Enforcing Nuclear Disarmament
Mini Teaser: Nigeria, Kazakhstan, the Congo: What do they have in common? All have nuclear reactors with the blessing of the UN. Is this "counter-proliferation" fit for an age of terror.
Ever since I was a student in the early 1950s, I have been toldthat world government is a dream of starry-eyed idealists. But aform of world government is coming into being, although not the onethat Immanuel Kant, Bertrand Russell or the United WorldFederalists envisioned. It is not the vast web of rules and normsembodied by the United Nations and the European Union. It is notbased on shared ideology, race or religion. And it is not abyproduct of the Wilsonian daydream of a world rapidly democratizedby the application of American power.
It is motivated, rather, by realism and specifically by therobust response to terrorism. What began in the 1970s as a largelyregional problem arising from a uniquely volatile set ofcircumstances-namely, Middle Eastern terrorism-has slowly become aglobal phenomenon. International terrorists and those who supportthem are being recognized by most of the world's governments as acollective threat to their national security. These threats-whatPresident Clinton called an "unholy axis of terrorists, drugtraffickers and organized international criminals"-are the impetusfor the formation of what I have termed a Global Safety Authority(GSA). The GSA is maintained by the United States (which providesthe lion's share of the funding and sets the agenda) and itsallies, but it is comprised of most nations of the world, includingother major powers such as China, India and Russia.
The Global Safety Authority is taking shape from the post-9/11ad hoc anti-terrorism coalition, as informal interstate cooperationtakes on a more permanent character. I use the term "authority" toindicate that this coalition is both legitimate and institutional,and therefore lasting rather than temporary or transitional. It canbe described as a global police agency, but unlike typicalintergovernmental organizations, the various individuals who staffthe GSA (though they may be of different nationalities) largelywork directly with one another. In carrying out their work,agencies such as the CIA, MI5 and the Mossad work closely with oneanother, and often do not first consult with their respectiveforeign ministries or more generally with their own governments.The same holds true for various members of special forces,surveillance entities, naval patrols and so on.
The GSA's main division, if you will, is the AntiterrorismDepartment, through which the intelligence and police services ofsome 170 nations now work together quite seamlessly. This is not a"coalition of the willing" defined by nominal participation:Fifty-five nations have changed their domestic laws to accommodatethe global pursuit of terrorists. Military and intelligence unitscooperate in untold corners of the globe. Phone calls and e-mailsaround the world are scanned by computers in the United States, theUnited Kingdom and Australia-and the information gleaned is sharedwith other countries. It pays little mind to national borders inthe fight against terrorism, and it is not subject to anytransnational authority to set boundaries and exerciseoversight.
The most important division of the GSA, however, deals withdeproliferation-the removal, forcibly if necessary, of nucleararms, material and components from those states deemed by theinternational community to be insufficiently stable or reliable;and the replacement of these items with safer technologies oreconomic assets. For as countless politicians, government officialsand analysts have noted, if even a crude nuclear bomb were to besuccessfully detonated in New York City, for example, the deathtoll would range in the hundreds of thousands and the economic costwould be more than one trillion dollars. It is not surprising thatPresident Bush identified stopping the spread of nuclear weapons asAmerica's number-one foreign policy priority.
Deproliferation's goal-to prevent terrorists or rogue statesfrom acquiring either the material from which nuclear arms could bemade or the arms themselves-meets what I term "the triple test" forassessing the soundness of policy. First, it addresses theinterests of the nations most threatened, as well as theirneighbors, and the global community at large. (I start with anappeal to national interests because the recent emphasis on softpower has not paid enough attention to the fact that theinternational "system" is much less normatively driven than aredomestic polities. Hence, having complimentary interests is ofspecial import.) Second, deproliferation has prima facielegitimacy-few anywhere around the globe doubt that the world wouldbe better off if the availability of nuclear bombs and the materialto make them was reduced. Finally, the level of cooperation neededto ensure deproliferation-including the development of newinstitutions and norms-is a major source of community building.
