Potential
damage to wider arms control structures
like the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)
While the Bush
administration earnestly professes to uphold to the broad structure of the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), its plans for new warhead designs, and increased
role for nuclear weapons in U.S. military strategy cast serious doubt on its
commitment to the treaty. U.S. Under Secretary of State John Bolton told Arms
Control Today in February 2002, “We take our obligations under the NPT
very seriously. In terms of what was said at the 1995 and 2000 NPT Review Conferences,
we're reviewing all of that in the context of our preparation for the 2005 NPT
Review Conference.”
In May 2000, all
state parties to the NPT agreed to 13 “practical steps” toward global
nuclear disarmament. However, the Bush administration nuclear plans contradict
several of the steps that the United States supported only two years ago. Under
the Article VI of the treaty, nuclear weapon states are committed to engaging
in “good faith” participation in international negotiations leading
to nuclear disarmament. The May, 2000 NPT Review Conference committed nuclear
powers to apply “the principle of irreversibility” to “nuclear
disarmament, nuclear and other related arms control and reduction measures.”
Under those terms, the nuclear powers also committed to pursuing “a diminishing
role for nuclear weapons in security policies to minimize the risk that these
weapons ever be used and to facilitate the process of their total elimination.”
Attempts to develop new, more usable nuclear weapons, and a refusal to rule
out their use against non-nuclear states raises serious doubts about Washington’s
commitment to this pledge.
The revelation
in the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) that nuclear weapons could be used against
non-nuclear countries that have signed the NPT is also controversial. In discussing
the “contingencies” for which the United States must plan nuclear
retaliation, the NPR notes that “North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Libya
are among the countries that could be involved in immediate, potential, or unexpected
contingencies.” Citing extensive WMD and missile programs in those countries,
the NPR leaves open the possibility for the United States to retaliate with
nuclear force against the threat or use of WMD from a non-nuclear weapon state
member of the NPT.
This threat of
nuclear use against a non-nuclear state runs contrary to the “negative
security assurances” issued by the nuclear powers in the context of the
NPT regime. Negative security assurances were first issued by the United States,
Britain and the former Soviet Union in 1978 at the third U.N. Special Session
on Disarmament. President Carter publicly stated that the United States would
not use nuclear weapons against any non-nuclear weapon state party to the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), unless the United States or its interests were
attacked “by such a state allied to a nuclear weapons state.”
Before the 1995 NPT Review Conference the nuclear powers again issued assurances to non-nuclear states regarding the use of nuclear weapons. U.S. Seecretary of State Warren Christopher said,
The United States reaffirms that it will not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons except in case of an invasion or any other attack on the United States, its territories, its armed forces or other troops, its allies, or on a state toward which it has a security commitment, carried out or sustained by such a non-nuclear-weapon state in association or alliance with a nuclear-weapon state.
That pledge –
and similar pledges made at the time by the United Kingdom, China, France, and
Russia – was then noted in U.N. Security Council Resolution 984, which
was approved in April 1995. This resolution played a crucial role in ensuring
the success of the 1995 NPT Review Conference, which resulted in the treaty’s
indefinite extension. Their importance is emphasised by Ambassador Thomas Graham,
Jr., head of the U.S. delegation to the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference:
Numerous non-nuclear-weapon states made their decision to join the NPT after
this commitment was announced. This commitment (referred to as a negative security
assurance) was reaffirmed in April 1995 by the nuclear-weapon states in the
context of the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference. Without it, the indefinite
extension of the NPT might not have taken place…states parties to the NPT
agreed to its indefinite extension relying on this reaffirmation.
The NPR provides
an undeniable threat to the continued credibility of U.S. negative security
assurances. The document does not refer to any nuclear programs in the countries
listed, and simply justifies their inclusion because “all have long-standing
hostility toward the United States and its security partners. All sponsor or
harbour terrorists, and have active WMD and missile programs.”