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Contents
Preface
The Members of the Tokyo Forum
Part 1. The New Nuclear Dangers
Part 2. Mending Strategic Relations to Reduce
Nuclear Dangers
Part 3. Stopping and Reversing Nuclear
Proliferation
Part 4. Achieving Nuclear Disarmament
Part 5. Key Recommendations
Glossary
The Tokyo Forum for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament was organised at the initiative of the then Prime Minister of Japan, Mr Ryutaro Hashimoto, in August 1998. The initiative was taken up by the then Foreign Minister and the current Prime Minister of Japan, Mr Keizo Obuchi. It was co-chaired by former Ambassador Mr Nobuo Matsunaga of the Japan Institute for International Affairs and former UN Undersecretary General and former President of the Hiroshima Peace Institute Mr Yasushi Akashi. The Forum met four times: in August 1998, in Tokyo; in December 1998, in Hiroshima; in April 1999, at Pocantico, New York; and in July 1999, in Tokyo.
The following report and its recommendations are the result of discussions in those meetings. The members of the Tokyo Forum subscribe to the general thrust of the report but not every member may agree to every point in the report. They have participated in their personal capacities, thus the views expressed in the report do not necessarily reflect the views of the governments or organisations to which they belong. Special acknowledgement is given to the valuable contributions made by Ambassador Qian Jiadong of China, who attended the first, second and third meetings of the Forum and was succeeded by Mr Hu Xiaodi*, who, in the end, had dissenting views on some significant points in the report. Acknowledgement is also given to the valuable contributions made by Mr Jasjit Singh of India who attended the first and second meetings of the Forum. While the Forum was initiated by the Japanese Government, the views in this report are those of the Forum, an independent panel of experts, and should not be understood as necessarily reflecting policies of the Japanese Government.
The Forum received many proposals from concerned non-government organisations and citizens. The Forum welcomed these proposals, and considered them carefully in preparing its report.
The Forum was supported by a Secretariat constituted from the Japan Institute of International Affairs, the Hiroshima Peace Institute and the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Arms Control and Scientific Affairs Bureau). The Secretariat notes the contribution to its work made by Mr Rory Medcalf, seconded in a personal capacity from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
* Mr Hu Xiaodi has disagreement over, inter alia, issues of MTCR, missile defences, fissile material moratorium, transparency, Korea, paragraphs 30 and 39 of Part 2 of the report, and the fourth key recommendation.
The Members of the Tokyo Forum
Lt. Gen. Nishat AHMAD
Former President of the Institute of Regional Studies,
Islamabad
Mr. Yasushi AKASHI
Former President of Hiroshima Peace Institute
Amb. Marcos Castrioto DE AZAMBUJA
Ambassador of Brazil to France
Prof. Sergei Yevgenevich BLAGOVOLIN
Deputy Director
World Economics and International Relations Institute
(IMEMO), Moscow
Amb. Emilio Jorge CARDENAS
Executive Director, HSBC Argentine S.A.
Former Ambassador of Argentina to the United Nations
Dr. Therese DELPECH
Director, Strategic Affairs, Atomic Energy Commission
(CEA), Paris
Amb. Rolf EKEUS
Ambassador of Sweden to the United States
Dr. Robert GALLUCCI
Dean, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
Prof. HAN Sung-Joo
Professor of Korea University
Mr. HU Xiaodi
Deputy Director-General
Department of Arms Control and Disarmament
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, China
Amb. Ryukichi IMAI
Distinguished Fellow, Institute for International Policy
Studies, Tokyo
Dr. Joachim KRAUSE
Deputy Director
Research Institute of the German Society for Foreign
Affairs (DGAP), Berlin
Mr. Michael KREPON
President, Henry L. Stimson Center, Washington
Mr. Pierre LELLOUCHE
Member of the Council
International Institute of Strategic Studies, London
Dr. Patricia M. LEWIS
Director, United Nations Institute for Disarmament
(UNIDIR), Geneva
Amb. Margaret MASON
Director of Council Development
Canadian Council for International Peace and Security,
Ottawa
Mr. Nobuo MATSUNAGA
Vice Chairman
Japan Institute of International Affairs, Tokyo
Dr. Joseph S. NYE, Jr.
Dean, JFK School of Government, Harvard University,
Boston
Prof. Robert O'NEILL
Chichele Professor of the History of War
All Souls College, University of Oxford
Dr. Abdel Monem SAID ALY
Director, Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic
Studies, Cairo Egypt
Prof. John SIMPSON
Director, Mountbatten Center for International Studies
Department of Politics, University of Southampton
Amb. Hennadiy UDOVENKO
Former Minister of Foreign Affairs
President of 52nd Session of United Nations General
Assembly
Member of Ukrainian Parliament
Prof. ZAKARIA Haji Ahamad
Dean, Faculty of Social Science and Humanities
Universiti Kebangaan Malaysia (National Univ. of Malaysia)
1. A decade after the end of the Cold War, at the threshold of the 21st Century, the fabric of international security is showing signs of unravelling. Relations among major powers are deteriorating. The United Nations is in political and financial crisis. The global regimes to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD) are under siege. Nuclear tests by India and Pakistan have shown that not all countries share the view that the usefulness of nuclear weapons is declining. Years of relentless effort have not eliminated the clandestine WMD programs of the most determined proliferators. The US-Russia nuclear disarmament process is stalled, with adverse consequences for the global disarmament agenda. The situation in Asia is particularly fluid, portending negative changes for disarmament and non-proliferation in coming years. Political violence is taking an increasingly worrisome turn, with the possible advent of sub-state terrorist groups armed with weapons of mass destruction. And economic crises, sweeping over continents, generate instability and unpredictability well beyond the markets.
2. Relations among major powers, a primary factor in world order, are crucial to the future of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. Following a short rapprochement, relations between the United States and Russia have deteriorated. The United States no longer has a matching rival, and is perceived as a sole military superpower. Russia, concerned about its status, has revalued nuclear weapons, especially for ?gtactical?h use. Misunderstanding on both sides is made worse by crises over issues such as enlargement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq, missile defences and Kosovo. Russia's growing irritation at US initiatives, which frequently ignore its views, has clear consequences for disarmament: ratification of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty II in the Russian Duma is repeatedly held hostage to bilateral disagreements. Relations are also troubled between the United States and China. These two countries not only differ in their approaches to such fundamental issues as human rights, missile defences, Taiwan and non-proliferation but also have potentially conflicting visions of their roles in Asia which could intensify in the next century. Europe, meanwhile, still lacks the sway it could hold in world politics. The European Union is going through further integration and enlargement, and is taking active steps to strengthen the implementation of its common foreign and security policies. At this stage, however, it is still punching below its weight on the world stage. Europe has a limited role even on such matters of vital interest as the former Soviet Union's WMD legacy, especially when compared with the US cooperative threat reduction programs. Finally, the cast of major powers on the world stage is changing, with more states aspiring to play a larger role.
3. Without a strong, effective United Nations, nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament efforts will fall short. But the UN system is adrift, financially compromised, and playing a limited role in international relations, sometimes performing vital services but sometimes bypassed entirely. The UN system reflects power relations and has suffered from deteriorating relations among major powers. This has left the United Nations Organization poorly equipped to face complexities arising from the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the growing importance of non-state actors ignoring basic international law, and new forms of violence involving mass civilian casualties. Unable to respond to some of the dramatic changes in the world in the 50 years since its creation, its effectiveness and to some extent its authority have been undermined. The divergent views on a UN standing military force, and on the new permanent membership of the Security Council, for example, illustrate the UN?fs problems. The United Nations, however, remains an essential institution for moving international relations towards cooperative security. Its operational capabilities must be strengthened. To deal effectively with international security problems in the next century, Security Council reform, new normative principles, operational arrangements, financial compliance and new sources of financing are urgently needed.
4. Recent advances in science and technology have made chemical and biological weapons more accessible. Furthermore, the bio-science revolution has opened possibilities for the making of a new generation of biological weapons which are more dangerous and difficult to protect against. Some of this activity is difficult to distinguish from legitimate civilian research, which makes proliferation harder to prevent. In the proliferation of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, increasingly complex methods of concealment and sources of supply are used. Delivery systems are also giving rise to increased concern, as missiles with extended ranges and increased launch readiness become more accessible. The uses proposed for nuclear weapons by the new nuclear-armed states are unclear; those of potential proliferators of biological weapons even more so. As a consequence, profound questions must now be raised concerning the new WMD arsenals. Are they intended as weapons of last resort? Are they seen as decisive weapons for use against countries armed with advanced conventional capabilities? Are they for the ultimate protection of authoritarian regimes? Or are they seen as instruments of regional domination?