The Bush Administration has not left this vital matter merely inthe hands of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), becauseas an arm of the United Nations, it has many of that institution'slimitations. The IAEA also fully allows countries to acquire thematerials from which bombs are made, as long as they promise to usethem only for research, medical treatments or power generationpurposes and allow inspectors to verify that they live up to thesepromises. Deproliferation as defined above requires giving up suchmaterials completely. The United States has instead beenorchestrating a multilateral approach to what it considers the mostdangerous nations, Iran and North Korea. Iran is being pressured bythe European Union, Russia and the United States to live up to itsobligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).Similarly, in sharp contrast to America's largely unilateralapproach to deproliferation in Iraq (which turned out to havenothing to deproliferate), the United States has refused so far toconduct bilateral talks with North Korea. Instead, North Korea mustnegotiate with a five-country coalition including China, Japan,South Korea, Russia and the United States.
The nexus between deproliferation and the formation of new,robust, transnational security institutions and their relationshipto global antiterrorism institutions is most evident in theformation of the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI). Inaddition to the United States, the PSI has 15 "core participants",including Australia, France, Japan, Portugal and Spain. Thesenations have agreed to share intelligence and to stop all of thenuclear arms and materials shipments that pass through theirterritory, ports or airspace, or on ships flying their flags. Theywill also stop and board ships in international waters that aresuspected of carrying WMD-related materials.
During summer 2003, the countries involved began joint militaryexercises to prepare for a wider implementation of theseunprecedented and robust deproliferation steps. Some interceptionsalready have occurred, including the boarding of a ship deployedfrom a North Korean port. The Bush Administration gave credit tothe PSI for Libya's decision to abandon its nuclear ambitions aftera ship-the BBC China-loaded with nuclear components and headed forLibya, was intercepted. International lawyers question the legalityof boarding ships on the high seas for purposes other than stoppingpiracy and slavery. The BBC China was a German flag ship that waspersuaded to stop in an Italian port to be searched.
International law is not immutable. We have choices beyond justabiding by it or ignoring it. We can work to modify it to recognizefully the right of nations that seek to defend themselves andothers to search ships on the high seas when there is a reasonablesuspicion that they carry nuclear weapons or the materials fromwhich they are made. The same holds true for cargo shipped onplanes. They can be made to land en route and then be searched.
The State Department is careful to refer to the PSI as an"activity" and not as an organization, as this would imply thecreation of a new security architecture outside the United Nationsand the NPT. Whatever it is called, the PSI is a key example of howthe creation of new transnational institutions and enhancingsecurity build on one another. The more nations that find thatdeproliferation serves their interest and the more they view suchaction as legitimate, the stronger the transnational institutionsthese nations are constructing will become and the more theseinstitutions will be able to contribute to deproliferation. Thisstrengthening can be measured in budgets, command of militaryresources and intelligence priorities.
Much of the attention of deproliferation efforts has focused onrogue states, especially the three members of the Axis of Evil.However, terrorists may gain nuclear weapons from those who haveready-made ones, or make them out of highly enriched uranium (HEU)or plutonium. Experts stress that once terrorists have the neededmaterials, producing nuclear arms is a task that they canaccomplish with relative ease. For instance, The 9/11 CommissionReport observed that:
"A nuclear bomb can be built with a relatively small amount ofnuclear material. A trained nuclear engineer with an amount ofhighly enriched uranium or plutonium about the size of a grapefruitor an orange, together with commercially available material, couldfashion a nuclear device that would fit in a van like the one RamziYousef parked in the garage of the World Trade Center in 1993."
There are several reasons why nuclear terrorism is much morechallenging than nuclear attacks from rogue states and hencedeserves much more attention and greater dedication of resourcesthan it currently receives. First of all, the list of rogue statesis small and well known, and their actions can be monitored withrelative ease. The opposite holds true for terrorists. Theirnumbers are large, their identities are often unknown, and theiractions are difficult to track. Second, rogue states are easier todeter from using their nuclear arms than are terrorists, especiallythose willing to commit suicide, a sacrifice which more than a fewhave shown themselves ready to make.
