THE NPT HOLDOUTS

Abstract

This article assesses the impact of the U.S.-led disarmament agenda on the disarmament diplomacy and policies of the three nuclear-capable states not party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)—India, Israel, and Pakistan. These states, often referred to as “NPT holdouts,” undermine the application of the NPT obligations on all parties. Universality of the treaty framework has long been considered vital to strengthen the nuclear nonproliferation regime and consolidate non-nuclear norms. But can new U.S.-led disarmament momentum create the necessary dynamics to encourage the holdouts to disarm, or is this wishful thinking? This article argues that sustained disarmament momentum from the Western NWS will not be enough—a more comprehensive approach to disarmament is needed, including a genuine commitment by all NWS to engage in transparency and reductions, and full nuclear compliance and cooperation by Iran.

Keywords:

• NPT holdouts
• universality
• nuclear weapons
• disarmament
• nuclear diplomacy
• South Asia
• India
• Israel
• Pakistan
• United States

Notes

1. This issue of holdout status has a complex, dependent relationship with key NPT concerns. The holdout issue complicates the resolution of noncompliance concerns (the link between Pakistani proliferation and North Korean and Iranian noncompliance); proliferation (Pakistan and the A.Q. Khan nuclear network); latent nuclear weapons capabilities in the Middle East and Asia; the Middle East conflict; and terrorism (the Taliban, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the insurgency in India). The solution to any one of these issues is complicated by the others. The universality of the NPT and its norms also bears heavily on other key foreign policy concerns, including the resolution of the volatile regional conflicts in the Middle East and South Asia, including the war in Afghanistan, Indo-Pakistani conflicts, and Israeli conflict with Iran, Palestine, and Syria.

2. .Idriss Jazairy, “States Discuss Establishment of a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in the Middle East Conference on Disarmament,” Reaching Critical Will, March 12, 2009, <www.reachingcriticalwill.org/political/cd/press09/12march.html>.

3. The holdout states have persistently rejected NPT norms and those that support the grand bargain; however, they embrace some nonproliferation and counterproliferation norms. At least in their rhetoric, they strongly support the norm of global disarmament, yet they align with strategic and political thinking that sees great value in the possession of nuclear weapons. The ambiguous nature of much of their nuclear policy creates insecurity because the rules by which they strategize are not known.

4. Matthew Fuhrmann, “Spreading Temptation Proliferation and Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation Agreements,” International Security 34 (Summer 2009), p. 1; Barry M. Blechman, ed., Unblocking the Road to Zero: Pakistan and Israel (Washington, DC: Henry L. Stimson Center, 2009), p. 3.

5. Marvin Miller and Lawrence Scheinman, “Israel, India, and Pakistan: Engaging the Non-NPT States in the Nonproliferation Regime,” Arms Control Today, December 2003, p. 18.

6. Jenny Nielsen, “Engaging India, Israel and Pakistan in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Regime,” Disarmament Diplomacy 86 (Autumn 2007), <www.acronym.org.uk/dd/dd86/86jn.htm>.

7. .For the nuclear taboo, see Nina Tannenwald, “Stigmatizing the Bomb: Origins of the Nuclear Taboo,” International Security 29 (Spring 2005), pp. 5–49. For the norm of nuclear restraint, see Maria Rost Rublee, Nonproliferation Norms: Why States Choose Nuclear Restraint (Athens: University of Georgia press, 2009).

8. Personal e-mail correspondence between Paul Kapur and one of the authors, August 29, 2009.

9. Miller and Scheinman, “Israel, India, and Pakistan,” p. 18.

10. Scott Sagan, “Why Do States Build Nuclear Weapons? Three Models in Search of a Bomb,” International Security 21 (Winter 1996–97), p. 57.

11. “U.S. Urges Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea to Join NPT,” May 7, 2009, <www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Politics/07-May-2009/US-urges-Israel-India-Pakistan-and-North-Korea-to-join-NPT>.

12. President Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President at the New Economic School Graduation,” Moscow, Russia, July 7, 2009.

13. Embassy of India, “India and Disarmament,” Policy Statements, <www.indianembassy.org/policy/Disarmament/note_india_disarmament.htm>.

14. Comments by Mahatma Gandhi link the philosophy of non-violence to nuclear disarmament. This remains an entrenched view. Pranab Mukherjee, “Special Address to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) International Conference,” June 9–10, 2008, in Manpreet Singh, ed., Towards a Nuclear Weapons Free World (New Delhi: Center for Air Power Studies, 2009), p. 18.

