Tag: nonproliferation

Doomed to Fail

North Korea ‘s dramatic public revelation that it possesses nuclear weapons represents a stark challenge for the Bush administration.

The North Korean claim, if true, underscores the failure of President Bush’s nonproliferation policies that since the beginning of his first term had been subordinated to a grander vision of regime change. That policy was intended to transform strategically vital regions of the world into Western-style democracies supportive of the United States and the Bush administration’s vision of American global dominance.

The intermingling of nonproliferation and regime change policies was doomed to fail. One requires skillful multilateral diplomacy based on the principles of uniform application of international law, the other bold application of a unilateral doctrine of aggressive liberation rhetoric backed by the real threat of military power. When blended, as the Bush administration did, unilateralism trumps multilateralism every time. North Korea’s announced accession to the nuclear club represents the inevitable result.

The end of America’s meaningful role as a promoter of global nonproliferation can be traced to decisions made in the 1990s regarding regime change in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. The United Nations had embarked on a bold effort to roll back the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction through disarmament and, despite some initial difficulties, scored a dramatic success.

It is now clear that Iraq, under pressure from U.N. weapons inspectors, was disarmed of its WMD by 1991 and had dismantled and destroyed the last vestiges of its weapons programs by 1996. But the United States had, since 1991, committed to a policy of regime change in Iraq, which required economic sanctions-based containment linked to a continued finding of Iraqi noncompliance with its disarmament obligation.

Rather than embracing weapons inspections, three successive U.S. administrations denigrated and subverted the work of the inspectors in order to keep the primary policy objective of regime change in Iraq on track. The nail in the coffin of U.S. nonproliferation efforts came when the Bush administration willfully misstated the extent of the Iraqi WMD programs in order to justify its invasion of Iraq.

North Korea and Iran concluded from events leading to the U.S. invasion of Iraq that the Bush administration did not regard nonproliferation as an endgame but a tool designed to weaken a target state to the point that it could succumb to the grander U.S. policy objective of regime change.

Mr. Bush had stated that the world would be a better place with the regimes in Pyongyang and Tehran removed. Therefore, all diplomatic efforts – whether the six-party framework with North Korea or the European Union-brokered negotiations with Iran – were regarded as disingenuous fronts intended not to facilitate nonproliferation and stability but rather instability and regime change.

With Iraq a model of the reality of America’s unilateral militaristic approach toward bringing about regime change, North Korea and Iran have embarked on the only path available to either of them – acquisition of an independent nuclear deterrent intended to forestall what they perceive as irresponsible U.S. aggression.

The Bush administration has come face to face with the reality of the failure of its policies. Rather than curtailing the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the administration’s crusade against global tyranny has served as an accelerant in placing the most dangerous weapons known to man in the hands of xenophobic regimes that have been backed into a corner.

But the situation in North Korea and Iran could still be resolved in a way that promotes global nonproliferation objectives.

Real and meaningful economic incentives, backed by U.S. and allied willingness to permit North Korea and Iran to possess civilian nuclear programs operated under stringent international monitoring, could succeed in rolling back North Korea’s possession of nuclear weapons and provide incentive for Iran to cease and desist in its own program.

But the key to any such salvation lies with the willingness of the Bush administration to unlink nonproliferation efforts from regime change. This is highly unlikely, given the reality of the ideological composition of those at the senior decision-making levels of the Bush national security team and the huge political investment Mr. Bush has made in support of his global crusade against tyranny.

“Freedom is on the march,” Mr. Bush has said. Unfortunately for the United States, North Korea and Iran don’t see it that way. And if America keeps marching, it could very well be in the direction of a nuclear apocalypse.

Scott Ritter, a former intelligence officer and U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq, is author of the forthcoming Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of America’s Intelligence Conspiracy.

© 2005 Baltimore Sun

February 22, 2005
Us Redesigning Atomic Weapons

Worried that the nation’s aging nuclear arsenal is increasingly fragile, American scientists have begun designing a new generation of nuclear arms meant to be sturdier and more reliable and to have longer lives, federal officials and private experts say.

The officials say the program could help shrink the arsenal and the high cost of its maintenance. But critics say it could needlessly resuscitate the complex of factories and laboratories that make nuclear weapons and could possibly ignite a new arms race.

So far, the quiet effort involves only $9 million for warhead designers at the nation’s three nuclear weapon laboratories, Los Alamos, Livermore and Sandia. Federal bomb experts at these heavily guarded facilities are now scrutinizing secret arms data gathered over a half century for clues about how to achieve the new reliability goals.

The relatively small initial program, involving fewer than 100 people, is expected to grow and produce finished designs in the next 5 to 10 years, culminating, if approval is sought and won, in prototype warheads. Most important, officials say, the effort marks a fundamental shift in design philosophy.

For decades, the bomb makers sought to use the latest technologies and most innovative methods. The resulting warheads were lightweight, very powerful and in some cases so small that a dozen could fit atop a slender missile. The American style was distinctive. Most other nuclear powers, years behind the atomic curve and often lacking top skills and materials, settled for less. Their nuclear arms tended to be ponderous if dependable, more like Chevys than racecars.

Now, American designers are studying how to reverse course and make arms that are more robust, in some ways emulating their rivals in an effort to avoid the uncertainties and deteriorations of nuclear old age. Federal experts worry that critical parts of the arsenal, if ever needed, may fail.

Originally, the roughly 10,000 warheads in the American arsenal had an expected lifetime of about 15 years, officials say. The average age is now about 20 years, and some are much older. Experts say a costly federal program to assess and maintain their health cannot ultimately confirm their reliability because a global test ban forbids underground test detonations.

In late November, Congress approved a small, largely unnoticed budget item that started the new design effort, known as the Reliable Replacement Warhead program. Federal officials say the designs could eventually help recast the nuclear arsenal with warheads that are more rugged and have much longer lifetimes.

“It’s important,” said John R. Harvey, director of policy planning at the National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the arsenal. In an interview, he said the goal of the new program was to create arms that are not only “inherently reliable” but also easier to make and certify as potent.

“Our labs have been thinking about this problem off and on for 20 years,” Dr. Harvey said. “The goal is to see if we can make smarter, cheaper and more easily manufactured designs that we can readily certify as safe and reliable for the indefinite future – and do so without nuclear testing.”

Representative David L. Hobson, an Ohio Republican and chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, praised the program in a speech on Thursday and said it could lead to an opportunity for drastic cuts in the nation’s nuclear arsenal.

“A more robust replacement warhead, from a reliability standpoint,” Mr. Hobson said, “will provide a hedge that is currently provided by retaining thousands of unnecessary warheads.”

But arms control advocates said the program was probably unneeded and dangerous. They said that it could start a new arms race if it revived underground testing and that its invigoration of the nuclear complex might aid the design of warheads with new military capabilities, possibly making them more tempting to use in a war.

“The existing stockpile is safe and reliable by all standards,” Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association in Washington, said in an interview. “So to design a new warhead that is even more robust is a redundant activity that could be a pretext for designing a weapon that has a new military mission.”

The reliability issue goes back to the earliest days of the nuclear era. At first, the bombs were huge and trustworthy. The first one, dropped in 1945, weighed five tons. The first deliverable hydrogen bomb, which made its debut in 1954, weighed four times as much and had hundreds of times the destructive power. It measured nearly 25 feet long from nose to tailfins.

Over the decades, American designers worked hard to trim the dimensions.

Small size was prized for many reasons. It meant that warheads could fit into cramped, narrow missile nose cones, which streaked to earth faster than blunter shapes and were less buffeted by winds during the fiery plunge, making them more accurate. It also meant that ships, bombers and submarines could carry more nuclear arms.

By the 1970’s, warheads for missiles weighed a few hundred pounds and packed the power of dozens of Hiroshima-sized bombs. The arms continued to shrink and grow more powerful. The last one for the nation’s arsenal was built around 1990.

Designers had few doubts about reliability because they frequently exploded arms in Nevada at an underground test site. But in 1992, after the cold war, the United States joined a global moratorium on nuclear tests, ending such reassurances.

In response, the federal government switched from developing nuclear arms to maintaining them. It had its designers work on computer simulations and other advanced techniques to check potency and understand flaws that might arise.

The cost of the nuclear program began at $4 billion a year. It is now more than $6 billion and includes a growing number of efforts to refurbish and extend the life of aging warheads.

By the late 1990’s, top officials and experts began to openly question whether such maintenance could continue to stave off deterioration and ensure the arsenal’s reliability. As a solution, some called for a new generation of sturdier designs.

The new program involves fewer than 100 full- and part-time designers and other experts and support staff, said Dr. Harvey, of the National Nuclear Security Administration.

“There’s not a lot of hardware,” he added. “It’s mostly concept and feasibility studies that don’t require much fieldwork.”

Dr. Harvey emphasized that the effort centered on research and not arms production. But he said the culminating stages of the program would include “the full-scale engineering development” of new prototype warheads. Both Congress and a future administration would have to approve the costly, advanced work, and an official said no decision had been made to seek such approval.

The current goal of the program, Dr. Harvey said, is to “relax some of the design constraints imposed on the cold war systems.” He added that a possible area of investigation was using more uranium than plutonium, a finicky metal that is chemically reactive.

He said the new designs would also stress easier manufacturing techniques and avoid hazardous and hard-to-find materials.

“Our goal is to carry out this program without the need for nuclear testing,” Dr. Harvey said. “But there’s no guarantees in this business, and I can’t prove to you that I can do that right now.” Another official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the topic is politically delicate, said that such testing would come only as a last resort and that the Bush administration’s policy was to maintain the moratorium.

The program, Dr. Harvey said, should produce a wide variety of designs. The Defense Department, which is participating in the effort, will help decide which weapons will be replaced, he said.

“What we’re looking at now is a long-term vision,” Dr. Harvey said. “We’re tying to flesh this out and understand the path we need to be on, and to work with Congress to get a consensus.”

Some critics say checking the reliability of the new designs is likely to require underground testing, violating the ban and inviting other nations to do the same, thereby endangering American security.

Dr. P. Leonardo Mascheroni, a former Los Alamos scientist who is critical of the new program, said that it would require not only testing but also changes in delivery systems costing “trillions of dollars” because of its large, heavy warheads. Federal officials deny both assertions, saying the goal is to have new designs fit existing bombers and missiles.

Dr. Mascheroni has proposed that federal designers make lighter, robust warheads and confirm their reliability with an innovative system of tiny nuclear blasts. That would still require a revision of the test ban treaty, he said in an interview, but it would save a great deal of money and avoid the political firestorm that would probably accompany any effort to resume full-scale testing.

Robert S. Norris, a senior nuclear expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a private group in Washington that advocates arms control and monitors nuclear trends, said too little was known publicly about the initiative to adequately weigh its risks and benefits, and that for now it raised more questions than it answered.

“These are big decisions,” Mr. Norris said. “They could backfire and come back to haunt us.”

Originally published by the New York Times

February 7, 2005
On the Future of the Non-Proliferation Treaty
FIRST, I WOULD LIKE TO EXPRESS MY PERSONAL GRATITUDE FOR THIS MIDDLE POWERS INITIATIVE TO PROTECT, OR REVIVE, THE NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY, WHICH IS DEEPLY WOUNDED AND WHOSE VERY LIFE IS THREATENED.

FIVE YEARS AGO I MADE A SIMILAR SPEECH AT A SIMILAR MEETING IN THIS SAME PLACE, IN ADVANCE OF THE 2000 ROUND OF NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY DISCUSSIONS AT THE UNITED NATIONS. LATER, WITH YOUR HELP, I PREPARED AN EDITORIAL IN THE WASHINGTON POST OUTLINING THE PROBLEMS RELATING TO IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY.

I READ THEM BOTH LAST NIGHT, AND IT IS DISTURBINGLY OBVIOUS THAT THERE HAS BEEN NO IMPROVEMENT OVER THE SITUATION AS IT WAS DESCRIBED IN OUR PREVIOUS MEETING. IN FACT, PROLIFERATION AND THE BEHAVIOR OF THE NUCLEAR WEAPON STATES WITH REGARD TO DISARMAMENT HAVE WORSENED OVER THE PAST FIVE YEARS.

I AM WILLING TO PREPARE ANOTHER EDITORIAL IF YOU THINK IT HELPFUL, AND WILL SAVE MY NOTES FOR POSSIBLE REPETITION IN 2010. HOPEFULLY, THERE WON’T BE A GLOBAL CATASTROPHE BEFORE THEN.

A RECENT UNITED NATIONS REPORT STARKLY WARNED: “WE ARE APPROACHING A POINT AT WHICH THE EROSION OF THE NON-PROLIFERATION REGIME COULD BECOME IRREVERSIBLE AND RESULT IN A CASCADE OF PROLIFERATION.”

PROSPECTS FOR THIS YEAR’S DISCUSSIONS ARE NOT ENCOURAGING. I HAVE HEARD THAT THE PREPCOMM FOR THE FORTHCOMING NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY TALKS HAVE SO FAR FAILED EVEN TO ACHIEVE AN AGENDA BECAUSE OF THE DEEP DIVISIONS BETWEEN THE NUCLEAR POWERS WHO SEEK TO STOP PROLIFERATION WITHOUT MEETING THEIR OWN DISARMAMENT COMMITMENTS, AND THE NON-ALIGNED MOVEMENT, WHOSE DEMANDS INCLUDE FIRM DISARMAMENT COMMITMENTS AND CONSIDERATION OF THE ISRAELI ARSENAL.

