The NPT: A Southern Perspective

Bharat Bhushan

The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has not been much of a success either in promoting disarmament or in promoting nuclear non-proliferation. While the United States and Russia have made a modest beginning in reducing their nuclear arsenals, they continue to press for the indefinite extension of the treaty, which would allow them to maintain their nuclear arsenals forever. The three other nuclear powers and signatories to the NPT - the United Kingdom, China, and France - are allowed to continue to modernize and upgrade their nuclear weapons. Furthermore, Iraq and North Korea have managed to develop their own clandestine nuclear weapon programs, despite being parties to the NPT.

Shortcomings of the NPT

The Non Nuclear Weapon States (NNWS) perceive the NPT to be an unequal and inadequate treaty. Justifiably, they believe that an indefinite extension of the NPT would carry with it the indefinite postponement of universal nuclear disarmament. As it is, the five declared Nuclear Weapon States (NWS) have no time frame for the elimination of their nuclear weapon arsenals. The United States does not even support negotiations at the Conference on Disarmament for a treaty to outlaw first use of nuclear weapons against NNWS. Russia has retreated from its 1978 no-first-use pledge. China continues with its nuclear tests. While the other four NWS have enacted a voluntary moratorium on testing, it remains unclear how long France will continue to adhere to it. In the United States, political pressure is mounting to continue with programs for hydro-nuclear testing or laboratory level testing. If the most important long-term goal for the NPT is universal nuclear disarmament, then it is difficult to see how the NNWS can be convinced that this goal could be achieved by an indefinite and unconditional extension of the NPT.

The treaty has no teeth. It does not place any reasonable obligations on the declared NWS to move towards nuclear disarmament. There is no time frame in the treaty for disarmament, no markers for progress toward that goal, and no censure, sanction, or punishment for failure to disarm. Is it any wonder then that Article VI of the treaty - its general link with the goal of disarmament - has become a major rallying point for the NNWS signatories to the treaty? Because the NPT does not aim toward universal disarmament in a meaningful way, it has been unable to bring in nations that wanted to keep their nuclear options open. It is quite possible, though, that even if the NPT had been an equal treaty, countries such as India and Israel still might have stayed out of it.

The NPT is in several respects a contradictory treaty. Although it claims as its objective the prevention of nuclear proliferation, it only prohibits horizontal proliferation to the NWS while allowing vertical proliferation by the NWS. It actually promotes the use of commercial nuclear technology and materials that can be used in nuclear weapons programs. It further justifies peaceful nuclear explosions (PNEs), whose benefits are yet to be demonstrated but whose disastrous environmental consequences are all too apparent. There are several other inadequacies in the treaty - inefficient safeguards; unresolved confusion between civil, military, and dual-use potential of nuclear technology; no clear definition of a nuclear weapon; the dual role of the IAEA as both a promoter and controller of nuclear technology; etc.

No doubt the various shortcomings of the NPT can be discussed in detail to counter the arguments of those who want to extend the treaty indefinitely in its present form. The political point, however, is from which perspective, and with which goal, these shortcomings are being pointed out. Is the perspective one of meaningful progress toward disarmament and non-proliferation, or of merely maintaining a moral high ground while simultaneously creating a space for maintaining a nuclear option? The question is one of tendency - which way is one moving while making the right noises? The question may have been resolved in the case of South Africa, which has dismantled its nuclear weapons and has joined the NPT. It is not of much significance in the case of Argentina and Brazil because they have taken definite steps in the direction of bilateral and regional agreements on disarmament. But it assumes a special significance in the case of the undeclared or de-facto nuclear nations outside the NPT, i.e. Israel, India, and Pakistan.

False Arguments for Nuclear Weapons

When Israel says that the NPT alone cannot prevent local wars in the Middle East, it is really defending its undeclared nuclear status. And when India criticizes the NPT as not promoting global disarmament and being discriminatory, we know only too well that these are self-serving arguments for India to keep the nuclear option open. Defendants of nuclear weapons in the undeclared or de-facto NWS are using a number of devious arguments to justify not giving up their nuclear weapon capability. The use of the racial metaphor of maintaining a balance between the white and non-white nuclear and nuclear-capable powers; the argument for achieving self-reliance and strategic autonomy through proliferation; and claims that the NPT cannot resolve regional conflict, are all part of the same bag of arguments.