15. Embassy of India, “India and Disarmament.”

16. Embassy of India, “India and Disarmament.”

17. Sergio Duarte, “Keynote Address to the CSIS and ICWA International Conference,” June 9–10, 2008, in Singh, ed., Towards a Nuclear Weapons Free World, p. 7.

18. Embassy of India, “India and Disarmament.”

19. Manmohan Singh, prime minister of India, “Inaugural Address to the CSIS and ICWA International Conference,” June 9–10, 2008, in Singh ed., Towards a Nuclear Weapons Free World, p. 4.

20. Manmohan Singh, prime minister of India, “Inaugural Address to the CSIS and ICWA International Conference,” June 9–10, 2008, in Singh ed., Towards a Nuclear Weapons Free World, p. 4.

21. See Bharat Karnad's comment: “For a self-proclaimed ‘Nuclear Weapons State,’ disarmament is manifestly a counterproductive policy thrust. … Alas, Delhi hangs on to the vestiges of the past by conjoining its imperative to weaponize with the sentimental craving to advance disarmament.” Bharat Karnad, “A Thermonuclear Deterrent,” in Amitabh Mattoo, ed., India's Nuclear Deterrent: Post-Pokhran II and Beyond (New Delhi: Har-Anand, 1998), p. 114.

22. Shiv S. Mukherjee, Embassy of India, “Press Release Issued in New Delhi on UN Security Council Resolution on India's Nuclear Tests,” May 15, 1998, <www.indianembassy.org/pic/PR_1998/May98/prmay1598.htm>.

23. Jaswant Singh, “Against Nuclear Apartheid,” Foreign Affairs 77 (September/October 1998), <www.indianembassy.org/pic/js/js%28foreignaffairs%29.html>.

24. Jawed Naqvi, “India Rules Out Regional Nuclear Disarmament,” Dawn, June 10, 2008, <www.dawn.com/2008/06/10/top4.htm>, accessed August 29, 2009.

25. Jawed Naqvi, “India Rules Out Regional Nuclear Disarmament,” Dawn, June 10, 2008, <www.dawn.com/2008/06/10/top4.htm>, accessed August 29, 2009.

26. Tanya Ogilvie-White, “The History and Idea of a Nuclear Weapons Convention: Current Status and Future Prospects,” report prepared for the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Disarmament Division, March 2005, p. 7.

27. Tanya Ogilvie-White, “The History and Idea of a Nuclear Weapons Convention: Current Status and Future Prospects,” report prepared for the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Disarmament Division, March 2005, p. 8

28. Embassy of India, “India and Disarmament.”

29. Jayshree Bajoria and Esther Pan, “Backgrounder: The U.S.–India Deal,” Council on Foreign Relations, undated, <www.cfr.org/publication/9663/>.

30. Naqvi, “India Rules Out Regional Nuclear Disarmament.”

31. Ambassador Teresita C. Schaffer and Vibhuti Haté, “India & the International Nonproliferation System,” report by the South Asia Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies, October 2, 2006, <csis.org/files/media/csis/pubs/061002_india_intlnonproliferation.pdf>.

32. On India's Additional Protocol, see IAEA, “Strengthened Safeguards System: Status of Additional Protocols,” updated July 9, 2009, <www.iaea.org/OurWork/SV/Safeguards/sg_protocol.html>. On the NSG, see Naqvi, “India Rules Out Regional Nuclear Disarmament.”

33. For up-to-date information on the details of China's position on multilateral disarmament, see “Address by H. E. Yang Jiechi, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, at the Conference on Disarmament,” Geneva, August 12, 2009, <www.reachingcriticalwill.org/political/cd/speeches09/3session/12August_China.pdf>.

34. W.P.S. Sidhu and Jing-dong Yuan, China and India: Cooperation or Conflict? (London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2003), p. 48.

35. Devin T. Hagerty, “China and Pakistan: Strains in the Relationship,” Current History 101 (September 2002), p. 284; Gordon G. Chang, “India's China Problem,” Forbes, August 14, 2009, <www.forbes.com/2009/08/13/india-china-relations-population-opinions-columnists-gordon-chang.html>; and Yan Hao, “PLA Kicks Off Largest Long-Range Tactical Military Exercise,” Xinhua, August 11, 2009, <news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-08/11/content_11863847.htm>.

36. Lydia Polgreen, “India Launches Nuclear Submarine,” New York Times, July 26, 2009, <www.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/world/asia/27india.html>.

37. Deepti Choubey, “A Chance for Nuclear Leadership,” WashingtonPost.com's Think Tank Town, November 7, 2007, <www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/06/AR2007110601851.html>.