THE MIDDLE POWERS INITIATIVE APPROACH REMAINS AN EFFORT TO BUILD A BRIDGE BETWEEN THE NEW AGENDA COALITION COUNTRIES ( BRAZIL, EGYPT, IRELAND, MEXICO, NEW ZEALAND, SOUTH AFRICA AND SWEDEN) AND THE EIGHT NATO STATES THAT VOTED LAST YEAR FOR A NEW AGENDA RESOLUTION CALLING FOR IMPLEMENTING COMMITMENTS ALREADY MADE TO THE NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY. TRAGICALLY, BRITAIN, FRANCE AND THE UNITED STATES ALL VOTED AGAINST THIS RESOLUTION.

OUR COMMON GOAL IS SIMPLY STATED: “TO EXERT LEVERAGE ON THE NUCLEAR POWERS TO TAKE MINIMUM STEPS TO SAVE THE NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY IN 2005.” PROSPECTS FOR SUCCESS ARE NOT GOOD, BECAUSE OF THE DIRE STATE OF LONG-STANDING TEDIOUSLY NEGOTIATED INTERNATIONAL ARMS CONTROL AGREEMENTS AND THE PRESENT INDIFFERENCE AMONG NUCLEAR WEAPONS STATES TO THEIR DECLINE OR DEMISE.

ALL OF US AMERICAN PRESIDENTS, FROM EISENHOWER TO GEORGE BUSH, SR., WERE AVIDLY SEEKING TO RESTRICT AND REDUCE NUCLEAR ARSENALS – SOME MORE THAN OTHERS. THIS WAS ONE OF MY HIGHEST PRIORITIES. SO FAR AS I KNOW, THERE ARE NO SINCERE EFFORTS UNDERWAY BY ANY OF THE NUCLEAR POWERS TO ACCOMPLISH THESE CRUCIAL GOALS.

THE MOSCOW TREATY WORKED OUT BETWEEN THE U.S. AND RUSSIA IN 2002 DID NOT MANDATE ANY MEANS OF VERIFICATION, AND “ARMS CUTS” NO LONGER REPRESENT CONFIRMED DISMANTLEMENT AND DISPOSAL BUT SIMPLE STORAGE, WITH RAPID REDEPLOYMENT UNDERSTOOD TO BE PERMITTED.

THE UNITED STATES CLAIMS TO BE UPHOLDING ARTICLE VI, BUT YET ASSERTS A SECURITY STRATEGY OF TESTING AND DEVELOPING NEW WEAPONS RE STAR WARS AND THE EARTH PENETRATING “BUNKER BUSTER,” AND HAS THREATENED FIRST USE, EVEN AGAINST NON-NUCLEAR STATES, IN CASE OF “SURPRISING MILITARY DEVELOPMENTS” AND “UNEXPECTED CONTINGENCIES.”

SOME CORRECTIVE ACTIONS ARE OBVIOUS:
- THE UNITED STATES NEEDS TO ADDRESS THE ISSUES LEFT UNRESOLVED FROM THE TREATY OF MOSCOW. IT SHOULD DEMAND THE SAME STANDARDS OF TRANSPARENCY, VERIFICATION AND IRREVERSIBILITY OF PAST ARMS CONTROL AGREEMENTS AND PLEDGE TO DISMANTLE AND DISPOSE OF ANY DECOMMISSIONED WEAPONS.
- “NO FIRST USE” HAS NOW SLIPPED OFF THE AGENDA FOR ALL OF THE NUCLEAR WEAPONS STATES. RUSSIA RENOUNCED THIS POLICY IN 1993 AND NATO CONTINUES TO RESERVE THE RIGHT TO DEPLOY NUCLEAR WEAPONS AS A CORNERSTONE OF ITS POLICY. THE COMMITMENTS AGAINST FIRST USE NEED TO BE RE-ADDRESSED AND HOPEFULLY REWRITTEN AS BOTH INDIA AND PAKISTAN HAVE FOLLOWED THE OLDER NUCLEAR POWERS AND RESERVED THE RIGHT TO STRIKE FIRST FOR THEMSELVES. WHILE ALL NUCLEAR WEAPONS STATES SHOULD AGREE TO NON-FIRST USE, AS THE SOLE SUPERPOWER THE UNITED STATES SHOULD TAKE THE LEAD ON SUCH ISSUES.
- THE UNITED STATES NEEDS TO DE-EMPHASIZE THE ROLE OF ITS NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN NATO AND POSSIBLY CONSIDER AN END TO THEIR DEPLOYMENT IN WESTERN EUROPE. DESPITE THE EASTWARD EXPANSION OF THE ORGANIZATION, NATO IS KEEPING THE SAME STOCKPILES AND POLICIES AS IT DID WHEN THE IRON CURTAIN DIVIDED THE CONTINENT, AN ODD STANDARD FOR THE WEST’S NUCLEAR WEAPONS STATES TO BE SETTING.
- BOTH AMERICA AND RUSSIA REMAIN ON HAIR TRIGGER ALERT STATUS. THIS IS A SERIOUS THREAT TO GLOBAL SECURITY AND DRASTICALLY INCREASES THE CHANCES OF AN ACCIDENTAL OR UNPROVOKED LAUNCH. WE MUST REMEMBER THAT A GLOBAL HOLOCAUST IS JUST AS POSSIBLE NOW, THROUGH MISTAKES OR MISJUDGMENTS, AS IT WAS DURING THE DEPTHS OF THE COLD WAR.
- THE UNITED STATES NEEDS TO RETURN TO THE COMPREHENSIVE TEST BAN TREATY, BUT IS UNFORTUNATELY MOVING IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION. THE ADMINISTRATION’S 2005 BUDGET REFERS, FOR THE FIRST TIME, TO A LIST OF TEST SCENARIOS. THIS IS A DANGEROUS PRECEDENT TO SET; CHINA IS HOLDING OFF ON ITS DECISION REGARDING NUCLEAR TESTING FOLLOWING THE US SENATE’S FAILURE TO RATIFY, AND INDIA AND PAKISTAN ARE ALSO WATCHING AND WAITING.
- THE ISSUE OF A FISSILE MATERIALS TREATY TO PREVENT THE CREATION AND TRANSPORT OF HIGHLY ENRICHED URANIUM (HEU) AND PLUTONIUM HAS BECOME INCREASINGLY IMPORTANT. THE UNITED STATES SHOULD ALSO LEAD IN THE CREATION OF SUCH A TREATY WITH FULL VERIFICATION MEASURES.
- THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INFEASIBLE MISSILE DEFENSE SHIELD (STAR WARS) HAS ALREADY WASTED A HUGE AMOUNT OF AMERICAN TAXPAYERS’ MONEY, IN ADDITION TO THE $40 BILLION SPENT ANNUALLY ON THE GENERAL DEVELOPMENT AND DESIGN OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND THEIR DELIVERY SYSTEMS. THIS FAILED EXPERIMENT HAS BROKEN ITS COMMITMENT TO THE ANTI-BALLISTIC MISSILE TREATY WITHOUT REPLACING IT WITH A WORKING SUBSTITUTE.
- AT A MUCH LOWER COST, WE COULD ADDRESS PERHAPS THE WORLD’S GREATEST PROLIFERATION THREAT BY FULLY SECURING RUSSIA’S STOCKPILES.
NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION IS AN INCREASING SOURCE FOR INSTABILITY IN THE MIDDLE EAST. IRAN HAS REPEATEDLY HIDDEN ITS INTENTIONS TO ENRICH URANIUM WHILE CLAIMING THAT ITS NUCLEAR PROGRAM IS FOR PEACEFUL PURPOSES ONLY. THIS EXPLANATION HAS BEEN GIVEN BEFORE, BY INDIA, PAKISTAN, AND NORTH KOREA, AND HAS LED TO WEAPONS PROGRAMS IN ALL THREE STATES. IRAN NEEDS TO BE CALLED TO ACCOUNT AND HELD TO ITS PROMISES UNDER THE NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY.
- THE IRANIAN CASE ALSO REMAINS A PRIMARY EXAMPLE OF THE NEED TO BAN HIGHLY ENRICHED URANIUM FOR ANY PURPOSE. MEANWHILE, ISRAEL’S NUCLEAR WEAPONS STOCKPILE CONTINUES TO EXIST UNACCOUNTED FOR AND ITS REACTOR AT DIMONA IS NOT SUBJECT TO INSPECTION BY THE IAEA BECAUSE ISRAEL HAS NOT SIGNED THE NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY.
WHILE THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY IS JUSTIFIED IN EXERTING STRONG PRESSURE ON IRAN TO COMPLY WITH THE NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY, THERE IS NO PUBLIC EFFORT OR COMMENT IN THE UNITED STATES OR EUROPE CALLING FOR ISRAEL TO COMPLY WITH THE NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY OR SUBMIT TO ANY OTHER RESTRAINTS. AT THE SAME TIME, WE FAIL TO ACKNOWLEDGE WHAT A POWERFUL INCENTIVE THIS IS TO IRAN, SYRIA, EGYPT, AND OTHER STATES TO JOIN THE NUCLEAR COMMUNITY.

THERE IS NO MORE IMPORTANT SUBJECT THAN THE ONE YOU ARE ADDRESSING, AND ILLOGICAL APPROACHES TO RESOLVING THE PROBLEM THREATEN WORLD PEACE. THE TRAGIC AND UNNECESSARY IRAQI INVASION WAS BASED ON FALSE ALLEGATIONS OF SADDAM HUSSEIN HAVING A NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM, AND THE THREAT OF WAR IN KOREA IN 1994 WAS NARROWLY AVERTED AFTER KIM IL SUNG ANNOUNCED THE EXPULSION OF INTERNATIONAL INSPECTORS WITH THE PROSPECT OF REPROCESSING NUCLEAR FUEL. SINCE THEN, THE KOREAN SITUATION HAS DETERIORATED BADLY. MORE RECENTLY, HIGH OFFICIALS HAVE MADE PUBLIC INSINUATIONS OF AMERICAN OR ISRAELI MILITARY INTERVENTIONS IN IRAN.

I USED THE WORDS “ILLOGICAL APPROACHES” BECAUSE THE LAUNCHING OR THREAT OF MILITARY INVASIONS BECOMES NECESSARY ONLY BECAUSE THE FIVE HISTORIC NUCLEAR POWERS, PAKISTAN, INDIA, AND ISRAEL REFUSE TO INITIATE OR RESPECT RESTRAINTS ON THEMSELVES WHILE, AS BRAZIL HAS DESCRIBED IT, “RAISING HERESY CHARGES AGAINST THOSE WHO WANT TO JOIN THE SECT.” THIS IS, INDEED, AN IRRATIONAL APPROACH.

IN CLOSING, LET ME SAY THAT YOUR SUSTAINED, COURAGEOUS, AND SOMETIMES FRUSTRATING EFFORTS ARE OF VITAL IMPORTANCE. WE AT THE CARTER CENTER ARE EAGER TO HELP WITH YOUR WORTHY CAUSE.

Jimmy Carter is former president of the United States. This speech was presented at a meeting of the Middle Powers Initiative, “Atlanta Consultation II: On the Future of the NPT,” held at The Carter Center, January 26-28, 2005.
January 26, 2005
Increasing the Nuclear Threat: A Letter to the Editor of the Washington Post

In his Nov. 16 op-ed piece, “New Threats, Old Weapons,” retired Adm. Robert R. Monroe said that to have a more effective deterrent against rogue states and terrorist groups, we need a new generation of nuclear weapons.

His notion that a leaner nuclear arsenal will deter rogue states and terrorist groups from using nuclear weapons to harm us presumes that we are dealing with reasonable adversaries. Given the tactics that terrorists use, that is a naive assumption.

Further, the Bush administration’s January 2002 Nuclear Posture Review stresses the importance of being prepared to use nuclear weapons in an offensive manner and against a wider range of countries, even those that are not nuclear. In my view, the president’s initiatives to develop additional nuclear weapons are not about deterrence but about adding a tool to our military arsenal.

Adm. Monroe said that we must have nuclear weapons with “greatly increased accuracy,” “specialized capabilities” and “tailored effects.” But according to Stanford University physicist Sidney Drell, the effects of even a small nuclear bunker buster would be disastrous. A one-kiloton weapon detonated 20 to 50 feet underground would dig a crater the size of Ground Zero and eject a million cubic feet of radioactive debris into the air.

Our reopening the nuclear door to a new generation of weapons will only encourage proliferation. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent statement that Russia is developing new nuclear missile systems is testimony to that effect.

This year Congress eliminated funding for new nuclear weapons programs in the recent appropriations bill. This was the right move because, to make our nation safer from nuclear threats, the best investment we could make is to secure nuclear materials at facilities around the world while insisting that other nations follow us down the path of nonproliferation.

Dianne Feinstein U.S. Senator (D-Calif.) Washington

December 2, 2004
Contesting Iran’s Nuclear Future

Iran continues to challenge international efforts to hold it accountable for its suspicious nuclear activities. Later this month, the International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors will meet to address the issue against the backdrop of growing fear that time to contain the country’s nuclear ambitions is running out. This leaves little doubt that Iran will be high on the Bush administration’s foreign-policy agenda in the months to come.

To date, the IAEA has relied on public shame to force Iran’s compliance. In the past two years, agency inspectors laid bare much of Tehran’s nuclear program. But suspicions remain that Iran’s ruling mullahs have not revealed all. Should Iran continue to waffle, the international community must decide if it must take more aggressive steps to force the revolutionary state to accede. The following options suggest that there is no clear path.