It is true that the leaders of some rogue states are unstable,and they could act irrationally or simply miscalculate,disregarding the fact that their regime-and they personally-wouldnot survive if they employed nuclear weapons against the U.S.mainland or even one of its allies-or if it became known that theyprovided terrorists with such arms. However, miscalculations of themagnitude that would lead a Kim Jong-il or the mullahs of Iran touse nuclear weapons are very rare indeed. In contrast, ifterrorists acquired a nuclear bomb or the material to make one,they would not fear retaliation, and they could not be deterred bya balance of terror. Indeed, terrorists often hold that if theiractions lead to attacks on their own homelands, then support fortheir cause would increase. Moreover, because terrorists are notthe army of one state, it is often difficult to determine againstwhich nation to retaliate, and thus whom to deter and how. Thisdilemma was all too evident when the United States learned after9/11 that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi Arabian nationals.
Therefore, there are several strong reasons to rank the dangerof nuclear terrorism much higher than the danger of nuclear strikesby rogue states-yet U.S. foreign policy, its military, itsintelligence agencies and their covert actions and other resourcesare focused on dealing with rogue nuclear states both alleged andreal, and not the hundreds of sites from which terrorists canacquire nuclear material and the few from which they could obtainready-made bombs.
Pakistan, the state from which terrorists are most likely to beable to seize nuclear weapons by toppling its government, bycooperating with certain dangerous elements of the government, orby corrupting the guardians of the bombs, is not on the Axis ofEvil list. Indeed, the poor security of its nuclear weapons and thefact that it proliferates by selling nuclear designs andtechnologies to other countries are overlooked because of its helpin dealing with conventional, small-potatoes terrorism. True,Pakistan has been instrumental in the capture of severalhigh-ranking Al-Qaeda members who are now in U.S. custody and theseare the very individuals who would be likely to organize a nuclearattack on America. However, there is no shortage of terrorists, andhence the greatest importance is to limit what they can get theirhands on. Luckily, there are only a few nuclear bombs and a limitednumber of sites in which fissile material is stored. Upgradingsecurity at these places or replacing these materials with lessdangerous material is many thousands of times more practical thanlocking up all the dangerous people. All this calls for a radicalshift in prevention priorities from small-scale to massiveterrorism, and from rogue states to the sources from whichterrorists might readily acquire nuclear materials or ready- madebombs.
Russia is a major potential source of trouble. About 90 percentof the fissile material outside the United States and most of thesmall suitcase-sized nuclear arms (some of which are unaccountedfor) are in this chaotic country. The sites from which terroristsmay acquire fissile material run into several scores, because theyinclude nuclear reactors set up in many differentcountries-including underdeveloped states-for the purposes ofproducing energy, medical treatment and various forms of research.HEU of Russian origin is found in twenty reactors in 17 countriesand of U.S. origin in forty countries. In addition, 105 civilianresearch reactors all over the world are using HEU. Still othercountries, for example, China and France, provided various nationswith reactors and HEU. There is not even a full list of all thesereactors.
Uncontrolled Maintenance
A radical change in strategy is required if nuclear terrorism isto be prevented. The sources from which terrorists could gainnuclear weapons or material should be eliminated rather than keptunder one form of control or another, because such controls areinherently unreliable. The typical form of arms control allowsnations to keep nuclear reactors using HEU, but they are expectedto secure them and have their usages verified by inspections.
