New York
April 8, 2002
On April 8, 2002 the opening day of the 2002 NPT Review Conference Preparatory Committee, the Middle Powers Initiative, a program of the Global Security Institute, hosted a Strategy Consultation at the United Nations in New York. The Strategy Consultation was intended to provide support for and recommendations to governments working toward the implementation of the 13 Steps agreed to at the 2000 NPT Review.
The Strategy Consultation was held in two parts.
PART A: NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND HUMAN SECURITY: ENDING THE CONFLICT
As the NPT moves into a new review cycle, nuclear weapons need to be seen in the larger context of human security. The achievement of minimum levels of global human security requires greater levels of cooperation among nations in addressing complex global concerns, such as protecting the environment, promoting the rule of law, eliminating terrorism, enhancing human rights and promoting policies consistent with sustainable development. The pursuit of security through the threat to use nuclear weapons is incompatible with the cooperative development environment required. Wars, military buildups and the spread of weapons of mass destruction impact adversely on human security in direct and indirect ways. The costs are enormous — trillions of dollars alone spent on nuclear weapons systems– while nearly half of humanity lives at unacceptable levels of poverty and suffering. The cost in creativity and intelligence is difficult to measure but cannot be ignored any longer. It is increasingly difficult to get sufficient resources to deal with poverty in all its dimensions with political systems still driven by militarism. Given the instability in the world political and economic systems, post September 11,2001, this issue has a sharpened sense of urgency. As 100 Nobel laureates declared on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Nobel Prize: “If we permit the devastating power of modern weaponry to spread through this combustible human landscape, we invite a conflagration that can engulf both rich and poor.” A new awakening to the issue must be achieved now.
A public presentation, featured a welcome by Ambassador Jayantha Dhanapala, UN Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs; an NPT Update by Ambassador Henrik Salander, Chair of the NPT Prep Com; as well as keynote presentations by Senator Douglas Roche of Canada, Chairman of the Middle Powers Initiative; and Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell, Director of the Department of Religion of the Chautauqua Institution.
The extended presentations by Senator Roche and Reverend Campbell were noteworthy in their substance and passion. They are available at http://www.GlobalSecurityInstitute.org
PART B: NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT: WHAT CAN BE ACHIEVED NOW?
The Middle Powers Initiative (MPI) convened a meeting of government and international civil society representatives to discuss areas of possible practical progress.
The President of the Global Security Institute, Jonathan Granoff, opened the roundtable by reminding that the future of humanity is at stake in the preservation of the non-proliferation regime. Its preservation is dependent on fulfilling commitments to constrain both vertical and horizontal proliferation and uphold the “unequivocal undertaking” to obtain the elimination of nuclear weapons.
Notwithstanding present difficulties arising from inadequate political support in key states for these commitments, several security enhancing steps are presently viable.
At the 2000 NPT Review Conference, 13 Steps were adopted and at the MPI Strategy Consultation, the focus was on three steps in particular. They were: 1) Link Unilateral Measures To Treaty Process and Apply the Principle of Irreversibility, with initial remarks by Roald Sagdeev, Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland College Park, arms control and space advisor to Mikhail Gorbachev, and a member of the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons; 2) Inventory Fissile Materials, Strengthen IAEA Safeguards, with Rose Gottemoeller, senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and former Deputy Undersecretary for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation in the U.S. Department of Energy; 3) Require Standardized Reporting, with Ambassador Christopher Westdal, Canadian Ambassador to the Conference on Disarmament.
1. Link Unilateral Measures To Treaty Process and Apply the Principle of Irreversibility
As a result of the consultation, MPI recommends: U.S.- Russian arms reductions should be implemented in accordance with the principles of irreversibility (Step 5 of the 13 Steps) and transparency (9(b)) in a legally binding and verified manner. That reductions are to be legally binding and verified is inherent in Step 7 referring to the START process (see also 13 on verification). Reductions should encompass both delivery systems and warheads. START I required, and START II would have required, the destruction of delivery systems, and the 1997 Helsinki commitment to START III additionally envisaged accounting for and dismantling of warheads. The present U.S. plan to retain thousands of warheads in a “responsive force” capable of redeployment within days, weeks or months is contrary to the principle of irreversibility.
