Chapter Two: Challenges to the Non-proliferation Regime

Abstract

Rarely in the atomic age have hopes for genuine progress towards disarmament been raised as high as they are now. Governments, prompted by the renewed momentum of non-proliferation and disarmament initiatives, have put nuclear policy at the top of the international agenda.

But how can countries move from warm words to meaningful action? By what means could the world be weaned from its addiction to nuclear weapons and who should undertake the task of supervising this process? This Adelphi examines practical steps for achieving progress toward disarmament, assessing the challenges and opportunities associated with achieving a world without nuclear weapons. It places the current debate over abolition in the context of urgent non-proliferation priorities, such as the need to prevent nuclear weapons from falling into the hands of extremist regimes and terrorists. It distils lessons from states that have already given up nuclear programmes and from the end of the Cold War to suggest ways of countering the efforts of Iran and North Korea to acquire nuclear weapons. For the longer term, it offers policy recommendations for moving towards a reduced global reliance on nuclear weapons.

Notes

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B.I. Spinrad, ‘A Projection of Nuclear Power and Associated Industry’, in Bhupendra Jasani (ed.), Nuclear Proliferation Problems (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1974), pp. 25–40.

Susan Watkins, ‘The Nuclear Non- Protestation Treaty’, New Left Review, no. 54, November–December 2008, p. 21.

Harald Müller, ‘Challenges Faced by the NPT’, paper prepared for the conference ‘The NPT and a World Without Nuclear Weapons’, p. 7.

‘Reinforcing the Global Nuclear Order for Peace and Prosperity: The Role of the IAEA to 2020 and Beyond’, pp. 2–3.

Dinah Deckstein, Frank Dohmen and Cordula Meyer, ‘Die Atom- Schlemperei’, Der Spiegel, no. 42, 2009, pp. 118–21.

Sagan, ‘Shared Responsibilities for Nuclear Disarmament’, p. 160.

Oliver Meier, ‘Nichtbereitung von Nuklearwaffen: Ist der Vertrag noch zu retten?’, in Jochen Hippler et al. (eds), Friedensgutachten (Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2009), pp. 201–13.

‘Documents: Resolutions Adopted at the NPT Extension Conference’, Arms Control Today, vol. 25, no. 5, June 1995, p. 30.

The representatives of these two key countries – Alva Myrdal and Alfonso Garcia Robles – were even honoured with a the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to hold the nuclear-weapons states accountable, as did the IAEA and its Director General, Mohammed ElBaradei, in 2005.

‘Reinforcing the Global Nuclear Order for Peace and Prosperity: The Role of the IAEA to 2020 and Beyond’, report prepared by an independent commission at the request of the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), May 2008, p. 4, http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/News/PDF/2020report0508.pdf. 12

Mark Fitzpatrick, ‘Nuclear Disarmament and Nonproliferation: Strengthening the Synergy’, address to the IISS Global Strategic Review, Geneva, 12 September 2009.

United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, Doctrine for Joint Theater Nuclear Operations, Joint Pub 3-12.1, 9 February 1996, pp. III-6 and III-7, http://www.nukestrat.com/us/jcs/JCS_JP3-12-1_96.pdf.

Jacques Chirac, Speech to French Strategic Forces, Landivisiau, France, 19 January 2006, http://www.ambafrance-uk.org/Speech-by-MJacques-Chirac,6771.html

Schell, ‘The Folly of Arms Control’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 79, no. 5, September/October 2000, p. 32.

Remarks at the United States Institute of Peace, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of State, Renaissance Mayflower Hotel, Washington, DC, 21 October 2009.

‘Reinforcing the Global Nuclear Order for Peace and Prosperity’, pp. 4, 16.

David Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939–1956 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994), pp. 129, 132–3.

In Schell, The Gift of Time: The Case for Abolishing Nuclear Weapons Now pp. 58–9.

See Krepon, Better Safe than Sorry.

Morton Halperin wrote: ‘The Bush administration decision to attack Iraq but not North Korea sent a clear message to Iran and other countries: only nuclear weapons deter the United States’. See Halperin, ’Promises and Priorities’, in Halperin, Bruno Tertrais, Keth B. Payne, K Subrahmanyam, and Sagan, ‘Forum: The Case for No First Use: An Exchange’, Survival, vol. 51 no. 5, 2009, p. 22.

Sagan, ‘Shared Responsibilities for Nuclear Disarmament’, p. 158.