The NPT and the Issue of Latent Proliferation

Roland Kollert

Recently, a well-known NGO activist described the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as an "energy/security bargain between the Nuclear Weapon States (NWS) and the rest". Indeed, many believe that this was the background of the NPT negotiations in the second half of the Sixties. The "rest" renounced the production and acquisition of nuclear weapons (Article II), whereas the NWS and the nuclear-competent members obligated themselves in Article IV "to cooperate for the further development of the applications of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, especially in the territories of the non-nuclear weapon states, with due consideration for the needs of the developing areas of the world". In this way, the text of the Treaty has an aspect of Third World aid. I will return to this point later.

This presentation offers an interpretation of the NPT that differs from the above statement. The use of such terms as "atomic energy for peaceful applications" or "peaceful uses of nuclear energy" in the Treaty does not represent a desire for energy support as much as it reveals the intention of the Non-Nuclear Weapon States (NNWS) to get closer to a weapons option. The central point here is the connection between civil and military nuclear technology. This presentation will not comment on the "security bargain" issue. As is generally known, the unfulfilled Article VI of the NPT is presently the foremost topic of negotiation as far as the Treaty's extension is concerned.

To analyze the term "atomic energy" in Article IV, we must go back to the technical and political history of the Treaty. This presentation tries to give a tour d'horizon, not so much technically as politically.

"Atoms for Peace"?

The key to understanding the commercial history of nuclear technology is the "Atoms for Peace" policy of the Eisenhower Administration. Until 1954, nuclear technology and know-how had been kept strictly secret. After 1954, the United States propagated the message that nuclear technology would be essential for the technical/economic future of all countries. However, Washington's new concept did not have an economic origin; the nuclear-export business became a welcome secondary effect later on. The US government wanted, at that time, to create a new, offensive foreign policy. The reason for this was the United States' frustration with various setbacks in its rivalry with the Soviet Union in the early Fifties (the early Soviet bomb, the iron curtain in Eastern Europe, the invasion of South Korea). The new foreign policy concept was to be based upon a broad international offer to transfer a technology eagerly desired by so many countries. The political aims of Washington were the following:

• To demonstrate "world leadership" in order to bind neutral or politically indifferent countries to the West;
• To prove the technological superiority of capitalism in the race for the development of productive powers that Moscow had initiated;
• To legitimize, within the United States, the tremendous, purely military budget of the Atomic Energy Commission at that time.
• To contain the Soviet Union by a belt of Western oriented countries whose increasing nuclear competence should demonstrate the Western nuclear-military potential.

Shortly thereafter, Moscow, in reaction, began to proliferate basic nuclear equipment and know-how to countries within its sphere of influence, like China and Iraq. Thus, within one decade, the superpowers lost control of nuclear development. Many governments soon learned to use the "Atoms for Peace" propaganda in their own interests. Some of these interests were expansionistic and not peaceful, and some had long-term security policy goals.

National governments took up the nuclear campaign to enhance their capacities for nuclear research and technology. The international nuclear race became so fierce that some underdeveloped countries requested a United States research reactor without having any engineers or scientists to operate it. The industrialized countries used the "Atoms for Peace" message to legitimize extreme state expenditures for the nuclear sector, and at the same time camouflaged the military goals of the development.

One of the most serious political effects of the "Atoms for Peace" program was that trade unions, socialists, and churches were led to believe in the peaceful mission of atomic technology. For nearly two decades, this suppressed a potentially powerful opposition to the nuclear dreams of the governments within the democratic countries.

Another serious effect was the United States Atomic Energy Commission's (AEC) representation of plutonium as the reactor fuel of the future. As a result, 2,000 delegates from 72 countries who attended the famous 1955 UN Conference on Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy were informed, for the first time, of the scientific data of this secret, new element. Ten years later the IAEA organized a conference at which plutonium experts from various countries exchanged their know-how. Scientists of states whose ambiguous plutonium competence is now well-known took part: India, Japan and Germany.

Dual-Use Plutonium Programs in Europe

As a consequence of the "Atoms for Peace" policy, at least a half-dozen West European countries have, since the mid-Fifties, rapidly developed nuclear dual-use programs.⁽¹⁾

The United Kingdom and France

Western Europe's two nuclear powers also began their nuclear development with peaceful programs. The nuclear centers of the United Kingdom were, according to governmental information policy, purely civil up until February 1952, when Winston Churchill announced that the first British plutonium bomb was to be detonated within eight months.

