The "haves" made the commitment to eliminate their nuclear arsenals and that was the basis for the NPT
aras...@yahoo.com
October 15, 2006
A New Global Nuclear Order
North Korea ... Iran ... and the list is growing. The treaty that once
limited the spread of atomic weapons know-how is unraveling.
By Alissa J. Rubin
Paris - When North Korea announced its nuclear test last week, it was
just the latest sign that the effort to contain the spread of atomic
weapons was breaking down: Several countries are on the verge of
beginning uranium enrichment programs, and others have already started
such efforts, policymakers and experts say.
Brazil recently inaugurated an industrial-scale uranium enrichment
plant, and Argentina and South Africa are interested in similar
projects. Australia, which has large supplies of natural uranium, is
also considering an enrichment program. Iran has 'defied' requests by
the international community [western terrorists] to suspend its program
to enrich uranium [Iran has an absolute right to enrich uranium], the
first step toward making the fissile material suitable for a bomb.
North Korea's announcement of a test follows ones by India and Pakistan
in 1998. The rise of a new generation of nuclear states has led to
increasing concerns that others could follow, and fueled fears that the
more countries with nuclear capability, the greater the risk that
fissile material will fall into terrorist hands.
"We are, at present, at the unraveling of the nonproliferation regime
and the global nuclear order that we've taken for granted", said Graham
Allison, a former assistant secretary of Defense under President
Clinton, who directs the Belfer Center for Science and International
Affairs at Harvard University. "This is a huge event whose importance
may only become evident in five years....
"In terms of global order, global nuclear order, this is a nuclear
blast", he said.
On Saturday, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted a
resolution imposing sanctions on North Korea for its declared nuclear
test Monday.
But China's reluctance to take part in inspections of North Korean
cargo to help stop the flow of weapons materials throws into doubt how
effective the sanctions can be.
Policymakers point to three levels of problems with the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which has been in force for 36 years:
weaknesses in the treaty itself, at the political level in the Security
Council, and at the technical level in the ability of nuclear
inspectors to detect undisclosed nuclear programs.
Countries that had nuclear weapons when the treaty went into effect -
the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China - were allowed
to keep them, whereas others were asked to forswear them.
The "haves" made the commitment to reduce and eventually eliminate
their arsenals, and the "have-nots" agreed not to seek atomic weapons
as long as they could have the advantages of nuclear technology for
peaceful purposes.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations'
nuclear watchdog, was put in charge of making sure countries refrained
from taking steps toward making fissile material suitable for bombs.
But the treaty, in effect, permitted any country that wanted nuclear
weapons capability to go down that road.
Nuclear technology is such that once a country masters uranium
enrichment, it is relatively easy to go from low-level enrichment,
which produces fuel for nuclear power plants, to high-level enrichment,
which produces material used for a bomb.
Although 187 countries have signed the treaty, some developing nations
are skeptical of the intentions of the five original nuclear states and
are reluctant to give up the option of enriching uranium, leaving the
door cracked to nuclear weapons capability.
Immediately after the Cold War, the United States and Russia reduced
their nuclear arsenals by thousands of weapons. Since then there has
been a standstill.
There are now about 27,000 nuclear warheads worldwide - the vast
majority in the U.S. and Russia. And most of the five original nuclear
states have moved to modernize or, in China's case, expand their
arsenals.
Countries that have pursued nuclear capability outside the treaty or by
hiding their programs have, after an initial distancing by the
international community, gone unpunished over the long term.
Three countries - India, Pakistan and Israel - refused to sign the
treaty. Pakistan and India have developed nuclear weapons, and Israel
is thought to have them.
All three enjoy the favor and respect of world leaders, setting an
example of what countries can get when they acquire nuclear weapons.
India and Pakistan, initially sanctioned over their nuclear tests, have
seen the bans diminish, and India has been offered a
multibillion-dollar deal with the United States that includes nuclear
technology. The agreement has not been approved by the U.S. Senate.