5. At stages during the Cold War, the common interests of the superpowers to avoid nuclear conflict were strong enough to moderate hostile behaviour and create, through dialogue and confidence-building measures, some level of trust. Nothing of the like exists among the new proliferators and some of their neighbours. The world must now contemplate new and dangerous patterns of behaviour. The risks of cataclysmic war between major powers have subsided, but those of regional aggression with weapons of mass destruction have increased. Warnings have been sounded, including in Kashmir, the Persian Gulf and the Korean Peninsula. Non-proliferation and disarmament treaties have been used as smokescreens for clandestine weapon programs. Concerns over WMD programs in North Korea and Iraq, in two unstable regions, have proved strikingly difficult to resolve, either through cooperation or pressure. In both cases, 1998 and 1999 have been years of reassessment and latent crisis.
6. The May 1998 tests in India and Pakistan have significantly changed the global non-proliferation and disarmament picture. Their message runs counter to wide expectations and hopes that the end of the Cold War would make nuclear weapons relics of the past. Instead, the tests signal that nuclear weapons could be a growing part of the strategic landscape of the future. They raise doubts about the extent to which nuclear weapons were linked only to the singular historical circumstances of the Cold War. They also pose a fundamental problem for the regime based on the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) by creating two states with demonstrated nuclear weapon capabilities but no recognised status. Achieving NPT universality under these circumstances is extremely difficult. Many countries that acceded to the NPT assuming there would be only five nuclear-weapon states (NWS) resent India's and Pakistan's tests as a challenge to their own policies of restraint. These tests, as well as complementary missile flight tests, greatly increase nuclear dangers in an area where four major conflicts between India and Pakistan, and one between India and China, have been fought since 1947. A capacity for mutual destruction does not ensure restraint. In the Middle East, where several armed conflicts have taken place since World War II, there is also the genuine possibility that further wars may involve weapons of mass destruction. During the 1973 Arab-Israeli war there were reports that Israel had contemplated using nuclear weapons; and even the United States ordered a nuclear alert. Chemical weapons were used in the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988. And the 1991 Gulf War raised fears about the use of chemical and biological weapons.
7. Implementation of the bilateral US-Russia disarmament agenda is stalled, with major repercussions for global disarmament and non-proliferation. The Russian Duma will have difficulty ratifying START II in the near future; START III may remain an unrealised treaty unless new efforts are made to reaffirm the START process. It would be a major setback if the two major nuclear powers abandoned their joint efforts in strategic reductions. It is too early to tell if the US-Russian Joint Statement of 20 June 1999 can revive START.
8. Tactical nuclear arsenals are also of increasing concern. Despite accounting for more than half of the global stockpile of nuclear warheads, they are not covered by any agreement. Both the United States and Russia maintain high alert rates for large numbers of nuclear weapons, based on plans of massive attack which have lost their meaning. Such plans are especially dangerous when Russia?fs early warning and command and control systems are weakened and its political structure is unstable.
9. The issue of fissile material control has become critical. Large stockpiles have been produced since the 1940s, and now plutonium and highly enriched uranium is being extracted from thousands of dismantled nuclear warheads. Despite international cooperation to strengthen Russia?fs capacity to control its fissile material, much remains to be accomplished; concerns persist that its fissile material may disseminate beyond its borders. Four nuclear-weapon states (the United States, Russia, France and the United Kingdom) have announced moratoria on producing fissile materials for weapons. It is hoped that China, India, Israel and Pakistan will also declare moratoria and adhere to them.
10. The US-China relationship has been deteriorating and is very unstable, with adverse consequences for disarmament. The United States is concerned about China?fs possible cooperation with Pakistan?fs nuclear and missile programs and China?fs development of its nuclear arsenal. China has already undertaken certain commitments: the unconditional no first use of nuclear weapons, no-use or threat of use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states, and the policy of no deployment of nuclear weapons outside its borders. China, however, has put in place few transparency measures. The implementation of further transparency measures would help dispel regional concerns and would support global nuclear disarmament efforts. For its part, China is concerned over aspects of US nuclear deterrence doctrine and the development of ballistic missile defences. The United States has put in place many transparency measures concerning its doctrines, deployments, fissile materials and technical developments. Further information, however, on reserve stocks would have a positive impact on steps towards nuclear disarmament.
11. Relationships between China and Russia, marked by China?fs new strength and Russia?fs present weakness, will be equally important in shaping the emerging international system. Reports about the development of a new missile by Russia, and about changes in Russian operational doctrine that could make nuclear weapons more readily useable, could over time raise concerns in China. On the other hand, China is not constrained by strategic arms reduction treaties while Moscow has agreed to forego land-based multiple warhead missiles and current Russian nuclear forces face block obsolescence. This juxtaposition of factors could cause increased concern in Russia.
12. Terrorism using nuclear, chemical or biological weapons has been possible for some time, but serious policymakers have traditionally seen other threats as more pressing. This perception has been changing since the early 1990s. The probability of WMD terrorism may still be relatively low, but it is growing with the ability of sub-state terrorist groups to master the technical challenges of developing and using these weapons, and their growing access to the very significant monies obtained from the traffic in illicit drugs. National controls on weapons-grade fissile materials were tight during the Cold War; now it is increasingly possible that non-state actors might obtain them. The prospect of WMD terrorism is particularly alarming because it would be hard to prevent and the perpetrators hard to identify. The effects of WMD terrorism could be so severe that it must be regarded as a serious security challenge for the coming decades. Trends in political violence and a propensity toward inflicting mass casualties appear to be rising in recent years. Chemical weapons have already been used against civilian populations in internal conflicts, setting a dangerous precedent, especially when civilian casualties and displacement are war aims in some ethno-nationalist conflicts.
13. Maintaining and reinforcing the WMD non-proliferation regimes is vital to global peace and security. Despite increased membership, key states remain outside the NPT, the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). Implementation decisions have weakened verification of the CWC, and the BWC verification protocol remains distant. Compliance challenges generate increasing concern, and there are no accepted multilateral processes for assessing and enforcing compliance, despite an array of non-proliferation norms, treaties and institutions. Political issues also divide the parties, including the pace of disarmament, commitments to peaceful cooperation, and the specific regional challenges of implementing a Middle East zone free of weapons of mass destruction and missiles.
14. Prospective missile defence deployments complicate the picture and are causing much debate. Proliferation may increase the perceived need for missile defences: the dramatic changes in threat assessment caused by the emergence of Iranian, Israeli, North Korean, Indian and Pakistani medium-range missile systems contributed to the new interest in missile defences. Alternatively, defences could, among other things, also increase and diversify the threat of WMD proliferation, as some states, including some of the five nuclear-weapon states, may try to compensate for defensive deployments. The question of missile defences should take into account all these implications, so as to have the net effect of reducing, not increasing, nuclear dangers, and avoiding further destabilisation of the international security system. The 1997 Protocol to the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty governing advanced missile defences does not fundamentally affect the ABM Treaty or undermine the mutual deterrence model. Prospective US-Russia discussions on the ABM Treaty should also meet these criteria.
15. A realistic dialogue on the most effective means to address underlying security concerns must replace outdated nuclear doctrines on the one hand and artificial disarmament deadlines on the other. The international community must find new approaches to reduce nuclear dangers in these troubled times. Non-proliferation norms will need to be strengthened if the regime is to be kept alive in the next century. Not only regional but also global security is at stake. The 1991 Gulf War showed how a regional conflict could have global implications. Nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament are not the preserve of the nuclear-weapon states or powers in troubled regions. The NPT is based on a contract involving all parties. While the nuclear-weapon states have to fulfil their Article I, IV and VI obligations and pursue nuclear disarmament, the non-nuclear-weapon states (NNWS) need to firmly support effective action in the most difficult cases of non-compliance. Concerted action by both camps is the only way to renew the partnership to reduce nuclear dangers. New approaches in US-Russia bilateral nuclear reductions and steps by China to cap its arsenal and fissile material stocks could assist progress towards multilateral negotiations on nuclear disarmament. At the same time, regional security threats in the Middle East and Northeast Asia need close attention, as do the security problems among India, Pakistan and China. These three areas are potential flashpoints where use of weapons of mass destruction cannot be dismissed.