In France, the nuclear program was purely peaceful until April 1958, for about one decade. Then Prime Minister Gaillard declared that within two years a series of atomic tests were to take place. France later successfully established the largest site of dual-use nuclear power plants outside the Soviet Union. In the Sixties and Seventies the production of plutonium for French weapons relied upon natural uranium, graphite-moderated reactors - the three Chinon power plants. In the Eighties, it relied upon two fast-breeder power plants, and it remained based on this type of reactor for over a decade. European Non-Nuclear Weapon States have also pursued nuclear dual-use programs: Sweden, Switzerland, Spain and Germany. (There are also some other candidates but since this talk is being given in the Netherlands, I do not want to mention more names.)

Sweden

Sweden started its nuclear energy program with the construction of two natural-uranium power plants: the Agesta plant in the Fifties, and the Marviken plant in the mid-Sixties. Both produced electricity and heating energy, were run by commercial utilities, and were, for the most part, financed by the state. At the second UN Conference on Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy, Swedish engineers presented Agesta as a modern prototype for a multi-purpose nuclear power plant. And indeed it was, as one of its purposes was to produce weapons plutonium. The plant had been designed explicitly for this goal under the auspices of the Swedish military research institute.

The two dual-use power plants, along with a projected reprocessing plant that was declared civil, were central elements of the "Laddningsprogrammet" of the Swedish general staff. One version of the program proposed the production of twenty warheads per year by the late Sixties. It was not until 1985, when research by the journalist Christer Larsson was released, that the Swedish public was informed of the military function of their country's nuclear energy program.

Switzerland

The Swiss military ambitions were curbed by the lack of domestic natural uranium resources and, like Sweden, by a relatively decentralized structure of the electricity utilities. Nonetheless, in the early Sixties, Bern succeeded in convincing Swiss industry and some utilities to invest in a single atomic power plant - Lucens - near Lausanne. Its natural-uranium reactor used a metallic (!) uranium fuel that was only suitable for a short, uneconomical burn-up. It also had an expensive fuel-handling system for remote on-load refuelling. Both these features are significant criteria of a dual-use power plant.

In 1965, the Swiss government established a combined civil/military, corporate/state research program, called "Verbundforschungsprogramm". It dealt with uranium enrichment and fast-breeder reactors and was coordinated by the government. The nuclear research center at Würenlingen established a comprehensive R&D program on Plutonium-MOX-fuel.

Spain

Spain, rich in uranium ore, used a US research reactor to produce its first secret samples of plutonium in the late Fifties. In the Sixties, it bought a French dual-use power plant of the proven Chinon 3 type. In 1971, the Spanish military research institute CESDEN proposed importing a second natural uranium power plant. The nuclear tests were to take place in the Spanish Sahara. The governmental Junta de Energia Nuclear planned a major plutonium R&D center at that time, which would also include a pilot reprocessing plant. Franco's death in 1975 slowed down the Spanish program, but it took another twelve years before Madrid signed the NPT.

West Germany

The case of the West German nuclear technology program can only be summarized briefly, because the investigations are not yet completed. There is evidence that a West German dual-use program has existed since 1956. The following features are significant: an economically absurd desire for nuclear autarchy; a hectic governmental search for domestic uranium; support by the Atomic Ministry for the natural uranium reactor; resistance to the light-water reactor; an intense urge for plutonium production; and complicated financing problems among the federal government, industry, and utilities, which included covered-money transfers from the Ministry of Defense. Governmental documents, without doubt, prove the military intentions of Bonn's nuclear planners.

Thus, it can be said that the history of West European nuclear dual-use programs confirms conclusively the excellent statement by two Scandinavian physicists in 1957, which still holds today: "The peaceful and military applications of nuclear power are inseparably connected - through the same common basis of nuclear physics, the same scientific and technical research, the same chemical industry, the same economical budget and practically the same organization, because in all countries both applications belong to one and the same governmental commission."⁽²⁾

The Success of the NPT

In the late Fifties, both the United States and the Soviet Union started to become aware of the disadvantages of the ongoing development. At the time, nuclear dual-use programs were also getting started outside Europe, in India, Argentina, Japan, and South Africa. However, it were the West German nuclear ambitions that created the most concern, especially in the Soviet Union.