Dr. Sagdeev noted that the elements of the US-Russian reductions will not be known at least until a Moscow summit a few weeks from now. Based on present information concerning the lack of commitment to irreversible destruction of delivery systems and dismantlement of warheads, he observed that relative to START II, which has not entered into force and is apparently now sidelined, and the planned START III, the plans for reductions announced by Russia and the United States to about 2000 deployed warheads over the next decade are a step back. However, relative to START I, which provides for approximately 6,000 deployed operational strategic warheads for each side, the reductions are a step forward.
Dr. Sagdeev emphasized the negative effects of the announced U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty. He suggested the need now for an overall approach to limitation or prohibition of missile defenses, space-based weapons, and nuclear forces.
Questioned concerning whether there is any present interest dealerting or changing launch-on-warning doctrine, Dr. Sagdeev said no. On this point, Ms. Gottemoeller said that the Bush administration is resistant to negotiated measures, and it is an accomplishment for the Putin administration to have persuaded the Bush administration that a formal agreement is needed concerning the reductions. Willingness to negotiate the dealerting of U.S. and Russian arsenals is also unlikely. Ms. Gottemoeller observed that the Bush plan is in effect an enormous dealerting measure in the sense that many of the reduced deployed strategic arms will be retained in a dealerted state, in the “responsive force”. In response to a question, she indicated there is, however, no good rationale for spreading such dealerting out over a decade as opposed to immediate implementation.
Dr. Sagdeev said that the plans in the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review for development of modified or new low yield nuclear weapons will likely stimulate similar work by Russia. Ms. Gottemoeller said that the most disturbing aspect of the NPR is the emphasis on a new generation of nuclear weapons. The “counterproliferation” doctrine of possibly using nuclear weapons to go after deeply buried targets associated with chemical and biological weapons is dangerous, but has roots going back at least a decade.
2. Inventory Fissile Materials, Strengthen IAEA Safeguards
As a result of the consultation, MPI recommends: The principles of transparency and irreversibility must be implemented with respect to fissile material holdings and their reduction, control, and disposition by the Nuclear Weapon States (5, 8, 9(b) and 10), and commencement of negotiations on a fissile material treaty (3). Relevant measures set forth in the 2000 Final Document in addition to the 13 Steps also must be implemented, including strengthening of IAEA safeguards (Pt.I, Art. III), further adherence to and possible revision of the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material (Art. III, para. 56), improving national standards of security and physical protection of nuclear material (para. 42), establishing stronger regulatory control over radioactive sources (para. 43), and enhancing international cooperation against illicit trafficking in nuclear material (para. 43). The imperative of accounting for and controlling fissile materials, including non-military stocks of weapon-usable plutonium, as well as warheads, is now widely understood after the September 2001 terrorist attacks which raised the specter of terrorist use of nuclear explosive devices.
Regarding ensuring physical protection and timely, irreversible disposition of plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU), Ms. Gottemoeller said that the United States and Russia agreed on development of publicly available inventories. The United States has prepared an unclassified document regarding plutonium and is still working on release of a report regarding HEU. Russia has been working for several years on an inventory of at least civil plutonium; an HEU inventory is far in the future. The United States and Russia are cooperating on enhancing physical protection of nuclear materials at over 30 sites in Russia. The total present US budget for this aspect of the Nunn-Lugar threat reduction program in Russia is $293 million. A problem in this area is that U.S. Department of Defense must certify every year that Russia is meeting its treaty commitments and the Bush administration is dissatisfied with progress on the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Biological Weapons Convention.
Regarding disposition, 100 metric tons of Russian HEU have been purchased, downgraded, and sold on marketplace for power plant fuel. However, there is much more to be done, because Russia may have up to 1500 metric tons. Plutonium disposition is not nearly so well along. The effort will involve converting plutonium to mixed oxide fuel to be burned in nuclear reactors. An enormous investment is involved. It has been slow going and needs to be accelerated.