16. It will be hard to maintain stability and nuclear security under these circumstances. It will require a vision and a roadmap of how these complex issues can be solved. It will also require, at the global and regional level, new initiatives to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and new spheres of strategic cooperation among major powers. The world has witnessed a decade of unexpected challenges and disturbances since the end of the Cold War. As a new century begins, there is a strong risk that the world will become more chaotic and troubled, threatening the security of all, unless work begins now to turn recent setbacks into potential solutions. This calls for understanding the stakes, and putting in place new means of maintaining stability, reducing WMD threats and increasing transparency.
17. Much has therefore changed since the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons issued its important report in 1996. Troubling signs are now evident on many fronts. The report and recommendations of the Tokyo Forum are aimed at clarifying the alarming nature of recent developments and the urgent need for steps to stop the decline in regional and international security. We call on the international community to meet the challenges posed by proliferation and increasing nuclear dangers. In the body of its report, the Tokyo Forum will identify how these challenges can be addressed in three mutually-reinforcing ways: mending strategic relations to reduce nuclear dangers, both among major powers and at a regional level; stopping and reversing the proliferation of nuclear weapons; and developing the architecture of, and taking new initiatives for, nuclear disarmament.
1. Suspicion and rivalry between existing or potential nuclear-armed states bode ill for nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. This problem must be addressed both among major powers ? the United States, Russia and China ? and in those conflict-prone regions where nuclear confrontation is most likely ? South Asia, the Middle East and Northeast Asia. Mending relations and reducing mistrust among major powers will significantly improve the conditions for progress on non-proliferation and disarmament in all three regions. At the same time, important steps can and should be taken by states in the regions regardless of the state of major power relations.
MENDING RELATIONS BETWEEN MAJOR POWERS
2. Success in nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament requires cooperation in all bilateral relationships among the United States, Russia and China. The US-Russia and US-China relationships have deteriorated badly in recent years. Unless and until they are repaired, nuclear dangers will increase.
Repairing US-Russia Relations
3. Since the release of the Canberra Commission report in 1996, US-Russian relations have been marked by greater imbalances in economic and military power, greater divisiveness and partisanship in the domestic politics in both countries, and a retreat from cooperation towards unilateralism. As a result, collaborative efforts in non-proliferation and new disarmament initiatives have been sorely lacking. The common wish to avoid unpredictability that marked US-Russian relations in the Cold War ? including agreed parameters of arms control, reduction, and ballistic missile defence treaties ? is now dangerously lacking.
4. A partnership forged with great effort as the Cold War waned, producing extraordinary strategic arms reduction treaties and cooperation in the Gulf War, is breaking down. The causes include domestic political divisions, deep differences over foreign policy issues, and the absence of the concerted leadership necessary to regain common ground. To understand the current state of the relationship, it is useful to assess what was achieved before recent strains, including events in Yugoslavia in 1999, emerged. The euphoria of the first years after the end of the Cold War has ended. Some positive trends continue, but difficulties have increased.
5. In the years immediately before and after the end of the Cold War, serious progress was made in furthering arms control and improving strategic stability. Substantial reductions were made in strategic nuclear arsenals and efforts were pursued towards ensuring the inviolability of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. Under START II, United States and Russia promised to reduce their deployed strategic arsenals to 3,000-3,500 warheads each. Agreement was reached to begin talks for further strategic reductions (START III) as soon as Russia ratified START II, so as to reduce strategic arsenals to 2,000-2,500 warheads each.
6. The most significant achievement of US-Russian interaction in this period was far greater predictability in the behaviour of each state. Progress was made in comprehending the new shape of international relations, distinguishing genuine from imagined problems, and developing common understandings of the changed character of threats to their security, globally and regionally. They seemed to share concerns about regional conflicts including ethno-nationalist wars, international terrorism, illegal trade in conventional arms, and global economic crises. This consensus was reflected in the Joint Statement on Common Challenges to Security on the Threshold of the 21st Century, signed by Presidents Yeltsin and Clinton in September 1998. The United States and Russia have repeatedly demonstrated that dialogue and compromise between them have eased international tensions, for example over Iraq and, at some stages, the former Yugoslavia. But this pattern has deteriorated badly. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization?fs action in Yugoslavia in 1999 has widened the gulf between Washington and Moscow.
7. This deterioration stands in marked contrast to the early 1990s, when the United States and Russia appeared increasingly tolerant of policy differences. During this period, divergent views did not lead to confrontation; some differences based on national interests were perceived as natural, and tolerance of them helped maintain the US-Russian partnership. Now these differences are widening, particularly over unilateral and multilateral responses to international problems. Russia states that multilateral actions, under the UN flag, should take precedence, and considers the United States too prone to unilateral action and military measures, particularly in addressing conflicts. The United States and Western Europe, while wanting successful outcomes from multilateral efforts, have been unwilling to accept Russian vetoes in the UN Security Council that could disallow multilateral action to counter perceived crimes against humanity or violations of WMD treaty commitments.
8. When the US-Russian relationship is troubled, nuclear risk-reduction efforts suffer profoundly. Cooperation between the two powers is needed to dramatically reduce and eliminate their Cold War nuclear arsenals ? deployed and non-deployed ? in verifiable, reassuring and irreversible ways. Cooperative US-Russian efforts are also needed to dispose safely of Soviet-era nuclear weapons holdings. Considering Russia?fs difficult economic situation, it is unlikely to dedicate enough financial and other resources to this complex of problems. Outside assistance is crucial to minimise the possibility of nuclear bomb-making materials falling into the hands of states of proliferation concern or non-state or terrorist entities. Russian cooperation is also needed for resolving the most difficult regional security problems, where proliferation concerns and consequences are greatest.
9. Unless political leaders in the United States and Russia take urgent action to restore constructive relations, there is a grave risk of negative consequences for nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament efforts. At the very least, START II ratification would be delayed further and prospects for additional bilateral strategic arms reduction treaties would become remote. Russia would try harder to maintain its strategic nuclear forces beyond their service life and would place increasing importance on tactical nuclear weapons in its force postures and doctrines. Russia would try to build up its general-purpose military forces. There would be strong pressures in Belarus, and probably in Ukraine, to reassess their non-nuclear status, depending on political developments in these states and in Russia. And in the new geopolitical environment, Russia might widen its military and technological cooperation with countries of proliferation concern to others, but which it might consider strategic partners.
10. There would also be profoundly damaging global repercussions for nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. Progress in US and Russian reductions is needed to lead the way for disarmament by all other nuclear-armed states, but it will be difficult to reaffirm a cooperative US-Russian relationship to reduce nuclear dangers. In addition to NATO action in Yugoslavia, prospective US national missile defences and NATO expansion are particularly contentious issues. The weakness of the Russian economy and the problems of creating a stable and democratic state have understandably generated resentment among the Russian people. The rhetoric of nationalism and strategic competition has re-emerged. Divisions between Moscow and Washington are widening on regional proliferation issues, particularly the control of sensitive exports to Iraq, Iran and India. Work needs to be done to reconcile US and Russian approaches on the urgent need to control the export of materials and technology that might be used for WMD programs.
11. The pace of the START process now lags far behind the rate of increase in new nuclear dangers. Ratification delays have lasted longer than the time spent to negotiate the agreements. Even when ratification is belatedly approved, legislators attach conditions that impose further delays or complications for implementing treaty provisions. The formal process of US-Russian strategic nuclear arms reduction, which played an essential role in reducing Cold War arsenals, remains helpful but is now clearly insufficient to deal with contemporary and future challenges.
12. Difficulties in the arms reduction process reflect larger political differences between Moscow and Washington. It is wrong to place upon arms control the burden of fixing overarching political problems. The reverse is true: the resumption of progress in reducing nuclear dangers requires the repair of major political differences, including those related to regional proliferation and security. Arms control arrangements can, however, help facilitate and reinforce concerted efforts by US and Russian leaders to reforge larger patterns of cooperation.
13. The degree of difficulty involved in reaffirming US-Russian cooperation might lead some to suggest that such efforts be postponed until new political leaders take their places after national elections in both countries in 2000. But nuclear dangers do not conform to election cycles, and keep growing. The Tokyo Forum strongly urges political leaders in the United States and Russia to take steps now to mend the bilateral relationship. Failure to do so will compound trends that threaten regional and global security.