38. George Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on Global Proliferation (London: University of California Press, 2001), p. 7; Sagan, “Why Do States Build Nuclear Weapons?” pp. 54–86; Strobe Talbott, “Dealing with the Bomb in South Asia,” Foreign Affairs 78 (March/April 1999), pp. 110–22.

39. Naqvi, “India Rules Out Regional Nuclear Disarmament.”

40. Sumit Ganguly, “Nuclear Brinkmanship; India's Finally on the Verge of Great-Power Status—Unless Its Old-Guard Politicians Bring It Down,” Newsweek, September 3, 2007.

41. India did not pledge to sign the CTBT as part of the deal. Ashton Carter, who in 2006 argued strongly in favor of the deal on the basis that it would consolidate a closer strategic partnership between India and the United States, later backtracked. In 2007 he noted that there were few signs that Washington's leverage with New Delhi had increased. Rather, “India's politicians have not even showed gratitude for the American gesture of nuclear recognition, instead maintaining that they were entitled to it and resenting the (few and loose) strings the U.S. Congress attached to the deal.” See Ashton B. Carter, “How Washington Learned to Stop Worrying and Love India's Bomb,” ForeignAffairs.com, January 10, 2007, <www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/64243/ashton-b-carter/how-washington-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-indias-bomb>; and Ashton B. Carter, “America's New Strategic Partner?” Foreign Affairs 85 (July/August 2006). For further details of the nonproliferation conditions imposed on the U.S.–India nuclear deal, see Paul K. Kerr, “U.S. Nuclear Cooperation with India: Issues for Congress,” CRS Report for Congress, updated October 17, 2008.

42. Feroz Hassan Khan, “Pakistan's Perspective on the Global Elimination of Nuclear Weapons,” in Barry M. Blechman, ed., Unblocking the Road to Zero: Pakistan and Israel, p. 5.

43. For a study on the A.Q. Khan network, see Gordon Corera, Shopping for Bombs: Nuclear Proliferation, Global Insecurity, and the Rise and Fall of the A.Q. Khan Network (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). On the damage to Pakistan's relationship with the United States, see Khan, “Pakistan's Perspective on the Global Elimination of Nuclear Weapons,” p. 24.

44. “Statement by Ambassador Munir Akram, Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations Conference on Disarmament,” Geneva, May 14, 1998, at the Plenary of the Second Session of the Conference on Disarmament.

45. Khan, “Pakistan's Perspective on the Global Elimination of Nuclear Weapons,” p. 24.

46. “Address by Mr Mohammad Ayub Khan, President of Pakistan,” September 26, 1962, in General Assembly Official Records, 17th Session 1133rd Plenary Meeting, September 26, 1962, p. 150, quoted in Khan, “Pakistan's Perspective on the Global Elimination of Nuclear Weapons,” p. 24.

47. “India and Pakistan Statements to the United Nations General Assembly, September 1998,” Acronym Institute, <www.acronym.org.uk/spsep98.htm>.

48. In 1976, a secret (now declassified) U.S. State Department Memorandum claimed that Pakistan had launched “a crash program to develop nuclear weapons” in response to India's 1974 nuclear test. U.S. Department of State Memorandum, “Demarche to Pakistan on Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing,” January 30, 1976, George Washington University's National Security Archive, <www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB6/ipn21_1.htm>.

49. Khan, “Pakistan's Perspective on the Global Elimination of Nuclear Weapons,” pp. 24–26.

50. “Statement by Ambassador Munir Akram.”

51. “Pakistan Talks Up CTBT,” Disarmament Diplomacy No. 56 (April 2001), <www.acronym.org.uk/dd/dd56/56ctbt.htm>; Khan, “Pakistan's Perspective on the Global Elimination of Nuclear Weapons,” p. 27.

52. For an updated comprehensive study of U.S.–Pakistan relations, see K. Alan Kronstadt, Pakistan–U.S. Relations (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2009).

53. Miller and Scheinman, “Israel, India, and Pakistan,” p. 18.

54. Personal e-mail correspondence between one of the authors and scholar Feroz Khan, August 29, 2009.

55. Personal e-mail correspondence between one of the authors and scholar Feroz Khan, August 29, 2009.

56. T.V. Paul, “The US-India Nuclear Accord: Implications for the Non-Proliferation Regime,” International Journal 62 (Autumn 2007), p. 851; Jamal Alfridi, “China-Pakistan Relations,” Council on Foreign Relations, August 20, 2009, <www.cfr.org/publication/10070/>.

57. Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, “Nuclear Security in Pakistan: Reducing the Risks of Nuclear Terrorism,” Arms Control Today, July/August 2009, <www.armscontrol.org/act/2009_07-08/Mowatt-Larssen>; “Expert Warns of Pakistani Nuclear Security Vulnerabilities,” Global Security Newswire, July 21, 2009, <www.globalsecuritynewswire.org/gsn/nw_20090721_7884.php>.