In the Trilateral Initiative involving the IAEA, there has been a lot of work on remote monitoring. There are possibilities for progress, but Russia is concerned about the expense.
The United States has a program regarding HEU in U.S.-supplied reactors abroad, to reduce risks and to return HEU to the United States for downblending. Russia is working on a similar program.
There has been considerable interest in expanding the Nunn-Lugar threat reduction program beyond Russia. Every country has an interest in securing nuclear materials. Problems are 1) whether political commitment would exist in United States given funding involved; 2) whether a sense of crisis is shared; and 3) whether access to facilities would be granted in absence of the perception that security systems were inadequate, as did exist in Russia.
In conclusion regarding multilateral protection of fissile materials, Ms. Gottemoeller said she would like to see a practical and energetic feedback loop between U.S./Russian efforts and the IAEA system, and that the IAEA program is a foundation on which to build.
Regarding threat of radiological weapons, this is the most likely form of attack in the near term. Such weapons could be called ‘weapons of mass disruption,’ because while mass casualties are difficult to produce, their use would contaminate a wide area, cause mass panic, and force an enormous investment in cleanup. There is a sense in Washington that there is a need to protect all nuclear materials, from hospitals to nuclear power plants. However, comprehensive protection would involve an extraordinarily large investment. The IAEA is looking at the question very seriously. Another area to develop is that of emergency response.
3. Require Standardized Reporting
As a result of the consultation, MPI recommends: There should be standardized annual reporting on the implementation of Article VI pursuant to step 12. Reports should cover specific matters and principles addressed by the 13 Steps (e.g. number of warheads and delivery systems reduced, dealerting measures, reduction and control of fissile material holdings, irreversibility, transparency, verifiability), and address intentions as well as achievements in these respects. The reports should also cover states’ activities and intentions with respect to overarching objectives including the engagement of all nuclear weapon states in negotiations as soon as appropriate (9(f)), the undertaking to eliminate nuclear arsenals, and the unanimous conclusion of the International Court of Justice that states must bring to a conclusion negotiations on nuclear disarmament in all its aspects.
Ambassador Christopher Westdal of Canada commended civil society input on the question, citing the Ottawa report of this year and the NGO Shadow Report produced by Reaching Critical Will.
The virtues of reporting are that it will enhance transparency and confidence and provide baselines. Canada believes that reporting on all treaty issues would reflect the balance in the treaty between disarmament, non-proliferation, and peaceful uses. Canada has done a report as a narrative regarding the articles of the treaty. The requirement of regular reporting can be interpreted as annual. It is important to make reporting feasible, so that it does not become too burdensome and therefore go undone. Regarding Article VI, there is a strong case that the 13 steps should provide reporting criteria.
In response to a question concerning the time framework implied by the ICJ opinion and the unequivocal undertaking, Amb. Westdal said that the ICJ opinion is referred to in step 12 and the requirement that negotiations on nuclear disarmament be concluded must be taken into account. In response to a question concerning the need to report on the presence of foreign owned nuclear weapons on national territory, Amb. Westdal said that subject would have to be covered.
To supplement Ambassador Westdal’s case for standardized reporting, the Global Security Institute offered a prepared written recommendation that the NPT be supported by a permanent secretariat. That recommendation is appended to this report.
SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS
1. U.S.- Russian arms reductions should be implemented in accordance with the principles of irreversibility and transparency in a legally binding and verified manner.
2. The reduction, control, inventory and disposition of fissile material must be treated with transparency and irreversibility, with prompt commencement of negotiations on a fissile material treaty.
3. Reporting on treaty compliance and implementation should be standardized on an annual basis, with reports covering specific matters and principals addressed by the 13 Steps.
3(a). The NPT should be supported by a permanent secretariat.
Appendices:
13 Steps Summary
Recommendation: NPT Secretariat