Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON -- Leaders of a new "Global Zero" initiative said last week it would be premature at this early date to spell out how to respond to violators of a radically different global security regime in which all other nuclear arsenals have been dismantled (see GSN, Dec. 9).

However, a number of critics -- as well as some experts allied with the movement -- say developing a clear vision for maintaining a "post-zero" security environment will likely be at the core of debate over nuclear disarmament.

The coalition of 100 political, military, civic and business leaders from around the globe is proposing to reduce the world's nuclear warheads to zero by a set date, potentially by 2035.

The group -- which includes former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, former British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett and former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard -- last week launched the initiative. They are endorsing atomic arms elimination through a future treaty laying out phased and verified reductions over roughly the next 25 years.

As debate over such a process begins, some experts say an enforcement mechanism must be conceived to guard against "breakout" scenarios in which a rogue actor or nation attempts to threaten or blackmail others by revealing a hidden nuclear capability, when others have none.

The Hudson Institute's Christopher Ford, for one, recently proposed a rough sketch for how world leaders could create a "countervailing reconstitution" capability in which weapons production might be quickly restarted in response to a post-zero crisis. The idea would be to maintain a "turn-key" nuclear weapons production capacity that would verifiably remain dormant unless needed to counter an emerging violator, he said.

However, some strategists see a rapid weapons-reconstitution ability as potentially destabilizing, imagining perhaps a false alarm that triggers a new and volatile nuclear arms race. Ford insists that even if his specific concept is jettisoned, it would be necessary to devise some type of crisis-response plan to give world powers the confidence to forsake all their nuclear arms and deter would-be cheaters.

Another response concept might be to set aside under lock and key a small force of nuclear weapons, usable only for global deterrence against a potential treaty violator, according to experts.

"The problem is the more that you go in that direction -- a reconstitution -- the more likely it is that someone will break out," Barry Blechman, co-founder of the Henry L. Stimson Center, said in an interview last week.

To Richard Burt - a former U.S. chief negotiator on the Strategic Arms Reductions Talks and now a Global Zero leader - it is too early to expect such steps to be sorted out.

"These are not problems we have to solve in, for example, the next 10 years," he said at a Dec. 11 press conference, flanked by Global Zero advocates from Pakistan and India. If potential enforcement mechanisms are a facet of today's debate, "I think we're really getting ahead of ourselves here," Burt said.

Broadly speaking, the group anticipates that the process of establishing increased global transparency through verification procedures and confidence-building measures on the road to zero would greatly reduce the risk of cheating.

"During the process that we drew right up to, say, 100 [remaining warheads], there would have been so much of [a] confidence level between the countries, that there is every possibility that they would then be prepared to go from 100 to zero," said Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani lieutenant general who serves as defense production secretary in Islamabad.

"The toughest job would be going from 100 to zero," because "that would require that there has to be very good verification, no possibility of any cheating, no possibility of any reconstitution," he said. It would be vital to ensure "that there is no country which would be in a position to cheat," Masood said.

However, once zero is achieved, enforcement and governing mechanisms "definitely" would be required to maintain global confidence and prevent breakout, Blechman said. This is at the "heart of the issue," he said.

"You have to project yourself into a future world when you talk about post-zero," when fears of violation might be considerable, he said during the Dec. 12 interview.

"I'm very interested in the challenge not just of getting to zero but staying at zero," Ford said during a Nov. 14 presentation at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

The risks of nuclear proliferation in such an environment could be far greater than they are today, he said.

"The first weapon introduced into a disarmed world is a game-changer in its quite enormous implications," Ford said.

"At overall numbers close to 'zero,' after all, even the most modest arsenal could make its possessor the nuclear weapons 'peer' of the Great Powers," according to his paper. "At 'zero' itself, the strategic value of 'Weapon One' -- the first weapon introduced into a disarmed world -- would be enormous indeed."

As research coordinator for the Global Zero coalition, Blechman is studying how to create a global system to handle a situation in which someone managed to retain some number of weapons or the materials to make them.

Conventional force likely would provide enough of a deterrent to prevent a nation from retaining or using an illicit nuclear weapon, said Blechman, noting that he was voicing his own personal views and not speaking for Global Zero.

A series of responses might be put in place for responding to cheaters, ranging from the automatic implementation of comprehensive economic sanctions to the possible use of force, he said.

A yet-to-be-drafted Global Zero treaty could create a governing council with the power to authorize a collective use of conventional military force, which might "get rid of that violating government," if need be, said Blechman, who serves as a Stimson Center distinguished fellow focused on disarmament.

Ford expressed little confidence that such a mechanism would work effectively, though.

"Deterring nuclear weapons 'breakout' in a disarmed world would require more than simply trusting the U.N. Security Council or some analogous international body to 'ride to the rescue' in the event of a breakout attempt," Ford writes in his paper, "Deterrence to -- and Through -- 'Zero': Challenges of Disarmament and Proliferation."

"It would of course be marvelous if such a body could be relied upon to decide quickly upon an appropriate remedy and to act rapidly and decisively to return the violator to compliance and deter those who might otherwise follow in its footsteps," Ford continues. "Given the so far unimpressive track record of multilateral approaches in dealing with Iran and North Korea, however, for disarmament advocates simply to assume the deus ex machina of a rapidly-functioning and effective multilateral compliance enforcement system is asking too much."

Over the coming year, a number of Global Zero research analysts plan to publish technical papers on issues including on-site inspection, data exchange and confidence-building, Blechman said. Other papers from around the world would describe how different countries view nuclear weapons and security, he said.

Likely beginning with a first release in February, these papers should lay out the research foundation for a planned Global Zero World Summit in January 2010, Blechman said. That gathering is to include 500 individuals in support of nuclear disarmament.

Before then, Global Zero intends to "form an international commission of distinguished political and military leaders and policy experts from key countries," according to a written statement released last week. "Jointly led by two prominent individuals -- one from Russia and one from the United States -- to be named soon, the Global Zero Commission will emphasize establishing a Russian-U.S. partnership to work for the elimination of nuclear weapons."