This commentary discusses first the hotly debated impact of attitudes and policies of nuclear weapon states on the nuclear nonproliferation regime centered around the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). It argues that this influence is significant indeed, and has been rather negative in recent times. It emphasizes that a changing of the guard in Washington offers a major chance to repair the damaged regime, thereby helping the NPT community regain the unity that has been missing, posing a serious impediment to dealing successfully with rule-breaking parties.

Such an initiative would entail the following steps:

• A joint declaration by the P-5 (or, if not attainable, by the United States and Russia) re-affirming their commitment to nuclear disarmament;
• Early U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, combined with friendly attempts at persuading other reluctant states to ratify it;
• An agreement with the Soviet Union to continue with START I–related verification measures until a successor to the Moscow Treaty, aiming at around 1000 strategic warheads each, would enter into force;
• A diplomatic campaign to get other possessors of nuclear weapons to announce upper limits to their arsenals;
• Steps to start negotiations, without conditions, on a verifiable fissile material cut-off treaty (FMCT); and,
• Attempts to address the issue of sub-strategic nuclear weapons.
  

The Nuclear Weapons States and Nonproliferation: Two Competing Views
Two schools of thought exist on the issue of whether a relationship exists between the nuclear policy of the nuclear weapons states (NWS) and the perceptions and policies of non-nuclear weapons states (NNWS), including the few seeking nuclear weapons. The first school claims that no relationship exists, as the nuclear “have nots” take their positions (including for going nuclear) on the basis of broader security and political considerations, most of which are of a regional nature. Calls for disarmament are merely rhetorical, mostly confined to the United Nations departments of foreign ministries, or political fog behind which the true motivations (i.e., to pursue nuclear weapons) are concealed. The same school is also inclined to deny that a real “disarmament” undertaking in Article VI of the NPT exists, pointing to the linkage between nuclear disarmament and “a Treaty of general and complete disarmament.” [1] In contrast, the second school finds an influence of NWS policies on the motivation and policies of non-nuclear weapon states and reads in Article VI an unequivocal obligation to work towards the abolition of nuclear weapons. [2]

This author sides with the latter school. Evidence that NWS attitudes and policies have an important impact can be found in five mutually reinforcing arguments:

• Nuclear weapons states shape the security environment of the regions within which non-nuclear weapon states reside. Such influence can be benign, as in Europe and East Asia during the Cold War. There, the U.S. guarantee helped dissuade allies from pursuing nuclear weapons on their own. It also socialized them into positions of fundamental non-nuclearism so that even the fading out of extended deterrence would probably not lead to a revival of nuclear weapons activities unless their security environment undergoes a dramatic change for the worse, and more nationalistic and militant elites take power in these countries.
  
  Elsewhere, however, the influence was more damaging. This can be seen, first, in the nuclear proliferation chain that ran from the United States through the Soviet Union, China, India and Pakistan and had its influence on the United Kingdom and France as well. North Korea felt threatened by the United States, as did Libya. And Iran does so today. South Africa feared a Soviet-directed “total onslaught” as a result of the increasing presence of Soviet military personnel and their Cuban proxies during the decolonization process of the former Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique. Rather than being innocent observers of regional security dynamics, the nuclear powers are part and parcel of them; outside of the developed world, their impact has been more often for the worse than for the better, by explicitly or implicitly posing direct nuclear threats to their enemies, or by the broader strategic policies they have pursued.
  
  
• Nuclear weapon states project a military utility for nuclear weapons by maintaining and modernizing them even after the initial (Cold War) conditions for their acquisition and possession have disappeared. Even NATO still sticks to the options of using nuclear weapons first, and having NNWS air forces carrying nuclear gravity bombs to their targets, despite the fact that the reason for such desperate measures – the perceived superiority of Warsaw Treaty Organization troops – no longer exists and NATO enjoys an unchallenged conventional superiority in Europe. The technical refinement of warhead designs and the planning and procurement of new delivery systems, combined with the development of new nuclear doctrines in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Russia, reinforce this impression of military utility while, at the same time, enhancing the perceived threat on the part of actors whose relationship with these countries is less than friendly. China’s military muscle-flexing in the mid-1990s could have engendered similar reactions, but has since given way to a more cooperative approach in South East Asia, across the Taiwan Strait, and in East Asia. Nevertheless, the slow but steady modernization of China’s nuclear arsenal is disquieting for at least some of her neighbors.
  
  
• Nuclear weapon states also project a political utility for nuclear weapons. The P-5 – all nuclear powers – share some of the responsibility for precluding a reform of the UN Security Council (UNSC) that could have led to the inclusion of non-nuclear weapons states as permanent members, breaking the unfortunate link between permanent Council membership and nuclear weapons. The ostensible improvement of U.S.-Indian and Chinese-Indian relations after India demonstrated its nuclear weapons capability in 1998 has been not been lost on the more ambitious middle powers. The same countries look at the United Kingdom and France who – without any threat justifying continued ownership of nuclear weapons – appear to believe that their self-claimed role as world powers hinges on this very attribute. This was not lost on India and proved a major factor in its decision to move toward open nuclear testing.
  
