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A Good Deal That Must Be Honored
The nuclear nonproliferation regime is, once again, at a critical
juncture. Nuclear dangers in the Middle East, South Asia, and the
Koreas, as well as the specter of nuclear terrorism, continue to
threaten regional and international stability. Adding to these substantial
challenges, the Bush administration has made clear its plans to
keep its nuclear weapons options open and resist lasting nuclear
arms limitations. Bush’s approach threatens to undermine the
foundation for global cooperation to stop the spread of nuclear
weapons: the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT).
To date, the NPT has succeeded because it has made the production
and acquisition of nuclear weapons technically challenging and almost
universally unacceptable. Since its inception in 1968, only three
additional countries have acquired nuclear weapons, while the treaty
has led several states to abandon their nuclear weapons ambitions.
But the NPT does not simply aim to maintain the nuclear status
quo. Article VI of the NPT requires that the original five nuclear-weapon
states—Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States—pursue
effective nuclear disarmament measures. Until now, U.S. leaders
have grudgingly recognized that, to preserve the objective of global
nonproliferation, the nuclear-weapon states need to pursue their
disarmament commitments.
At the 2000 NPT review conference, the nuclear-weapon states reaffirmed
this approach. They agreed to a 13-point program of action for nuclear
disarmament, including a ban on nuclear testing, irreversible nuclear
arms reductions, a fissile material production cutoff, and maintenance
of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. This month, as delegates
from the 187 NPT states-parties gather in New York for their first
meeting since the 2000 conference, they will find that little progress
has been achieved toward these and other nuclear security objectives.
The U.S. delegation will likely repeat its claim that “the
United States understands its special responsibility under Article
VI.” But recent U.S. actions suggest otherwise. Thus far, the
Bush team has shown that it sees the NPT merely as a tool to constrain
the nuclear capabilities of states such as Iran, Iraq, and North
Korea and improve the proliferation behavior of Russia and China.
At the same time, the administration seeks to maintain its current
nuclear capabilities and keep open the option to develop new nuclear
capabilities to deter, dissuade, and defeat existing and unforeseen
threats, including those from the “axis of evil” states.
Consequently, President George W. Bush and his national security
team have systematically dismissed and disavowed virtually all the
arms control and disarmament measures agreed upon at the 2000 NPT
conference.
Not only has the Bush administration decided to withdraw from the
ABM Treaty and pursue unproven missile defenses, but it has shelved—for
the time being—the nuclear test ban treaty. The U.S. delegation
to the NPT meeting will point to Bush’s current support for
the nuclear test moratorium. Though important, the permanence of
this commitment has been undermined by the administration’s
plans to shorten the time needed to resume U.S. nuclear testing
and develop new nuclear weapons capabilities to defeat hard and
deeply buried targets. Efforts to enhance the credibility and range
of options for the possible use of nuclear weapons blur the line
between nuclear and conventional warfare. Such policies only undermine
nonproliferation efforts by suggesting to other states that nuclear
weapons are necessary for their defense.
President Bush has also abandoned START II and the follow-on START
III framework, including the elimination of strategic launchers
and dismantlement of warheads these agreements would have achieved.
U.S. representatives will try to defend the Bush record by touting
his effort to reach a “legally binding” agreement with
Russia to reduce deployed strategic nuclear warheads to no more
than 2,200 each by the year 2012.
Unfortunately, the U.S. proposal is less than meets the eye. In
keeping with the nuclear posture review, the proposal would allow
Washington to rapidly redeploy 2,400 stored warheads. Thousands
of U.S. and Russian nonstrategic warheads would remain unregulated.
Further eroding its security value, the current U.S. proposal would
allow either side to exceed the numerical limits on deployed warheads
by simply notifying the other party.
The United States, and indeed the world, has benefited from the
NPT. As a nuclear-weapon state-party to the treaty, the United States
has assumed solemn disarmament obligations that are in its own security
interests, but it has failed to fulfill them, as have the other
nuclear-weapon states. The Bush administration’s emphasis on
nuclear weapons and its failure to take concrete steps to reduce
their saliency jeopardizes long-term U.S. nonproliferation goals
and the NPT itself. To work, the NPT requires good-faith implementation
by all parties. To survive, the NPT must serve the interests of
all treaty partners, not just a few.
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