58. Feroz Hassan Khan, “Nuclear Security in Pakistan: Separating Myth from Reality,” Arms Control Today, July/August 2009, <www.armscontrol.org/act/2009_07-08/khan>.

59. Pakistan is under pressure from the major nuclear powers to end its defiance of sixty-four other countries in blocking international disarmament talks at the CD. Citing unspecified national security concerns, Pakistan has been alone in stalling since the sixty-five states took a landmark decision in May to break more than a decade of deadlock by agreeing on a work plan for 2009. This was an unusual display of unity from the great powers. The Pakistani ambassador's comments in the CD show Pakistan attempting to stall the proceeding and prevent the implementation of the Program of Action. “Pakistan under Pressure at Geneva N-Talks,” August 21, 2009, <www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/front-page/pakistan-under-pressure-at-geneva-ntalks-189>; CD Report 2009, Reaching Critical Will, <www.reachingcriticalwill.org/political/cd/speeches09/reports.html>.

60. Sumit Ganguly, Devin Hagerty, Fearful Symmetry: India–Pakistan Crises in the Shadow of Nuclear Weapons (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 37.

61. Khan, “Pakistan's Perspective on the Global Elimination of Nuclear Weapons,” p. 31.

62. Personal e-mail correspondence between one of the authors and Paul Kapur, August 29, 2009.

63. Khan, “Pakistan's Perspective on the Global Elimination of Nuclear Weapons,” p. 24.

64. S. Paul Kapur, “Ten Years of Instability in a Nuclear South Asia,” International Security 33 (Fall 2008), p. 72.

65. Ambassador Masood Khan, “FMCT or FMT: Two Approaches to the Prohibition of the Production of Fissile Material for Weapons Purposes,” paper presented at the 2005 UN Program of Fellowship on Disarmament, Geneva, September 14, 2005, <missions.itu.int/~pakistan/2005_Statements/CD/papers/fmct_fmt_14sept05.htm>.

66. China holds the key, which from the perspective of U.S. leverage and disarmament leadership is a significant hurdle, given Beijing's expanding nuclear capabilities and Washington's inability to shape China's behavior and thinking. Stephen P. Cohen, “Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear War in South Asia: Unknowable Futures,” in Ramesh Thakur and Oddny Wiggen, eds., South Asia in the World: Problem-Solving Perspectives on Security, Sustainable Development and Good Governance (New York: UN University Press, 2004), p. 55.

67. Shlomo Brom, “Israeli Perspectives on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons,” in Unblocking the Road to Zero: Pakistan and Israel, p. 50

68. This zone was recommended by consensus in a resolution at the 1995 NPT Extension and Review Conference and reaffirmed in the 2000 NPT Review Conference outcome. There is some debate as to whether Israel agreed with the 1995 resolution or not. See Avner Cohen, “Disarming Dreams, Nuclear Realities,” Forward, May 1, 2009, <www.forward.com/articles/105038/>; Tariq Rauf, “Reply in Correspondence: The Middle East Resolution,” Nonproliferation Review 7 (Summer 2000), pp. 175–76.

69. Itzhaki was referring to the fact that Israel is not a member of the NPT and that decisions made in the CD rely on consensus. See Meir Itzhaki, “Unofficial Transcript: Israel,” Reaching Critical Will, March 12, 2009, <www.reachingcriticalwill.org/political/cd/speeches09/1session/12March_Israel.html>.

70. Ambassador Sameh Shoukry, “Nuclear-Weapons-Free-Zones: Past Lessons and Future Prospects,” remarks during panel discussion, 2009 Carnegie International Nonproliferation Conference, Washington, DC, April 7, 2009; “Israel Profile,” Nuclear Threat Initiative/James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, updated September 2009, <www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/Israel/index.html>.

71. In 1981, Israel destroyed an unfinished Iraqi nuclear research reactor (Osirak), and in 2007, Israel destroyed a Syrian nuclear reactor. See Miller and Scheinman, “Israel, India, and Pakistan.”

72. Miller and Scheinman, “Israel, India, and Pakistan.”

73. “Israel's Approach to Regional Security, Arms Control and Disarmament,” statement by Eytan Bentsur, director general of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, before the Conference on Disarmament, Geneva, September 4, 1997.