The most benign approach would be to continue current IAEA efforts. Arguably, agency inspections and quarterly public reports will, in time, embarrass Iran to resist the nuclear-weapons temptation. This butts against two facts, however. First, suspicions persist that Iran has not come clean about all its nuclear activities. Second, Iran’s enrichment and reprocessing endeavors make no sense apart from nuclear weapons. For example, the solitary power reactor Tehran hopes to initiate in 2005 or 2006 does not justify the economic investment in facilities to recycle nuclear fuel into weapons-grade material.

Believing that diplomacy had not run its course, Britain, France and Germany opened a dialogue with Iran outside the IAEA framework. In October 2003, the three European powers sent their foreign ministers to Tehran. The diplomats offered economic carrots and peaceful nuclear-energy assistance as a quid pro quo for Iran to halt its developing enrichment program. The meeting prompted cautious optimism: Tehran announced that it would suspend the manufacture of nuclear centrifuges. Nine months later, the mullahs reversed themselves.

Chagrined, the Europeans renewed the dialogue. The Iranians stonewalled. They declared that “no country has the right to deprive us of nuclear technology.” The Europeans remain undaunted. They continue to try. Today, for instance, they are sitting down with the Iranians in Paris, where they will likely continue to dangle economic incentives in exchange for Tehran’s promise of a halt to Iran’s enrichment program. Tehran’s probable, coy response: It might suspend – again – its enrichment activities, but just for a short time, to give diplomacy a chance.

Unimpressed, the Bush administration remains convinced that Iran is using diplomacy to buy time for its nuclear ambitions. For months, the administration has pushed the IAEA to declare Tehran in violation of its nuclear nonproliferation obligations. The result would place the matter before the U.N. Security Council, which could impose sanctions.

But this is another path to nowhere. Iran’s critical vulnerability to sanctions – reliance on the hard currency earned through oil exports – is a double-edged sword. The United States is unlikely to generate Security Council support for measures that will restrict the already tight oil market. Washington also is stuck on its own petard – the Iraq WMD intelligence debacle. In the absence of a nuclear weapons “smoking gun” – certified by the IAEA – the Security Council is unlikely to issue more than a rhetorical slap on the wrist that calls upon the mullahs to reconsider their transgressions.

Among the dwindling options is confrontation. One option would galvanize members of the Proliferation Security Initiative – which includes a core group of a dozen or so nations that have agreed to intercept WMD contraband – to isolate Iran until it disgorges its nuclear weapons capacity. However, building the PSI into a serious new “alliance of the willing,” in the absence of a clear and present danger, is unlikely.

Then there is military action. Only military occupation can guarantee Iran’s nuclear disarmament; limited military strikes will not destroy hidden nuclear facilities. But, in the Iraq aftermath, either option would be a hard sell to the American public. On the other hand, Israel, which considers Iran a mortal enemy, does not require a sales job. Jerusalem repeatedly has declared that it will not allow Iran a nuclear weapons capacity. But Israel is in no better position than the United States to destroy the program.

This leaves two factors that may impact Iran’s nuclear future. One is peaceful regime change. Although there is some hope that a new generation of Iranians – who might be more nonproliferation compliant – will replace the mullahs, there appears to be little prospect in the short term. In time, impetus could come from a thriving democratic Iraq. Unfortunately, Baghdad’s political future will not be resolved anytime soon.

On the flip side, the United States and its allies could concede that little can be done to halt Iran’s nuclear ambitions. By accepting this prospect, the challenge will be to keep the nuclear peace. The solution must include an explicit warning to Tehran from Washington and Jerusalem: Any Iranian nuclear threat or act – or any complicity in a terrorist nuclear act – would result in the elimination of the revolutionary regime by any and all means. The time to issue this warning is now, before the mullahs realize their nuclear ambitions. The result might have a sobering impact as Iran weighs a nuclear armed future.

Bennett Ramberg served in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs in the administration of President George H.W. Bush.

First published by the San Francisco Chronicle.

November 5, 2004
Nonproliferation Treaty Meeting Collapses Without Decisions

A meeting of parties to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) collapsed Friday night after the delegates failed to resolve differences on numerous political and procedural issues, notably how to refer to their own consensus decisions of 2000.

This was the final preparatory meeting before next year’s review conference and delegates hoped that the meeting would produce recommendations for the conference, as preparatory meetings have in the past. Hours after the meeting was supposed to have ended, the meeting was simply adjourned with a final report containing minimum details. Breaking its own rules of procedure, the meeting did not even resume in open session to formally close it proceedings. Most of the meetings in the last week were held behind closed doors.

The political debate at the heart of all the procedural wrangling was the relative weight that should be given to disarmament and nonproliferation, specifically if the treaty’s priority should be disarmament by the nuclear powers or addressing proliferation threats by countries such as North Korea and Iran.

The chairman of the meeting, Ambassador Sudjadnan Parnohadiningrat of Indonesia, issued his own summary of the meeting on Thursday night, which was an attempt to reflect all the divergent positions expressed during the two-week meeting. As such, there are ideas in it to please and annoy everyone. There was never a chance that all the states would accept the summary as a consensus document, but it had been expected that the paper would be annexed to the final report under the chairman’s own authority and sent to the review conference.

But Sudjadnan’s paper was strongly criticized in an all-day closed meeting Friday by most of the nuclear weapon states, led by the United States, that insisted the paper could only be referred to in the list of documents and not annexed to the report.

A key sticking point was whether to acknowledge the final document of the 2000 review conference. This seemingly procedural question was a lightning rod for the political divisions among the delegates since the 2000 decision includes what has become known as “the 13 steps” – specific actions the nuclear powers agreed to as part of their disarmament commitments under the NPT. The 13 steps include “an unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear weapon states to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals.” That undertaking includes signing and ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, reduction in tactical nuclear weapons and halting the production of weapons-grade nuclear materials. The United States now opposes many of these steps, most notably its rejection of the test ban treaty.

Because of this stalemate, the meeting could not even agree to seemingly routine items such as an agenda for the 2005 conference.

Ambassador Sergio Duarte of Brazil will be the president of the review conference, which will be held in New York May 2-27, 2005.

Originally published by the UN Wire.

May 10, 2004

Chemical and Biological Weapons: Use in Warfare, Impact on Society and Environment

1. Introduction

Since the end of World War II there has been a number of treaties dealing with the limitations, reductions, and elimination of so-called weapons of mass destruction and/or their transport systems (generally called delivery systems). Some of the treaties are bilateral, others multilateral, or in rare cases universal. In the present paper only the chemical and biological weapons will be discussed, with emphasis on the Convention to eliminate them (CBWC).

The term “Weapons of Mass Destruction” (WMD), used to encompass nuclear (NW), biological (BW), and chemical weapons (CW), is misleading, politically dangerous, and cannot be justified on grounds of military efficiency. This had been pointed out previously by the author [1] and discussed in considerable detail in ref. [2]. Whereas protection with various degrees of efficiency is possible against chemical and biological weapons, however inconvenient it might be for military forces on the battlefield and for civilians at home, it is not feasible at all against nuclear weapons. Chemical weapons have shown to be largely ineffective in warfare, biological weapons have never been deployed on any significant scale. Both types should be better designated as weapons of terror against civilians and weapons of intimidation for soldiers. Requirements on their transport system differ vastly from those for nuclear warheads. They are able to cause considerable anxiety, panic, and psychosis without borders within large parts of the population. Stockpiling of biological weapons is not possible over a long time scale [3, 4]. Only nuclear weapons are completely indiscriminate by their explosive power, heat radiation and radioactivity, and only they should therefore be called a weapon of mass destruction.

However, if one wants to maintain the term “Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)“, it is a defendable view to exclude chemical and biological weapons, but put together with nuclear weapons all those that actually has killed millions of people in civil wars since World War II. These are mainly assault rifles, like AK47s, handguns, and land mines, to a lesser extent mortars, fragmentation bombs, and hand grenades.

This paper gives in Chapter 2 an overview on the history of chemical warfare, addresses in Chapter 3 the inventory of chemical weapons, discusses in Chapter 4 the elimination of chemical weapons and possible problems resulting for the environment (CW), reviews in Chapter 5 some non-lethal chemical weapons and chemical weapons which may be on the borderline to conventional explosives, and describes in Chapter 6 some of the old and new biological weapons (BW). Chapter 7 evaluates and compares the use of biological and chemical weapons by terrorists and by military in combat. The present status and verification procedures for the Chemical and Biological Weapons Convention (CBWC) are addressed in the conclusions in Chapter 8.

2. Chemical Warfare, Its History [5]

The Greeks first used sulfur mixtures with pitch resin for producing suffocating fumes in 431 BC during the Trojan War. Attempts to control chemical weapons date back to a 1675 Franco-German accord signed in Strasbourg. Then came the Brussels Convention in 1874 to prohibit the use of poison or poisoned weapons. During the First Hague Peace Appeal in 1899, the Hague Convention elaborated on the Brussels accord by prohibiting the use of projectiles that would diffuse “asphyxiating or deleterious” gases (Laws and Customs of Wars on Land). This Convention was reinforced during the second Hague conference in 1907, but prohibitions were largely ignored during World War I. At the battle of Ypres/Belgium, canisters of chlorine gas were exploded in April 1915 by Germany, which killed 5,000 French troops and injured 15,000. Fritz Haber, a Nobel price winner in 1919 for invention of ammonium fixation, had convinced the German Kaiser to use chlorine gas to end the war quickly. History taught us about a different outcome. During World War I all parties used an estimated 124,000 tons of chemicals in warfare. Mustard gas – “the king of battle gases” – then used on both sides in 1917 killed 91,000 and injured 1.2 million, accounting for 80% of the chemical casualties (death or injury). Chemical weapons caused about 3 percent of the estimated 15 million casualties on the Western Front [3, 6]. To put these numbers into perspective, the total loss of Allied lives was ³ 5 million, of the Central Powers 3.4 million, and the total of all wounded soldiers 21 million. Despite of its intensive use, gas was a military failure in WW I. The inhuman aspect and suffering was soon recognized and the year 1922 saw the establishment of the Washington Treaty, signed by the United States, Japan, France, Italy and Britain. In 1925 the Geneva Protocol for the Prohibition of the use in war of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases and Bacteriological Methods of Warfare was signed, and it had been a cornerstone of chemical and biological arms control since then. The Geneva Protocol did neither forbid the stockpiling or the research on chemical weapons.

Despite the conventions, banning chemical weapons, Italians used them during the war 1935-36 in Ethiopia, the Japanese in China during World War II (1938-42), and they were used also in Yemen (1966-67). Various new chemicals were developed for use in weapons. Sarin, Soman, and VX followed Tabun, the first nerve gas, discovered in 1936.

During the Vietnam War (1961-1973), the US was accused of using lachrymatory agents and heavy doses of herbicides (defoliants) in much the same manner as chemical weapons. Some international organizations consider Napalm, its trade name, to be a chemical weapon, others put it on equal level with flame throwers, and consequently not falling under any of the articles of the CWC.

Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against Iraqi civilians as well as against Iran soldiers between 1980 and 1988. It is estimated that of the approximately 27,000 Iranians exposed to Iraqi mustard gas in that war through March 1987, only 265 died. Over the entire war, Iraqi chemical weapons killed 5,000 Iranians. This constituted less than one percent of the 600,000 Iranians who died from all causes during the war [6].

The Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling, and Use of Chemical Weapons And on Their Destruction (CWC) [7], entered into force in 1997 after deposit of 65 ratification documents, and is signed as of May 1999 by 122 states-parties. There are 46 non-ratifying signatories, and 22 non-states parties [8, 9].

3. The Inventory of Chemical Weapons

Chemical weapons have been produced during the twentieth century by many countries and in large quantities. They are still kept in the military arsenals as weapons of in kind or flexible response. Old ammunition is partially discarded in an environmental irresponsible way.

3.1 Military value of chemical weapons

By their nature, chemical arms have a relatively limited range: they create regional rather than global security problems, and slow the tempo of operations. In this, they are militarily more akin to conventional arms than to nuclear or biological weapons.

Even extended use of chemical weapons had no decisive impact on outcome of wars, had only local success, and made wars uncomfortable, to no purpose. For this and other reasons it is difficult to see why they are around in the first place. However, they had been produced in enormous quantities and mankind has to deal with their very costly elimination.

Should scientists be held responsible for their invention, production, use, and also for the elimination of chemical weapons? Certainly not entirely, since military and politicians demanded their production. However, we need the help of scientists for the difficult job of neutralising or eliminating them.

3.2 Classification of chemical weapons

Binary munitions contain two separated non-lethal chemicals that react to produce a lethal chemical when mixed during battlefield delivery. Unitary weapons, representing the by far largest quantity of the stockpile, contain a single lethal chemical in munitions. Other unitary agents are stored in bulk containers. The characteristics of chemical warfare agents and toxic armament wastes are described in detail in ref. [10]. The reader is referred to this article, which summarises the chemical and physical characteristics of blister, blood, choking, nerve, riot control, and vomiting agents, as well as their effects on the human body.