The controlled-maintenance approach relies largely on the NPT,which seeks to control the spread of nuclear weapons to additionalstates by classifying them into nuclear-weapon states andnon-nuclear-weapon states, and placing specific restraints on eachtype. Five major nuclear-weapons states, identified as the UnitedStates, Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom, agreed topursue disarmament and the non-nuclear-weapons states agreed not todevelop or attempt to acquire nuclear weapons. The IAEA isentrusted with inspections to verify that "safeguarded" nuclearmaterial and activities are not used for military purposes. Note,though, that a nation can refuse to sign the treaty (as India,Israel and Pakistan have), terminate its commitments afternotifying the IAEA but keep its nuclear plants (as North Koreadid), or readily mislead the inspectors (as Libya did and Iran isbelieved to be doing). Moreover, for inspectors to have a betteridea of the nuclear activities of each of the 71 states withsignificant programs, these states each have to agree to concludean additional protocol with the IAEA. Forty-seven states do not yethave these protocols in force. Among the nations that have HEUreactors are the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana,Indonesia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. Absurdly, nations still canestablish such plants using HEU with the full blessing of theUnited Nations. Nigeria, one of the most corrupt nations in theworld, just did that. Under the NPT, proliferation is in effectlegal, although the proliferation is not of nuclear arms to roguestates, but of material from which terrorists can make nuclear armsto failing states. The NPT was designed to deal with responsiblestates, not to prevent terrorism.
This pre-9/11 conception of controlled maintenance must bereplaced by one of deproliferation. Deproliferation entailsreplacing HEU with low-enriched uranium (LEU), which cannot be usedfor bomb making, or with other sources of energy, or providingresources such as large-scale investments or foreign aid tocompensate for the loss of the HEU reactors. The construction ofnew HEU plants should be prevented rather than treated as legal andlegitimate, as it is under the NPT and by the IAEA. Given thatdeproliferation cannot be achieved everywhere at once, thosecountries in which security is poor and potential terrorists arerampant or have easy access to nuclear material should be givenpriority over those in which security is high and terroristrecruiting is rare. The difference between the NPT conception andthat of deproliferation is akin to the difference between gunregistration and removal of guns from private hands and most publicones, as is the case in most civil societies; in internationalterms, it is akin to the difference between arms control anddisarmament of nuclear weapons.
Some of the advocates of the obsolescent NPT approach, who fearnot without reason that deproliferation may lead to confrontationsbetween the powers-that-be and those who refuse to give up theirnuclear arms or HEU reactors, suggest that one may rely ondeterrence in the future, even among new nuclear powers. After all,the United States and the USSR kept each other at bay for severaldecades. Pakistan and India will deter each other. North Koreamight be deterred by a nuclear China and Japan, and Iran by Israel.These countries should hence be admitted into the "nuclear club",as long as they assume the same commitments as other nuclear weaponstates under the NPT.
This approach has several serious flaws. First, it invites moreand more nations to build the facilities they need to make orpurchase nuclear arms and their means of delivery. Second, it leadsthese nations into a nuclear arms race in which each hardens itsfacilities and diversifies its means of delivery, which willrequire resources they could better dedicate to other purposes.Finally, it reinforces the notion that nations must have nucleararms to be regional powers, as exemplified by the recenttemptations of Brazil to violate its commitments to the NPTregime.
The more nations that acquire such weapons, the more likely itis that they will be used by unstable leaders, or due tomiscalculations or unauthorized use. The United States and the USSRcame quite close to nuclear blows several times, as did India andPakistan, and Israel seems to have considered using nuclear weaponsin the Yom Kippur War. Above all, the more nations that are in thisdangerous business, the more sources there will be for terroriststo gain nuclear weapons. After all, terrorists cannot get nucleararms or materials from countries that do not have them. Hence,trying to get more and more nations into compliance with theNPT-the current governing strategy-is of limited value.
All these problems are avoided to the extent thatdeproliferation is implemented. Where feasible, nations should begiven incentives, cajoled, or pressured to deproliferate. When allelse fails, under proper conditions, they should be forced to giveup HEU in exchange for LEU or other energy sources or economicassets, and if they have nuclear arms, to give them up as well.This in turn may require, in some cases where there is a greatimbalance in conventional forces, the international community toguarantee the country's borders.