Two other countries have refused to abide by the treaty, although they
signed it: Iran and North Korea. The latter withdrew from the treaty
three years ago. Neither nation has suffered significant consequences
for refusing to comply.
That is because until Saturday, the five veto-wielding members of the
Security Council could not agree on a punishment. At least one of the
five has had national interests that superseded its intention to bring
the countries to heel.
The only early-warning system to detect countries that are going down
the nuclear weapons road appears unable to do its job. The
International Atomic Energy Agency has failed to detect cheating by
countries at an early stage in part because it lacks the authority to
do necessary investigations.
It also has no enforcement power to stop what it discovers and can only
report to the Security Council, which has had trouble agreeing on
appropriate punishments.
"This has been an accident waiting to happen for a long time. The
stresses and strains in the nonproliferation architecture have been
apparent for many years", said a senior Western official from a
nonnuclear weapons nation who is involved in his country's nuclear
policy. "You can point the finger pretty much at anybody and they have
a part in the blame".
Western countries with nuclear arsenals want to work within the system,
which allows them to keep their weapons. Their policymakers insist
that, overall, the system is working pretty well. They note that, under
the treaty, several countries have given up nuclear weapons, including
Libya, South Africa and the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan.
"I don't agree that the problem is that there hasn't been disarmament
by the nuclear weapons countries. The treaty is about security, and
countries signed up for it because they thought their security was
served by giving up nuclear weapons as long as their neighbors gave
them up too", said a senior diplomat from a country with nuclear
weapons.
A senior U.S. official involved in nuclear policy noted that "there are
about three dozen countries that have the intellectual, technological
capabilities to have and develop a nuclear weapons capability but have
chosen not to. For those, such as Japan and Germany, it wouldn't take
them long to make that transition, but they haven't, and the treaty is
part of the reason".
Developing nations say they don't want to give up their rights to
uranium enrichment and don't trust the United States or other nuclear
countries to be consistent suppliers of the nuclear material they would
need to run their power plants. Moreover, they say there is no
guarantee that one of the nuclear counties won't attack them.
"There's a big credibility gap because of the double standard. You
can't say, 'It's OK for you to have the weapon, but for everybody else
it's wrong' ", said an ambassador to the International Atomic Energy
Agency from one of the most influential of developing countries.
In the negotiations between the European Union and Iran over the
Islamic Republic's uranium enrichment program, some people close to the
negotiators say that unless the United States forswears efforts to
change Iran's leadership, there will never be a deal.
Daniel Pinkston, a nuclear security expert at the Monterey Institute of
International Studies, said the countries that had pursued nuclear
weapons secretly or by refusing to sign the treaty were in tense
neighborhoods - the Middle East or Asia - where they thought they
could easily be attacked.
"Nuclear weapons can be attractive for the security benefits, and those
might outweigh the benefits from participating in the nonproliferation
regime", Pinkston said. "So unless you can resolve the security
dilemma, you aren't going to resolve the problem".
The United States has helped to discourage some of its nonnuclear
allies from going the weapons route by guaranteeing their security.
In Japan, where there is a political faction that would like the nation
to develop atomic weapons, the majority of policymakers are willing to
rely on the United States for protection. Taiwan and South Korea also
fall into that category.
The problem is that once a country in a troubled area obtains nuclear
weapons capability, others may get nervous, and the situation becomes
hard to control.
Most worrisome to some nuclear countries and their allies is that the
International Atomic Energy Agency has proved incapable of detecting
transgressions by member states at an early stage.
Although Libya and South Africa gave up their nuclear weapons programs,
the agency was not aware of the Libyan program until the day Moammar
Kadafi announced the country was giving it up.
The Iranians had a program for 18 years that went undetected until it
was disclosed by an anti-government group.
"Countries are big - they can hide some things; they learn how to
hide from other countries", said the senior U.S. official involved in
nuclear policy. "And there's one thing you can't easily erase, and
that's knowledge".
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-nukes15oct15,1,7325444.story