Failure of NPT nuclear review conference

J. Soedjati Djiwandono, Jakarta

The United Nations NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) Review Conference of 2005 was held on May 2-27. However, with Indonesia being so preoccupied with serious domestic problems the nation's media has barely covered this very important event that has far-reaching implications for the entire world. The conference closed without even a final document. This commentary will only touch on the main issues of this complex problem.

The NPT was widely regarded as the cornerstone of international efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and their attendant dangers, to ensure that nuclear energy was used for the economic and social welfare of all nations, and, as a pathway to nuclear arms control and disarmament.

Review conferences have been held every five years since the NPT came into effect in 1970. The wider acceptance of the NPT is reflected in the ever-growing number of states becoming parties to it since it was opened to signature and ratification in 1968. Between the first and second review conferences of 1975 and 1980, membership increased from 113 to 130; between the third and fourth of 1985 and 1990, it increased to 135; and since 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference, 170 states have acceded to it. Only eight states are not party to it: Brazil, Cuba, Djibouti, India, Israel, Oman, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates.

Finally, the 1995 review conference agreed on an indefinite extension of the NPT. The review conference of 2000 then agreed on "thirteen steps" to prevent the further spread of nuclear weapons and to hold the existing nuclear powers to their long- term commitment to eliminate their nuclear arsenals.

Since then, however, there have been developments that do not augur well for the future of the NPT. Concerned over its inclusion in President Bush's "axis of evil", North Korea pulled out of the NPT and claimed to have nuclear weapons. The U.S. invasion of Iraq seems to have confirmed North Korea's belief that only nuclear weapons could deter a U.S. attack, and it has refused to return to the six-power talks that were intended to persuade Pyongyang to drop their nuclear ambitions.

Also, no one believes Iran's assurances that its uranium enrichment program is purely to fuel peaceful nuclear power reactors. The Iranians have lived under the threat of Israeli nuclear strikes for decades, and their inclusion in Bush's "axis of evil" has led them to fear a direct American attack.

Meanwhile the Bush administration continues to pursue its goal of a new generation of mini-nukes under the cover of the "Reliable Replacement Warhead" program. Britain plans to replace its existing Trident missiles and probably also its nuclear warheads. And neither country will allow Israel's unacknowledged nuclear weapons to be discussed at NPT talks.

The priority of non-nuclear weapon countries was for the existing nuclear powers to start living up to their promises to eliminate nuclear weapons. For the Western nuclear powers, however, the priority was to prevent further proliferation of nuclear weapons. Although America and Russia continue to possess over 90 per cent of the world's nuclear weapons between them, the actual number of warheads in their arsenals has fallen by more than half in the past 15 years, and is scheduled to shrink by many thousands more in coming years.

Robert McNamara, defense secretary under President Kennedy, writes the following: "Today, the United States has deployed approximately 4,500 strategic, offensive nuclear warheads. Russia has roughly 3,800. The strategic forces of Britain, France, and China are considerably smaller, with 200 to 400 nuclear weapons in each state's arsenal. The new nuclear states of Pakistan and India have fewer than 100 weapons each. North Korea now claims to have developed nuclear weapons, and U.S. intelligence agencies estimate that Pyongyang has enough fissile material for 2-8 bombs..."

"The average U.S. warhead has a destructive power 20 times that of the Hiroshima bomb. Of the 8,000 active or operational U.S. warheads, 2,000 are on hair-trigger alert, ready to be launched on 15 minutes' warning... The United States has never endorsed the policy of "no first use"... We have been and remain prepared to initiate the use of nuclear weapons...against either a nuclear or non-nuclear enemy... For decades, U.S. nuclear forces have been sufficiently strong to absorb a first strike and then inflict "unacceptable" damage on an opponent. This has been and (so long as we face a nuclear-armed, potential adversary) must continue to be the foundation of our nuclear deterrent. ("Apocalypse Soon", Foreign Policy, May/June 2005).

To emphasize its continued adherence to nuclear deterrence, the Bush administration's nuclear program, alongside its refusal to ratify the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), will be viewed as a U.S. break with the treaty. Washington says to the mononuclear weapons nations, "We, with the strongest conventional military force in the world, require nuclear weapons in perpetuity, but you, facing potentially well-armed opponents, are never to be allowed even one nuclear weapon." (Ibid.) The fate of the NPT was sealed.

The NPT will gradually lose its value and credibility. It is discriminatory, implying what the late Homi Bahbha, founder of India's nuclear energy program, called "horizontal proliferation", but not "vertical proliferation". The nuclear states are interested in controlling the global spread and development of all nuclear weapons, except their own.

The commitment of the nuclear weapon states to eventually eliminate all kinds of nuclear weapons is an absolute requirement to convince non-NWS of the need and importance of disarmament of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. The NPT should not only extended indefinitely, but it should be expanded. And all states should be bound by it and abide by its terms.

The writer is political analyst.