3.3 Abandoned Weapons

The easiest – say cheapest – way to eliminate (?) chemical weapons in the aftermath of World War II appeared to dump them into ocean [11]. There had been a worry that, after their defeat in 1945, Germans could be tempted to use part of their arsenal, which totaled 296,103 tons. Therefore, the weapons were captured and dumped into the sea. There are more than 100 sea dumping of chemical weapons that took place from 1945 to 1970 in every ocean except the Arctic. 46,000 tons were dumped in the Baltic areas known as the Gotland Deep, Bornholm Deep, and the Little Belt. According to The Continental Committee on Dumping the total was shared by 93,995 tons from the US, 9,250 tons from France, 122,508 tons from Britain, and 70,500 tons from Russia.

The US dumped German chemical weapons in the Scandinavian region, totaling between 30,000 and 40,000 tons, nine ships in the Skagerrak Strait and two more in the North Sea at depth of 650 to 1,180 meters.

The Russians alone have dumped 30,000 tons in an area, 2,000 square kilometers in size, near the Gotland and Bornholm Islands.

Between 1945 and 1949, the British dumped 34 shiploads carrying 127,000 tons of chemical (containing 40,000 tons mustard gas) and conventional weapons in the Norwegian Trench at 700 meters depth.

The chemical weapons at the bottom of the Baltic Sea (mean depth of the Baltic Sea is 51 meters) and the North Sea represent a serious danger for the aquatic life. The shells of the grenades corrode and will eventually start to leak. The corrosion of these weapons is already so advanced that identification of the former owners is virtually impossible. Consequently, nobody can be made nowadays responsible for the ultimate elimination.

The US is responsible for 60 sea dumping totaling about 100,000 tons (equal to 39 filled railroad box cars), of chemical weapons filled with toxic materials in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of New Jersey, California, Florida, and South Carolina, and near India, Italy, Norway, Denmark, Japan, and Australia.

Some of the above figures appear to be not entirely coherent and do not add up well to the total, demonstrating among other things that no careful bookkeeping had been done during this inadmissible actions.

During the 1950s, the US conducted an ambitious nerve gas program, manufacturing what would eventually total 400,000 M-55 rockets, each of which was capable of delivering a 5-kg payload of Sarin [11, 12]. Many of those rockets had manufacturing defaults, their propellant breaking down in a manner that could lead to auto ignition. For this reason in 1967 and 1968 51,180 nerve gas rockets were dropped 240 km off the coast of New York State in depths 1’950 to 2,190 meters, and off the coast of Florida.

The CWC does not cover sea-dumped chemical weapons; in fact it makes a clear exception for them (CWC, Article III, § 2). The CWC does not provide the legal basis to cover chemical weapons that were dumped before 1985. They remain an uncontrollable time bomb.

3.4 The existing arsenal

The arsenal of chemical weapons has to be subdivided into two categories: (i) The “stockpile” of unitary chemical warfare (CW) agents and ammunitions, comprising the material inside weapons and chemicals in bulk storage, and (ii) The “non-stockpile” material, including buried chemical material, binary chemical weapons, recovered chemical weapons, former facilities for chemical weapons production, and other miscellaneous chemical warfare material.

3.4.1 The stockpile of unitary chemical warfare agents and ammunition

The Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) in the US reports [13, 14]:

Middle East

Egypt:	First country in the Middle East to obtain chemical weapons training, indoctrination, and material. It employed phosgene and mustard agent against Yemeni Royalist forces in the mid-1960s, and some reports claim that it also used an organophosphate nerve agent.
Israel:	Developed its own offensive weapons program. The 1990 DIA study reports that Israel maintains a chemical warfare testing facility. Newspaper reports suggest the facility be in the Negev desert.
Syria:	It began developing chemical weapons in the 1970s. It received chemical weapons from Egypt in the 1970s, and indigenous production began in the 1980s. It allegedly has two means of delivery: a 500-kilogram aerial bomb, and chemical warheads for Scud-B missiles. Two chemical munitions storage depots, at Khna Abu Shamat and Furqlus. Centre D’Etude et Recherche Scientifique, near Damascus, was the primary research facility. It is building a new chemical-weapons factory near the city of Aleppo.
Iran:	Initiated a chemical and warfare program in response to Iraq’s use of mustard gas against Iranian troops. At end of war military had been able to field mustard and phosgene. Had artillery shells and bombs filled with chemical agents. Was developing ballistic missiles. Has a chemical-agent warhead for their surface-to-surface missiles.
Iraq:	Used chemical weapons repeatedly during the Iraq-Iran war. Later it attacked Kurdish villagers in northern Iraq with mustard and nerve gas. Since end of Gulf War UN destroyed more than 480,0000 liters of Iraq’s chemical agents and 1.8 million liters of precursor chemicals.
Libya:	Obtained its first chemical agents from Iran, using them against Chad in 1987. Opened its own production facility in Rabta in 1988. May have produced as much as 100 tons of blister and nerve agents before a fire broke out in 1990. Is building a second facility in an underground location at Tarhunah.
Saudi Arabia:	May have limited chemical warfare capability in part because it acquired 50 CSS-2 ballistic missiles from China. These highly inaccurate missiles are thought to be suitable only for delivering chemical agents.

Asia

North Korea:	Program since 1960s, probably largest in the region. Can produce “large quantities” of blister, blood, and nerve agents.
South Korea:	Has the chemical infrastructure and technical capability to produce chemical agents, had a chemical weapons program.
India:	Had CW stocks and weapons.
Pakistan:	Has artillery projectiles and rockets that can be made chemical-capable.
China:	China has a mature chemical warfare capability, including ballistic missiles.
Taiwan:	Had an “aggressive high-priority program to develop both offensive and defensive capabilities”, was developing chemical weapons capability, and in 1989, it may be operational.
Burma:	Its program, under development in 1983, may or may not be active today. It has chemical weapons and artillery for delivering chemical agents.
Vietnam:	In 1988 was in the process of deploying, or already had, chemical weapons. Also it captured large stocks of US riot control agents during and at the end of the Vietnam War.

Europe

Yugoslavia:	The former Yugoslavia has a CW production capability. Produced and weaponized Sarin, sulphur mustard, BZ (a psychochemical incapacitant), and irritants CS and CN. The Bosnians produced crude chemical weapons during the 1992-1995 war.
Romania:	Has research and production facilities and chemical weapons stockpiles and storage facilities. Has large chemical warfare program, and had developed a cheaper method for synthesizing Sarin.
Czechoslovakia:	Pilot-plant chemical capabilities that probably included Sarin, Soman, and possibly VX.
France:	Has stockpile of chemical weapons, including aerosol bombs.
Bulgaria:	Has stockpile of chemical munitions of Soviet origin.

USA:

Has the second largest arsenal of chemical weapons in the world, consisting of ~31,000 tons of chemicals, and 3.6 million grenades [15]. The chemical weapons contain about 12,000 tons of agents, and 19,000 tons are in bulk storage. Details on composition and location are given in Table 1.

Russia:

An estimate of the Russian stockpile in 1993 puts it at ~40,000 agent tons, of which one-fourth is of pre-World War II vintage. A larger portion seems to be in bulk storage [16]. Out of the officially declared quantity 30,000 tons are phosphoric organic agents (Sarin, Soman, VX), the remaining 10,000 tons are composed of 7,000 tons lewisite (in containers ?), 1,500 tons of mixture of mustard gas and Lewisite (GB, GD, VX), and 1,500 tons mustard gas. Slightly different numbers on the composition of the arsenal are given in ref. [17]. Some independent analysts believe that the 40,000 tons formally declared by Russia is only a fraction of a total of 100,000 to 200,000 tons, the rest of which were probably disposed of in some manner [18].

Locations of the US Unitary Chemical Stockpile

Site	Agent	Agent Tons	Percent of Stockpile
Anniston Army Depot (ADAD), Anniston, AL	GB, HD, HT, VX	2,253.63	7.4
Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG), Edgewood, MD	HD	1,624.87	5.3
Blue Grass Army Depot (BGAD), Richmont, KY	GB, HD, VX	523.41	1.7
Johnston Island (JI), Pacific Ocean	GB, HD, VX	1,134.17	3.7
Newport Chemical Activity (NECA), Newport, IN	VX	1,269.33	4.2
Pine Bluff Arsenal (PBA), Pine Bluff, AR	GB, HD, HT, VX	3,849.71	12.6
Pueblo Depot Activity (PUDA), Pueblo, CO	HD, HT	2,611.05	8.5
Tooele Army Depot (TEAD), Tooele, UT	H, HD, HT, GA, GB, L, TGA, TGB, VX	13,616.00	44.5
Umatilla Depot Activity (UMDA), Herminston, OR	GB, HD, VX	3,717.38	12.2
Total		30,599.55	100.0

Non-persistent nerve gas agents: Tabun (GA) and Sarin (GB) and their thickened products (TGA and TGB) Mustard agents (H, HD and HT) Lewisite (L) Persistent nerve agent (VX)

Agents of the US Unitary Chemical Stockpile

Agent	Site	Agent Tons	Percent of Stockpile	Total
GA	TEAD	1.41	0.005	1.41
GB	ANAD	436.51
	BGAD	305.64
	JI	617.48
	PBA	483.69
	TEAD	6,045.26
	UMDA	1,041.01	29.1	8,902.59
H	TEAD	319.77	1.5	319.77
HD	ANAD	456.08
	APG	1,624.87
	BGAD	90.63
	JI	164.86
	PBA	94.20
	PUDA	2,551.94
	TEAD	5,694.64
	UMDA	2,339.52	42.5	13,016.74
HT	ANAD	532.30
	PBA	3,124.55
	PUDA	59.11
	TEAD	181.51	12.7	3,897.47
L	TEAD	12.96	0.004	12.96
TGA	TEAD	0.64	0.002	0.64
TGB	TEAD	3.48	0.01	3.48
VX	ANAD	828.74
	BGAD	127.15
	JI	351.83
	NECA	1,269.33
	PBA	147.27
	TEAD	1,356.33
	UMDA	363.86	14.5	4,444.51
TOTAL			100.0	30,599.55

US Binary Chemical Stockpile

Site	Type Fill	Component	Total Tons
APG	QL	0.73
	DF	0.57	1.30
PBA	QL	48.21
	DF	126.51	174.72
TEAD	OPA	33.58	33.58
UMDA	OPA	470.59	470.59
TOTAL			680.19

Methylphosphonic difluoride (DF) Isopropyl alcohol and isopropylamine (OPA) Ethyl 2-diisoprpylaminoethyl methylphosphonite (QL)

Tables 1. US Unitary and Binary Chemical Stockpiles

The above tables give the location of the nine depots and the variety of chemical weapons stored, which is an indication for the complexity for their elimination or transport problems.

The locations of the Soviet chemical weapons are spread over large parts of the West-European and Asian part of Russia at seven sites (Table 2 [18]). About 80 percent are weaponized and consist mostly of organophosphorus nerve agents. The remainder of the material is stored in bulk at two sites – Kambarka and Gornyi.

Site	% of Stockpile	Agents
Kambarka	15.9	Lewisite
Gorny	2.9	Mustard
		Lewite
Kizner	14.2	Vx
		Sarin
		Soman
		Lewisite
Maradykovsky	17.4	Vx
		Sarin
		Soman
		M/L mix
Pochep	18.8	VX
		Sarin
		Soman
Leonidovka	17.2	VX
		Sarin
		Soman
Shchuchye	13.6	VX
		Sarin
		Soman
		Phosgene

Table 2. Russia’s chemical weapons storage sites [18]

3.4.2 The non-stockpile material

Data on non-stockpile material are scarce. Some estimates are available for the US [12]. All the material recovered in the US thus far contains only hundreds of tons of agent and could, in theory, be placed in a single 8-metre-by-25-metre storage building [12]. A considerable amount of money will be required for the destruction of all former facilities for chemical weapons production constructed or used after January 1, 1946.

Abandoned chemical weapons do represent a safety risk. Between 1985 and 1995 Dutch fishermen reported more than 350 cases where chemical weapons, dumped into the Baltic Sea, were caught in fishing nets, some resulting in serious burns.

In China during World War II the Japanese left 678,729 chemical weapons. Recent negotiations resulted in Japan’s agreement to collect and destroy these weapons.

The most persistent agents – mustards and lewisite – can remain dangerous for decades. Even after lewisite breaks down, the resulting arsenic compounds can remain in soil and contaminate ground water [19].

Recovery of ammunitions from World War I still continues. Annual collections by France amount to about 30-50 tons along the old front line, by Belgium to 17 tons (c. 1,500 items) [20].

4. Elimination of Chemical Weapons

The CWC not only prohibits the use, production, acquisition and transfer of chemical weapons, but also requires the states-parties to destroy their existing weapons and production facilities. For the US the deadline is April 29, 2007. The CWC prohibits disposal by dumping into a body of water, land burial or open-pit burning, and requires that the chosen technology destroy the chemical agent in an irreversible manner that also protects the safety of humans and the environment.

4.1 Program, costs and status of the destruction of the existing active arsenal

Since the weight of a typical chemical weapon is roughly ten times that of the agent it contains, and other nations may have as much as 10-15 percent of the combined Russian and US stockpile, the mass of the material to be destroyed comes to roughly 500,000 tons – nearly 100,000 truckloads of material.

In general, the ignition part of ammunition has to be removed or inactivated prior to destruction. Then starts the main part of elimination of the weapon. The US choose high-temperature incineration and chemical neutralization as its preferred destruction technique, which has to destroy the chemicals together with the metal casing. The cost of this procedure can outrun the cost of agent destruction many fold – in some cases by 10-20 times.

The process of elimination is a slow, tedious one, with rising costs as time passes by. A bilateral US – USSR agreement in June 1990 to destroy at least 50 percent of their stockpiles by 1999 and to retain no more than 5,000 tons of agent by 2002 is long outdated [21].