An example of the racial argument is given by an Indian strategic analyst who sees a desirable balance emerging between the four original NWS - the United States, the former Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and France - and the later entrants such as China, Israel, India, and Pakistan. He writes: "Today we have a situation where as against the four white nuclear weapon nations there are four non-white nuclear weapon/nuclear weapon capable nations, corresponding to four civilizations - the Sinic, the Jewish, the Hindu the Islamic. Today there is a balance between four white and four non-white nuclear weapon/nuclear weapon capable nations. There is no reason why this balance should be disturbed in favor of the white nations by reducing the non-white representation." The argument is not only racist, it is also patently dishonest. There can be no disarmament by legitimizing the nuclear proliferation of Israel, India, Pakistan, or China.

Even the end of the Cold War is used by defenders of nuclear weapons in India to argue for proliferation. It is suggested that the bipolar world, through its system of alliances, permitted an "external balancing" that obviated the need for the development of nuclear weapons by several other countries. However, since this has become impossible with the collapse of the Soviet Union, they argue, several middle-ranking developing countries feel the need to acquire their own nuclear capability - a sort of "internal balancing" to maintain their strategic autonomy and independence.

Yet another argument is that since some nuclear proliferation has already taken place, why not shift the focus from preventing nuclear proliferation to "managing" it? Thus, an Indian pro-bomb analyst has suggested that a supplementary agreement to the NPT be signed to create what he calls "an equal opportunity NPT" that would help bring the nuclear hold-outs against the treaty into the regime, without undermining it. This, it is suggested, could be followed with an arrangement that would prohibit all further nuclear weapon-related activity worldwide, that would ban all future manufacture of nuclear weapons, and would impose a comprehensive regime on all countries.

The long and short of these arguments is that as long as nuclear weapons continue to be seen as a potent currency of power internationally, there will not only be proliferation but also many arguments to rationalize their spread.

Nuclear Disarmament is Vital

Clearly, the alternative to a discriminatory Non-Proliferation Treaty would be genuine and complete nuclear disarmament through credible ways leading to the elimination of nuclear weapons. Disarmament can only be promoted by actually disarming and not by proliferating, even if in a limited manner. The end of the Cold War has knocked out whatever basis there might have been for nuclear weapons. And although there is a long way to go toward a nuclear weapon-free world, elimination now appears to be a realistic and necessary goal.

Within the overall context of the end of the superpower rivalry, several factors have made it conducive today to push the agenda for elimination of nuclear weapons. The successful adoption of the Chemical Weapons Convention is one such factor. The inability of the declared NWS to push through an indefinite extension of the NPT is another. The movement forward on both a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and a fissile material cutoff is yet another factor that shows that the disarmament and non-proliferation agenda can be pushed on several complementary, converging, and mutually reinforcing tracks.

The crux of the matter is to unequivocally repudiate the security doctrines and policies that justify the development, possession, and use of nuclear weapons, and to make a commitment to the elimination of nuclear weapons. Once this is done, several approaches are possible to meet this objective.

Nuclear Weapon-Free Zones

One such approach is the West Asian and South Asian proposal to set up Nuclear Weapon-Free Zones (NWFZs). Such zones are good transitional mechanisms to global disarmament; they represent a principled and yet realistic framework for nuclear restraint in a region. The proponents of NWFZs argue that there is a powerful political case for them because they address the issue of security without sacrificing national sovereignty or legitimizing the possession of nuclear weapons by a handful of states. They are a potent contribution to nuclear disarmament, and at the same time do not negate a larger global effort. It is difficult to see how the path to nuclear restraint and disarmament either in West or South Asia can go via the NPT.

No restraint must single out some governments for disarmament while the declared NWS (and Israel) continue to possess nuclear arsenals. Thus, for example, in mid-February in Cairo, Arab League members, while refusing to sign an extension of the NPT, drafted a treaty - yet to be approved by the members - to "make the Middle East a zone free from atomic, biological, and chemical weapons". The draft was to be presented, according to news reports, to the Arab League foreign ministers for ratification in March in Cairo, but little has been heard of it since.

