Nuclear weapons: The
ultimate insurance policy
All three are guilty of persistently issuing threats
contrary to Article 2.4 of the UN Charter, which requires that all UN member
states “shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use
of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any
state” [1].
All three should be expelled from the UN under Article 6 of
the Charter, which provides for the expulsion of a member which “has
persistently violated the Principles contained in the present Charter”. That’s not going to happen, of course, since
two of the miscreants are veto-wielding members of the Security Council (which
must recommend any expulsion) and the other is their close ally. That’s the way the UN system works, or rather
doesn’t.
If
Putin on “humanitarian intervention”
States that possess nuclear weapons
are not subject to “humanitarian intervention” by the West in order to put in
place a regime of which the West approves.
As Vladimir Putin wrote in RIA Novosti on 27 February 2012, the West’s fondness
for armed intervention in sovereign states is a positive encouragement to
nuclear proliferation:
“All this fervor around the nuclear programs of
“It seems that the more frequent cases of crude and even
armed outside interference in the domestic affairs of countries may prompt
authoritarian (and other) regimes to possess nuclear weapons. If I have the
A-bomb in my pocket, nobody will touch me because it's more trouble than it is
worth. And those who don't have the bomb might have to sit and wait for ‘humanitarian
intervention’.
“Whether we like it or not, foreign interference suggests
this train of thought.” [2]
The axis of evil
In his State of the Union address to
Congress on 29 January 2002, President George W Bush declared that
Knowing that
Knowing that
However, knowing that
There’s a very important lesson
there for states that don’t possess nuclear weapons: if you want to be free
from “the threat or use of force”, which is supposed to be prohibited by
Article 2.4 of the UN Charter, if at all possible, get yourself at least a
rudimentary nuclear weapons system. The
UN system won’t protect you from “the threat or use of force”. You have a better chance if you possess nuclear
weapons. They are the ultimate weapons
of self-defence in that a state that possesses them doesn’t get attacked by
other states.
After the US/UK invasion of Iraq in March 2003, North
Korea’s foreign ministry declared that "the Iraqi war shows that to allow
disarmament through inspections does not help avert a war, but rather sparks
it", concluding that "only a tremendous military deterrent
force" can prevent attacks on states the US dislikes (see Seumas Milne, The Guardian, 10 April 2003 [4]). The regime survives today because it acted
upon this impeccably logical conclusion.
The
In December 2006, the UK Government published a White Paper The
Future of the United Kingdom's Nuclear Deterrent, which made the case for
the
“to deter
and prevent nuclear blackmail and acts of aggression against our vital
interests that cannot be countered by other means.” [5]
More recently on 18 June 2012, in response to an MP who
suggested that nuclear weapons were “completely useless” as a deterrent,
“I find it extraordinary that anyone can stand up in this House after 65 years of
nuclear-armed peace and say that a strategic deterrent does not make people
safer. The possession of a strategic nuclear deterrent has ensured this
country’s safety. It ensured that we saw off the threat in the cold war and it
will ensure our security in the future.” [6]
On the same occasion, Labour MP, Alison Seabeck, echoed
“In a security landscape of few
guarantees, our independent nuclear deterrent provides us with the ultimate
insurance policy, strengthens our national security and increases our ability
to achieve long-term global security aims.” [6]
If the
All three of these states that are to the fore in
threatening military action against
“The
United States will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against
non-nuclear weapons states that are party to the NPT and in compliance with
their nuclear non-proliferation obligations.” (p17)
That
sentence was written with
Justification from
Barak and Gates
Justification for
“I know, I don’t delude myself that
they are doing it just because of
At that point, realising the hole he had dug for himself,
including ditching Israel’s traditional policy of refusing to admit that it has
nuclear weapons, he tried valiantly to portray Iran as “totally different” and
unworthy of possessing nuclear weapons.
Five years earlier, former US Defence Secretary Robert Gates
justified
“Do
you believe the Iranians would consider using that nuclear weapons capability
against the nation of
he replied:
“I
don't know that they would do that, Senator. ... And I think that, while they
are certainly pressing, in my opinion, for nuclear capability, I think that
they would see it in the first instance as a deterrent. They are surrounded by powers with nuclear weapons:
This
remarkable reply justifies Iran seeking nuclear weapons as a deterrent against
other nuclear powers in the region, including Israel and the US (which he
admitted has naval vessels armed with nuclear weapons a few miles off the
Iranian coast).
Like Barak,
Gates acknowledged that Israel has nuclear weapons, even though it has
been US policy for a generation not to do so – which has had the double benefit
of not undermining Israel’s traditional policy of ambiguity on the issue and of
not requiring the US to take a position for or against Israel’s possession of
nuclear weapons.
The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear
Weapons (NPT)
Of course, it would be against
The NPT is a bizarre treaty. Under it, the five states that
already possessed nuclear weapons were permitted to sign as “nuclear weapon”
states and keep them; the rest had to sign as “non-nuclear-weapon” states and
are forbidden from acquiring them. The
latter included
To be
precise, a “nuclear-weapon” state is defined in Article IX(3) of the Treaty as
follows:
“For
the purposes of this Treaty, a nuclear-weapon State is one which has
manufactured and exploded a nuclear weapon or other nuclear explosive device
prior to 1 January, 1967.”