  
• The nuclear weapon states, by denying their undertaking to move towards the dismantlement of their nuclear arsenals, split the NPT community. The misgivings about the asymmetrical distribution of duties and rights within the NPT have existed from the beginning. This division among “haves” and “have nots” was tolerable for the latter only because of the prospect that it might be temporary. This, however, was not the case. While the nuclear weapon states have reduced their arsenals since 1987 (with the exception of China), they have at the same time, shifted doctrines and planned for modernization in a way that demonstrates an unbending commitment to retain their nuclear status, thereby ultimately devaluing the disarmament implications of their reductions. During the 2005 NPT Review Conference, this same view also prompted refusal by Washington and Paris (behind which others could hide comfortably) to recognize as valid their commitments in 2000 to take certain disarmament steps and accept an “unequivocal undertaking” toward a world without nuclear weapons.
  
  The argument that Article VI of the NPT does not imply such an undertaking because of the connection to “general and complete disarmament” is unsustainable. First, the 2000 commitment “to undertake effective measures in the direction of nuclear disarmament” and the stated goals in the NPT Preamble “to further the easing of international tension and the strengthening of trust between States in order to facilitate the cessation of the manufacture of nuclear weapons, the liquidation of all their existing stockpiles, and the elimination from national arsenals of nuclear weapons” provide powerful counters. The 1996 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice, so far the most authoritative juridical interpretation of Article VI, came to the same conclusion: A duty exists for nuclear weapon states to engage in, and bring to a successful end, nuclear disarmament negotiations.
  
  In addition, using the lack of international conventional disarmament as a pretense to block progress on the nuclear side is disingenuous. The world’s largest conventional arsenals are held by the nuclear weapons states themselves, and they consume the better part of all military R&D investment; moreover, the NWS are among the top conventional arms exporters. If conventional arms control and disarmament is in a dismal state, the first responsibility lies with the NWS themselves.
  
  As a consequence of the lack of nuclear disarmament, the NPT community is disunited. This division weakens the authority of the NPT as a barrier against national decisions to pursue the bomb and prevents member states from forming a closed front for confronting rule-breakers determinedly and coherently. The perpetrators have a chance to seek shelter behind the unwitting solidarity of their non-aligned peers.
  
  
• Finally, the nuclear weapons states, as permanent members of the UNSC, are meant to be the custodians of the NPT. Grave cases of non-compliance come before the UNSC, which acts as the guarantor of the Treaty’s integrity and has to see that appropriate enforcement actions are taken if diplomacy does not remedy the case. In this role, the performance of the UNSC, and the P-5 in particular, is hardly glorious. National interests interfere in the assessment and decision process; unequal standards are applied by more than one P-5 member. As a consequence, confidence in an impartial and effective compliance/enforcement process is severely strained if not totally undermined. Countries in regions threatened by proliferation look for other remedial action, and nuclear options can be seriously considered. Whether the revival of the Arab interest in civilian nuclear power is just coincidental or a clear response to ongoing Iranian progress toward a nuclear weapon capability is open to conjecture, but the timing gives strong reasons to be suspicious. It can be surmised that the indifferent attitude of the P-5 towards enforcement – changing with the case in question, to be sure – results from the existence of the option they have to fall back on nuclear deterrence should nonproliferation fail, and that their determination to prevent proliferation would be much stronger if these options were closed at the end of a nuclear disarmament process.
  

Given the link between P-5 policies and the proliferation issue, it makes sense to identify steps the nuclear weapons states could and should take as priorities to turn the tide as quickly as possible before the NPT’s erosion becomes irreversible.

What Steps Could the New U.S. President Take to Make Things Better?
The highest priority in terms of the preservation of the NPT would be to restore the confidence of NNWS party to the Treaty that the nuclear weapon states are seriously committed to implementing their disarmament undertakings. Fortunately, President-elect Obama enjoys a degree of sympathy around the world as no predecessor in a long while. This social capital can be used to shore up NPT stability; announcements and promises by this president will likely meet much less disbelief and cynicism than that which greeted U.S. presidents in the recent past. This offers a great opportunity.

The U.S. government should undertake efforts to convince the other P-5 members that a reaffirmation of their 2000 “unequivocal commitment” in advance of the 2010 NPT Review Conference would be a major step in making this meeting a success. The most difficult partner in this regard might be France, but it appears likely that President Sarkozy, ever interested in good public standing, would join popular President Obama in a disarmament initiative even against the objections of his restive nuclear bureaucracy. If a full P-5 statement proves not to be attainable in time, the presidents of the United States and Russia alone could issue such a declaration.

While this would be a helpful symbolic step, more tangible measures must be taken to build on the achievements of such a declaration. Two things appear of equal importance: Ratification of the CTBT, and the renewal of the START process.