From Theory to Practice
Deproliferation is by no means a pie-in-the sky idea. Indeed,some of the building blocks of a deproliferation strategy arealready very much in place. Before 9/11, several nations gave uptheir programs to develop nuclear arms (but not to build reactorsfueled by HEU). These countries include South Africa, Brazil andArgentina.
The crowning success of diplomacy in the first years of the 21stcentury is the turning about of Libya from a nation that sought andobtained materials to enrich uranium to one that agreed to havesuch materials completely removed, all without a shot being fired.The turnabout came as a result of a combination of economicsanctions, diplomatic isolation and indirect threats. While theexact mix of these factors might not be exactly replicableelsewhere, the event highlights the merits of the deproliferationapproach as compared to that of controlled maintenance. Libya wasbelieved to be in compliance with the NPT, but it fooled inspectorsby using undeclared nuclear materials and small, hard-to-detectfacilities. The crucial point is that, as of 2004, Libya is nolonger a source from which terrorists might get nuclear arms or thematerial needed to make them, nor is it a nation that needs to bedeterred with nuclear arms lest it attack another with theseweapons.
Another program, mostly viewed as part of the NPT project, butactually largely based on deproliferation principles, is theNunn-Lugar legislation. It aims to fund the destruction of nuclear,chemical and other weapons; to assist in their transport from lesssecure republics to Russia; and to establish "verifiable"safeguards against weapons proliferation. However, the Nunn-Lugarprojects do not focus only on nuclear weapons. They also deal withmissiles, biological weapons and labs, and the like. Above all,their scope and budget are much too small to accomplish thelarge-scale deproliferation that is needed. The total expendituresof the variety of initiatives involved amount to about $1 billion ayear, an amount five times smaller than the funds dedicated to theprotection of one industry, airlines, from small-scale terrorism.In June 2004, Undersecretary of State John Bolton announced that$20 billion would be dedicated to deproliferation, but $10 billionof these funds are to be pledged by other nations, pledges that arenot necessarily forthcoming and when they are, often not honored.Moreover, the United States is committing this $10 billion over tenyears, which Congress could well fail to appropriate. In the past,only about $1 billion a year was allocated to Nunn-Lugar projects,and for fiscal year 2005, the Bush Administration's proposed budgetincludes no increase in the funds for Nunn-Lugar programs.Increasing the funding of Nunn-Lugar by at least one order ofmagnitude and including more nations beyond the former Soviet blocin its program would be important steps on the road todeproliferation.
In 2004, Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham announced a newinitiative to retrieve fresh fuel of Russian origin and spent fuelof U.S. and Russian origin from research reactors around the world.The initiative also seeks to convert HEU to LEU in applicableresearch reactors. The media welcomed this announcement as asignificant deproliferation step. But the amount allocated to thisdrive, $20 million over the next 18 months, is far too small tohave a significant impact.
Changes in the way North Korea is treated are an important casein point. Initially, North Korea was allowed to use its HEUreactors in line with the NPT, and the communist nation'scompliance with the treaty was verified via inspections. In 1993,North Korea announced that it intended to withdraw from the NPT,after due notice, which it was entitled to do under the terms ofthe treaty. However, there is no provision that says it must giveup its HEU reactors once it breaks with the treaty, which is afatal flaw.
In response to North Korea's threat to withdraw, PresidentClinton initiated a deproliferation approach by negotiating withNorth Korea to freeze all nuclear activities in exchange for thedevelopment of new reactors with fuel that could not be weaponized.Once the new reactors were completed, North Korea was to dismantleits old reactors and send its fuel rods out of the country toprevent their reprocessing into plutonium. For the next ten years,North Korea remained a party to the NPT, although its nuclearambitions were not quelled. The new reactors were never completed,and in 2003, North Korea announced it was leaving the treaty andthrew out IAEA inspectors.
