Nuclear treaty's significance unclear

Nuclear treaty's significance unclear

Ten Southeast Asian leaders signed a treaty in Bangkok over the weekend banning the production and acquisition of nuclear weapons in the region. Political analyst J. Soedjati Djiwandono looks at the treaty's significance.

JAKARTA (JP): A treaty establishing Southeast Asia as a nuclear-weapons-free zone (SEANWFZ) was signed by the ASEAN heads of state and government at their fifth summit in Bangkok last Friday. The possibility of establishing a nuclear free zone was first considered in the Kuala Lumpur Declaration in 1971, when ASEAN's foreign ministers gathered to discuss the neutralization of Southeast Asia, or ZOPFAN.

However, it was not until the 1984 annual meeting of ASEAN foreign ministers in Jakarta that the SEANWFZ idea was discussed. The ASEAN Working Group on ZOPFAN has since been given the responsibility of studying the SEANWFZ concept as a component of ZOPFAN.

The nuclear-weapons-free zone would help implement the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), which was extended indefinitely last May. It would help "horizontalize" the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. But it remains unclear if it will help lead to the complete elimination of all nuclear weapons.

Whether the nuclear powers, particularly the United States and China, will approve, recognize and respect the Treaty has yet to be determined and will depend on the strategic importance the nuclear powers attach to the region.

In a sense, the strategic significance of Southeast Asia is derived from the super power relationship. Yet nuclear weapons and their delivery systems might render geographic position almost meaningless in the event, however unlikely, of a nuclear war. However, Southeast Asia has strategic significance to the nuclear powers in at least two respects.

The first is the relative importance of the region in relation to global balance. While the Russian (previously Soviet) nuclear arsenal has focused on land-based ICBMs, its SLBM component and the number of nuclear-weapons-carrying heavy bombers are not as important to its overall deterrence capabilities as they are to the U.S. strategic triad.

U.S. concern that a SEANWFZ could adversely affect its position is understandable. It needs greater strategic mobility than the rest of the nuclear powers.

Secondly, the U.S. needs to secure transit for its warships and safety of the sea lanes for its allies in Asia, particularly Japan, for which the Southeast Asian waters serve as a link between the Pacific and Persian Gulf through the Indian ocean, a route on which Japan heavily depends for survival. The U.S. also plays a role in providing a nuclear umbrella for its allies in the region.

Now that the Cold War is over and the possibility of a nuclear confrontation much reduced, logically it should be easier to secure the nuclear powers' acceptance of SEANWFZ. That, however, does not seem to be the case. Officially, the present U.S. position seems to relate mostly to the application of the international convention on the law of the sea and the delimitation of SEANWFZ.

While strategic U.S. interests are duly accommodated by the Treaty, the heart of the matter seems to be that the nuclear powers do not want to give up their strategy of nuclear deterrence.

This possibility might explain the continued nuclear testing by the Chinese and the French in their attempt to catch up with the U.S.'s strategic capability before they are ready to sign a CTBT, a step towards a "vertical" nuclear non-proliferation.

It may be ruled out that Chinese objection to SEANWFZ is an indication of their willingness to use nuclear weapons -- except perhaps for blackmail -- to back up their claim to the Spratlys and Taiwan. A state is not likely to destroy what it claims to be its own territories.

However, a CTBT makes no sense if nuclear deterrence is maintained. Logic demands the continued maintenance of credibility, which could mean the continued accumulation and modernization of nuclear arsenals, with the consequence of an uncontrollable arms race.

If that should be the case, the NPT would remain dis criminatory and gradually lose its value and credibility. Its survival would be put in jeopardy. The value of SEANWFZ would be no more than that of a declaratory nature, while perhaps retaining its basically political and diplomatic message: The desire and aspiration to be free of external interference on the part of the Southeast Asian nations, which in any event are not likely to develop their own nuclear weapons, but whose friendship and cooperation should never be taken for granted.

The writer is a member of the Board of Directors of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Jakarta.