National Observer Home > No. 42 - Spring 1999 > Article

Nuclear Proliferation Or Non-Proliferation

Sharif M. Shuja 

For the most part, the evidence of the 1990s appears to suggest that the stability and prosperity of the Asian-Pacific region have been advanced by the widespread adherence by regional countries to the non-proliferation norms and regimes, the centrepiece of which is the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Treaty dates back to 1968 when it was signed by seventy states, and it came into force in 1970. Since then, the number of states party to the Treaty has increased considerably. By now, 178 states have signed the treaty and thus opted to give up nuclear power for military purposes. Some states — for example, South Africa, Argentina, Brazil and Romania — gave up their nuclear stockpiling programmes. Algeria, after building up a large nuclear research facility with China's support, eventually adopted the Treaty in January 1995.

But the nuclear tests conducted by India and Pakistan in May 1998 shattered the strategic status quo on the sub-continent, fuelling global concerns that the two long-time protagonists were moving close to a nuclear confrontation. By exploding ten nuclear bombs in two weeks, India and Pakistan together drastically undermined the nuclear non-proliferation regime and fundamentally altered the nuclear balance of power. The campaign for nuclear disarmament now appears to be failing just when success seemed at hand. A Nuclear Weapons Convention based on the Chemical Weapons Convention and Biological Weapons Convention might be one way out of the imbroglio. But the harsh reality is that none of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council is contemplating the idea of dismantling its nuclear weapons. The new nuclear arms race arguably calls into question the nature and durability of the United States leadership in world affairs.

The political and strategic after-shocks were felt beyond the borders of India and Pakistan. Strategic analysts, security planners and policy-makers even in Australia became worried about the balance of power implications, the consequences for the nuclear non-proliferation regime, and the spillover effects for the Asia-Pacific region. Such worries were demonstrated in a seminar entitled India and Pakistan: A New Nuclear Weapons Imbroglio, organised by the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University, Canberra, and held on 21 August 1998 and the United States Deputy Secretary of Defence Strobe Talbott's most recent visit and talks in Islamabad over nuclear non-proliferation. This nuclear proliferation in South Asia has raised a need to re-examine the question of nuclear non-proliferation within the entire context of international security. This article aims to focus attention upon arguments about substance and the rethinking of basic issues. For these purposes the ultimate objective is a world free of all weapons of mass destruction.

Theoretical terrain

Some international relations scholars in the Cold War period, such as Kennet Waltz, argued in 1979 (Theory of International Politics) that the countries equipped with nuclear weapons may have a stronger incentive to prevent war than the countries merely with conventional armaments. In 1981 he published The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May be Better, a definite stance for nuclear weaponry increase as a means of stability between the two superpowers. Others also wrote on this issue. Using the contemporary concepts of "international systems" expounded by Gabriel Amond, Morton Kaplan, K.J. Holsti, Le Roy Graymer, Joseph Franklin, Richard Rosecrance and Julian Friedman, this author earlier in 1974 (International Systems and Problems of Stability in the Nuclear Age) attempted to establish theoretically that "stability or security in the present age of nuclear deterrence is most probably dependent, in the ultimate analysis, on a balanced relationship between the existing patterns of bipolarity and multipolarity".¹ 

Since 1989, the pulling down of the Berlin wall followed by the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union collapse have deeply changed the geo-strategical outlook. The Cold War was unexpectedly over and some of its fundamental players had disappeared. The role of N.A.T.O. itself was being put into question.

Within this new and more complex situation, a trend to non-proliferation emerged, that is, the removal of the nuclear threat by scaling down and eventually eliminating all nuclear weapons. This trend, as argued in 1996, in Nuclear Non-Proliferation and the International System, by Italian scholar Paolo Tripodi,² is based on two approaches, both aimed at peace-keeping: disarmament and control over arms build-up.

First, from a strategic standpoint, disarmament is sometimes based on the assumption that the existence of weapons is not a consequence but rather a fundamental cause of uncertainty and conflicts. According to this approach, by reducing or eliminating armaments on a global scale, peace would be achieved. Obviously, in a world where there is no authority to settle international disputes, disarmament gives way to a security dilemma. Any state that is left to its own resources may perceive a real or would-be threat (for example, defence weapons in a neighbouring state), and is thus faced with the security dilemma. Then, lacking international guarantees, it may decide to keep its stockpile – nuclear or conventional as it may be.