Since 1985, the US Army’s cost estimate for the stockpile disposal program has increased from estimates in 1985 of $1.7 billion to $15.7 billion as of today, and its projected completion date has slipped from 1994 to 2007 [16, 12]. At the end of 1999 about 22 percent of its chemicals had been incinerated [8, 9].

The destruction of the Russian arsenal faces both, financial and technical challenges [17] and is seriously behind schedule. The first deadline imposed by the CWC – destruction of 1 percent of stockpiles by April 29, 2000 – has already been missed. Under the revised program approved by the Russian government in July, this milestone will not be achieved until 2003, while the entire destruction process is scheduled to last until 2012. Russia does not want to copy the well-proven American incineration technology. Its own neutralization-bituminization program has not been developed beyond the laboratory bench, and therefore had destroyed only a few thousand weapons [22]. The idea of incineration of their chemical weapon arsenal by nuclear explosion is studied in Russia’s former weapons laboratories [23]. This procedure, even if it is feasible deep underground, is not compatible with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and will find also serious resistance from environmentalists.

Most estimates for Russia’s costs are in the $6 billion to $8 billion range [18].

4.2 The abandoned weapons

Chemical weapons are buried on land, dumped into the sea and simply lost at many places on our globe [20]. Finding, collecting and destroying them might be as difficult, dangerous and time consuming as those of land mines.

The non-stockpile disposal program is currently projected to cost $15.1 billion – nearly the cost of the stockpile disposal program – and will take until 2033 to complete [12]. There the major cost factor arises from the difficulties of detection of scattered chemical weapons, due to insufficient book-keeping, the necessity to design and built new mobile disposal systems, and last not least overcoming the public opposition of destruction or transporting lethal CW in the vicinity of habitats. The provisions in the CWC will not apply to weapons buried on its territory before 1 January 1977.

4.4 A Comparison of chemical weapons agents with other waste

Our civilization produces a great variety of waste products, with differing degrees of danger for the environment and people. They range from household waste, electronic waste from the information age, to toxic waste from chemical factories, by-products of the mining industry, coal and oil firing, and last not least to those from military and civil use of nuclear energy. Among these waste products is a largely unknown environmental hazard due to the one-to-two-hundred tons of Mercury, that have been discharged into nature during the manufacturing of nuclear weapons in the US (mainly at Oak Ridge, also at Hanford/Washington). Its impact on the food chain can become catastrophic on a regional level [24]. Even the most widely used propellant of weapons, Trinitrotoluol or TNT, is a threat to the environment because of its persistency and its ability to enter easily into ground water.

A crude estimate of the importance of the chemical weapon waste relative to other human waste production can be made taking data from the annual production of waste in kilogram per inhabitant in France:

Waste	Kg/person/year
Household (kitchen garbage, diverse domestic scrap)	360
Agriculture (plastic, farming scrap)	7,300
Industrial waste (metal waste, iron, non-iron, powders, technology waste)	3,000
thereof classified as toxic waste	100
Hospital waste	15
Nuclear waste (packaged)	1.2
Total waste	10,776

Table 2 Annual waste production in kilogram per person in France [25]

And by assuming that waste production per person in France (population 58 million) and the United States (population 267 million) is comparable (probably an underestimation of the US figures), the total waste of these categories can be estimated for the US in tons per year:

Waste	Tons/year
Household	100· 10⁶;
Agriculture	2·10⁹;
Industrial waste	800·10⁶
thereof toxic waste	30·10⁶
Nuclear waste	320·10⁰
Chemical weapons waste	500·10⁰
Total waste	3·10⁹

Table 3 Crude estimate of annual waste production in the US

It is assumed that the 30,000 tons of US chemical weapons material were accumulated over ~60 years, i.e. on the average 500 tons produced per year. The above order of magnitude estimate shows, that nuclear and chemical weapons wastes are in the same ball part, but are hundred thousand times smaller than the other toxic/dangerous waste. Due to the complexity of the toxic items, a qualitative comparison of present and future dangers for mankind and environment by taking only the quantitative aspects into consideration can and should not be made since it may lead to wrong conclusions.

5. Non-lethal chemical weapons

All weapons are made out of chemical elements, be it the metal shell of a grenade, sometimes made of depleted uranium, the explosive agent to propel it or the material filled into its encasing. The dangers of highly toxic, volatile rocket fuel on the delivery systems of nuclear warheads in Russia may be very high [26]. For this simple reason alone it is difficult to come up with an all-encompassing definition for chemical weapons.

Are chemicals still material of weapons if they are used in very low concentrations? The latter point may be illustrated by the double use of Zyklon B (or Cyclon B in English), that is used as fumigant for the purpose of pest and vermin control. It had been applied in low concentration in a beneficial way in the Nazi concentration camp of Dachau, while utilized in high concentration in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, it lead to one of the most criminal acts committed in the twentieth century [27].

Dozens of technologies are being studied or developed under the elastic rubric of “non-lethal weapons” [28]. They include infrasound, supercaustics, irritants like tear gas, and all those that could be aimed at non-human targets – such as combustion inhibitors, chemicals that can immobilize machinery or destroy airplane tires. The text of the CWC does not give always an unambiguous answer or definition what is a chemical weapon agent. It could be asked if the following agents fall into the category of chemical weapons, some of them old as war [10], like (i) Military Smoke Agents, (ii) Incendiaries producing fires and burns of skin? Where do the recently used or newly developed ones belong, like (iii) Sticky Foam, Super Lubricants (“slickums and stickums”), or (iv) Pulsed Chemical Laser Beams? A special case takes (v) Depleted Uranium Ammunition, which can be considered a biological or a radiological weapon.

The preamble to the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed To Be Excessively Injurious or To Have Indiscriminate Effects (CCW), and less formally referred to as the “Inhuman Weapons Convention”, expressed the wish for amendments [30]. Among those was the elimination of laser weapons, which are now banned by the Protocol IV, which was adopted by the Conference of the States Parties to the Convention and entered into force on 30 July 1998 [28, 29].

Other weapons are being negotiated, like submunitions in the form of bomblets assembled in clusters and delivered by aircraft or by artillery, rockets or guided missiles, be equipped with devices making them harmless if they fail to explode. One canister may contain 50 bomblets, or 600, or even as many as 4,700, depending on the model, and may cover a ground area from 100 to 250 meters in diameter. The bomblets, when fitted with delayed action fuses, are effective area-denial weapons. Usually about 30% fail to explode and remain as mines, like many in Kosovo after the 1999 war.

Depleted Uranium (DU) [31], which draw a lot of public attention in the recent decade, is a by-product of enriching natural uranium – increasing the proportion of the U235 atom which is the only form of uranium that can sustain a nuclear reaction and is used in nuclear reactors or nuclear weapons. The remaining depleted uranium has practically no commercial value. The Department of Energy in the US (DoE) has a 560,000-metric-ton stockpile, with very limited civilian use as a coloring matter in pottery or as a steel-alloying constituent [32]. Depleted uranium is chemically toxic like other heavy metals such as lead, but can produce adversary health effects being an alpha particle emitter with radioactive half-life of 4.5 billion years.

In the 1950’s the US became interested in using depleted uranium metal in weapons because it is extremely dense, pyrophoric, cheap, and available in high quantities. Kinetic energy penetrators do not explode; they fragment and burn through armour due to the pyrophoric nature of uranium metal and the extreme flash temperatures generated on impact. They contaminate areas with extremely fine radioactive and toxic dust. This in turn can cause kidney damage, cancers in the lung and bone, non-malignant respiratory decease, skin disorders, neurocognitive disorders, chromosomal damage, and birth defects [33]. Depleted uranium weapons are proliferating and are likely to become commonly used in land warfare. The United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Egypt, Thailand, Taiwan and Pakistan are possessing or manufacture depleted uranium weapons. Many NATO countries may follow suite. These weapons were used in large quantities first in the 1991 Gulf War [33, 34], and then again during the Kosovo War in 1999 [35]. The question can be asked if DU is mainly a chemical, or a radiological weapon? An immediate answer is not to be expected before classified material becomes available, and the medical reason for the Golf-War Syndrome is identified, which shows up in thousands of American soldiers. It appears that effect of the radioactive by inhalation of small doses will have only a small impact on risk to die of cancer, whereas the heavy metal effect seems to dominate [36]. Be it as it might be, depleted uranium is dangerous, but is pales in comparison with the other direct and indirect effects of war.

Due to their double use properties, some chemical weapons may be masked as pesticides, fertilizers, dyes, herbicides, or defoliants. Between 1962 and 1971 more than 72 million liter herbicides were distributed over South Viet Nam [37], thereof more than 44 million liter were the defoliant agent orange, containing about 170 kg dioxin. American scientists developed a means of thickening gasoline with the aluminum soap of naphtenic and palmitic acids into a sticky syrup that carries further from projectors and burns more slowly but at a higher temperature. This mixture, known as Napalm, can also be used in aircraft or missile-delivered warheads against military or civilian targets. A small, high explosive charge scatters the flaming liquid, which sticks to what it hits until burned out. Is Napalm still only a herbicide even when used in too large a quantity, and then accidentally affecting humans?

White phosphorous is used as a shell and grenade filler in combination with a small high-explosive charge. It is both an incendiary and the best-known producer of vivid white smoke. Small bits of it burn even more intensely than Napalm when they strike personnel.

Herbicides are not covered by the Convention but they are banned under the Prohibition of Military or any other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques (ENMOD), adopted by the UN General Assembly on the 10th of December 1976 and entered into force the 5th of October 1978 [38].

In order to curb the production of chemical weapons, require their identification, e.g. by trace elements in ammunition!

6. Old and New Biological Weapons

The use of biological agents as weapon has always an even more adverse world opinion than chemical warfare. A SIPRI Monograph describes among other topics the changing view of biological and toxin warfare agents, the new generation of biological weapons, the changing status of toxin weapons, a new generation of vaccines against biological and toxin weapons, and the implications of the BWC [39].

Claims that biological agents have been used as weapons of war can be found in both the written records and the artwork of many early civilizations [40]. As early as 300 BC the Greeks polluted the wells and drinking water supplies of their enemies with the corpses of animals. Later the Romans and Persians used the same tactics. In 1155 at a battle in Tortona, Italy, Barbarossa broadened the scope of biological warfare, using the bodies of dead soldiers as well as animals to pollute wells. In 1863 during the US Civil War, General Johnson used the bodies of sheep and pigs to pollute drinking water at Vicksburg. The use of catapults as weapons was well established by the medieval period, and projecting over the walls dead bodies of those dead of disease was an effective strategy for besieging armies. In 1763 the history of biological warfare took a significant turn from the crude use of diseased corpses to the introduction of specific decease, smallpox (“Black Death”), as a weapon in the North American Indian Wars. This technique continued with cholera or typhus infected corpses. In 1915, during World War I, Germany was accused of using cholera in Italy and plague in St. Petersburg. There is evidence Germany used glanders and anthrax to infect horses (1914) and cattle, respectively, in Bucharest in 1916, and employed similar tactics to infect 4,500 mules in Mesopotamia the next year.

The period 1940 – 1969 can be considered the golden age of biological warfare research and development. Especially the 1940s were the most comprehensive period of biological warfare research and development.

The US had signed the Geneva Protocol, but the Senate voted only in 1974 on it. Detailed information on the history of the US Offensive Biological Warfare Program between 1941 and 1973 can be found in ref. [41].

It has been reported recently that the US tested a Soviet-designed germ bomb and assembled a germ factory in the Nevada desert from commercially available materials, in particular to produce potentially more potent variant of the bacterium that causes anthrax, a deadly disease ideal for germ warfare [42]. It is debatable if such a research is consistent with the treaty banning biological weapons.

The Former Soviet Union had an important biological weapons program, which might have extended well into the period after its dissolution [43].

For a decade after 1972 there was hope that the problem of Biological Warfare was going to be eradicated. However, the last two decades have produced indications that some eight developing nations, in addition to China and Israel, have initiated biological weapon development programs of varying degrees.

6.1 Definitions [39]

Biological warfare (BW) agents, or biological weapons, are ‘living organisms, whatever their nature, or infectious material derived from them, which are intended to cause disease or death in man, animal, and plants, and which depend for their effects on their ability to multiply in the person, the animal, or plant attacked’. BW agents, however, might be used not only in wars, but also by terrorists. One should therefore refer to living organisms ‘used for hostile purposes’.

The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) prohibits bacteria such as salmonella being used against soldiers. It would permit bacteria, that eat petroleum or rubber for the destruction of equipment for peaceful purposes, but prohibits their use for hostile application.

6.2 Toxic warfare agents and other chemical warfare agents

Toxins are poisonous substances usually produced by living organisms. Toxin warfare (TW) agents, or toxic weapons, are toxins used for hostile purposes. TW agents unequivocally are types of chemical warfare (CW) agent. CW agents, or chemical weapons, are chemical substances whether gaseous, liquid, or solid, which are used for hostile purposes to cause disease or death in humans, animals or plants and which depend on their direct toxicity for their primary effect.

TW agents, like all other CW agents, are inanimate and are incapable of multiplying. They are CW agents irrespective of whether they are produced by a living organism or by chemical synthesis or even whether they are responsible for the qualification of that organism as a BW agent.

Nevertheless, TW agents are often mistakenly considered to be biological weapons, and definitions of biological warfare (BW) occasionally include TW agents. New chemical weapons agents, who are 5 to 10 times more dangerous than VX, the most dangerous toxic gas known today.

