|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
 |
 |
    |
|
|
|||
 |
|
||
|
|||
|
|
|
|
||||||||
|
International Response: Code of Conduct Ineffective, Experts Say By Mike Nartker The code will undermine efforts to stop ballistic missile proliferation and will instead help missiles spread “more rapidly,” said Richard Speier, a former Pentagon official who served on the U.S. negotiating team for the Missile Technology Control Regime. The MTCR is an export control regime under which most industrial nations have agreed on rules to restrict the export of critical missile technologies. During a two-day round of talks in Paris last week, more than 80 states approved a draft proposal of a missile code of conduct. The code is a political agreement that calls on signatories to declare their ballistic missile programs once a year and to alert other signatories before conducting any missile tests. Critics of the code said the lack of defined incentives for countries to join and a competition between the code and other agreements under negotiation will make the international code of conduct ineffective. The United States, however, is likely to support final approval of the code, experts said. Lack of Incentives Could “Doom” Code The code is an “important first step” and useful because it helps establish world norms on nonproliferation, said Jon Wolfsthal of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The lack of concrete incentives in the code, however, could doom it to failure, he said. Instead, a one-line paragraph in the code gives a state “unknown incentives to get rid of [its] entire ballistic missile program,” said Alex Wagner of the Arms Control Association. For any state that has devoted many resources toward a ballistic missile program, there is no reason to join the code, Wagner said. This lack of tangible incentives is what will keep rogue states such as Iran and North Korea from joining, Wagner said. Instead, Eastern European states such as Slovakia and the Balkans will flock to the code and give up their remaining stockpiles of Soviet-era ballistic missiles to better facilitate entrance into NATO, he said (see GSN, Jan. 18). “If it doesn’t provide incentives and all you have are sticks, it’s not very effective,” Wolfsthal said. “First you set a code, then you find bilateral ways to provide incentives.” Would Rogue States Want to Join? The Bush administration has so far shown no willingness to offer any incentives to rogue states such as Iraq, Iran and North Korea, Wolfsthal said. Evidence has shown, however, that North Korea responds favorably to well-packaged and sincere initiatives, he said (see GSN, Feb. 14). There is no doubt the United States can work with North Korea on the issue of ballistic missiles, since they “need more things than missiles,” said Chris Madison, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation. It would be more difficult for the United States to provide similar incentives to Iran due to the distrust and long history between the two nations since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Wolfsthal said. European countries, however, could have better success at offering incentives because of the built-up contacts and level of trust. European countries could also better work with reformers within Iran without damaging their credibility, he said. The international code of conduct could help increase ballistic missile sales, Wagner said. Sales of ballistic missiles and technology between signatories to the code and certain allies would become more legitimized, he said. The code “would create almost a [North American Free Trade Agreement] for missiles,” Wagner said. Missiles vs. Rockets Wagner said one set of incentives, examined early on in the negotiations for the draft code proposal, would have centered on assistance for space technology programs. Technical assistance and space launch services could have been offered to deter states from developing ballistic missiles under the guise of space-launch vehicles. The United States, however, fears that states could use technology gained from assistance with space programs for military purposes, Wagner said. U.S. officials, therefore, do not want to offer technical proliferation as an incentive. While space-launch technology assistance has been one of the best incentives for states to join missile agreements such as the code, it was right that it was left out, Speier said. It would be “like offering peaceful nuclear explosions to countries to refrain from developing nuclear weapons,” Speier said, adding that there is virtually no difference between space-launch and ballistic missile technology. The code already treats “scientific rockets” more generously than ballistic missiles and establishes a difference in controls with the MTCR, Speier said. Many countries already use space-launch vehicles to further develop ballistic missiles, which allows countries to feign peaceful development, he said. Competing Agreements Could Lead to “Venue Shopping” Another flaw in the proposed international code of conduct is that it creates a direct competitor to the MTCR, according to Speier. Before the code, the MTCR was the only set of rules governing proliferation of missiles and missile technology. With the code, however, nations could go “venue shopping” to find the best set of rules that still allows them to achieve their aims, Speier said. “It would be better if we pursued one set of rules — the MTCR,” he said. More Treaties Could Weaken Oversight Power The creation of more than one set of rules regulating missile and missile technology proliferation will also deflect staff work on nonproliferation in governments, Speier said. “Nonproliferation regimes are only as good as the work put into them,” Speier said. It takes large amounts of work to adequately track, and if need be, protest missile technology transfers — work that is already being done by tiny staffs in various governments, Speier said. Many MTCR member states have no more than three people each following missile nonproliferation, and removing even one person to work on the code could lead to damaging efforts as a whole, according to Speier. Global Control System Lite? Experts said the code of conduct might also derail two other missile proliferation efforts, led by Russia and the United Nations. The code is a response by other countries to create an agreement that is a more “benign” alternative than provisions in a Russian proposal called the Global Control System, Speier said. Russia proposed the GCS in 1999 and included provisions similar to the code of conduct, but with concrete incentives to join, Wagner said. The United States boycotted a conference on the Global Control System last year, a move seen as a way to focus attention on the international code of conduct, he said. The countries that created the code of conduct, however, “might have created something as bad,” Speier said, adding that the only way he would have recommended approval of the code “would’ve been over my dead body if I was still in government.” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said Russia is happy that several delegates to the code conference are still interested in the Global Control System, according to a Russian Foreign Ministry release. “We note with satisfaction the wishes expressed by the representatives of a number of countries to continue work on the Russian initiative relating to GCS,” Yakovenko said. U.N. Missile Control The code also runs against a U.N. working group on missiles sponsored by Iran, Wagner said. While praising the code of conduct, Iran and China both have suggested that U.N. involvement is needed on the issue. The United Nations and the countries of the MTCR compete with each other on crafting an agreement, with the United States and France not wanting work on the code to leave the MTCR regime countries, he said. The U.N. working group on missiles is “not going down the same path as the code of conduct,” Wagner said. Final Approval Likely Despite the potential weaknesses of the code, the United States came out in support of it after the Paris talks and is likely to support its final approval. The U.S. State Department offered tentative support of the approved draft proposal of the code on Monday, after the completion of the Paris talks. “The United States supports efforts to establish a universal code of conduct against missile proliferation,” said a State Department spokesman. “The draft International Code of Conduct Against Ballistic Missile Proliferation is intended to create a widely subscribed international predisposition against ballistic missile proliferation.” The code of conduct is not going to end ballistic missile programs in countries of concern to the United States, Wolfsthal said. It does, however, “provide another tool in the arsenal.” Speier said he hopes the Bush administration will take a “second look” at the code before the meetings on final approval scheduled to be hosted by Spain at the end of the year. The decision to approve the draft proposal of the code was made early in the administration, and it is not the type of arms control agreement the administration has favored in the past, he said. “It’s in writing,” Speier said, noting the administration’s aversion to formal arms control agreements. No Changes Planned It is likely the draft proposal will now move on to the next round of talks, which will be a “rubber stamp,” Wagner said. He added he is not optimistic that the code will get any “teeth” before it is signed in a ceremony at The Hague. At the Paris round of talks, the U.S. position was that there was no room for negotiations on the code at that point, Wagner said. It was almost “take it or leave it.” The code “could have been a fantastic vehicle for shoring up missile proliferation,” Wagner said, “but the Bush administration dropped the ball.” The code is a “good sign and it’s better than building a missile defense,” Madison said. He added that the code has some use because it is a multilateral approach to ballistic missile nonproliferation rather than a unilateral technical hardware approach. It was a good thing any time “you get people even thinking about transparency, Madison said, but he cautioned, “It’s not a panacea.”
| ||||||||||
Back to top
