What is to be done about Nuclear Weapons?

1 Security Dialogue, vol. 31, no. 1, March 2000, pp. 25-40.

2 As have done all four states which acquired nuclear weapons since the NPT was signed.

3 Remember Israel's bombing of the Iraqi reactor in 1981.

4 `Nuclear Weapon States'. Capitalized in this way, the term is traditionally reserved for the five states which had nuclear weapons when the NPT was concluded, and for whom special provision was made in that treaty. These states are also known as the N5. But there are also three post-NPT proliferators (the N3), making a total of eight nuclear-armed states (the N8). The vast majority of states do not have nuclear weapons and are therefore known as Non-Nuclear Weapon States or NNWS.

5 Modern technology is extremely capable: for instance the seals on fuel rods and other containers of radioactive material could report directly to the International Atomic Energy Agency at short intervals. But to inspire full confidence that no nuclear weapons are hidden away somewhere and that no nuclear weapon production capacity is being secretly worked up, it is necessary to monitor and inspect a wide variety of non-nuclear sites as well.

6 Like others before me, I have argued that the objective is not the incredible one of restoring the world to `prenuclear virginity'; but rather to gradually make the danger of nuclear devastation more remote. Also, that it is possible to envisage a succession of different worlds, between the world which we know today and a world without nuclear weapons. And that it is possible to design policies to take the world from one such transitional stage to the next. See Ronald Walker, `Nuclear Disarmament: Zero and How to Get There', Security Dialogue, vol. 28, no. 2, June 1997, pp. 137-147.

7 To cite a few: ratification of existing agreed treaties; completion of the `Cut Off Treaty' (to terminate, under strict monitoring, the production of weapongrade fissile material), on which extensive pre-negotiation has already taken place; further agreed arms control measures in the nuclear weapons states - such as non-deployment and `de-mating' warheads from their missiles - leading to the decommissioning (or mothballing) of nuclear weapons; as well as further graduated cuts in arsenals.

8 As Thakur and others advocate, additional regional Nuclear Weapon Free Zones, such as that currently proposed by countries of Central Asia, and - to mollify Russia - a revived `Rapacki Plan' for Central Europe would also be useful adjuncts, relatively easy to achieve.

9 When Arabs and Iranians called for a Nuclear Weapon Free Zone which would disarm Israel, the latter riposted that the zone should ban chemical and biological weapons as well. Israel added that it would need far more thorough assurances than IAEA safeguards currently provide and would want to be directly involved in their implementation. Although based in rhetorical tit-for-tat argument, this concept has much to commend it: if attempted, it would lead to a collective examination - and ultimately tackling - of the security concerns of all regional countries. In particular, the unprecedented monitoring system and general transparency which would be needed to reassure Israel of the absence of weapons of mass destruction in Arab/Iranian hands, and the comparable assurances the other parties would need to be confident that the Israeli nuclear threat was gone, could go a long way towards undermining the present mutual mistrust.

10 Referring to the regime built on the NPT treaty and its implementing machinery of IAEA safeguards, and buttressed by many outlying elements such as the Zangger Committee, the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the network of bilateral nuclear safeguards and cooperation agreements, the five existing nuclear weapon free zones and the Comprehensive (nuclear) Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

11 Israel, India and Pakistan - three of the four post-1970 proliferators - have not signed the treaty; the fourth, South Africa, disarmed unilaterally and acceded to the treaty.