The successful control of biological weapons is a daunting task [44]. Ensuring safety from biological and toxin weapons is a more complex issue than totally prohibiting chemical or nuclear weapons. This is due to the character of the relevant technologies. More than those, biotechnology is of dual-use, i.e. the same technology can be used for civilian and permitted military defensive purposes as well as for prohibited offensive or terrorist purposes.

6.3 Biological Warfare against Crops

Intentionally unleashing organisms that kill an enemy’s food crops is a potentially devastating weapon of warfare and terrorism [45]. All major food crops come in a number of varieties, each usually suited to specific climate and soil conditions. These varieties have varying sensitivities to particular diseases. Crop pathogens, in turn, come in different strains or races and can be targeted efficiently against those crop brands. This way it might be possible to attack the enemy’s food stock, but preventing damage to the own. However, such a strategy may not work for neighboring countries, where agricultural conditions are similar to the aggressor. The spread of those organisms holds the risk of worldwide epidemic, and the use of these weapons may very well be counter productive. Any such warfare would be directed primarily against the civilian population. Due to the delays involved it would not affect immediately the outcome of a war.

Nevertheless, many countries developed during the twentieth century anticrop substances.

Iraq manufactured from the 70s onward wheat smut fungus, targeting wheat plants in Iran. France’s biological weapon program by the end of the 1930s included work on two potato killers. During the Second World War the British concentrated on various herbicides. Germany investigated during the same period diseases like late blight of potatoes and leaf-infecting yellow and black wheat rusts, as well as insect pests, such as the Colorado beetle. Japan’s World War II biological weapons program is not too well known, but it contains pathogens and chemical herbicides. The American efforts were substantial. They centered on products attacking crops of soybeans, sugar beets, sweet potatoes and cotton, intended to destroy wheat in the western Soviet Union, and rice in Asia, mainly China. Between 1951 and 1969 the U.S. stockpiled more than 30,000 kilograms of the fungus that causes stem rust of wheat, a quantity probably enough to infect every wheat plant on the planet [45]. According to another source [46] 36,000 kilograms of wheat stem rust, and additional quantity of stem rust of rye, only 900 kilograms of rice blast were produced and stockpiled. The U.S., using the “feather bomb” and free-floating balloons developed ingenious distribution and transport systems.

7. WMD: Warfare, Terrorism, Comparative Perspective

The concept of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) should be revisited, as pointed out in the Introduction of this article. Physical efficiency and psychological effect of these weapons may differ considerably when they are used in warfare on soldiers or in peacetime by terrorists. Industrialized countries can develop reliable and sophisticated technologies, which may not be available to small groups.

7.1 Weapons in Warfare

The efficiency of weapons in warfare is closely related to the time parameter:

Number of enemy casualties in a given period,
Number of weapons employed to obtain the desired result,
Delivery time of weapons,
Possibility for stockpiling over extended periods,
Infrastructure affected by its use,
Avoidance of negative impact upon own troops and civil population,
End a war quickly,
No efficient defense against weapons on short or long term.

Evidently, nuclear weapons are “superior” to any other weapons on all these points. Is a specific weapon category useful in conflicts between countries and/or in civil war? Can it serve as a deterrent? Does its use have long term effects on the crop area?

The efficiency of chemical and biological weapons depends heavily on its dispersion, upon the weather condition, determining the exposure and lethality for the combatants. A presumptive agent must not only be highly toxic, but also ‘suitably highly toxic’, so that it is not too difficult to handle by the user. It must be possible to store the substance in containers for long periods without degradation and without corroding the packaging material. Such an agent must be relatively resistant to atmospheric water and oxygen so that it does not lose its effect when dispersed. It must also withstand the shearing forces created by the explosion and heat when it is dispersed. Transport of these agents by long-range missiles and efficient distribution will face enormous difficulties, causing their decomposition, mainly due to the heat development of the warhead at re-entry into the atmosphere. A few developed countries may already be capable to overcome these hurdles [47].

Finding an answer to these questions can be facilitated by evaluation of previous wars.

In World War I an average of one ton of agent was necessary to kill just one soldier. Chemical weapons caused 5 percent of the casualties. The use of chemical weapons did not end the war quickly as had been predicted. During the war between Iraq and Iran through March 1997 27,000 Iranians were exposed to chemical grenades, only 265 died. During the entire war between these two countries chemical weapons killed 5,000, out of the total 600,000 from all causes, i.e. less than 1 percent [6].

The efficiency of chemical/biological weapons in future wars is difficult to predict. Estimates cover a wide range, as shown below.

Under ideal conditions 1 ton of Sarin dropped from an airplane could produce 3,000 to 8,000 deaths, however, under breezy conditions only 300 to 800 [6]. To obtain a sensible effect requires that airplanes fly at very low altitude (less than about 100 meters), and consequently the zone of lethality that could be covered remains small. Furthermore, agent particles larger than 10 micrometers do not reach the non-ciliated alveolar region in the lungs, and those, with a size of about 1-micrometer are exhaled. The optimal size is somewhere between 10 to 5 micrometers, which can not be obtained easily. Sunlight kills or denatures most biological agents. Anthrax efficiency may drop by a factor of thousand when the agent is used during a sunny day. Therefore, the agents have to be sprayed during nighttime.

Chemical weapons depend more than other armament upon atmospheric and topographical factors, whilst temperature, weather and terrain are important factors in determining the persistence of a given chemical agent. Chemical attacks can contaminate an area for between several hours and several days. Weight-for-weight, biological weapons are hundreds to thousands of times more potent than the most lethal chemical weapon [47. 48]. Contamination time is between several hours and several weeks.

A Scud missile warhead filled with botulinum could contaminate an area of 3,600 square kilometers, or 16 times greater than the same warhead filled with the nerve agent Sarin [49].

A United Nations study [50] compared the hypothetical results of an attack carried out by one strategic bomber using either nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. A one-megaton nuclear bomb, the study found, might kill 90 percent of unprotected people over an area of 300 square kilometers. A chemical weapon of 15 tons might kill 50 percent of the people in a 60 square kilometer area. But a 10-ton biological weapon could kill 25 percent of the people, and make 50 percent ill, over an area of 100,000 square kilometers.

If a ballistic missile hits a city delivering 30 kilograms of anthrax spores in a unitary warhead against a city with no civil defense measure could result in lethal inhalation dosage levels over an area of roughly 5 to 25 square kilometers. With no treatment, most of the infected population would die within a week or two. For typical urban population densities this could result in the deaths of tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people [51].

Exaggerated, counterproductive, essentially incorrect, and even dangerous remarks by a US high-ranking official have been made. He claimed that about 2.5 kilograms of anthrax if released in the air over Washington, DC, would kill half of its population, that is, 300,000 people (TV, Nov.1997). In March 1988, four of the most qualified experts on anthrax serving in the US government published a paper in the Archives of Internal Medicine which used a different estimate: 50 kilograms of anthrax released over a city of 500,000 people could kill up to 95,000 people, and possible fewer, depending on urban atmospheric conditions. The first estimate was approximately 100 times higher [46, 52].

These above efficiencies assume, however, that chemical and biological agents can be spread over a large surface and reach the ground level, whereas nuclear weapons can be exploded at any predetermined altitude and on ground level with the desired efficiency.

7.2 Weapons for Terrorists

There is a largely unjustified fear of the public concerning terrorist attacks with chemical or biological agents, their impact on daily life, their frequency, and number of people possibly affected.

Between 1960 and 1980 there have been 40,000 international terror incidents (according to CIA), but only 22 out of them were performed with chemical or biological agents, showing a tiny ratio of 1/2,000. From 1900 till today there occurred 71 terrorist acts worldwide involving the use of biological or chemical agents, resulting in 123 fatalities, among those only one was American, hit by a cyanide-laced bullet. These acts produced 3,774 nonfatal injuries (784 Americans, 751 out of them by salmonella food poisoning by an Oregan-based religious sect). During the first nine decades of the 20th century there have been 70 biological attacks (18 by terrorists), causing 9 deaths [6].

The Aum-Shinrikyo sect in Japan had about $1 billion (another source gives $1.2 to 1.6 billion) at its disposal for development of chemical and biological weapons.

Aum had appropriate equipment (even more than it was necessary).
Aum had used commercial front companies to buy the equipment.
Aum may have spent about $10 million in their effort to produce biological agents.
Several of the individuals had post-graduate degrees.
Aum had gathered a research library.
Aum had sufficient time – four years – for their attempts.
Aum had attempted to purchase expertise in Russia and obtain or purchase disease strains in Japan.

However, Aum failed to produce either of two biological agents, Clostridium botulinum, to obtain Botulinum toxin, and anthrax, and also did not manage to “disperse” them. Despite its efforts, spending $10 million on the development of biological agents. Aum sprayed botulinum toxin over Tokyo several times in 1990, and conducted similar activities with anthrax spores in 1993, but without any known effects. Actually, the cult had used a relatively harmless anthrax vaccine strain and the aerosolizer had no sufficient efficiency [53, 54].

There are two well-publicized Aum attacks with chemical agents (Matsumoto, 3 kg of pure Sarin, 1994; Tokyo subway, 6-7 kg 30% pure Sarin, 1995), the latter made in a confined area, limiting a detrimental effect of air current. Nevertheless, the Matsumoto assault killed only seven non-targeted innocents, and in Tokyo only twelve people died from direct contact with the liquid and not from fumes [54].

A more detailed description of risk assessment by terrorism with chemical and biological weapons can be found in [54]. This article provides results from computer simulation for dispersion of chemical and biological agents under various atmospheric conditions and their impact parameters on human health.

7.3 Comparative Perspective

Analysts have defined Mass Casualty as anything between 100 and 1,000 individuals arriving at hospitals. The numbers in the previous section are related to deaths, and a factor of up to about ten has to be applied to encompass individuals suffering non-lethal injuries. Evidently, similar factors have to be used for victims of conventional weapons in war.

In the discussion of biological agent terrorism as a potential mass casualty event it is quite revealing to look at the annual mortality in several public health sectors in the USA [53]:

• Food-borne disease incidence:	76 million cases per year
	315,000 hospitalizations per year
	5,000 deaths per year
• Medical error mortality:	between 44,000 and 98,000 deaths per year
• Hospital contracted infections:	20,000 deaths per year
• The 1993 cryptosporidium outbreak in Milwaukee (water pollution)	sickened 400,000 people
• Air pollution in the US results in	50,000 deaths per year
• Firearms result in	35,000 death per year.

Compared with these data, the impact of biological and chemical agents terrorism in the past is negligible and will remain probably (hopefully!) small.

8. Implementation of the Chemical and Biological Weapons Convention and Conclusions

Like most scientific and industrial developments there is the possibility to apply them for the good or for the bad. The responsibility of the scientists, as well as the politicians and military, is challenged. The production of the basic material for military or civilian application is closely intertwined. This makes any inspection and accusation of intended military use extraordinary difficult. In addition manufacturers fear for their patents and are worried about industrial espionage.

Production of biological warfare agents can be done in any hospital or basement rooms in small quantities by qualified personal, for chemicals it requires larger plants. The 121 States Parties and 48 signatory states of the Chemical Weapons Convention have an implementation body, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which is operational since two years from The Hague [7]. It performed already more than 500 inspections. The OPCW has about 500 staff members, consisting of 200 inspectors and 300 administrative staff. Out of these 300 administrators most are verification experts and inspection planers. Among the most important old issues are: guidelines for low concentrations, the usability of old and abandoned chemical weapons. As mentioned above the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) does not cover sea-dumped chemical weapons.

There has not yet been progress in the establishment of an analogue organization for Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC). It might be placed in The Hague or in Geneva. Work on the protocol to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention, as well as the verification protocol is still in its initial state, and a success of the 5^th BWC Review Conference to be held in Geneva in November 2001 is not at all assured [46]. Of the 141 States Parties to the BWC only around 60 send delegations to the Ad Hoc Group (AHG). Not all of the AHG accept the concept of random visits. The establishment of an international organization to oversee the implementation of the BWC protocol is estimated to consist out of a staff of 233 people and an annual cost of approximately $30 million. There might be eventually about 70 inspectors carrying out approximately 100 visits per year. One of the disputed topics is related to new forms of biological weapons, caused by the biotechnology revolution [38]. The delivery system or the efficiency of these new agents has not changed, but their capability to manipulate human life processes themselves. Biological weapons should now be seen as a global threat to the human species, but not as an efficient weapon in warfare.

Inspections of biological agents will hit more resistance by the pharmaceutical and bio-technical industry than the one in the chemical industry.

The dangerous leftovers from the chemical weapons race, like the ones from nuclear weapons construction, not to forget the land mines, will be still with us for a long time. Ethics, politics and international security should be closely interlaced to remove these inhuman weapons from Earth. There is an excellent opportunity for fruitful collaboration between defense conversion sector and the environmental community.

The CBWC has certainly the beneficial effect in reducing the arsenal of old weapons, but will not give a guarantee that new, clandestine developments in various countries will go on unnoticed.

The difficulty to use these weapons efficiently is in general underestimated, but their impact exaggerated. This combination causes unjustifiable fear of the public and leads policy makers to wrong conclusions, among them to designate them as WMDs and keep nuclear weapons as a deterrent.