14. The Forum welcomes the US-Russia Joint Statement of 20 June 1999, and the progress made at the Cologne meeting on that day, in which presidents Clinton and Yeltsin agreed to try to facilitate the ratification of the START II accord while discussing changes in the ABM Treaty. The Joint Statement also noted that discussions on START III would begin without prior ratification of START II. But it is too early to tell if the 20 June meeting will lead to a sustained and effective revival of the bilateral arms reduction process. There are many obstacles ahead and, accordingly, pressure must be maintained on the two states to build on the progress made at Cologne.
15. The depths of the estrangement in US-Russian relations have the most serious consequences for initiatives to reduce nuclear dangers, and leaders in both countries need to place a high priority on repairing this relationship. To assist in this effort, the Tokyo Forum offers ideas on how dialogue on nuclear issues can help improve these bilateral ties, rather than exacerbate them, as has increasingly become the case. These ideas are set out in detail in the section of this report dealing with nuclear disarmament.
Repairing US-China Relations
16. To reduce nuclear dangers, a new partnership must also be forged between the United States and China. High-level visits in recent years have been helpful but have not reconciled differences in this complex relationship. Whatever the differences between the two countries, cooperation between them is needed to help reduce nuclear proliferation concerns. Enhanced dialogue would help promote greater transparency about nuclear weapons and intentions, and could further consolidate the engagement of both countries in the range of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament instruments, including the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) and export controls. It would also begin to address Chinese concerns on missile defences, and so help prevent that issue from complicating regional and global security.
17. China did not play a central role during the Cold War, but is likely to be a more important power in the next century. How Beijing exercises its growing power will have a direct bearing on the US presence in East Asia. On the other hand, the role of the United States in East Asia and the West Pacific will be a crucial determinant of China?fs security policies. In particular, it will be essential for the United States to show regard for China?fs security concerns in the way in which it conducts its security relationships in the region. Both policies will affect efforts to reduce nuclear dangers.
18. The possible introduction of theatre missile defence (TMD) systems in East Asia is a major subject of controversy between the United States and China. China argues that TMD systems in East Asia would have destabilising effects. As well, after having been ignored in most analyses of the future of nuclear weapons, China's reported development of two new types of solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missiles ? perhaps with multiple warheads ? is becoming a major international concern.
19. Efforts to address perceived strategic and nuclear proliferation problems involving China and the United States need to be cooperative and constructive. The alarmist approaches of some elements of the US media and polity are not helpful in this regard. Perceptions of China?fs increasing military strength create unease among its neighbours and beyond. In explaining its nuclear weapons policies, and in further clarifying its non-proliferation policies, China like all nuclear-weapon states has an opportunity to reassure the international community.
20. Under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, all nuclear weapons states have an obligation to take concrete steps to reduce, and eventually eliminate, their nuclear weapons. While Russia and the United States have sought to reduce their arsenals since the early 1990s, and France and the United Kingdom have cut their nuclear forces, China has yet to begin similar steps. The Tokyo Forum therefore calls on the United States, Russia, France and the United Kingdom to continue the ongoing steps to reduce their nuclear arsenals. The Forum further calls on China to join the other nuclear-weapon states in taking concrete steps to reduce numbers of nuclear weapons, through negotiations or otherwise. In addition, the five nuclear-weapon states could begin a process of confidence-building and transparency in the nuclear-weapons arena. In this connection, all the nuclear-weapon states could confirm that there will be no increase in their nuclear arsenals.
Reinforcing Confidence between Russia and China
21. Good relations between Russia and China are of importance, not only to both these countries, but also to the rest of the world. Relations between the two countries have improved in the past years, and a breakthrough in talks mapped out their common borders in April 1999. Friendly relations will be essential in the coming decades.
22. Although Russia and China are on the threshold of a new era, the nature of their future relationship is difficult to foretell. China's growing strength, Russia's current weakness, and both countries?f increased friction with the United States are the main new factors. The asymmetries between the two countries may grow. With the demise of the Soviet Union, Russia retains huge territory, sparsely populated and underdeveloped, east of the Urals in Asia. This has a direct bearing on Sino-Russian relations. Increased military capabilities on either side could adversely affect bilateral relations. Russia and China could approach near-parity in nuclear forces at some point. Nuclear restraint on both sides would be an important confidence-building measure between the two countries.
STOPPING AND REVERSING REGIONAL PROLIFERATION
23. The nuclear tests by India and Pakistan in May 1998 awoke the world to the reality that the spread of nuclear weapons had reached a dangerous new phase. Two regional powers with unresolved antagonisms had made their nuclear ambitions overt. The tests reflected the failure of global non-proliferation norms to prevail over regional security imperatives, and increased fears that regional conflicts could turn into real nuclear wars.
24. South Asia is not the only region where these fears are growing. There is a pressing need for measures to stop and reverse nuclear proliferation in the Middle East and Northeast Asia as well. In all three regions, national rivalries are combining with nuclear weapons ambitions to create new and potentially catastrophic nuclear dangers which carry long-term repercussions. Some recent developments offer opportunities for arresting and reversing regional nuclear proliferation. These must be seized. The positive Brazil-Argentina experience of abandoning nuclear weapons programs shows that regional nuclear ambitions can be prevented through similar regional and bilateral confidence-building and cooperative arrangements to those found in the Brazil-Argentina Agency for the Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials (ABAAC).
25. The 1995 Review and Extension Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) was supposed to pave the way for further progress in nuclear disarmament and to make the Treaty as universal as possible. Apart from the fact that the nuclear-weapon states were not ready to commit to the elimination of nuclear weapons within a given time frame, most controversies at the conference arose from regional security problems such as those in the Middle East, South Asia and Northeast Asia. These regional security issues have to be taken seriously. They cannot be solved simply by admonishing the conflicting parties or demanding that they restrain from nuclear activities without any consideration of wider security concerns.
26. Nuclear dangers have different characteristics and causes in each of the three regions. What these cases have in common is the potential not only to thwart any further progress in nuclear disarmament, but also to result in a world in which nuclear weapons proliferation might become the norm. The international community must tailor its responses to each situation, as each of these proliferation cases is different.
South Asia
27. Nuclear testing and weapons proliferation in South Asia has been driven by India's ambition to be treated equally to the five nuclear-weapon states, domestic political factors, and security concerns, including perceptions of China. India considers the possession of nuclear weapons an attribute of great power status, and feels squeezed out by the distinction between nuclear-weapon states and non-nuclear-weapon states embedded in the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in 1968.
28. For decades, India was an advocate of complete nuclear disarmament. Today, representatives of its political and intellectual elite argue that it was the rejection of this call for nuclear disarmament that brought India to seek nuclear weapons. What lends this contention little credibility, however, is that India's shift to an open nuclear weapons posture came at the very time that the United States and Russia were making deep cuts to their nuclear arsenals. The timing of India's action greatly compounds other nuclear dangers and makes nuclear disarmament harder to achieve.
29. Another motive for India's nuclear program relates to China. Some in India are concerned by Chinese long-range ballistic missiles, and by the short-range missiles it has allegedly stationed in Tibet. Now that India is developing long-range missiles capable of reaching much of China, Chinese perceptions of a threat from India may grow, increasing pressure on Beijing to harden its nuclear posture.
30. This emerging nuclear arms competition in South Asia is peculiarly dangerous because of its complexity, involving Pakistan as well as India and China. Except for its nuclear capability, Pakistan constitutes only a limited military threat to India. The dynamic of the Indian-Pakistan arms race is embedded in the division of the subcontinent in 1947 and the many conflicts and crises since then. Since Pakistan cannot compete with India in conventional military power, it seeks to equalise India?fs advantage with nuclear weapons. This has not produced a more peaceful situation in Kashmir.
31. As India?fs nuclear capabilities grow, there is no assurance that China would stand still. The resulting friction would weaken their security and further endanger southern Asia. Political crises between India and Pakistan are recurring phenomena, and have become more heated with overt nuclear weapons capabilities. Many strategists in India and Pakistan believe that making capabilities overt will increase strategic stability. But this is a far from automatic process; both countries have yet to put in place significant risk-reduction and stabilising measures. India and Pakistan have demonstrated their ability to flight test ballistic missiles that can be readily deployed. As a result, the time between the order to fire nuclear-capable missiles and its execution could be extremely short. Geographical factors also could increase instability in a crisis: Pakistan may feel compelled to maintain nuclear weapons at high alert, because it does not have strategic depth. Given the extremely short distances and flight times involved, decisions in a crisis might have to be made in a matter of minutes, raising the likelihood of catastrophic miscalculation. There is also the risk of unauthorised or accidental launch of nuclear-armed missiles.