The Bush Administration initially rejected Clinton's approach toNorth Korea and seemed bent on forcing this member of the Axis ofEvil to disgorge its nuclear arms and submit again to IAEAinspection, that is, building on the old NPT concept. However,following the difficulties in Iraq and the realization that theNorth Koreans may already have at least one nuclear weapon, theBush Administration shifted to seek deproliferation along linessimilar to the Clinton Administration. True, so far it is unclearwhether the deproliferation negotiations with North Korea willsucceed, although the haggling seems mainly to be about tradeoffs.One thing is clear enough: Controlled maintenance has failed.Deproliferation is the order of the day.
The GSA and the United Nations
A full implementation of a deproliferation strategy may wellhave to draw on some exercise of force, when all else fails, andwhether such an approach can be legitimated. One hopes that muchcan be achieved by offering nations strong incentives to give uptheir nuclear arms programs and to replace HEU with other sources.However, at the end of the day, there is no denying that even inthe case of Libya, the removal of Saddam played a role. In thedealing with Iran and North Korea, the threat of force clearlylooms in the background. The PSI involves the boarding of ships ininternational waters by armed forces to verify they are notcarrying nuclear materials, which is a coercive act. It is hard tobelieve that if the Taliban and its allies were to take over thegovernment of Pakistan, the United States and its allies wouldsimply stand by and allow them to appropriate that nation's nucleararms. The same may well hold for any failing state that has HEU andfor which there is reliable intelligence that it is making thesenuclear materials available to terrorists. (I grant that given thegrave failure of intelligence in the last years, it would be verydifficult to rely on it to justify another military intervention,but this does not mean that there are no situations in which itwould become necessary and justified.)
Much has been made out of the need to engage in "legitimate"action, which is often interpreted as consulting and working withallies and the United Nations, a good part of what Joseph Nye calls"soft" power. Sometimes disregarded in this context is theoccasional need to undergird soft power with hard power. The UnitedNations often acts as a key legitimator in the international arena,but it does not and cannot command the hard power required to backup its resolutions. If the United States (in Haiti, Somalia andLiberia), France (in Ivory Coast), Britain (in Sierra Leone),Russia and NATO (in Kosovo) or Australia (in East Timor) did notprovide the muscle, UN resolutions would have been of littleconsequence.
Fortunately, the United Nations seems to be moving in the neededdirection. Security Council Resolution 1540, passed in 2004, callsfor member states to criminalize WMD proliferation, securesensitive materials in their own borders, and enact exportcontrols. Thus there are at least some indications that the UN isconsidering deproliferation, not just controlled maintenance.
But why would the major powers behind the GSA, especially theUnited States, be concerned about the resolutions of the UnitedNations (or perhaps another global body formed around, say, theCommunity of Democracies)? Seeking approval and taking into accountthe views of such a body is far from a visionary notion. In a worldwhere ever more people follow the news and are politically active,the perceived legitimacy of one's actions has become surprisinglyimportant. Acting without UN approval in Iraq cost the UnitedStates dearly in terms of military support from allies, the sharingof financial burdens and public support at home. In one year, theBush Administration was forced to move from declaring that theUnited Nations was on "the verge of irrelevancy", to repeatedlyseeking a UN endorsement for its presence in Iraq, in order tolegitimate the delay of elections and to work out the transition toa self-governing nation.
To the extent that more member states of the UN aredemocratized-a much-predicted trend-the voice of the GeneralAssembly will be more compelling. And if the Security Council wereto become more representative of today's global power structure(say by adding India, Brazil and Japan), its resolutions would holdmore weight. Thus, the United Nations may well become an even moreimportant source of legitimacy than it currently is. True, onewould have to expect an "antagonistic" partnership between the UNand the great powers comprising the GSA. Yet without the powerinvested in the GSA, the United Nations is toothless. And withoutUN prescriptions, the GSA's use of force will often be consideredillegitimate. That is, both sides may well take each other moreinto account while still trying to follow their own lights, thusjointly fashioning a better administration for the globe than ifeach were on their own.
Essay Types: Essay