In 1960, an event occurred that inspired military ambitions worldwide: the first of the latecomers, France, detonated its plutonium bomb. After this, Washington and Moscow started working more closely together, and after 1963 they agreed on joint action: the NPT.

The NPT was internationally implemented after a long process of political negotiations and diplomatic pressure. This topic was elaborated upon in the previous TNI/WISE seminar. It must be emphasized that the NPT was a joint concept of Washington and Moscow, and that, initially, hardly any other country except the United Kingdom supported it. The Swedish government, already known at that time for its commitment to peace, had lengthy arguments over the proposed Treaty.

Faced with the sad reality of international politics, it must be admitted that the NPT has achieved one considerable success. In order to understand this, we must again look back to the early days of the Cold War, when each country's first nuclear test - the United Kingdom's in 1952, France's in 1960, and China's in 1964 - was internationally recognized as a prestigious entree into the nuclear club. Each test was proudly reported by the testing government to the rest of the world. And each of these three events speeded up the nuclear arms race, horizontally and vertically.

With their accession to the NPT, all of the threshold states had to agree not to complete their nuclear programs with such a prestigious political demonstration. Since then, there have been only two more primary nuclear weapon tests - at least as far as we know. One was announced by India on May 18, 1974; the other, though not reported, apparently took place over the South Indian Ocean on September 22, 1979, most likely conducted by Israel with the support of South Africa.

The Indian government, although not a signatory to the NPT, declared its test to be "purely peaceful", presumably in an effort to limit the political damage from having exploded its plutonium bomb. This fact alone marked a small but relevant change in the international political climate. The ceasing of primary testing was real progress. Should the Treaty have failed to come through, a list of some twenty to thirty states with nuclear arms, ready for action would now exist.

"Peaceful Uses" under the NPT

The NPT, however, was unable to halt the ongoing process of latent proliferation. In the Sixties, both superpowers were unable to put through a treaty that addressed the dual-use problem by, for example, prohibiting the separation of plutonium. By the way: This inability was a direct consequence of having let the genius out of the bottle. The former, uninformed objects of the "Atoms for Peace" policy had become, in terms of nuclear know-how, competent subjects.

As is probably known, the first Soviet draft of the NPT initially prohibited "any help (...) in the preparation of the production of nuclear weapons", including the transfer of "any information on production techniques or nuclear research which could be used to manufacture weapons". However, this clause calling for a prohibition of transfer of dual-use know-how provoked coordinated resistance by countries with nuclear ambitions, among them West Germany, Japan and Italy. By 1968, these countries had succeeded in lobbying not only for permission to undertake any nuclear activity that could be declared peaceful, but also for a clause in Article IV that called for facilitating "the fullest possible exchange" of nuclear know-how among the members of the Treaty.

The so-called "have-nots" - this negative term, unfortunately, is still broadly used - managed to even get Article V passed. This clause - scurrilous from today's view - required the NWS to make available any benefits of "peaceful nuclear explosions" to all other NPT members, a requirement which characterizes the situation at that time. To understand Article V correctly, one needs to know that the term "peaceful explosion" was introduced by the superpowers in the Fifties. At the time, the concept was little more than a vehicle for the superpowers to legitimize their own further atmospheric testing. Some nuclear threshold countries then turned it into a vehicle to prepare their own plans to handle nuclear devices.

Article IV, on "peaceful uses of atomic energy" and the "fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and (...) information", persuaded many states to sign the Treaty. They realized that their adherence to the Treaty would foster their dual-use atomic programs rather than obstruct them. Of course, a lot of diplomatic pressure, including threats of a uranium boycott, and even of a freeze of common trade relations, was also employed.

Latent Proliferation under the Protection of the NPT

I will give two examples to show how latent proliferation continues under the auspices of the NPT - one of a less-developed country, the other of a highly industrialized one.

Iraq

Iraq signed the NPT as soon as it was available for signing, on July 1, 1968. Five years later, it requested the delivery of a French dual-use nuclear power plant of the Chinon 3 type. France, instead, provided the Iraqi nuclear research center at Tuwaitha with a high flux reactor of 70-MW thermal power - an intense neutron source appropriate for uranium-plutonium conversion. Since the business transaction was within the safeguards regulations of the NPT, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) took on inspections of the plant. An Italian firm exported a laboratory reprocessing plant and a German firm sent several tons of depleted uranium. The end of the story is well known; some months after Tuwaitha had been bombed in the Gulf War, IAEA inspectors were surprised to find separated plutonium in its ruins. Many other findings confirmed that Iraq had conducted an organized nuclear weapons program that engaged 7,000 scientists.