Five states – China, France, Russia, the UK and the US –
passed that test and were eligible to sign the NPT as “nuclear-weapon” states
(though China and France didn’t sign until the 1990s).
The NPT was devised by states that possessed nuclear weapons
in order to maintain their monopoly over the possession of nuclear weapons and,
if at all possible, prevent other states acquiring them. Their monopoly was written into the NPT
itself. What is more, since amendment to
the Treaty requires the approval of
“a majority
of the votes of all the
Parties to the Treaty, including the votes of all nuclear-weapon States Party
to the Treaty”
(to quote Article VIII(2) of the Treaty), their monopoly cannot
be taken away without their consent. In
other words, their right under the NPT to possess nuclear weapons is inviolable.
And their right under the NPT cannot be overridden by the UN
Security Council, since each of these five powers has a right of veto over its
decisions.
It is inconceivable that any of these powers will give up
their nuclear weapons unilaterally – because they are the ultimate weapons of
self-defence. It is true that the NPT
pays lip service to the notion of all round nuclear disarmament. Article VI says:
“Each of the Parties to the Treaty
undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating
to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear
disarmament … .”
But that doesn’t require “nuclear-weapon” states to get rid
of their nuclear weapons, nor even to negotiate in good faith about getting rid
of them, merely to “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures
relating … to nuclear disarmament”.
The five states that had nuclear weapons on 1 January 1967 –
and were licenced to keep them by the NPT – still possess nuclear weapons more
than four decades later and, most likely, will keep them for as long as they
exist as states.
189 states are now party to the NPT, 5 as “nuclear-weapon”
states and the rest as “non-nuclear-weapon” states.
3 states –
It used to
be the case that these three states were in the international nuclear doghouse,
in the sense that they were unable to purchase nuclear material and equipment
from the rest of the world. This made it
difficult for them to expand their civil nuclear programmes.
But, in July
2005, the Bush administration signed the US-India nuclear agreement, an
initiative which has lead to
As a member
of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) of states,
On 6
September 2008, it consented to the amendment of the NSG Guidelines to make an
exception for
(Ironically, the NSG came into being in 1974 as a result of
India developing, and testing, a nuclear device using plutonium from a reactor
imported from Canada for civil purposes).
The NSG operates by consensus and theoretically
What is more, the Government pretended that the introduction
of this extraordinary anomaly had no significant implications for the NPT. See, for instance, Foreign Minister, Micheál
Martin’s response to a question from Michael D Higgins in Dáil Éireann on 9 October 2008 [12].
Senator
Barack Obama voted for the legislation required to enact the US-India nuclear
agreement. In July 2008, he explained
his actions to the Indian magazine Outlook:
“I voted for the US-India nuclear
agreement because
There you
have it: the Bush administration, allegedly a determined opponent of the
proliferation of nuclear weapons, has rewarded
There, Obama
was speaking during his election campaign.
In power, his administration has embraced the US-India agreement. On 23 March 2009, his Deputy Secretary of
State, James Steinburg, told a conference on the agreement at the Brookings
Institution:
“Both the United States and India
have a responsibility to help work, to craft a strengthened NPT regime that
fosters safe, affordable nuclear power, to help the globe’s energy and
environment needs while assuring against the spread of nuclear weapons.” [14]
Think about it: here the
It is not as if
By contrast,
the
“Nothing
in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all
the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear
energy for peaceful purposes … .”
Clearly,
If it had
kept on the right side of the
Withdrawal from NPT
Under Article IX of the NPT,
“Each
Party shall in exercising its national sovereignty have the right to
withdraw from the Treaty if it decides that extraordinary events, related to
the subject matter of this Treaty, have jeopardized the supreme interests of
its country. It shall give notice of such withdrawal to all other Parties to
the Treaty and to the United Nations Security Council three months in advance.
Such notice shall include a statement of the extraordinary events it regards as
having jeopardized its supreme interests.”
By any
objective standard,
It might not
be wise for
David Morrison
June 2012
References
[1] www.un.org/en/documents/charter/
[2] en.rian.ru/world/20120227/171547818.html
[3] georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020129-11.html
[4] www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2003/apr/10/foreignpolicy.iraq
[5] www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/AC00DD79-76D6-4FE3-91A1-6A56B03C092F/0/DefenceWhitePaper2006_Cm6994.pdf
[6] www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmhansrd/cm120618/debtext/120618-0001.htm
[7] www.defense.gov/npr/docs/2010%20nuclear%20posture%20review%20report.pdf
[8] www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11995
[9] media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/rgates_hearing_120506.html
[10] www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Infcircs/Others/infcirc140.pdf
[11]
www.david-morrison.org.uk/india/india-iran-double-standards.htm
[12] debates.oireachtas.ie/dail/2008/10/09/00009.asp
[13]
debates.oireachtas.ie/dail/2008/10/09/00009.asp
[14]
www.scribd.com/doc/61022883/India-US-Nuclear-Agreement