The fate of the CTBT, the most popular agreement in the NPT context, lies completely in U.S. hands. It was the refusal of the Senate to ratify that treaty in 1999 that put it in a dead alley. As was to be expected, other reluctant parties – China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and others – hid behind the United States. U.S. ratification, accompanied by a visible diplomatic campaign to persuade other nations to join the U.S. move in the near future, would create new dynamics. Whether it could be accomplished in time for the opening of the NPT Review is doubtful, given the Senate’s time-consuming ratification procedures. The line of argument appears to be obvious: Doubts about the verifiability of the CTBT have been the strongest arguments of the opponents. Technological advances and the positive experience with the CTBT’s international verification system – that is run on a provisional and incomplete basis –in detecting and measuring the fairly small scale North Korean test of 2005 could be reasons for Republican senators to reconsider their 1999 vote.

The second priority effort should be devoted to reviving the START process with a view to continued verification of strategic nuclear weapons reductions by applying the system of the START I Treaty while the reductions under the Moscow Treaty are accomplished. Washington and Moscow should also launch negotiations for a replacement for the latter treaty which will expire in 2012 in order not to have a nuclear arms control hiatus. It should be possible for Presidents Obama and Medvedev, early in 2009, to commit themselves to the continuation of the verification practice and to prompt negotiations with a view to reduce the number of strategic warheads in the next round to around 1000 – a magic number below which the question of the other nuclear weapon states joining the “Big Two” would inevitably arise. The treaty should use warheads, not delivery vehicles, as counting units and should contain provisions for verified dismantlement of warheads, destruction of its non-nuclear parts, and transfer of the fissile material to either civilian purposes or safe final disposal under IAEA verification. The two presidents should declare that their aim is to have such a treaty ratified by the end of 2012 at the latest, taking due account of Senate and Duma ratification procedures and the well-known uncertainties they imply. Russia has indicated over the years that it would prefer such a course, but Moscow could not overcome the deep reluctance of the Bush administration to engage in negotiated, treaty-based arms control. It is thus to be expected that such a U.S. initiative would meet agreement in Moscow.

The notion of a “capping commitment” of all other nuclear weapon possessors, in legal form or as a unilateral, politically binding commitment, would be a major innovation in the nuclear arms control and disarmament process. For the first time, nuclear weapons holders other than the “Big Two” would engage in transparent (and, eventually, verifiable) undertakings concerning the size of their nuclear arsenals. Unilateral declarations of this kind are relatively easy to make; as part of a process leading to verification measures later, however, they represent a potentially momentous change from the aloofness that has characterized the arms control and disarmament posture of these countries so far. It is worth a try; the pressure emerging from the NNWS once the United States and Russia have made this proposal would be considerable, and it might convince countries interested in avoiding condemnation by non-aligned state (such as India and by extension Pakistan as well as China) to agree, albeit reluctantly. The most sensitive case is no doubt Israel, as the required statement would remove the veil of opacity from its nuclear capability a bit more. The Israeli government, however, could clarify that stating a maximum number that would not be surpassed did not necessarily mean that it currently possessed any nuclear weapons. Admittedly, this would be a daring proposition, but it would still leave the last bit of the veil untouched.

The last two measures can be discussed briefly. Much has been written about the Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty. [3] It is very likely that negotiations could be started in Geneva promptly if the United States would drop its opposition to including verification provisions in the treaty and could agree with China to apply joint pressure on Pakistan to reconsider its opposition. It would also require pursuing the compromise already on the table to start with an Ad-hoc group to discuss space-related arms control issues without committing to formal negotiations.

On sub-strategic nuclear weapons, which, according to conventional wisdom, are more susceptible to terrorist abuse, the United States and Russia would have to go beyond their 1991 commitments to unilateral restraints. It would make sense today to agree to consolidate deployment of such systems at a single site, in the United States (which implies the removal of such weapons from the territories of NATO NNWS in Europe), and in a rear site in Russia (which would render impossible the threat to move them forward, e.g., to the Kaliningrad oblast).

Conclusion
Obviously, pursuing the path proposed here would put relations between nuclear weapon states on a new status. It might go hand in hand with a U.S. commitment to limit missile defenses and postpone the planned deployment of elements of such a system in Europe indefinitely. The gain in the strategic relationship with Moscow (and also Beijing) would be considerable, and almost certainly outweigh what some may count as a deplorable loss of strategic advantages accruing from these deployments (and the option to push National Missile Defense (NMD) forward without limits). These gains, in turn, could be exploited to make the UNSC a more serious actor in dealing with non-compliance by states like Iran, a move most urgently needed. By the same token, the willingness of the NPT community to deal more determinedly and thus more harshly, with rule-breakers would be greatly strengthened.

The strategy proposed here follows closely the intellectual lead provided by the insightful position taken by Secretaries Kissinger, Shultz, and Perry and Senator Nunn. [4] It is rooted in the vision of a nuclear weapons free world, but does not demand impossibilities. Rather, it focuses on feasible steps that promise short-term leverage with respect to the NPT. This was the basic criterion to select options discussed here; it does not deny the short-term utility of other measures such as de-alerting to which Kissinger et al. give the highest priority. It is now up to President-elect Obama to chart the way forward.

Harald Müller – Peace Research Institute, Frankfurt