Secondly, control over arms build-up involves a different approach. This approach is based on the assumption that the causes and the very nature of conflicts are so strong that they cannot be eliminated. The existence of stockpiles is not a cause but rather a consequence of international pressures. Nuclear or conventional weapons are not the cause of wars, but they basically concur in increasing the security dilemma. An uncontrolled armament increase may contribute to turn a crisis into a war. Control over arms build-up aims at keeping the crisis level below the threshold likely to lead to a war.

In this respect, non-proliferation involves a serious commitment towards control over arms build-up. However, the fact that five permanent members of the Security Council are equipped with nuclear weapons is still a pending issue. The scholars who deal with international relations, analysis of wars and strategy at large may describe some approaches that — in the case of disarmament and arms control — may be either normative or descriptive. Yet the effectiveness of these theories should be tested through the study and analysis of international foreign policies.

A strategic analysis of non-proliferation or a strategic assessment of states in relation to acquiring nuclear weapons would show a much more complex picture than is presented by theoretical approaches.

Strategic analysis and assessment

North-east Asian states are proliferating, or are capable of proliferating, nuclear weapons of mass destruction. Proliferation is defined here as acting to acquire, or the possession of, such weapons. The original five declared nuclear weapons states — the United States of America, the Soviet Union/Russia, Great Britain, France and China — are not considered proliferators, although some activities by these countries have promoted proliferation among various developing states, for example, in North Korea, Israel, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq and so on.

The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction obviously is not confined to East Asia. Some states are acting to acquire nuclear weapons in spite of export control regimes, the Non-Proliferation Treaty, international sanctions and preemptive strikes and air campaigns by adversaries. Israel has not signed the Treaty and is estimated to have between 75 and possibly 300 undeclared nuclear weapons.³ North Korea, while hiding within the Treaty, has developed nuclear devices and has sufficient plutonium for these purposes. Hopefully, the 21 October 1994 Washington-Pyongyang Agreed Framework will prevent those devices from becoming weaponised and, indeed, will see them destroyed.

The factors driving these states to acquire nuclear inventories are insecurity, nationalism, prestige and profit. Lawrence E. Grinter concludes that when a government believes that the incentives to acquire weapons of mass destruction outweigh the costs, risks or disincentives, proliferation begins.⁴

Although the incentives are powerful and have tipped some of the scales toward Asian nuclear proliferation, each proliferator has also faced risks and disincentives. North Korea and Pakistan, for example, obviously chose to accept these risks and disincentives, although each went about proliferation in different ways. Pakistan refused to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty or to deny that it wanted nuclear weapons. Legal and illegal means were used by Islamabad to acquire the technology. Insecurity has been the principal factor driving Pakistan's actions because it borders India, a hostile, dominant military power with nuclear weapons. Both Israel and India also remain outside the Treaty. India has several times made Pakistan nervous with large conventional military exercises close to Pakistan's borders.

North Korea, however, signed the Treaty in 1985 and then delayed agreeing to an inspection regime for seven years, permitting secret enhancement of its nuclear capabilities. In October 1994, it finally bargained a termination of its nuclear programme for billions of dollars worth of alternative Western energy assistance. This may be regarded as setting an unfortunate precedent because, in a sense, the Agreed Framework was a multi billion-dollar sale of North Korean compliance with the Treaty.

In this context, it is important to glean quickly United States policy and action on this issue. It is argued that one policy does not fit all of the United States actions. Indeed, flexibility of United States policy is already evident — with Israel. Israel's decision to resort to nuclear power was brought about by its geographic position and by the Arab states' open hostility. Washington is essentially unconcerned about Tel Aviv's nuclear weapons programme. It is widely believed that Israel has several hundred nuclear weapons.

These facts have in no way jeopardised United States aid to Israel; the issue evidently is never raised. By contrast, Pakistan, also friendly to the United States and a previous formal partner of the United States in the Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation, remains under punishment by a congressional law aimed solely at it for having become a nuclear power at least four and probably eight years ago. The disutility of this policy, indeed its harm to broader United States interests in Southwest Asia in the post-Cold War era (where Washington is looking again for regional stabilisers to handle regional threats), is pronounced. To add to the curiosity of United States non-proliferation policies, we have a situation where the major country of the former Soviet Union, Russia, has targeted thousands of nuclear weapons against the United States, but is considered now so friendly, and needy, that Washington is providing it with aid and giving it most-favoured-nation trade status. Facts such as these do not square with a rational nuclear counter-proliferation policy.

South East Asia

Nuclear proliferation in other parts of Asia has relevance also to South East Asia. It is important to discuss in brief the security and strategic postures of both India and Pakistan. Relations with Pakistan dominate India's national security agenda. Though the cause of the ongoing hostility lies ostensibly in the Kashmir problem, its roots are deep-seated and extend back to the partition of British India.

