The global objective and strategy
The 1978 UN Action Programme identified the following nuclear disarmament measures: (i) an end to the qualitative improvement and development of nuclear weapon systems; (ii) an end to the production of all nuclear weapons and delivery systems; (iii) an end to the production of weapons-grade fissionable material; (iv) a comprehensive nuclear weapons test ban; (v) the conclusion of START II negotiations; (vi) non-use assurances to non-nuclear weapon States; (vii) the establishment of nuclear weapon-free zones; (viii) development of a universal and non-discriminatory non-proliferation regime; (ix) a ‘comprehensive phased programme’ with agreed time-frames ‘whenever feasible’, for the reduction of nuclear weapon stockpiles and their delivery systems, leading to their ultimate and complete elimination ‘at the earliest time.
These measures form the global strategy for nuclear disarmament as agreed,
in non-binding manner, by the international community. As such they
are the prescribed national policies for all nation-states. Some
progress has been made since the late 1970s, namely
(i) The qualitative improvement of nuclear weapons has been partially
halted by the CTB. But this has tended to curtail the acquisition
of weapons by non-nuclear States rather than the qualitative improvement
of existing weapon types by the nuclear powers. The latter maintain
plans for a continued reliance on nuclear weapons, such as the $40 million
‘Science-Based Stockpile Stewardship’ programme of the United States which
includes sub-critical testing and inertial confinement fusion – after the
CTB has been concluded.
(ii) No real progress has yet been made in formalizing a halt
to nuclear weapon production.
(iii) A treaty banning the production of fissile material has
become one of the main areas of focus recently. In 1995, the Conference
on Disarmament agreed on a negotiating mandate, but no committee has been
established to conduct the negotiations. The deadlock revolves around
a different perception of the end goal – whether the ban covers only future
fissile material or includes existing stockpiles as well. The nuclear
powers and the threshold States favour the former; the ‘majority’ favours
the latter. One recent proposal suggests ‘voluntary transparency’
measures for declaring current stockpiles.
(iv) A Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was, after four decades
of intermittent negotiations, concluded in 1996. It will take effect,
however, only when the three threshold States, India, Israel and Pakistan,
ratify it in addition to the five declared nuclear powers. India
currently opposes the Treaty, for the same reasons it opposes the Non-Proliferation
Treaty.
(v) SALT II has been ratified by the American but not the Russian
legislature. The two governments, however, are implementing its provisions,
and have agreed in 1997 to move towards a SALT III target of 2,000 to 2,500
strategic weapons on each side by 2007.
(vi) Little progress has been made towards a treaty on non-use
assurances.
(vii) The NPT, originally in force for 25 years and subject to
review thereafter, was indefinitely extended at the 1995 Review conference.
The fundamental problem, however, remains, namely the contention by certain
threshold States, led by India, that the Treaty institutionalizes a discriminatory
regime, locking in a military superiority for the five nuclear powers.
(viii) Above all others, the goal of an elimination programme
evokes the underlying ‘strategic divide’ of the international community.
The ‘majority strategy’ has a clear enough policy: a 1996 draft programme,
not yet endorsed by the international community. It foresees a three-phase
process covering the late-1990s and the first two decades of the twenty-first
century, at the end of which a nuclear weapon-free world would be attained.
Details of the programme are set out in the annex to this chapter.
Proponents of the ‘majority strategy’ are pursuing this approach vigorously.
At its 51st Session in 1996, the General Assembly called upon all States
to commence multilateral negotiations in 1997 leading to the early conclusion
of a Nuclear Weapons Convention prohibiting the ‘development, production,
testing, deployment, stockpiling, transfer, threat or use of nuclear weapons
and providing for their elimination’. A draft convention exists but,
because of the opposition of the nuclear powers, it is not yet under formal
negotiation.