The idea of a NWFZ has been mooted in the South Asian context, too, by Pakistan and by peace activists even in India. Analyzing India's options, for example, one such activist has argued that in the absence of a coherent nuclear doctrine, India's nuclear choices are painfully limited. The choice of closing the nuclear weapons option seems politically infeasible given the hype and jingoism over Pakistan's nuclear capability. Implementing the nuclear option and announcing that India has a nuclear arsenal could be even more problematic, as it would elicit a similar response from Pakistan and at the same time provoke China into a nuclear, adversarial relationship that would result in an unequal nuclear arms race. But the third option for India - engaging Pakistan in a bilateral dialogue to establish a NWFZ in South Asia - actually provides a workable alternative to the discriminatory nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty while supporting genuine disarmament.

To quote once again an advocate of the South Asian NWFZ: "As transitional steps, the two governments should agree not to deploy missiles, to freeze fissile material production, and not to test or use their nuclear weapon capabilities, as well as take confidence-building measures. This will lay the ground for involving other South Asian states and the nuclear powers in negotiating a NWFZ agreement - to prevent the deployment of nuclear weapons in the region, the targeting of such weapons at it, or their transportation through it." However, given the existence of weak governments in both India and Pakistan at the present juncture, such a regional initiative is not possible without global measures toward nuclear disarmament. Perhaps this is true even of West Asia.

Some NWS, such as the United States, have tried to push through the NWFZ idea in South Asia. But the NWS are bereft of any moral legitimacy in arguing for such an initiative unless they themselves make proportional nuclear disarmament commitments. Peace activists in South Asia, for example, have been arguing that global agreements on such issues as banning all testing, no first use, and a fissile material production cutoff are a precondition for a South Asian NWFZ initiative. These are necessary preconditions but are not themselves sufficient.

The argument is that to be effective in breaking the South Asian impasse, a CTBT, a no-first-use agreement, and a fissile material production cutoff must be followed by:

1. Deep cuts in strategic nuclear weapons of the five NWS;
2. A universalization of the INF agreement;
3. A substantial reduction of strategic missiles;
4. Quick elimination of battlefield tactical weapons;
5. Greater progress in verification agreements.

Nuclear Disarmament by the Nuclear Weapon States

Needless to say, if the NPT is extended indefinitely this April, it would become that much more difficult to take these major steps to eliminate the bulk of the world's nuclear arsenals. Indeed, even strategic analysts in the NWS realize that, unless some genuine progress is seen to be made in this direction, the NPT cannot be extended unconditionally and indefinitely. At the last count, the United States needed 15 to 20 more votes than it currently has out of the 169 signatories to the NPT in order to get it extended indefinitely, by even a simple majority. The decisive majority is small.

Writing in The New York Times, February 15, 1995, Selig Harrison, a fellow of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, suggested that "to rescue the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the nuclear powers should take two immediate steps to demonstrate their recognition of their Article VI obligations. First, the US and Russia should begin negotiations on a Third Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START III) that would set a timetable for a gradual decrease of nuclear weapons below the level of 3,500 each - negotiated by the Bush Administration in the START II agreement of 1991. The timetable should project progressive and balanced reductions down to 600 nuclear weapons (...) Second, the START III dialogue should be accompanied by five-power negotiations on the 'treaty of nuclear security and stability' proposed by President Yeltsin. He envisioned further steps to limit Russian and US strategic nuclear weapons, together with a cap on further increases in British, Chinese and French nuclear arms while the US-Russian build down progresses." He then suggests that getting down from 600 to zero would require a broadened dialogue embracing nuclear-capable states such as India, Israel, and Pakistan. And elimination, he says, will become a realistic possibility only if continuing progress is made in establishing secure safeguards against further proliferation. This certainly represents a way forward.

Only if the extension of the NPT is predicated on the specific movement forward on several complementary, converging, and mutually reinforcing nuclear disarmament tracks, does it make sense even to argue what kind of rolling extension of the treaty should be supported.