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NPT: Former Officials Say Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Battered By David Ruppe To be effective, “the NPT must continue to be taken seriously by all of its members … and that means the nuclear weapons states, including the United States, need to be serious about their own NPT obligations,” former Undersecretary of State John Holum said in prepared remarks presented to a bipartisan congressional task force on nonproliferation issues. The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty needs stronger safeguards and more rigorous enforcement, he said. It is also challenged by risks posed by nonmember nuclear aspirants and from the failure of nuclear weapons states “to negotiate in good faith toward disarmament,” Holum said. Although treaty parties agreed to a permanent extension to the treaty in 1995, that “clearly did not end the nonproliferation struggle,” he said. The Basic Bargain Thomas Graham, former general counsel of the defunct Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, said the treaty was made possible through a “basic bargain” between the nuclear states at that time and the rest of the world. The former would agree to share peaceful nuclear technology and gradually move toward nuclear disarmament, and the latter would renounce efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. Graham offered a snapshot of what the world might look like without the treaty. Had the treaty not existed, he said in prepared remarks, “there could be as many as 50 nuclear weapons states today.” He cited a recent International Atomic Energy Agency estimate that 60 to 70 states around the world currently have the capability to build nuclear weapons. “In such a world, every conflict would carry with it the risk of going nuclear, it would be impossible to keep nuclear weapons out of the hand of terrorists because they would be so numerous and so widespread and indeed civilization as we know it would hang in the balance every day,” he said. Half of the Bargain Graham said the bargain was not being sufficiently honored by the nuclear weapons states, citing the United States in particular. While 183 nations have signed on to refrain from nuclear arms, he said, “we have to face the fact that the nuclear weapons states have not fully lived up to their half of the NPT basic bargain.” He cited four issues on which non-nuclear treaty parties had expected progress: * entry into force of the nuclear test ban treaty, which the Bush administration has rejected; * deep reductions in nuclear weapons; * a treaty terminating the production of fissile material; and * a legally binding agreement for nuclear states to refrain from using nuclear weapons on non-nuclear states. Graham noted that the nuclear powers in 1995 had recommitted to those goals in exchange for an agreement on a permanent extension to the treaty. On the fourth point, he cited a Bush administration policy in particular. “The United States, in its recent Nuclear Posture Review, indicated it did not believe itself bound by these assurances in that five states that were then NPT non-nuclear weapons states (Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya and North Korea) were singled out as possible targets of U.S. nuclear weapons,” he said. Holum criticized the administration for its interest in possibly developing new low-yield nuclear weapons and for abandoning the START II Treaty and other disarmament goals by instead signing the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty last year. That treaty, also known as the Moscow Treaty, codified “low-hanging fruit” agreed to in 1997, he said, but it “actually slows the pace of [nuclear arms] reductions, and will leave higher numbers available at the end.” It also requires no destruction of warheads or delivery platforms, he said. “As you evaluate these programs, I invite you to measure their security rationale against the risks they pose to the NPT regime and the global consensus on nuclear nonproliferation,” he said. Administration’s Different View Bush administration officials have also expressed an interest in a strong NPT and suggested it is in jeopardy, but have argued the threat is weakened by insufficiently rigid enforcement and not by a lack of progress in nuclear disarmament. The treaty is “dangerously out of balance,” said Assistant Secretary for Nonproliferation John Wolf at a preparatory meeting for the 2005 NPT review conference in April (see GSN, April 28). “Without strict enforcement, the international confidence that has underpinned the treaty will dissolve, and the basis for peaceful sharing of nuclear technology will be destroyed,” he said. Wolf said the United States “remains firmly committed to its obligations under the NPT,” and cited the Moscow Treaty and “other U.S. actions” as evidence of the United States moving to “promote the goal of nuclear disarmament.” “Disarmament continues, and in fact took a significant step forward with the signing of the Moscow Treaty,” he said. “In two decades, the United States will have eliminated or decommissioned three-quarters of its strategic arsenal. We have also given up whole classes of tactical nuclear weapons, and we have withdrawn remaining stocks from almost every overseas site,” Wolf said.
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