The critical, comparative assessment of the three types of weapons (one may want to include radiological weapons) presented in this article are not intended to slow down efforts for the elimination of chemical and biological weapons. The CBWC should remain an important treaty and negotiations on enforcement provisions should be accelerated, so that it can be eventually fully implemented. In particular, the arsenal of unused weapons, being in storage or “disposed” in the oceans or elsewhere, presents a considerable danger on short and long term for humans and the environment. Anybody killed by these weapons is one too much. However, we have to put these weapons and the ratified conventions in the right quantitative perspective.

In the view of the author most of the conventional weapons, in particular small arms, are weapons of Mass Killing: According to a Red Cross inquiry [57] Assault Rifles, like AK47s, Handguns, and Land Mines, caused 64%, 10% and 10% of civilian casualties, respectively. The remaining 16% are almost equally shared between Hand Grenades, Artillery (including fragmentation and incinerating bombs), Mortars, and Major Weapons. During the 20th century these weapons had been used to kill 34 million soldiers in combat, 80 million civilians, plus soldiers who died from wounds, accidents or disease. The world was “fortunate” that only two nuclear bombs have been dropped in warfare until now. They killed “only” ~200,000 people. Nevertheless, the nuclear arsenal has to be on the top of the WMD-category, since it has the potential to erase humans from our planet in almost no time.

Maintaining nuclear weapons by the Nuclear Weapon States (NWSs) to deter production and stockpiling of chemical and biological weapons, mainly in countries of concern, can only be interpreted as an unjustifiable, unreasonable pretext to keep nuclear weapons indefinitely in stock. Is it politically wise to change the unfortunate, misleading definition of weapons of mass destruction (WMD = NW + CW + BW), repeated again and again in the media, and deeply engraved into the mind of people? Will a new definition distract from the importance of the two, universally ratified treaties? Might it be counterproductive to do so in a time, where scientists are under increasing scrutiny and attack?

The author felt that informing the educated public and policy makers on a re-definition of WMD warrants the change and outweighs possible negative repercussions.

Acknowledgements

I like to thank Professor W.K.H. Panofsky for carefully reading a previous version of this article, and for valuable criticism and useful suggestions. Dr. Milton Leitenberg is thanked for providing a lot of relevant literature and sharing with me his profound knowledge and insight into the problem of biological warfare and terrorism. I profited much from participation in workshops in Como/Italy and Rome, organized by Professor Maurizio Martellini, and thank him for the kind invitation to these events. The opinion expressed in this article is those of the author and under his sole responsibility.

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[43] Milton Leitenberg, “The Biological Weapons Program of the Former Soviet Union”, Biologicals, Volume 31, Number 3, pp. 187-191, September 1993.

[44] Iris Hunger, “Successful Biological Weapons Control is a Comprehensive Task and the Responsibility of All”, Statement of the INES Working Group on Biological and Toxin Weapons Control, prepared for the Fourth Review Conference of the Biological Weapons Convention 25 November – 6 December 1996, Geneva. and Iris Hunger, “Improving Biological Security: The Process of Strengthening the BTW Convention”, First Forum of the International Scientific Panel on the Possible Consequences of the Misuse of Biological Sciences, Science for Peace Series, UNESCO, volume no.6, 1997, pp. 367-388.

[45] P. Rogers, S. Whitby and M. Dando, “Biological Warfare against Crops”, Scientific American, June 1999, pp. 62-67.

[46] Milton Leitenberg, “Biological Weapons in the Twentieth Century: A Review and Analysis”, 7th International Symposium on Protection against Chemical and Biological Warfare, Stockholm, Sweden, June 2001, http://www.fas.org/bwc/papers/bw20th.htm

[47] Andrew M. Sessler. John M. Cornwall, Bob Dietz, Steve Fetter, Sherman Frankel, Richard L. Garwin, Kurt Gottfried, Lisbeth Gronlund, George N. Lewis, Theodore A. Postol, David C. Wright, “Countermeasures: A Technical Evaluation of the Operational Effectiveness of the Planned US National Missile Defense System”, Union of Concerned Scientists, MIT Security Studies Program, April 2000.

[48] “Technologies Underlying Weapons of Mass Destruction”, US Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, OTA-ISC-559 (Washington, D.C.: US Printing Office, August 1993), pg. 73.

[49] “Biological Weapons”, Center for Defense and International Security, http://www.cdiss.org/bw.htm

[50] K. Clements, Malcolm Dando, “A Wall against These Living Weapons”, International Herald Tribune, 3.9.1993.

[51] Steve Fetter, “Ballistic Missiles and Weapons of Mass Destruction,” International Security Vol.16 (Summer 1991).

[52] Milton Leitenberg, “Terrorism and Weapons of Mass Destruction”, ISPAC, International Scientific and Professional Advisory Council of the United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Program, International Conference on Countering Terrorism Through Enhanced International Cooperation, Courmayeur, Mont Blanc, pp. 1-33, 22-24 September 2000.

[53] Milton Leitenberg, “An Assessment of the Threat of the Use of Biological Weapons or Biological Agents”, Paper presented for Landau Network – Centro Volta Conference, Rome, September 18-19, 2000.

[54] Jean Pascal Zanders, Edvard Karlsson, Lena Melin, Erik Näslund and Lennart Thaning, in SIPRI Year book 2000, Oxford University Press, Appendix 9A. “Risk assessment of terrorism with chemical and biological weapons”.

[55] Milton Leitenberg, “Biological Weapons: A Reawakened Concern”, The World & I, pp. 289-305, January 1999.

[56] Milton Leitenberg, “Biological Weapons Arms Control”, Project on Rethinking Arms Control, Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland, PRAC Paper No. 16, May 1996, http://www.puaf.umd.edu/CISSM/publications/bwarmscon.pdf

[57] Jeffrey Boutwell and Michael T. Klare, “A Scourge of Small Arms”, Scientific American, June 2000, pp. 30-35.

November 22, 2001

Nuclear Weapons, Ethics, Morals and Law

This article was an NGO Presentation for the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty Prepcom of 1999 and The Hague Appeal for Peace addressing nuclear weapons, morals, ethics, spiritual values, the Culture of Peace, and law. Organizations participating in creation of this presentation include NGO Committee on Disarmament, World Conference on Religion and Peace, Temple of Understanding, Pax Christi International, Franciscans International, Interfaith Center of New York, State of the World Forum, and Lawyers Alliance for World Security.

Ethical and Moral Framework for Addressing the Issue

In his concurrence with the historic opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued July 8, 1996, addressing the legal status of the threat or use of nuclear weapons,1 Judge Ranjeva stated, “On the great issues of mankind the requirements of positive law and of ethics make common cause, and nuclear weapons, because of their destructive effects, are one such issue.”2 Human society has ethical and moral norms based on wisdom, conscience and practicality. Many norms are universal and have withstood the test of human experience over long periods of time. One such principle is that of reciprocity. It is often called the Golden Rule: “Treat others as you wish to be treated.” It is an ethical and moral foundation for all the world’s major religions.3

Several modern states sincerely believe that this principle can be abrogated and security obtained by the threat of massive destruction. The Canberra Commission highlighted the impracticality of this posture: “Nuclear weapons are held by a handful of states which insist that these weapons provide unique security benefits, and yet reserve uniquely to themselves the right to own them. This situation is highly discriminatory and thus unstable; it cannot be sustained. The possession of nuclear weapons by any state is a constant stimulus to other states to acquire them.”

The solution can be stated simply: “States should treat others as they wish to be treated in return.”4

It is inconsistent with moral wisdom and practical common sense for a few states to violate this ancient and universally valid principle of reciprocity. Such moral myopia has a corrosive effect on the law which gains its respect largely through moral coherence. Can global security be obtained while rejecting wisdom universally recognized for thousands of years?

Judge Weeramantry said,”(E)quality of all those who are subject to a legal system is central to its integrity and legitimacy. So it is with the body of principles constituting the corpus of international law. Least of all can there be one law for the powerful and another law for the rest. No domestic system would accept such a principle, nor can any international system which is premised on a concept of equality.”5

Law and Values

Law is the articulation of values. Values must be based on moral foundations to have credibility. The recognition of the intrinsic sacredness of life and the duty of states and individuals to protect life is a fundamental characteristic of all human civilized values. Such civilized values are expressed in humanitarian law and custom which has an ancient lineage reaching back thousands of years. “They were worked out in many civilizations — Chinese, Indian, Greek, Roman, Japanese, Islamic, modern European among others.” Humanitarian law ” is an ever continuous development…(and) grows as the sufferings of war keep escalating. With a nuclear weapon, those sufferings reach a limit situation, beyond which all else is academic.”6

In testimony before the Court, then Foreign Minister of Australia Gareth Evans said, “The fact remains that the existence of nuclear weapons as a class of weapons threatens the whole of civilization. This is not the case with respect to any class or classes of conventional weapons. It cannot be consistent with humanity to permit the existence of a weapon which threatens the very survival of humanity. The threat of global annihilation engendered by the existence of such weapons, and the fear that this has engendered amongst the entire post-war generation, is itself an evil, as much as nuclear war itself. If not always at the forefront of our everyday thinking, the shadow of the mushroom cloud remains on all our minds. It has pervaded our thoughts about the future, about our children, about human nature. And it has pervaded the thoughts of our children themselves, who are deeply anxious about their future in a world where nuclear weapons remain.”7

We must never forget the awesome destructive power of these devices. “Nuclear weapons have the potential to destroy the entire eco system of the planet. Those already in the world’s arsenals have the potential of destroying life on the planet several times over.”8

Not only are they destructive in magnitude but in horror as well. 9

Notwithstanding this knowledge we permit ourselves to continue to live in a “kind of suspended sentence. For half a century now these terrifying weapons of mass destruction have formed part of the human condition. Nuclear weapons have entered into all calculations, all scenarios, all plans. Since Hiroshima, on the morning of 6 August, 1945, fear has gradually become man’s first nature. His life on earth has taken on the aspect of what the Qur’an calls ‘long nocturnal journey’, a nightmare whose end he cannot yet foresee.”10

Attempting to obtain ultimate security through the ultimate weapon, we have failed for, “the proliferation of nuclear weapons has still not been brought under control, despite the existence of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Fear and folly may still link hands at any moment to perform a final dance of death. Humanity is all the more vulnerable today for being capable of mass producing nuclear missiles.”11

As the General Assembly in its “Declaration on the Prevention of Nuclear Catastrophe” in 1981 said, “all the horrors of past wars and calamities that have befallen people would pale in comparison with what is inherent in the use of nuclear weapons, capable of destroying civilization on earth.”

A five megaton weapon represents greater explosive power than all the bombs used in World War II and a twenty megaton bomb more than all the explosives used in all the wars in history. Several states are currently poised ready to deliver weapons that render those used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki small. One megaton bomb represents the explosive force of approximately seventy Hiroshimas while a fifteen megaton bomb a thousand Hiroshimas. Judge Weeramantry emphasized that “the unprecedented magnitude of its destructive power is only one of the unique features of the bomb. It is unique in its uncontainability in both space and time. It is unique as a source of peril to the human future. It is unique as a source of continuing danger to human health, even long after its use. Its infringement of humanitarian law goes beyond its being a weapon of mass destruction, to reasons which penetrate far deeper into the core of humanitarian law.”12

We are challenged as never before: technology continues to slip away from moral guidance and law chases after common sense.

International Court of Justice

When the International Court of Justice addressed the legal status of threat or use of nuclear weapons members of the nuclear club, which has since grown, asserted a principled reliance on nuclear weapons. The Court held that “the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable to armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law” and that states are obligated to bring to a conclusion negotiations on nuclear disarmament in all its aspects. 13

Did the Court open the way for permissible uses of a nuclear weapon by saying that is “generally” illegal and that it could not say that there would never be an attack on a country that threatened its very existence to which nuclear weapons would be necessarily an illegal response?

Did the Court acknowledge that there were conceivably hypothetically legally compliant uses? It quoted the United Kingdom’s statement that “(I)n some cases, such as the use of a low yield nuclear weapon against warships on the high seas or troops in sparsely populated areas it is possible to envision a nuclear attack which caused comparatively few civilian casualties.”14 However, the Court further pointed out that no state demonstrated when even such a limited use would be justifiable or “feasible.”15

The Court had already ruled unanimously that nuclear weapons must in any and all instances obey humanitarian laws of war. Can our most basic moral judgments founded on “dictates of conscience”, “elementary considerations of humanity” which remain “fundamental” and “intransgressible” be squared with these devices?16 It seems scarcely reasonable with respect to these humanitarian legal requirements that they can.17

The Court stated unequivocally that the rules of armed conflict, including humanitarian law, prohibits the use of any weapon that is likely to cause unnecessary suffering to combatants;18 that is incapable of distinguishing between civilian and military targets;19 that violates principles protecting neutral states (such as through fall out or nuclear winter);20 that is not a proportional response to an attack;21 or that does permanent damage to the environment.22

Under no circumstance may states make civilians the object of attack nor can they use weapons that are incapable of distinguishing between civilian and military targets. Regardless of whether the survival of a state acting in self defense is at stake, these limitations continue to hold.

