A crisis of compliance

May 2nd 2005
From The Economist Global Agenda

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, aimed at averting a nuclear holocaust, is undergoing a month-long review. America is worried about rising non-compliance, with Iran’s and North Korea’s atomic dabblings of particular concern. Other countries accuse the recognised nuclear powers of undermining the pact

DIPLOMATS from some 190 countries have gathered in New York this week for their month-long, five-yearly review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Under this pact, signed in 1968, the have-nots forswear nuclear weapons and the wherewithal to build them, in return for civilian nuclear help. And the five officially recognised nuclear powers—America, Russia, China, Britain and France—promise to dismantle their bombs eventually, as part of a general disarmament. But the latest review comes at a time of heightened tension, with American officials talking of the NPT’s “crisis of compliance”, while other countries accuse the nuclear powers of failing to fulfil their own obligations under the treaty.

Most experts agree that the biggest threat to the NPT is the proliferation of weapons-usable technologies to countries bent on breaking or bending its rules. Over the years, all countries bar India, Pakistan and Israel have signed up to the treaty, reassured that it would prevent neighbours from acquiring nuclear weapons. That is changing. North Korea claimed to have quit the treaty two years ago, but not before it had been caught secretly dabbling in both plutonium and uranium, from which bombs can be fashioned. Whatever the truth to its boast of a nuclear arsenal, the bomb-tinkering is thought to have started many years ago. America has sought to resolve the issue through six-way talks—involving China, Russia, South Korea and Japan as well as North Korea—but these broke down last year. Just before this week's review began, North Korea heightened tensions by calling President George Bush a “hooligan” and, more seriously, test-firing a short-range missile into the Sea of Japan.

Fears over Iran’s nuclear ambitions have also grown in recent months. The country has been developing its uranium-enrichment and plutonium-reprocessing activities. This would give it the capacity to build a nuclear bomb, though it denies the intent, insisting that it wants to produce electricity, not weapons. But Iran deliberately lied to inspectors for two decades to cover up activities and experiments that make little sense except in pursuit of a bomb.

Britain, France and Germany have been trying to resolve the crisis through diplomacy, offering the Iranians various economic incentives to drop any thoughts of bomb-making. America recently threw its weight behind this effort, in a shift from its previous, more aggressive line. Iran had voluntarily suspended enrichment while the talks went on, but after failing to make any progress with the Europeans in the latest round of talks last week, Iran threatened on Saturday to resume its enrichment activity, earning a worried rebuke from Mohammed ElBaradei, the head of the UN's nuclear guardian, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Russia’s stance is more ambivalent. It hopes to bolster its role in the Middle East by strengthening its ties with Iran, hence its decision to help the Islamic republic build a nuclear-power reactor at Bushehr, and its agreement to supply low-enriched uranium fuel to the plant. However, last week President Vladimir Putin hardened his line, saying Iran should “abandon all technology to create a full nuclear cycle” and not obstruct international inspectors.

The case of Libya is more heartening, up to a point. The north African country, led by Colonel Muammar Qaddafi, turned itself in last year in the hope of shedding its pariah status. Libya admitted to having secretly bought uranium-enriching machines from Abdul Qadeer Khan, father of Pakistan’s bomb but also founder of a worldwide network of nuclear smugglers. Mr Khan, it transpired, had tossed in the proven design for a warhead (originally supplied to Pakistan by China) to sweeten the Libya deal. This revelation led to fears that he may have done the same for Iran and others he had dealings with.

Targeting America

For all these transgressions and confessions, it is the recognised nuclear powers, not the would-be cheats, who are likely to come in for the most vocal criticism during the NPT review. The numbers of nuclear weapons in the stockpiles of the five powers are collectively at their lowest in decades and set to drop further. But their failure to disarm faster, many will insist, weakens the bargain that underpins the treaty. All five, especially America and Russia, still have too many nuclear weapons. These two countries have agreed to reduce their arsenals to 1,700-2,200 warheads each, with plenty more in reserve, by 2012. But of the realistic threats that either might face in the coming years (including from an expanding Chinese nuclear arsenal), none could not be deterred by far fewer weapons.

The strongest criticism may be reserved for America. Mr Bush offended many allies by refusing to support a comprehensive nuclear test-ban treaty (though he still observes a moratorium on testing, and thinks others should too). He scrapped the anti-ballistic missile treaty with Russia (though few regret its passing). And most recently, his officials have cast doubt on the value of negotiating a global treaty to end the production of fissile material for bombs, arguing that it would be virtually impossible to verify reliably.

More importantly, throughout Mr Bush’s presidency his administration has tinkered with America’s own nuclear arsenal, showing a determination to explore new ideas for fancier weapons, and new ways to use them. In his first term, Mr Bush set aside a budget for studying (though not yet developing or building) new sorts of weapons, including a “robust nuclear earth penetrator”, intended to vaporise deeply buried targets such as stocks of chemical and biological weapons.

However, these ideas drew a hostile response from Congress, where many were concerned that exploring more usable nuclear weapons would encourage other countries to follow suit—and maybe even to use them. Mr Bush, they worried, risked undermining his main goal since the terror attacks of September 11th 2001: to keep the most dangerous weapons out of the hands of dodgy regimes and terrorist groups.

Congress’s doubts have forced a rethink of how America maintains its nuclear edge. The country’s weapons experts have been told instead to explore a “reliable replacement warhead”. That is, to switch from inventing fancy new bombs to making those already in the stockpile less sensitive to ageing (the average age of America’s nuclear warheads is now 20 years) and easier to certify as safe and reliable—all without the need for testing. By doing this, America could save on weapons maintenance and also cut back sharply the number of weapons it keeps on hand in case something goes wrong with those it has deployed.

America will spend the next month trying to keep the focus of discussions on the dissembling by countries like Iran and North Korea, rather than on its own nuclear-arms policies. Among the measures that are likely to be proposed to strengthen the NPT are: making mandatory the toughened safeguards drawn up in the 1990s by the IAEA (though more than 30 members, including Saudi Arabia, have no safeguards agreement at all with the agency); and making it harder for countries to cheat and run, by extending the notice for withdrawal from the NPT and demanding that equipment obtained under civilian pretences be dismantled. But there are no easy fixes for proliferation problems when governments will cheat, when the basic technologies to be controlled are more than 60 years old and when lax export rules allow the likes of Mr Khan to peddle nuclear bits and pieces across the globe.

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