32. In the absence of stabilising measures another crisis has already erupted in South Asia. Overt nuclear capabilities have not produced stability and security for India and Pakistan. If the repercussions now evident on the subcontinent in the 1999 Kashmir crisis are not stopped, more crises will follow. The decisions by these countries to test nuclear weapons and flight-test nuclear-capable missiles could also have cascading effects. More states might reconsider their non-nuclear status, especially as regional security uncertainties arise elsewhere. The link between nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear arms reductions with the ultimate goal of nuclear disarmament would be weakened.
33. The Tokyo Forum therefore reaffirms the ?gbenchmarks?h for India and Pakistan articulated in UN Security Council Resolution 1172 and the G8 Foreign Ministers?f communique of June 1998. The Forum calls on the international community to continue to urge India and Pakistan to implement all requirements in UN Security Council Resolution 1172, including: adherence to the CTBT without delay or conditions; immediate cessation of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile development programs, including refraining from weaponisation; cessation of production of fissile material for nuclear weapons purposes; and restraint from export of equipment, materials and technology that can contribute to the development of WMD or missiles capable of delivering them. The Tokyo Forum calls on India and Pakistan to maintain moratoria on nuclear testing.
34. The Tokyo Forum believes that international efforts to secure India?fs and Pakistan?fs acceptance of international norms must be sustained. Ultimately the goal is to persuade India and Pakistan to renounce nuclear weapons and to adhere to the NPT as non-nuclear weapon states. The latter could only be achieved in connection with reconciliation on the subcontinent, a continued and revitalised US-Russia process of nuclear arms reductions and the widening of this process at a suitable stage to include China, France and the United Kingdom.
35. The Forum calls for India and Pakistan to each announce a national moratorium on the production of fissile material for weapons purposes until the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty negotiations are concluded, and to contribute constructively to those negotiations. In this context, and taking into account China?fs wish to be a stabilising force in international affairs, a declared Chinese moratorium on the production of fissile material for weapons purposes would encourage India and Pakistan to follow.
36. The Forum considers that India and Pakistan should acquire no special status under the NPT, let alone legal status as nuclear-weapon states, nor be rewarded with any other additional status as a result of their nuclear testing. As long as their actions continue to damage the global non-proliferation norms that are fundamental to international peace and security, it is difficult to envisage either country taking a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. The link between nuclear capability and the prestige and influence of a great power, including permanent membership of the UN Security Council, needs to be broken. Four of the P5 gained their permanent seats well before acquiring nuclear weapons. The United Kingdom and France owe much of their present-day status simply to the breadth of their engagement in world affairs, and have suffered no loss of status from major unilateral cuts to their nuclear forces. Germany and Japan have achieved their standing through economic development.
37. The Tokyo Forum calls on India and Pakistan to take concrete and verifiable steps to reduce nuclear dangers. The Lahore Declaration of February 1999 includes a constructive workplan in this direction, but this plan has been derailed by political turbulence in India and unwise initiatives by Pakistan in divided Kashmir. It is imperative that India and Pakistan finalise nuclear risk-reduction measures agreed to in the Lahore Declaration. Improved, reliable communication channels need to be established between both countries. Reassurance measures are needed so that nuclear-capable forces are not placed on alert or moved during crises. Prior notification of missile flight-tests and conventional force exercises in sensitive areas are essential. The Tokyo Forum strongly supports the process begun at Lahore and rejects any efforts to resolve differences by force. The Tokyo Forum calls on the Permanent Members of the UN Security Council and other nations to support the Lahore Declaration, and to offer to help implement any agreements reached in bilateral negotiations aimed at resolving the Kashmir dispute. New initiatives on Kashmir are especially needed in the wake of the 1999 conflict.
38. While China?fs nuclear posture towards South Asia has been restrained, additional steps of reassurance by both India and China would help greatly in reducing mutual threat perceptions. The elimination of Chinese nuclear weapons is imaginable only in connection with the elimination of US and Russian nuclear weapons, an unrealistic proposition for the near term. Once lower US-Russian ceilings are approached, however, China should play its part in the worldwide nuclear arms reduction process. As the strongest regional power, China?fs standing would be greatly enhanced if it took the lead in creating confidence in its immediate neighbourhood and reducing threat perceptions held, accurately or not, by adjacent states.
39. The Tokyo Forum calls on China and India to freeze or forgo nuclear deployments of long-range ballistic missiles in combination with a verifiable pledge not to station short-range missiles close to their common border. Furthermore, both China and India could announce that they consider themselves bound by the substantive provisions of the 1987 US-Soviet Treaty on Intermediate- and Shorter-Range Nuclear Forces (INF), and renounce possession of all land-based ballistic missiles with ranges between 500 and 5500 km. Such a measure would be consistent with disarmament steps by Russia and the United States. It is reasonable to imagine that China would agree to such a proposal if the nuclear arms reduction process between Russia and the United States were to continue with renewed momentum, either by the START process or by parallel, reciprocal and verifiable reductions, as endorsed in this report.
The Middle East
40. The Middle East is a highly unstable and conflict-ridden region. It has suffered several major conflicts since 1945: the Arab-Israeli wars, the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, and the 1991 Gulf War. It is a region marked by the mutually-reinforcing combination of shifting power balances, unresolved antagonisms and active programs to develop weapons of mass destruction.
41. The first state to develop nuclear weapons in the Middle East was Israel which, unlike its neighbours, is not a member of the NPT. Israel's nuclear rationale has to be understood against the backdrop of perceptions of its strategic situation. While Israel neither confirms nor denies possessing nuclear weapons, it is widely believed to have a sophisticated nuclear arsenal ready to be deployed on aircraft and medium-range missiles. Israel sees itself in the midst of states unreconciled to its existence. Although Israel holds a conventional military edge against its neighbours it perceives itself as heavily outnumbered, in population, economic power and, eventually, in military might. Thus Israel sees nuclear weapons as a tool of existential deterrence, indispensable for its very survival, in the absence of the encompassing peace involving Israel and its neighbouring states that would allow for a reappraisal.
42. From the perspective of Arab states the situation looks very different. While the majority of such states are ready to accept the existence of Israel, they do not accept Israel?fs position of not joining the NPT, its denial of statehood for the Palestinians, its continued occupation of Arab territories nor its policy of enhancing its missile and conventional capabilities. There are also concerns within the Arab world about Israel?fs chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Its Arab neighbours are also critical of the continuing technological support given by the United States to assist Israel in developing and deploying anti-missile missile systems (Arrow) and intelligence satellites. Israel?fs nuclear capabilities are also generating deeply-felt threat perceptions among its Arab and Islamic neighbours, and this continues to erode support for the NPT, as was especially evident during the 1995 Review and Extension Conference.
43. The launch of the peace process and the achievement of agreements may open a path towards peace between Israel and its Arab neighbours, including a solution to the nuclear problem. Only with a successful peace process as envisaged by the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty, the Madrid Conference, the Oslo accords and the Israel-Jordanian Peace Treaty is it imaginable that the nuclear issue will be less salient and Israel's ultimate renunciation of nuclear weapons made possible. Israeli policies from 1996 to 1999 left the peace process in limbo. The revitalisation of this process is now underway. The Tokyo Forum therefore stresses the crucial importance of an Arab-Israeli peace process for the stability of the region and for the future of nuclear non-proliferation. A successful peace process would also permit progress in removing nuclear weapons and all other weapons of mass destruction from the Middle East in the medium and long-term period. Indeed, the processes of peace and WMD disarmament should proceed in parallel.
44. There are other proliferation risks in the region. Iraq and Iran constitute serious security concerns for Israel, as they do for other states in the region. Iraq has pursued a secret nuclear weapons program, and the US Administration has alleged that Iran is seeking to build nuclear weapons. The latter has recently tested a ballistic missile with a range of 1,500 km, while inspections of Iraq by the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) have been in abeyance and may not be adequately reconstituted. If either or both states were to possess nuclear warheads on medium-range ballistic missiles, in addition to Israel?fs nuclear arsenal, this would further destabilise the region. Differences in the size and strategic vulnerability of these states would create a fluid and dangerous dynamic, possibly with catastrophic consequences.
