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"Verifiability of
No-First-Use Treaty"
Zeng Wenping
Beijing Institute of Applied Physics and Computational Mathematics
INESAP Conference, Shanghai
8-10 September 1997
With the end of the Cold War, the importance of nuclear weapons has decreased. This makes complete elimination of nuclear weapons more possible. However, setting a nuclear weapons free world is still a thing in far distant future. As one of the practical steps, the nuclear weapons states should agree and state that they would follow a No-First-Use (NFU) pledge. In not too distant future, they should sign a NFU treaty, and furthermore a No-Use treaty. If such thing becomes reality, the role ofpnuclear weapons will become lower and lower with the time passing. So, more and more states will support the complete elimination of nuclear weapons. Therefore, such an agreement of NFU should be brought into operation as soon as possible. At the same time, an effective verification of NFU treaty should be developed, which is critical for nuclear weapons states to sign the NFU treaty. The political commitment to NFU must be matched by an effective verification, which provides confidence to discourage potenptial violator. Without the development of adequate verification, the NFU treaty will not be possible. Many analysts think the NFU pledge can not be verified. So they dismiss it as only a political statement with little significance or credibility. Certainly, now it is very difficult for the verification of NFU treaty. But with the development of arms control, it will become easier and easier. I think, we can take three steps to develop such verification.
· Taking nuclear forces off alert.
· Keeping warheads and delivery systems separate.
· Removing warheads into stockpile.
Taking nuclear forces off alert
In Cold War the Soviet had many nuclear warheads and a stronger conventional force in Europe, so the U.S. needed many nuclear warheads in alert to deter the attack of Soviet. Now such threat disappears, so the U.S. no longer needs nuclear warheads alert. After Cold War it is not necessary for other states to first use either. While maintaining nuclear-tipped missiles on alert, whether on land-based or sea-based platform, is a risk of hair-trigger postures. It increases the chance of an accidental orp unauthorized nuclear warheads launch. So, it is necessary and beneficial for nuclear-weapon-states to keep their nuclear forces off alert. Such idea might get support in near future. And the most important thing is that taking nuclear forces off alert could be verified by national technical means and nuclear warheads inspection arrangement. [1]
Keeping warheads and delivery systems separate
Removal of warheads from delivery vehicle will reinforces the gains achieved by taking nuclear off alert. It will dramatically reduce the probability of the first use of nuclear warheads. If all nuclear-weapon-states keeping their warheads and delivery systems separate, the risk of nuclear war will decreases, while the security and confidence will increases. Keeping their warheads and delivery systems separated could be verified by on-site inspection procedure. The verification procedure used in STApRT could be applied to ensure that the nuclear-weapon-states would not reassemble their nuclear forces. Of course, such on-site inspection might meet difficulty, for it involves intrusion. But as long as we build confidence measure, such thing will become easier and easier.
Removing warheads into stockpile
The two purposes of nuclear warheads deployment are: to deter a nuclear attack and to deter an attack by strong conventional forces. In the post-cold war era, the two purposes are gradually becoming disappear. Step by step nuclear weapons states would dismantle all assembled nuclear devices and place the component, such as warheads and delivery systems, under international inspection. The UN declares the reconstruction of nuclear weapons to be contrary to international law except under very narrow apnd clearly agreed circumstance. This can deter each other from reconstructing their nuclear weapons, and then from first use. In the end, no nuclear weapons would exist in assembled form in the world. Monitoring such transition might cost well and be difficult enough to develop a set of procedures to verify. So, this step is the most difficult one. But, if all nuclear power states build sufficient confidence and at the aid of IAEA, it will become possible.
With above steps, the NFU treaty would become verifiable in the long turn. Of course such verification is very costly and difficult. It needs a global endeavor involving all states. However the crucial impetus must come from the nuclear weapons states. The process above must ensure that no state feels, at any stage, that NFU is a threat to its security. Verification allows states to satisfy themselves, at each stage of the process, that NFU can be made safely and securely. An effective verification can be a driving force for the signing of NFU treaty, and an NFU treaty can benefit other arms control negotiation, especially, the further reduction of strategic nuclear weapons among the five nuclear states.
[1] Report of the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, Commonwealth of Australia, Aug. 1996, P.54.
This
material is produced independently for NTI by the James Martin
Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of
International Studies and does not necessarily reflect the
opinions of and has not been independently verified by NTI or
its directors, officers, employees, agents. Copyright © 2007 by
MIIS.