For this reason the President Judge stated in forceful terms that the Court’s inability to go beyond its statement “can in no manner be interpreted to mean that it is leaving the door ajar to the recognition of the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons.”23 He emphasized his point by stating that nuclear weapons are “the ultimate evil, destabilize humanitarian law which is the law of the lesser evil. Thus the very existence of nuclear weapons is a great challenge to humanitarian law itself.”24

The Court held that no formal testimony was presented that nuclear weapons can meet the humanitarian law requirements for their use.25

The President Judge along with several other judges undertook to point out the illogic of the situation: “It would thus be quite foolhardy unhesitatingly to set the survival of a state above all other considerations, in particular above the survival of mankind itself.”26

The President Judge said, “Atomic warfare and humanitarian law therefore appear to me mutually exclusive: the existence of one automatically implies the non-existence of the other.”27 The Court said, “(M)ethods and means of warfare, which would preclude any distinction between civilian and military targets, or which would result in unnecessary suffering to combatants, are prohibited. In view of the unique characteristics of nuclear weapons…the use of such weapons in fact seems scarcely reconcilable with respect to such requirements.”28

Discordance between the incompatibility of these devices with the requirements of humanitarian law, the assertion that there could be possible instances in which their use could be legal and the reliance on the doctrine of deterrence compelled the Court to seek a resolution: “the long promised complete nuclear disarmament appears to be the most appropriate means of achieving that result.”29 The requirements of moral coherence and ethical conduct and the need for “international law, and with it the stability of international order which it is intended to govern,”30 drive the imperative of nuclear disarmament.

Ongoing Problem

Legal and moral questions continue to loom before us. We are not faced with nuclear policies founded on a strategy of dropping depth charges in mid-ocean or bombs in the desert. What the world faces is nuclear deterrence with its reliance on the horrific destruction of vast numbers of innocent people, destruction of the environment rendering it hostile to generations yet to be blessed with life.

Deterrence proponents claim that nuclear weapons are not so much instruments for the waging of war but political instruments “intended to prevent war by depriving it of any possible rationale.”3 The United States has boldly argued that because deterrence is believed to be essential to its international security that the threat or use of nuclear weapons must therefore be legal. The United States representative stated: “If these weapons could not lawfully be used in individual or collective self defense under any circumstances (underlying added), there would be no credible threat of such use in response to aggression and deterrent policies would be futile and meaningless. In this sense, it is impossible to separate the policy of deterrence from the legality of the use of the means of deterrence. Accordingly, any affirmation of a general prohibition on the use of nuclear weapons would be directly contrary to one of the fundamental premises of the national security policy of each of these many states.”32

It is clear that deterrence is designed to threaten massive destruction which would most certainly violate numerous principles of humanitarian law. Additionally, it strikes at generations yet unborn.

Even in the instance of retaliation the moral absurdity challenges us. As Mexico’s Ambassador Sergio Gonzalez Galvez told the Court, “Torture is not a permissible response to torture. Nor is mass rape acceptable retaliation to mass rape. Just as unacceptable is retaliatory deterrence—‘You burnt my city, I will burn yours.’ “33

Professor Eric David, on behalf of the Solomon Islands, stated, “If the dispatch of a nuclear weapon causes a million deaths, retaliation with another nuclear weapon which will also cause a million deaths will perhaps protect the sovereignty of the state suffering the first strike, and will perhaps satisfy the victim’s desire for revenge, but it will not satisfy humanitarian law, which will have been breached not once but twice; and two wrongs do not make a right.”34

Judge Weeramantry rigorously analyzed deterrence theory:

1. Intention: “Deterrence needs to carry the conviction to other parties that there is a real intention to use those weapons in the event of an attack by that other party. A game of bluff does not convey that intention, for it is difficult to persuade another of one’s intention unless one really has that intention. Deterrence thus consists in a real intention to use such weapons. If deterrence is to operate, it leaves the world of make believe and enters the field of seriously intended military threats.”35

2. Deterrence and Mere Possession: “Deterrence is more than the mere accumulation of weapons in a storehouse. It means the possession of weapons in a state of readiness for actual use. This means the linkage of weapons ready for immediate take off, with a command and control system geared for immediate action. It means that weapons are attached to delivery vehicles. It means that personnel are ready night and day to render them operational at a moment’s notice. There is clearly a vast difference between weapons stocked in a warehouse and weapons so ready for immediate action. Mere possession and deterrence are thus concepts which are clearly distinguishable from each other.”36

For deterrence to work one must have the resolve to cause the resulting damage and devastation.

Is deterrence limited to depth charges in the ocean or strikes in the desert? Are we willing to permit global security to rely on a bluff? If it is not a lie but a resolve to be willing to destroy all, are we not reducing humanitarian law to being a mere servant of raw power? Is not the very definition of lawlessness when might claims to make right?

While deterrence continues to place all life on the planet in a precarious position of high risk, one must wonder whether it provides any possible security against accidental or unauthorized launches, computer error, irrational rogue actions, terrorist attack, criminal syndicate utilization of weapons and other irrational and unpredictable, but likely, scenarios.

Did the Court undermine the continued legitimacy of deterrence? The Court stated clearly that “if the use of force itself in a given case is illegal—for whatever reason—the threat to use such force will likewise be illegal.”37

The moral position of the nuclear weapons states is essentially that the threat to commit an illegal act—massive destruction of innocent people—is legal because it is so horrible to contemplate that it ensures the peace. Thus the argument is that the threat of committing that which is patently illegal is made legal by its own intrinsic illogic. Does this engender moral coherence in the youth of the world to whom we must argue that violence and the threat of violence in daily life does not bring human fulfillment?

An unambiguous political commitment by the nuclear weapon states to the elimination of nuclear weapons evidenced by unambiguous immediate pledges never to use them first as well as placing the weapons in a de-alerted posture pending their ultimate elimination will promptly evidence the good faith efforts by the nuclear weapon states to reduce our collective risks. These steps increase our collective security, but are hardly enough to meet the clear decision of the court and the dictates of reason. Only commencement in good faith of multilateral negotiations leading to elimination of these devices will bring law, morals, ethics and reason into coherence. Only then will we be able to tell our children that ultimate violence will not bring ultimate security, a culture of peace based on law, reason and values will.

Conclusion

We are heartened by the level of cooperation articulated in the integrated human security agendas that emerged from the world summits of the 1990’s which addressed our common environmental and human security concerns. However, it must be pointed out that to fulfill the commitments made at these summits a new level of cooperation is required. It is appropriate, therefore, that the United Nations has declared the first ten years of the 21st century as dedicated to the creation of a Culture of Peace. That Culture of Peace will require a pattern in which trust, respect and transparency will breed disarmament and reverse the pattern of fear and threat which have continued to justify irrational levels of armaments. According to the Brookings Institute the U.S. alone has spent 5.8 trillion on nuclear arms since 1940.38 General Dwight D. Eisenhower said, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money on arms alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists and the hopes of its children.”

The moral experience of shame has been placed in us along with the moral sensibility of revulsion. What right do we have to organize ourselves such that we might give human beings the Sophie’s choice of ending all life on the planet in order to save a human creation, the state. As General Omar Bradley stated, “We live in an age of nuclear giants and ethical infants, in a world that has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. We have solved the mystery of the atom and forgotten the lessons of the Sermon on the Mount. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about dying than we know about living.”

It is time that we took bold moves to change the moral incoherence of the 20th century for it is now time in which statesmen must delve deep into themselves and become men in a state of grace. Let us grasp this moment of hazard and opportunity with our full humanity. Ultimate hazard and horror is our future if we let it slip away; opportunity to lead the world in fulfilling nothing less than an ultimate moral imperative — nuclear disarmament — is ours if we meet the challenge. This is a long journey that must take us from fear and incoherence into reason and moral coherence. Let it truly begin with us today.

Footnotes

1 Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, General List No. 95 (Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice of July 8, 1996). Unless otherwise noted, references are to this opinion, which was requested by the General Assembly. The historic importance of this decision cannot be overemphasized for it is the first judicial analysis of the issue by this international tribunal even though the first General Assembly Resolution, unanimously adopted January 24, 1946 at the London session, called for elimination of atomic weapons.

2 Opinion of Judge Ranjeva, para. 105(2)E1.

3 Buddhism: “Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.” Udana-Varga, 5:18; Christianity: “All things whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you even so to them.” Matthew 7:12; Confucianism: “Do not unto others what you would not have them do unto you.” Analects 15:23; Hinduism: “This is the sum of duty: do not unto others which would cause you pain if done to you.” Mahabharata 5:1517; Islam: “No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.” Hadith; Jainism: “In happiness and suffering, in joy and grief, we should regard all creatures as we regard our own self.” Lord Mahavir 24th Tirthankara; Judaism: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow man. That is the law; all the rest is commentary.” Talmud, Shabbat 31a; Zoroastrianism: “That nature only is good when it shall not do unto another whatsoever is not good for its own self.” Dadistan-I-Dinik, 94:5.

4 See, excellent analysis, “Ethics of Abolition” in Douglas Roche’s Unacceptable Risk, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, 1995, p.90.

5 Opinion of Judge Weeramantry, V4.

6 Ibid. I 5.

7 Gareth Evans of Australia, verbatum record, 30 October, 1995, pp. 44-45, 49.

8 Opinion of Judge Weeramantry, II 3(a).

9 Nuclear weapons cause death and destruction; induced cancers, leukemia, keloids and related afflictions; cause gastrointestinal, cardiovascular and related afflictions; continued for decades after their use to induce the health related problems mentioned above; damage the environmental rights of future generations; cause congenital deformities, mental retardation and genetic damage; carry the potential to cause a nuclear winter; contaminate and destroy the food chain; imperil the eco system; produce lethal levels of heat and blast; produce radiation and radioactive fallout; produce a disruptive electromagnetic pulse; produce social disintegration; imperil all civilizations; threaten human survival; wreak cultural devastation; span a time range of thousands of years; threaten all life on the planet; irreversibly damage the rights of future generations; exterminate civilian population; damage neighboring states; produce psychological stress and fear syndromes–as no other weapons do” Opinion of J, Ibid. para. II 4.

10 Opinion of President Judge Bedjaoui, para. 2.

11 Ibid. para. 5.

12 Opinion of Judge Weeramantry II para. 3.

13 “THE COURT:(1) By thirteen votes to one, Decides to comply with the request for an advisory opinion; IN FAVOUR: President Bedjaoui; Vice-President Schwebel; Judges Guillaume, Shahabuddeen, Weeramantry, Ranjeva, Herczegh, Shi, Fleischhauer, Koroma, Vereshchetin, Ferrari Bravo, Higgins;AGAINST: Judge Oda. (2) Replies in the following manner to the question put by the General Assembly: A. Unanimously, There is in neither customary nor conventional international law any specific authorization of the threat or use of nuclear weapons; B. By eleven votes to three, There is in neither customary nor conventional international law any comprehensive and universal prohibition of the threat or use of nuclear weapons as such; IN FAVOUR: President Bedjaoui; Vice-President Schwebel; Judges Oda, Guillaume, Ranjeva, Herczegh, Shi, Fleischhauer, Vereshchetin, Ferrari Bravo, Higgins; AGAINST: Judges Shahabuddeen, Weeramantry, Koroma. C. Unanimously, A threat or use of force by means of nuclear weapons that is contrary to Article 2, paragraph 4, of the United Nations Charter and that fails to meet all the requirements of Article 51, is unlawful; D. Unanimously, A threat or use of nuclear weapons should also be compatible with the requirements of the international law applicable in armed conflict particularly those of the principles and rules of international humanitarian law, as well as with specific obligations under treaties and other undertakings which expressly deal with nuclear weapons; E. By seven votes to seven, by the President’s casting vote, It follows from the above-mentioned requirements that the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law; However, in view of the current state of international law, and of the elements of fact at its disposal, the Court cannot conclude definitively whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be lawful or unlawful in an extreme circumstance of self-defense, in which the very survival of a State would be at stake; IN FAVOUR: President Bedjaoui; Judges Ranjeva, Herczegh, Shi, Fleischhauer, Vereshchetin, Ferrari Bravo; AGAINST: Vice-President Schwebel; Judges Oda, Guillaume, Shahabuddeen, Weeramantry, Koroma, Higgins. F. Unanimously, There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.” Para.105.

For full opinion and commentary, See, Ann Fagan Ginger, ed. Nuclear Weapons Are Illegal: The Historic Opinion of the World Court and How It Will Be Enforced, Apex Press, New York, 1998; For analysis with excellent bibliography on the opinion, See, John Burroughs, The (Il)legality of Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, A Guide to the Historic Opinion of the International Court of Justice, Munster, London, 1997; For opinion available at cost from UN (document A/51/218, 15 October 1996), UN Publications, 2 UN Plaza, DC2-853, NY, NY 10017, 212-963-8302; Also, available at International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA) website http://www.ddh.nl/org/ialana

14 Para. 91.

15 Para. 94.

16 Paras. 78-79.

17 Para. 95.

18 Paras. 78, see paras. 92,95.

19 Paras 78, 95

20 Para. 78.

21 Ibid.

22 Paras. 32, 33, 35.

23 Opinion of President Judge Bedjaoui, para. 20.

24 Ibid. 23

25 Paras.94-95, see para. 91.

26 Opinion of President Bedjaoui, para. 22.

27 Ibid. para 20.

28 Para. 95

29 Para. 98

30 Ibid.

31 Marc Perrinde Brichambaut, France, Verbatim record (trans.) 1 November, 1995, page 33.

32 Michael Matheson, US, Verbatim record, 15 November, 1995, p. 78.

33 Verbatim record, 3 November 1995, p. 64.

34 Verbatim record, (trans.), 14 November, 1995, p. 45.

35 Opinion of Judge Weeramantry, VII 2(v).

36 Ibid.

37 Para. 47.

38 Washington Post, July 1, 1998.

* Jonathan Granoff is an attorney and a member of Lawyers Alliance for World Security, Temple of Understanding, and the State of the World Forum.

May 26, 1999