45. Imports of ballistic missiles and their technology are posing a special threat to the stability of the Middle East, giving the problem extra-regional dimensions. In the short-term the Tokyo Forum urgently appeals to all states in the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) as well as the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) export control arrangements ? especially Russia ? to do their utmost to avoid any relevant transfers, including both technology and expertise, to the Middle East. The Forum also strongly endorses efforts to persuade North Korea, and other states non-members of the MTCR, to refrain from any transfers of sensitive missile technology to the region.
46. Another source of concern is that would-be nuclear proliferators in the region might be tempted to seek nuclear-weapons material stored insecurely elsewhere, such as in Russia and Kazakhstan. The international community should make every effort to cooperate with Russia and Kazakhstan to ensure that this material is stored securely.
47. The Tokyo Forum calls on the UN Security Council, especially its five permanent members, to do its utmost to establish as soon as possible a long-term WMD control regime for Iraq based on the relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council and on the long-term monitoring plans approved by it in 1991. The Forum calls on Iraq to comply with the relevant UN Security Council resolutions, and strongly urges the council?fs Permanent Members to give priority to non-proliferation issues in their dealings with all states of the region.
48. The Tokyo Forum urges all states in the region to take unilateral steps to create confidence and reassurance. We call on all states in the region to: join the NPT; ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty; accept International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards on all nuclear materials under their jurisdiction, including those contained in the recent Additional Protocol; sign and ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention; and take further measures to clarify beyond doubt their compliance with the NPT. We call on Israel to shut down its unsafeguarded nuclear reactor at Dimona or immediately subject it to international safeguards. All states in the region should suspend missile flight tests and restrain missile programs. Negotiations should be initiated towards a regional agreement to limit missile proliferation, that could usefully draw upon the provisions of the 1987 US-Soviet INF Treaty.
49. The Tokyo Forum believes that the multilateral Arab-Israeli negotiation process would be advanced by the rejuvenation of the Arms Control and Regional Security (ACRS) process. It strongly recommends serious work to develop a zone free of weapons of mass destruction (WMDFZ) in the Middle East. Such a zone would only be possible in parallel with the successful conclusion of the Arab-Israeli peace process and substantial changes in the policies of Iran and Iraq. We urge both states to join the Arab-Israeli peace process including the ACRS process.
50. Within this WMDFZ, possession of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons would be prohibited. This zone would need much tighter and more intrusive verification arrangements than the improved IAEA safeguards regime, including challenge inspections. Monitoring would require external support by international organisations, individual states or combinations of the two. The Permanent Members of the Security Council would need to play special roles within the instrument creating the zone, including providing guarantees to underpin it and assistance in its implementation.
Northeast Asia
51. The most immediate and worrisome WMD and missile proliferation threat in Northeast Asia is posed by North Korea. Success in stopping and reversing these destabilising WMD and missile programs, combined with global non-proliferation efforts, will help prevent the emergence of other possible proliferation pressures in the region. In Northeast Asia, as in other regions of concern, proliferation risks will be minimised to the extent that the security concerns of all actors are allayed. The North Korean proliferation problems are linked with the troubles of that country?fs ailing totalitarian regime. The state has suffered from the regime and from the international isolation it has embraced. Famine and poverty have become widespread and the economy has come close to breakdown. The bellicose behaviour of the North Korean leadership seems part of an attempt to cling to power as long as possible. How long the regime will survive, how it eventually will relinquish power, and whether it might seek war as a solution, still remain open questions.
52. The North Korean nuclear program raised international concern in the early 1990s when it became known that the country had embarked on a nuclear program based on a reactor type suited to a nuclear weapons program? a reactor that produced a relatively high percentage of weapons-grade plutonium. The US-North Korean Agreed Framework of October 1994 provided for this type to be replaced with light water reactors, and for an end to all dubious activities. Although the implementation of this agreement has been progressing, doubts have persisted over the North Korean leadership's readiness to faithfully pursue the agreement. The May 1999 visit by US representatives to an underground site suspected of being intended for a nuclear weapon program produced no evidence to support such allegations. This was a positive development, but it is too early for a considered judgement.
53. In August 1998 North Korea proved its ability to launch long-range missiles. This was an extraordinary development for a country with generally low levels of technology and industrialisation and a stricken economy. It is suspected that missile technology and foreign experts have played a role in the North Korean program. This program has not only given North Korea dramatically improved offensive capacities, but has helped fuel arms races elsewhere. The Pakistani Ghauri missile and the Iranian Shehab missile appear virtually identical to a North Korean prototype.
54. The Tokyo Forum calls on the international community to do its utmost to achieve early realisation of the goal of a denuclearised Korean Peninsula. It urges North Korea to stop all nuclear weapon and missile related activities, and to bring about the full implementation of the 1994 US-North Korean Agreed Framework. The financial and technical implications of the Agreed Framework are extremely complicated and need continuous support from many states, including Japan, South Korea, the United States and the European Union. This support is likely to dry up if North Korea continues to flight test nuclear-capable missiles and make other threatening gestures. The Tokyo Forum calls on the international community to press North Korea to sign and ratify the CTBT as soon as possible; to implement its NPT/IAEA fullscope safeguards agreement; and to accept the new Additional Protocol to that agreement. Strict, verifiable implementation of these safeguards is the only way to resolve the continuing uncertainties over the North Korea nuclear program and prevent a new crisis.
55. In the context of Northeast Asia, the Tokyo Forum underscores the need for the strict implementation of export controls in accordance with the MTCR guidelines, and calls for more rigorous controls on nuclear weapons technology and materials. The Forum stresses the necessity for the international community to closely cooperate in keeping nuclear weapons materials and missile technology, as well as precursors for other weapons of mass destruction, away from North Korea.
56. The Forum also sees an urgent need for measures to prevent North Korea from continuing to be a source of missile or nuclear weapons proliferation to other regions. Given the threat that such proliferation could pose to international peace and security, these measures might range from bilateral or multilateral talks involving the North Korean authorities, through international economic sanctions to more forceful actions under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter. Such sanctions might be applied both to North Korea and states buying its missiles and related items. These measures will not be necessary, however, if North Korea takes meaningful steps to reassure its neighbours and conforms fully to relevant international non-proliferation norms. The Tokyo Forum strongly recommends that all states strive to engage North Korea in a constructive dialogue on these matters.
PROLIFERATION CHALLENGES IN THE 21ST CENTURY
1. To stop and reverse the global spread of nuclear weapons, the international community needs to recognise the magnitude of proliferation dangers and take corrective action based on a comprehensive strategy. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) provides the basis for concerted action, but neither the nuclear-weapon states (NWS) nor the non-nuclear-weapon states (NNWS) are doing enough to reverse the unraveling of its regime. The Treaty must be reaffirmed and revitalised.
2. A comprehensive strategy would also utilise regional and other global non-proliferation instruments and arrangements, including nuclear-weapon-free zones (NWFZ) and effective but fair export controls. Tightened controls on the world?fs vast quantity of nuclear weapons-grade fissile materials, together with extensive transparency and monitoring, are essential to stop nuclear weapons spreading further. Ballistic missiles compound the dangers of nuclear proliferation, so any comprehensive non-proliferation strategy must also seek to limit their spread.
3. At the turn of the 21st century, the momentum towards a universal and effective global nuclear non-proliferation regime generated by the close of the Cold War is in danger of being lost. The new nuclear proliferation challenges come from many directions. Poorly-secured materials, technology or weapons may leak across borders. States claiming to adhere to the NPT or regional agreements may maintain clandestine programs. Terrorists may acquire nuclear technology and materials. Components for nuclear weapons may become cheaper and simpler to get. The perception of the conventional military superiority of technologically advanced states may lead some other states to see greater value in weapons of mass destruction. And proliferation in one state or region may trigger it in others. What then can be done to address these challenges?
STRENGTHENING THE NPT
4. The NPT is the lynchpin of global nuclear non-proliferation. It rests on a core partnership between nuclear-weapon states and non-nuclear-weapon states and their solemn pact to eschew and eliminate nuclear weapons. This partnership must be reaffirmed if the treaty is to survive and deal effectively with new proliferation threats. The NPT was aimed at preventing nuclear proliferation beyond the five nuclear-weapon states, defined as states which exploded nuclear devices before January 1 1967. As a consequence, to recognise India and Pakistan as nuclear-weapon states after their May 1998 nuclear tests would set a dangerous precedent of legitimising nuclear proliferation. Alternately, to simply ignore their actions and capabilities might increase the likelihood of arms races and nuclear crises in the region, and leave open the possibility of nuclear-weapon technologies being transferred from that region to aspiring proliferators. Thus NPT parties face crucial questions of how to secure Indian and Pakistani cooperation with global non-proliferation efforts without condoning or rewarding nuclear proliferation.
