets comprising a Russian attack on the U.S. Given the U.S. basic counterforce strategy, we are moving into a time when mutual assured destruction between the two major nuclear powers is becoming an American monopoly, altering the mutual to the unilateral. Do the Russians really believe that the land-based missile defences being constructed in Alaska and the new Northern Command are directed to an attack by Iraq?
The only possible rationale for the Russian position is that they are confident they can develop a variety of penetrating aids for their strategic missiles which will distract, confuse and overcome U.S. missile defences. We would then be entering a new dynamic of the nuclear arms race between anti-missiles and anti anti-missiles. Given the disarray of the Russian nuclear regime and their general economic problems, the latter may be a vain hope.
Thus we are left to conclude that the Russian position is inexplicable. They had the opportunity to tie strategic missile reductions in exchange for the U.S. to uphold the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. Could it just have been the mighty U.S. dollar that denied them this option? For example, we know they desperately require assistance to clean up their vast nuclear reserves consisting of huge amounts of radioactive waste, large numbers of tactical weapons and stockpiles of weapons grade nuclear materials comprising an open invitation for accidents or acts of malice of one kind or another. Also we are witnessing an increasing U.S. presence in the former Soviet republics that surround Russia, at some future time representing a direct threat. And finally, we cannot understand Russia’s lack of response at being identified as one of the seven enemy states to be targeted with nuclear weapons in the U.S. 2002 Nuclear Posture Review, let alone the existing U.S. Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP), a nuclear hit list against Russian targets of value. And surely they are aware of the U.S. first disarming strike policy.
Putin can still recoup a major diplomatic victory by supporting the forthcoming Space Preservation Treaty. Both Russia and China have expressed their opposition to the U.S. abrogation of the Anti- Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty of 1972. Together Canada, Russia and China could have a very positive impact on the success of the Treaty. The Space Preservation Treaty, initiated by Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), is being circulated to every nation state leader. It can be immediately signed and sent to the U.N. Secretary General’s office as Treaty Depositary, and ratified quickly.
The Space Preservation Treaty is an international companion to legislation introduced by Kucinich in the U.S. House of Representatives, H.R. 3616, the Space Preservation Act of 2002, in January, 2002. Both the Treaty and the bill ban all space-based weapons and the use of weapons designed to destroy any object in space that is in orbit. It also immediately terminates research, development, testing, manufacturing, and deployment of all space- based weapons, but does not prohibit space exploration, R&D, testing, production, manufacturing and deployment of any civil, commercial or defense activities in space that are not related to space-based weapons, thus reserving space for the benefit of all living things on our small planet. This Treaty will also be verifiable. It requires that an outer space peacekeeping agency be established to monitor and enforce the ban.
The momentum of getting this Treaty supported and passed into law has begun, and this ban on space-based weapons can become reality in 2002. This world treaty will fill the legal void left by the abrogation of the ABM Treaty. It will replace the ABM Treaty. With the support of Canada, Russia and China a large majority of members of the United Nations would likely sign on to the Treaty, as most nation-state leaders have already expressed support for preserving space for weapons-free peaceful, cooperative purposes. The European Union (with the exception of Britain) are likely signatories. isolating the United States and exposing its unilateralism and contempt for the rest of the world is, in itself, a lofty goal. A possible change in the balance of power in the U.S. Congress at the end of 2002 and a strong contender for a president in 2004 devoted to strength through peace rather than the reverse, who could establish this Treaty as Universal Law and save the world from an inevitable nuclear catastrophe.
In conclusion, the Space Preservation Treaty is one of the most important initiatives of our time! It is truly worthy of our support. Let us all begin by moving Canada to be an early signatory.
For detailed information on the Space Preservation Treaty, contact the Institute for Cooperation in Space (ICIS) at www.peaceinspace.com, c/o Dr. Carol Rosin : e-mail: rosin@west.net or call 805-641-1999 (in the U.S.) or Alfred Webre JD MEd at info@peaceinspace.com or call 604-733-8134 (in Canada).
*F.H. Knelman received his doctorate in Engineering at the Imperial College of Science, University of London, U.K. He has enjoyed a long teaching career, having taught Liberal Studies of Science, York University, 1962-1967 and Director and Full Professor of Science & Human Affairs, Concordia University, 1967-1987. Dr. Knelman also taught Peace Studies at the Grindstone Island Peace School, Santa Barbara College, Langara College and Simon Fraser University. As well, he taught Environmental Studies at UC Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz and the University of Victoria. He is the author of over 500 articles, papers and studies on the subjects of common security, environment, energy and the social relations of science and technology, as well as many technical papers and numerous keynote addresses.Among his books are 1984 and All That, Wadsworth Publishing; Nuclear Energy: The Unforgiving Technology, Hurtig Publishers (1975); Anti-Nation: Transition to Sustainability, Mosaic Press (1979); Reagan, God and the Bomb, Prometheus Books (1985); America, God and the Bomb: The Legacy of Ronald Reagan, New Star Books (1987) and Every Life is a Story: The Social Relations of Science, Peace and Ecology, Black Rose Books (1999).