This is the main fact of interest here. Iraq would not, at least not as easily, have gotten its plutonium cycle off the ground if it had not signed the NPT. Since the Iraqi nuclear weapons program had been prepared over a long time - Tuwaitha was founded in 1957 - we must conclude that Iraq's accession to the NPT may well have been part of its nuclear strategy.

With regard to the developmental aspect of the Treaty, the IAEA also directly supported the buildup of a nuclear infrastructure in Iraq - as it has done in some other less-developed countries - with money and know-how. Meanwhile, the IAEA has changed its attitude, to some extent, and today supports transfers such as "nuclear techniques to improve child nutrition" to Peru, or "isotopes for groundwater resources development" to African countries. However, the IAEA still offers all of its members assistance in "development, planning, and implementation" of nuclear power programs including training courses on the "operation and maintenance of nuclear facilities".⁽³⁾

West Germany

As my second example I will again use West Germany. In November 1969, after long political discussions, newly-elected Chancellor Willy Brandt signed the NPT. Of the various highly interesting aspects of Bonn's further nuclear technology policy, we will concentrate on the plutonium issue.

Since the beginning of the Sixties, West Germany's nuclear concept was under increasing pressure from the United States' non-proliferation policy. West Germany's goal to go nuclear had to be shifted from a short-term to a long-term perspective. We know from governmental records that Bonn at that time was slowly getting used to the idea that it was not possible to go nuclear like France yet. Instead, the concept of acquiring the status of a paramilitary plutonium power without producing the bomb was adopted. This meant that an industrial plutonium cycle would be established - on a commercial level, of course - with the cooperation of the electricity utilities.

Bonn, in this period, also needed to learn that its first attempt to produce plutonium on an industrial scale would not succeed on a commercial level. The natural uranium reactor that the Atomic Ministry had supported was replaced by the light-water reactor that the utilities preferred. As a consequence, Bonn concentrated - as the French had done - on the fast-breeder reactor. This was the second, more modern approach to the plutonium issue. Of course, Bonn also continued to heavily promote the technologies of reprocessing and of manufacturing MOX reactor fuel.

There exists an internal dossier from 1966 regarding the hidden technical/political goal of the West German fast-breeder program. In it, the director of the project (who also consulted to the government) communicated to Bonn that the breeder would generate the necessity "to master the handling of plutonium at a large technical scale" and that the plutonium to be produced in the Seventies would "considerably lower the technological threshold to the military use of nuclear power in Germany". To assess the governmental debate at the time correctly, we need to know that the author of this statement was a "dove". He favored signing the NPT, whereas many other German experts and officials did not. The "father" of the German breeder had obviously realized how to adjust the West German approach to the Treaty.

The rest of the plutonium story can be summed up briefly as follows. In the Seventies, Bonn set out to establish a huge commercial plutonium industry, in collaboration with the utilities, which were in newly-found agreement with the government. It was to be based on a gigantic 1,400-ton reprocessing plant with a MOX factory and a salt-dome repository for radioactive waste, the so-called "Nukleares Entsorgungszentrum". At first, the plant was projected for Gorleben, then at successively scaled-down sizes, at ten other sites. In 1989, the West German reprocessing plans ended with the cancellation of the Wackersdorf plant.

The breeder program experienced its Waterloo on the site of Kalkar. Here a prototype plant was being constructed that would take a period of 18 years to complete. Bonn was aided here by two of its neighboring countries, Belgium and the Netherlands. The construction of Kalkar came to a final halt in 1991. The German MOX venture is, however, not yet over. Currently, Siemens is trying fervently to get orders for the construction of MOX plants abroad. The German Foreign Ministry is fully supporting Siemens in these endeavors.

The German plutonium policy was, and is, fully consistent with the NPT and with the present non-proliferation control regime; of course, all plutonium facilities were, or were to be, inspected by the IAEA. When signing the Treaty, Bonn sent out a diplomatic note stating that nuclear science and reactors would now become "more accessible". It also explicitly referred to "fast-breeder technology" that was "to generate more fissile material than consumed". Bonn had feared that its main plutonium factory could be hampered by the NPT. Due to the coordinated actions of the threshold countries - for instance, the condemning of US President Carter's anti-plutonium initiative - this was not to be the case.