5. The way out of this dilemma is not to bow to proliferation but to fulfil the basic bargain of the NPT by strengthening non-proliferation measures and by reducing progressively and eliminating nuclear weapons. An immediate step towards the former is to expedite acceptance and implementation of the International Atomic Energy Agency Additional Protocol to NPT safeguards agreements, making it a new non-proliferation standard. The latter requires reducing the numbers and salience of nuclear weapons, and making weapon inventories and national stocks of fissile material transparent. The discriminatory basis of the NPT regime need not constitute a moral and practical flaw in the treaty provided that the nuclear-weapon states and the non-nuclear-weapon states keep their parts of the bargain. If they do not, however, then the regime will certainly continue to unravel, and those parties that maintain good faith will be less and less able to strengthen or even preserve it.
6. The package of non-proliferation, disarmament and peaceful nuclear energy provisions in the Treaty has led to tensions ? exposed frequently at NPT review conferences ? over which of its objectives should take precedence. The 1995 indefinite extension of the Treaty, achieved in the context of decision documents on Strengthening the Review Process and Principles and Objectives for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, as well as a Resolution on the Middle East, included a revised review process. It authorised a Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) to discuss substantive matters in the period leading up to the Review Conference in 2000. The implementation of this strengthened process has been impeded by the parties?f long-standing tensions and a lack of consensus on its modalities. Some states argue that because PrepCom sessions are not meetings of the parties, but subordinate bodies of Review Conferences, they cannot act as functional substitutes for a standing executive body or other permanent organ. The NPT contains no provisions for permanent institutions or executive bodies, other than the now mandatory requirement to hold a conference every five years to review the Treaty?fs operation. Moreover, the Treaty has no mechanism to authorise action against non-compliance.
7.The Tokyo Forum is convinced that steps must be taken to increase the ability of NPT parties to prevent, and react effectively to, cases of proliferation. It calls for the creation of a permanent secretariat and consultative commission for the Treaty. This would be a guardianship organisation, charged with serving the objectives of all Treaty parties in pursuing non-proliferation and disarmament. Consideration of options for such an executive body should begin urgently. In addition, the Forum stresses the importance of the 2000 NPT Review Conference for the preservation and strengthening of the Treaty regime, and the need for all participants to adopt constructive approaches and focus on their common interest in strengthening it.
STRENGTHENING OTHER MULTILATERAL NON-PROLIFERATION INSTRUMENTS
8. To further reinforce the effectiveness of the NPT, other multilateral instruments in the non-proliferation regime must be strengthened. These include regional elements, notably nuclear-weapon-free zones, and security assurances for non-nuclear-weapon states.
Strengthening the CWC and BWC
9. The verification arrangements of the Chemical Weapons Convention have been eroded by implementation decisions, making it more difficult to detect non-compliance. In addition, at a time when biological weapons capabilities are growing and new scientific advances suggest increased availability of biological weapons in the future, negotiations on a verification protocol to the Biological Weapons Convention are still problematic. Moreover, the international community has found no successful way to deal with proven cases of material breaches or other non-compliance in the context of the 1925 Geneva protocol, the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Biological Weapons Convention. Unless the international community adopts strengthening verification measures for these accords and effective measures to deal with non-compliance, chemical and biological threats could become a significant concern for international security.
Strengthening Regional Instruments
10. The geographical coverage and non-proliferation significance of nuclear-weapon-free zones have become more salient as nuclear dangers have grown. The key commitment of NWFZ treaties is that states parties will not acquire nuclear weapons nor allow them to be stationed on their territories. They require nuclear-weapon states to make an unconditional commitment, known as a negative security assurance, that they will not threaten or use nuclear weapons against NWFZ states parties. The unconditional negative security assurances and the commitments by NWFZ states parties go well beyond those in the global non-proliferation agreements.
11. These regional compacts are now setting more far-reaching non-proliferation and disarmament goals than the global regimes. Part of their special value is that they demonstrate the commitments of many states ? particularly in the developing world ? to disarmament and non-proliferation. The regional nuclear-weapon-free zones can build high levels of confidence among various neighbouring states. At the same time, regional nuclear-weapon-free zones are not substitutes for effective global regimes; each complements the other.
12. Treaties to create nuclear-weapon-free zones were signed in Latin America in 1967, the South Pacific in 1985, Southeast Asia in 1995 and Africa in 1996. All ban nuclear weapons within a specified territory, task the International Atomic Energy Agency with verification responsibilities, and establish permanent treaty organs. The 1995 Treaty of Bangkok has a system for dealing with allegations of non-compliance which involves requests for clarification, requests for a fact-finding mission and procedures for remedial action. The 1996 Treaty of Pelindaba contains compliance provisions, mechanisms for the destruction of existing nuclear devices, commitments on conditions for exports to non-nuclear-weapon states, physical protection requirements, and prohibition of attacks on peaceful nuclear installations in the zone.
13. Another agreement aimed at keeping nuclear weapons out of specific territory is the Joint Declaration on the Denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula signed in 1991 by the Democratic People?fs Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the Republic of Korea (ROK). This was followed in 1992 by an Agreement on the Formation and Operation of the North-South Joint Nuclear Control Committee. The 1994 Agreed Framework between the United States and the DPRK reiterated the goal of a denuclearised Korean Peninsula.
14. Work is well advanced on creating a nuclear-weapon-free zone in Central Asia, where five states have agreed on a draft treaty and are now discussing it with the five nuclear-weapon states. The creation of such a zone is becoming increasingly important to global non-proliferation goals. Aspirations have also existed for many years to create zones in the Middle East, Central Europe and South Asia. Proposals have been made to formalise links between Southern Hemisphere zones. This would highlight that almost all states in that hemisphere were within such zones and that more than 100 states were potentially in receipt of unconditional negative security assurances from the nuclear-weapon states.
15. The Tokyo Forum urges all parties concerned to redouble their efforts to achieve the goal of a denuclearised Korean Peninsula as soon as possible. Major efforts also should be made to bring fully into force the Treaties of Bangkok and Pelindaba, and their protocols, as well as establishing their regional institutions. In addition, the Tokyo Forum strongly supports the rapid conclusion and early entry into force of a treaty to create a Central Asian nuclear-weapon-free zone. Efforts should be made to promote the creation of new nuclear-weapon-free zones and to link those that exist.
Strengthening Security Assurances
16. Assurances that nuclear weapons will not be used against a non-nuclear-weapon state give many such states a strong security incentive to maintain and increase their support for the global non-proliferation regime. The five nuclear-weapon states, however, have not agreed on a common formula to codify their unilateral negative security assurances, without which the assurances cannot be brought together in a multilateral legal form. At contention are the differing conditions which the nuclear-weapon states attach to the implementation of their negative security assurances; whether such assurances should only be given to NNWS parties of the NPT or be of universal application; and whether they should be negotiated in an NPT forum or the Conference on Disarmament. The Tokyo Forum calls on the five NWS to actively seek agreement on a common formula for negative security assurances to NNWS parties to the NPT, and explore the possibility of negotiating a legally-binding agreement.
17. The Forum also notes that positive security assurances ? including guarantees of assistance to states threatened or attacked by nuclear weapons ? can be a further incentive for non-nuclear-weapon states to support non-proliferation.
18. In January 1992, the President of the United Nations Security Council declared on behalf of the members of the Security Council that the proliferation of all weapons of mass destruction constituted a threat to the maintenance of international peace and security. The Tokyo Forum urges the international community to seek to reconfirm this statement as a Security Council resolution. If proliferation were to be defined thus, sanctions against a proliferating state could flow more easily through the Security Council. The Tokyo Forum also calls on permanent members of the UN Security Council to announce that they would refrain from exercising their vetoes against efforts to assist or defend UN members states which are subject to the use or the threat of use of weapons of mass destruction. The Tokyo Forum considers that all current and prospective permanent members of the UN Security Council should have exemplary non-proliferation credentials.