In fact, the crux of the problem in the Indian subcontinent is that neither the Indians nor the Pakistanis accepted the line of demarcation drawn by the British at the time of their withdrawal in August 1947.

While Islamabad had been attempting to expand its territory, New Delhi has sought conversely to expand its own territory. The latter achieved some success in the 1971 war which led to the establishment of Bangladesh in East Pakistan. Mohan Malik, a noted defence and strategic analyst, argued in 1990, in Current Affairs Bulletin:⁵

"After the 1975 war, the predominant thinking among strategic experts and the foreign policy establishment in India was that Pakistan, which had been cut down to size, would never again pose a significant security threat to India; and that, relieved of the threat from its western neighbour, India could now address itself to the 'China problem' on its northern and eastern frontiers."

India's testing of its first nuclear device in May 1974, New Delhi's absorption of the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Sikkim in 1975, and the restoration of ambassador-level diplomatic relations between Beijing and New Delhi in 1976 represented a series of steps aimed at demonstrating to China that India had emerged as a significant military power in its own right. The recognition of India as the dominant regional power in South Asia by western nations also imparted a sense of confidence and security.

However, two factors upset Indian calculations. One was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 which led to Pakistan's emergence as a front-line state in United States strategy, and hence the recipient of increased American military aid. The other was the obsession of the Pakistani elite to seek parity with India and its military's determination to avenge the defeat of 1971. This analysis was supported by the author's interviews, observations and experience in Pakistan during 1982-83 as an analyst in a research institute, headed by an Army Lieutenant-General.

Since the early 1980s, superpower involvement in the region due to the Afghan conflict, the Iran-Iraq war, the rising tide of Islamic fundamentalism, Islamabad's nuclear and ballistic missile programmes, and above all, Pakistan's alleged support to the secessionist movements in India's states of Punjab and Kashmir have led to a perpetual game of brinkmanship and even to war hysteria. Both sides are suspicious about each other's military intent in view of the possible advantages to be gained from an armed confrontation. Islamabad harbours concerns that India may seek to remove the Pakistan problem altogether through military subjugation. New Delhi, on the other hand, is convinced that Pakistan is intent on breaking up India by arming and training Sikh/Kashmiri militants.

Aggressive military posturing is a factor which has thus contributed to the escalation of an arms race on the Indian subcontinent. Military exercises on the Indo-Pakistan border conducted in 1986-87 were manifestations of the new aggressive defence posture adopted by India under the leadership of General Sundarji.

Furthermore, as argued in 1990 in Strategic Analysis, by Indian analyst J. Sing, Indian military circles believed that the decisive military edge that India had always had over Pakistan narrowed considerably in the 1980s due to a significant enhancement of Pakistani military capabilities which brought Pakistan to a par with India in quality and deployment forces.⁶ This perceived change in the regional balance of power was viewed by India with increasing concern and undoubtedly encouraged it to escalate its own military build-up including the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Pakistan also enhanced its programme for nuclear use in the military field. In Pakistan's eyes, it was simply responding to what it perceived as an increasing threat from India. As a result, Pakistan has advanced a proposal for a South Asian Nuclear Free Zone, but India has rejected this proposal.

India's objections are based on the premise that the proposal of the Pakistani government excludes the other nuclear weapons powers, especially China. India tends to see the Pakistani proposal also as a propaganda ploy to divert attention from its own nuclear development programme. In the height of their Pakistani security concerns and in view of India's aggressive military postures, ten nuclear bombs were exploded in two weeks in May 1998. This, in turn, will have an impact upon nuclear non-proliferation efforts.

Conclusions

Although the Non-Proliferation Treaty has been signed by almost all states in the world (178 states), the world balance is still unstable, and is still threatened by nuclear proliferation. The problem is not one of desire but rather means. How does one move towards a world free of nuclear weapons? Can this be achieved through existing arms control and disarmament regimes, or does it require new ones?

If there is a real concern to prevent proliferation, the nuclear powers need to take the moral high ground and place caps on their own nuclear modernisation programmes, in order to maintain pressure on those states, for example, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea, who use nuclear programmes in order to enhance their security. Besides, with the end of the Cold War and the North-South dialogue, the West or the industrialised North could adopt the new strategy that links financial aid levels to arms spending and arms control issues in the developing countries like India and Pakistan. It appears that such external pressure and domestic economic crisis might lead to a substantial cut in both Indian and Pakistani defence spending. And much effort should be directed to ensure that the nuclear balance of terror stays at a low level in the region.

National Observer No. 42 - Spring 1999