Similar plutonium stories can be told about Japan, India, and, to some extent, Switzerland. Some industrialized countries responded to the NPT with a strategy of becoming a stand-by plutonium power, made feasible by the implementation of Article IV.

Striking the Balance

In the light of the reality of continued latent nuclear proliferation over the past twenty-five years, the following characterization can be made: The NPT has succeeded in halting the drama of prestigious new appearances on the nuclear stage. This is its merit - nothing more and nothing less. Regrettably, the Treaty has been unable to clear the nuclear backstage. It has not settled the dual-use problem at all. However, on the positive side, it has laid the groundwork for a possible future settlement. It has slowed down and also harmonized the process of ongoing nuclear proliferation. The Treaty has put a lid on the nuclear ambitions of the leading threshold countries; they had to refrain from detonating a bomb, which slowed the pace of proliferation. Several of these countries have turned, instead, to stockpiling plutonium.

With regard to the less-developed countries, the Treaty has enabled them to close the nuclear gap by acquiring nuclear technology with the help of the IAEA. The agency's policy of transferring nuclear know-how and equipment to economically weak NPT members has been an important incentive for many countries to join the Treaty. In reality, this bargain was based on the military/political aspects of nuclear technology, and not on its energy aspect. Thus, the global proliferation process has been harmonized and, thereby, also somewhat stabilized.

The IAEA, according to the philosophy of the NPT, has a double role to play. On the one hand, it should prevent the military use of nuclear technology; on the other hand, it is required to spread the technology. This hybrid political function of the IAEA has resulted in difficulties to reform the agency and, thereby, to rid it of its unfortunate "Atoms for Peace" attitude. The IAEA is a child of the "Atoms for Peace" campaign of the Fifties and this function has survived for the same reason that the "Atoms for Peace" policy prevailed.

At the time of the 25th anniversary of the Treaty, there was an effort to lobby for a reform of Article IV. There is, however, little hope for reform. Iran, supported by states like Indonesia, South Korea, Syria and Uganda, has requested a report on the correct fulfillment of Article IV obligations. This implies an attempt to roll back the hard-earned progress made in restricting the transfer of some nuclear dual-use techniques - restrictions that nuclear suppliers still agree to.

Looking forward to the next twenty-five years, positive and negative trends in the international process of non-proliferation can be seen. On the negative side, there are the developments in South and East Asia. At practically any moment, a nuclear arms race may start between India and Pakistan; farther East, a race for plutonium technology is arising.

On the positive side are the developments in South America - the Tlatelolco Treaty process and the adherence of Argentina and possibly Brazil to the NPT -, a similar trend in Africa, and, of course, the state of affairs in Europe where commercial plutonium dreams are slowly but steadily disappearing. A tendency toward an international "delegitimization" of nuclear weapons due to the end of the bipolar Cold War can also be observed.

Breaking the Nuclear Taboo

To eliminate nuclear proliferation in the long run, citizens must be involved. However, a critical backlog still exists in essential nuclear information policy. For four decades, the reality of the dual-use aspects of nuclear technology has been systematically denied by both the nuclear community and by governments. This nuclear taboo must be broken. The strategy of camouflaging political/military ambitions as "peaceful use of atomic energy" must be exposed. Comprehensive information and analyses need to be persistently brought to the public's attention. I see these TNI/WISE seminars as important contributions in this direction.

Notes

1. Sources and literature on the dual-use nuclear technology policies of Britain, France, Sweden, Switzerland, and Spain, and on the "Atoms for Peace" policy of the United States, as well as further technical/scientific background information on the topic, can be found in: Kollert, R., "Die Politik der Latenten Proliferation - Militärische Nutzung 'friedlicher' Kerntechnik in Westeuropa", Deutscher Universitätsverlag, Wiesbaden, 1994, 551 pages.
2. Arley, N., and Skov, H., "Eine Einführung in die Probleme des Atomzeitalters", Berlin, 1960 [1957], p.41.
3. All quotations are from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Division of Public Information, "IAEA Technical Cooperation Activities in the 1990s", Vienna, not dated, p.12 and p.30.