TIGHTENING CONTROLS ON FISSILE MATERIAL
19. One of the most pressing nuclear proliferation problems facing the world lies in the sheer amount of stockpiled fissile material for nuclear weapons, and the problems of keeping it secure and disposing of it safely and irreversibly. The problem is most acute in Russia and some other parts of the former Soviet Union. About 3,000 tonnes of plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU) exist in the world, of which less than one percent is under safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Two-thirds of the world?fs plutonium and highly enriched uranium was produced specifically for military purposes, and two-thirds of this ? about 1,300 tonnes ? is now considered surplus to military requirements. The United States and Russia have the largest stockpiles of fissile materials, with hundreds of tonnes each. France, the United Kingdom and, reportedly, China each have roughly tens of tonnes, and India, Pakistan and Israel hundreds of kilograms each. But the size of national stockpiles is not the only measure of the danger they pose.
Declaring an End to Production
20. France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States have formally announced that they are no longer producing fissile material for weapons purposes. China has also indicated unofficially that it has stopped producing fissile material for weapons purposes. A public statement from China confirming its private assurances would greatly aid progress on controlling fissile material. India and Pakistan have active production programs; it is likely that their stocks of weapon-grade material are increasing. It is not clear whether Israel is continuing to produce fissile material for weapons purposes. India, Pakistan and Israel should also declare, as soon as possible and before conclusion of the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, national moratoria on the production of fissile material for weapons purposes.
Expediting Negotiation of a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty
21. A Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) is a precondition for success in nuclear non-proliferation, as well as a building block for nuclear disarmament. It would help to curb nuclear proliferation and facilitate efforts to detect and monitor clandestine production and acquisition. The Tokyo Forum calls on the Conference on Disarmament (CD) to act on the 1995 Shannon Mandate for the negotiation of a FMCT. The Conference must overcome the political stalemate that delayed the establishment of a negotiating ad hoc committee until August 1998 and has frustrated its re-establishment in 1999. The treaty needs to be concluded as quickly as possible. However, the issue of fissile material stockpiles is important. The Tokyo Forum recommends that the issue of fissile material stocks be discussed in parallel with, but outside, the formal FMCT negotiations in order to speed the process. Verification measures under an FMCT should augment and not undermine the NPT/IAEA safeguards system including its Additional Protocol.
Increasing Transparency
22. While the non-nuclear-weapon states are legally obliged under the NPT to place their fissile materials under the safeguards system of the International Atomic Energy Agency, there is no treaty to control fissile materials in the nuclear-weapon states or the non-NPT countries. Some of the nuclear-weapon states, however, have taken steps to assist accounting and control. In the nuclear-weapon states and non-NPT states, military inventories of fissile material are subject to national controls but not to any external checks. Nor are the responsible bodies always fully accountable to national legislatures.
23. Countries with nuclear weapon programs have long kept secret the details about their fissile materials, but since the end of the Cold War some have unilaterally accepted partial transparency. The United States has begun a process of publishing its inventories of plutonium and highly enriched uranium. In 1993, it launched the ?gOpenness Initiative?h to reveal information on fissile material produced and used for military purposes. Details on plutonium were published in June 1994 and February 1996, with details on highly enriched uranium to follow. In 1998 the United Kingdom announced the size of its military stockpile of fissile material and committed itself to publishing the results of a more wide-ranging audit.
24. The Tokyo Forum urges all states with unsafeguarded fissile materials ? the nuclear-weapon states and relevant non-NPT states ? to voluntarily increase the transparency of their fissile material stockpiles. Those that have not already done so should begin a process of internally auditing their stocks. The results from the internal audits should be published annually. This transparency measure would have significant confidence-building effects, and could help expedite FMCT negotiations. Transparency measures on fissile material, including any at a regional level, should be linked and coordinated with the International Atomic Energy Agency and structured to ensure full transparency on nuclear material accounting.
Preventing Nuclear Terrorism
25. Poorly-secured fissile material is attractive not just to states seeking nuclear weapons, but also to a new type of potential proliferator: nuclear terrorists. There is now a real possibility that sub-state forces with hostile aims ? political, fanatical or criminal ? may acquire the materials and technology needed for crude nuclear weapons. An act of nuclear terrorism would be a catastrophe, and no country is safe; indeed, the strongest states might be the most likely targets. Governments may seek to exchange information and enhance their detection and response capabilities, but terrorists will always have the advantage of being difficult to identify and deter. The Tokyo Forum calls for regional and global cooperative efforts to prevent weapons of mass destruction from falling into the hands of extremist, fanatical or criminal groups. Efforts to fight nuclear terrorism could be backed by new legal norms, including an international treaty on nuclear terrorism, advocated by Russia and now being negotiated in the United Nations. To be useful this instrument must add materially to existing legal means. Any measure that strengthens the international norms and existing legal means is worthy of support.
Improving Material Protection and Control
26. There is a pressing need to improve international standards for physical protection aimed at preventing theft or clandestine diversion of fissile materials. The materials must be adequately contained, in facilities and in transit. This requires trained and armed personnel with formal policing powers, perimeter fencing and monitoring, special storage facilities, containers and vehicles. The Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials, in force since 1987, must be accepted and fully implemented by all relevant states. Urgent consideration should be given to widening the scope of the convention, now concerned mainly with materials in transit. The 1994 Convention on Nuclear Safety, for safe carriage by sea of irradiated fuel, plutonium and high-level radioactive waste, and the 1997 Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and Radioactive Waste, can also help stop the theft or diversion of nuclear materials for use in weapons.
Strengthening Controls and Threat Reduction Programs in Russia
27. Ever since the demise of the Soviet Union there has been great concern over the physical security of the large amount of fissile material on its territory. The material accounting procedures in the USSR were not particularly rigorous, so the precise size of the problem is not known. Its scale is clearly vast. Economic difficulties in Russia are compounding concerns that fissile material, including that from dismantled warheads, may be removed from storage and transferred illicitly. While important initiatives have been undertaken to prevent this, the sheer amount of material necessitates far greater efforts. Very little has been disposed of, either through storage as waste or burning as fuel. Meanwhile, salaries for guards go unpaid while agents of proliferators may be looking for fissile material, small amounts of which have huge importance in an embryonic weapons program. The Tokyo Forum calls urgently for greater international cooperation to combat nuclear smuggling, with mutually-supporting roles for police forces, intelligence and customs agencies, and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
28. Greater international cooperation is required for Russia and other CIS members to improve nuclear material protection, control and accounting. Since 1994 many countries, including the United States, Japan and the European Union, have provided financial contributions and expertise to this end. The United States, under the Nunn-Lugar or Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program, has provided about US$1.8 billion for 18 projects. Other G7 members have contributed considerably smaller amounts. Assistance needs to be maintained and intensified in, for example, destruction of nuclear weapons, provision of reinforced containers, storage facilities and transport for fissile materials, and research on mixed oxide fuel recycling. The International Science and Technology Center needs support to continue funding civilian projects for former Soviet scientists. The international community needs to expand threat-reduction programs in Russia as a matter of urgency. The United States recently announced US$4.5 billion for the Expanded Threat Reduction Initiative, to help tackle proliferation threats including those arising from the loosening of controls on plutonium due to the Russian financial crisis. The Tokyo Forum urges the other G7 countries to provide additional resources for threat-reduction programs and calls on other members of the international community to follow the lead of the United States.
29. The Tokyo Forum is deeply concerned that the pace of establishing control over, and disposing of, highly enriched uranium and plutonium in Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union is too slow and the risk of leakage too high. Greater efforts need to be made, and by more states, to ensure the physical control and urgent disposal of plutonium and highly enriched uranium in the former Soviet Union. Disposal programs should be subject to tighter time schedules, with dates for completion. Excess highly enriched uranium should be diluted to low-enriched uranium for its introduction to civil power production as soon as possible. The financial cost of these tasks will be high. Private as well as government sources of funding should be sought, to ensure that the greatest possible resources are deployed to address the problem in the shortest possible time.
Extending Fissile Material Verification and Safeguards
30. The technical barriers to increasing non-proliferation monitoring and controls over all civil and military nuclear material, including developing a register, are not insurmountable. The civil nuclear industries of the non-nuclear-weapon states have long been subject to international inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the scope of the latter is being extended. It is reasonable to expect that extensive records have been kept of the production of fissile material ? for military and civilian use ? in other states also. International verification is feasible if governments, especially in the nuclear-weapon states, are prepared to declare their stocks.
31. The verification of a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty would be difficult without the establishment of a reasonable defined data baseline of existing fissile material stocks in the nuclear-weapon states. The negotiations and conclusion of a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty can be expected to enhance transparency and availability of data. This would be an important step towards the goal of universal application of safeguards.