Progress thus continues, incrementally, but without a clear firm vision
on the part of the international community of what global security system
can replace nuclear deterrence. The proclaimed ‘planetary interest’
is a nuclear weapon-free world at the ‘earliest possible date’, yet a ‘strategic
divide’ reflects a lack of universal conviction over the goals proclaimed,
and its achievement is accordingly deferred. The diminution in nuclear
weapons reflects, not a fundamental change of mindset and policy by the
nuclear powers with a view towards total elimination, but rather a rationalisation
of strategic forces – the elimination of numbers rendered superfluous by
the end of the Cold War. Despite changed circumstances, the ‘minority
strategy’ has been retained and rationalized, rather than changed.
In reality, humanity is not agreed that the goal of a nuclear weapon-free
world is compatible with a lasting strategic stability. As a result,
the international community is divided over the time-frame in which the
‘ultimate goal’ might be realised. One school of thought believes
it to be attainable within a relatively short time-frame, and is thus within
the immediate purview of formal negotiations. The other school sees
it as unattainable within a specified time-frame, is not convinced that
strategic stability can be ensured without nuclear weapons, and believes
that the world must continue to rely on such weapons, possessed only by
them.
In trying to determine the global strategy for the vital planetary interest, the international community thus fails to speak with one voice. A bifurcation exists between the ‘global judgement’ on the one hand and the strategic policies of the major powers on the other – manifest in a credibility gap between the UN’s Final Document and the bilateral arms control agreements of the two superpowers. While the General Assembly includes the major powers, these States perceive ‘strategic stability’, as fashioned by them, to be the imperative, more important than the goal of a nuclear-free world. For them, strategic stability is a necessary condition of the elimination of nuclear war but, paradoxically, this is to be attained through the deployment of nuclear weapons.
The majority: a time-bound strategy for a nuclear-free world
Non-nuclear powers and threshold States are committed to a nuclear-free
world as part of the ‘short-term measures’ enumerated in the 1978 Action
Programme. The Programme specified fulfilment ‘in the next few years’,
but the ‘majority strategy’ currently envisages a longer period, with a
nuclear weapon-free world attained by 2020.
The ‘majority strategy’ rests on the political premise that the stakes involved in a nuclear-reliant policy – the devastation caused by a nuclear conflict – are so great that any level of risk is unacceptable. And it rests on the underlying juridical premise, contained in the Advisory Opinion of the International Court that “...the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law...”.
The minority: indefinite nuclear-reliant ‘stability’
A minority of nation-states oppose such a strategy. While the nuclear
powers acknowledge the desirability of a nuclear-weapon-free world, the
Western powers in particular see this as a philosophical, long-term prescription,
not a political commitment today. In the 1990s, after the Cold War,
they continue to foresee a reliance on nuclear weapons ‘into the indefinite
future’, or ‘well into the twenty-first century’. The global objective
for the foreseeable future is not a nuclear-free world but rather strategic
stability and the avoidance of nuclear war, relying upon nuclear weapons
and nuclear deterrence with a first-use policy. They concentrate on the
elimination of the risk of nuclear war through strategic stability. Allied
Western States (NATO, Japan, Australia) accept this view.
In November 1997, the US adopted a new strategic doctrine for its nuclear forces, replacing the 1981 doctrine of maintaining a ‘protracted nuclear war-fighting’ ability. The new doctrine reduces the number of nuclear targets to those focused on command centres and nuclear forces. It makes it the aim of US nuclear doctrine henceforth to promote deterrence through the threat of ‘devastating retaliation’ – not unlike the original doctrine of the 1950s. It also permits US nuclear strikes after the use of chemical or biological weapons against the US. The US and Russia now have a bilateral ‘detargeting agreement’ not to aim nuclear missiles at each other, but China rejects such an arrangement until the US renounces its first-use policy. Russia’s strategic doctrine of 1993, reflecting its reduced conventional force level, has placed greater reliance on the use of nuclear weapons, including first-use against a non-nuclear country allied to a nuclear adversary.
This ‘strategic divide’ stems from a lack of clear vision over how to replace nuclear deterrence with some alternative strategy for global stability. The United Nations has condemned the theory of nuclear deterrence as the proclaimed strategy for global stability, advocating a return to the collective security provisions of the Charter through the use of conventional weapons only. The three Western nuclear powers, however, oppose this on the grounds that the elimination of nuclear weapons would ‘make the world safe for global conventional war’.