74. Brom, “Israeli Perspectives on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons,” p. 49.

75. Cohen, “Disarming Dreams, Nuclear Realities.”

76. Miller and Scheinman, “Israel, India, and Pakistan.”

77. Cohen, “Disarming Dreams, Nuclear Realities.” It could, however, be argued that ambiguity has the potential to aid unilateral disarmament decisions, as the historical record shows that all independent decisions to relinquish nuclear weapons have been accomplished under conditions of ambiguity. See Miller and Scheinman, “Israel, India, and Pakistan.”

78. In 1969, the United States agreed to accept the “nuclear facts on the ground” in Israel, while Israel pledged not to test or declare itself a nuclear weapon state. See Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), pp. 337–38.

79. Rauf, “Reply in Correspondence.”

80. Brom, “Israeli Perspectives on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons,” p. 48.

81. Tanya Ogilvie-White, Ben Sanders, and John Simpson, Putting the Final Document Into Practice: Possible Ways to Implement the Results of the 2000 Review Conference, A PPNN Study (Southampton: Mountbatten Centre for International Studies, 2002), pp. 40–41.

82. Steven E. Miller, “The Utility of Nuclear Weapons and the Strategy of No-First-Use,” paper presented at the Pugwash Meeting on No First Use of Nuclear Weapons, London, November 15–17, 2002.

83. Tristan Humble, “Tannenwald: Israeli Policies Losing Western Sympathies,” Watson Institute, July 14, 2009.

84. Cohen, “Disarming Dreams, Nuclear Realities.”

85. Chuck Freilich, “The United States, Israel and Iran: Defusing an ‘Existential’ Threat,” Arms Control Today, November 2008, <www.armscontrol.org/act/2008_11/freilich>.

86. George Bunn and John B. Rhinelander, “NPT Withdrawal: Time for the Security Council to Step In,” Arms Control Today, May 2005, <www.armscontrol.org/act/2005_05/Bunn_Rhinelander>; Bernard Gwerztman interviews Lawrence Scheinman, “Scheinman: Iran North Korea and the NPT's Loopholes,” Council on Foreign Relations, January 27, 2005, <www.cfr.org/publication/7661/>.

87. “IAEA ‘Impotent’: Israel,” Agence-France Presse, June 7, 2009; Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Israeli Reaction about IAEA Reports about Iran and Syria,” June 7, 2009.

88. Levite, “Nuclear-Weapons-Free-Zones: Past Lessons and Future Prospects.”

89. Ogilvie-White, Sanders, and Simpson, Putting the Final Document into Practice, p. 40.

90. Peter Crail, “Israeli Officials Wary of U.S. Shift on Iran,” Arms Control Today, December 2008, <www.armscontrol.org/act/2008_12/US_Iran_policy>; S. Samuel C. Rajiv, “Apprehensive Allies: India and Israel in the Obama Era,” BESA Center Perspectives Papers No. 89, August 10, 2009; Avner Cohen and George Perkovich, “The Obama-Netanyahu Meeting: Nuclear Issues,” Proliferation Analysis, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, May 14, 2009, <www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=23124>.

91. U.S. tacit support for Israel's strategic deterrent dates back to an unwritten agreement that was reached between President Richard Nixon and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir in 1969. This unwritten understanding remains intact today: under the secret accord, the United States agreed to end its annual visits to Israel's Dimona reactor and stop pressing Israel to sign the NPT; Israel agreed that its nuclear capabilities would remain opaque. See Cohen and Perkovich, “The Obama-Netanyahu Meeting: Nuclear Issues.”

92. Joseph Cirincione, “No Military Options,” Proliferation Analysis, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, January 19, 2006, <www.carnegieendowment.org/npp/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=17922>; “Israeli Paper Says Strike on Iran Could Delay Bomb,” Reuters, August 12, 2009; Con Coughlin, “Israel Seeks All Clear for Iran Airstrike,” Daily Telegraph, February 24, 2007.

93. Recent steps by China suggest that it may be more willing to adopt nuclear transparency measures than in the past. A white paper released in January 2009 outlines China's nuclear doctrine in times of crisis and states that China's nuclear weapons are not aimed at any state. Information Office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China, “China's National Defense in 2008,” Beijing, China, January 1, 2009.

94. Negotiations on this issue are extremely complex, involving three parallel tracks: the political track, including the Arab Peace Initiative; the disarmament track, including the 1995 NPT Review Conference resolution; and a human security track, “along which the governments of the region demonstrate their ability to cope with their internal problems and satisfy the needs and hopes of their peoples.” International Women's Day Statement to the Conference on Disarmament on behalf of the coalition of women's organizations, March 4, 2009, <www.reachingcriticalwill.org/political/cd/speeches09/reports.html#5march>.

95. Nielsen, “Engaging India, Israel and Pakistan in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Regime.