He is the recipient of many awards, among which are the World Wildlife Fund Prize, 1967, the World Federalists Peace Essay Prize (1970), the White Owl Conservation Prize (1972 – as Canada’s outstanding environmentalist), the Ben Gurion University Medal of Merit, 1983, the United Nations Association Special Achievement Award (Montreal) and a special award for meritorious service to the cause of common security by the Canadian Peace Research and Education Association in 1987. Dr. Knelman was awarded the Queen’s 1992 Commemorative Medal and, in 1994 the World Federalists of Canada “World Peace Prize.” In 1996 he was awarded the Environmental Lifetime Achievement Award by The Skies Above Foundation. He is also a lifetime member of the 500 Club of Rome.
Professor Knelman has a long history of involvement in environmental issues, spanning some forty years. He is associated with the founding of the earliest environmental Non-Government Organizations (ENGOs) in Canada, as well as being the founder of Scientists for Social Responsibility, Canada’s first scientific group concerned with environmental issues (1964). He is currently Vice- President and Founding Director of the Whistler Foundation for a Sustainable Environment. Dr. Knelman was attached to the Science Council of Canada on a major energy conservation study (Background Study #33). He is on the Advisory Board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation in Santa Barbara, CA and past Editor of The Health Guardian, a Journal of Alternative Medicine.
Dr. Knelman has conducted extensive research in energy/environment policy. He has been the keynote speaker at some twenty-five national and international conferences on these themes. In 1981 he was the special adviser on energy/environment to the State of California and an early consultant to the Federal Department of Environment, Ottawa, in the 1970’s. He was one of forty scientists in the world invited to a parallel conference at the U.N. Conference on the Human Environment, Stockholm, 1972. He co-authored a Nobel Prize Winner Declaration submitted to the 1992 U.N. Conference on Environment and Development in Rio.
Dr. Knelman is a founding member of the Canadian Peace and Education Association and writes a regular monthly column, “Our Nuclear Age” for the Vancouver-based journal “Outlook” and is a frequent contributor to several other journals.
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U.S. Missile Defense Compromises Global Security
BEIJING- Every state has the right to security and each government has the obligation to protect its nationals. But how to exercise this right and acquire security in its real sense is a question worth serious deliberation.
As globalization progresses, countries are becoming increasingly interdependent. This is as true in the security area as it is economically.
Security is mutual and indivisible. No country can exist in isolation, nor can it resolve all the security issues it faces single-handedly. True security is based on global security and on the extensivecooperation of the international community.
A military edge cannot guarantee security. Unilateralism will only lead to greater insecurity.
The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and missiles is a complex problem that can be tackled only through global cooperation. Setting up a national missile defense system would not contribute to solving this problem, but only further aggravate it.
Since the end of the Cold War, the international community has made considerable progress in nonproliferation. It is therefore neither wise nor advisable to build a so-called missile defense system, whose effect is questionable, at the expense of the international arms control and nonproliferation system after so many years’ efforts, including those of the United States.
Some people describe the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty as part of the “Cold War mentality” and hold that it should be discarded. This view is neither fair nor just. Like all the other arms control treaties, the ABM treaty reflects the interdependent relationship among contracting parties in security matters. This relationship did not disappear with the end of the Cold War, but rather is becoming even stronger in the era of globalization. The ABM treaty is effective. It is not outdated.
Just as the ABM Treaty cannot be viewed in isolation, neither can a U.S. missile defense program. Offense and defense are always indivisible. Enhanced defensive capabilities, to a large degree, mean improved offensive capabilities as well.
This is particularly true for the United States, the only superpower. The United States possesses the biggest nuclear arsenal and the most sophisticated conventional weapons in the world, and it pursues a deterrence policy based on first use of nuclear weapons. A missile defense will severely impede the nuclear disarmament process and render any U.S. initiative on the reduction of offensive nuclear weapons meaningless.
People cannot but ask what on earth is the real intention behind U.S. insistence on developing a missile defense system in defiance of the international community. Is it really to defend against the missile threat from the few so-called “problem states,” or for greater military advantage over other big countries?
Recently there has been relaxation of tensions in the Asia-Pacific region. All parties should cherish this hard-won state of affairs and create conditions for continued relaxation. Theater missile defense would only add complex and confrontational factors to the detriment of regional stability.
Some in the United States clamorously advocate incorporating Taiwan into the U.S. theater missile defense system or providing anti-missile weapons or technologies to Taiwan. This is a most dangerous tendency. If the United States chose to do so, it would put Taiwan under the American umbrella of military protection and restore, de facto, the U.S.-Taiwan military alliance. It would surely inflate the arrogance of the forces for Taiwan’s independence, jeopardize stability in the Taiwan Straits, endanger the peaceful reunification of China and lead to serious regression in China-U.S. relations.
China has no intention of threatening U.S. security, nor does it seek such capabilities. China has always exercised great restraint in the development of nuclear arms. China has always pursued a policy of no first use, and keeps a small but effective nuclear force only for the purpose of containing other countries’ possible nuclear attacks. This policy will remain unchanged.
China and the United States shoulder common responsibility for maintaining world peace and security. A cooperative and constructive relationship between China and the United States will have a crucial impact on world stability.
China and the United States have long engaged in fruitful cooperation over nonproliferation. China is ready to continue on this path. But we also look forward to serious and pragmatic dialogue with the Bush administration on missile defense and related issues.
*Tang Jiaxuan is the Foreign Minister of China. He contributed this comment to the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, Friday, March 30, 2001