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STRATEGIC STUDIES INSTITUTE ISLAMABAD (SSII)
Strategic Studies Institute Islamabad (SSII) was founded
by Dr. Shireen M Mazari in 2013. The purpose behind the
creation of the SSII was to establish a dedicated academic
and research institution for conducting research and
trainings on important issues related to Pakistan’s
security. SSII aim to put knowledge to practice by providing
an alternate narrative in critical areas of Strategic Studies,
especially Arms Control and Disarmament.
https://ssii.com.pk/shireen-mazari-2/
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CONFERENCE
REPORT
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Concept Note
The conference brought together scholars working on global nuclear
issues in Pakistan and across the world to discuss the challenges and
opportunities of the emerging nuclear non-proliferation regime. It
highlighted the proactive role Pakistan is playing in order to generate
new ideas on the subject. In assessing Pakistan’s role within the non-
proliferation framework we sought to include several issues facing the
non-proliferation regime. As such scholars from Pakistan, Russia, Iran,
Egypt, China, Europe and the US each brought their unique perspective
to the conference.
Understanding the global nuclear regime requires an investigation into a
number of issues such as The Ban Treaty, Multilateral export control
regimes with a special reference to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).
The conference thus began by providing an overview of the
contemporary scenario in the aftermath of the Ban Treaty. It was
followed by a discussion on the future of the JCPOA. The session on
multilateral export controls featured an assessment of current trends
including discussions on the criteria based approach and possible Indian
and Pakistani membership. The next session reviewed certain global and
regional arms control developments and responses. This included
discussions on the Korean Peninsula, the CTBT, and the Middle East and
US-Russia Arms Control agreements. The session highlighted that
regional arms control approaches whether in the Middle East, Korea or
elsewhere will not be successful unless states' security concerns (within
and outside their geographical locations) are addressed. Moreover,
regional security concerns will not be met if states outside the region
maintain policies that are hostile to the states contemplating regional
non-proliferation and disarmament undertakings. In highlighting this
fact, the conference agenda worked its way up to the final part of the
conference on Strategic Stability in South Asia. It provided an over view
of military and arms control developments in Pakistan and India and
discussed prospects for crisis and strategic stability in the region.
Conference Themes
• The Nuclear Non Proliferation Regime after the Ban Treaty
• Impact of the Failure of JCPOA on Regional and Global Security
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• Supplier Cartels Focusing on the NSG
• Global and Regional Developments
• Strategic Stability in South Asia: Recent Developments
Conference Programme
The Global Non Proliferation Regime: Challenges and Responses
October 15, 2018 (Monday)
09:00 - 09:30 Registration (Serena Hotel)
10:00 - 10:03 National Anthem
10:03 - 10:05 Recitation from the Holy Quran
10:05 - 10:10 Opening Remarks by Ms. Amina Afzal
(Director General SSII)
10:10 - 10:20 Welcome Remarks by Dr. Shireen Mazari
(Federal Minister for Human Rights and Founder
SSII)
10:20 - 10:50 Keynote Address by Dr Arif Alvi
(President of Islamic Republic of Pakistan)
10: 50 – 10:52 Group Photograph
Session I
11:30 - 13:00 The Future of the Nuclear Non Proliferation
Regime
(An overview of the contemporary scenario in the
aftermath of the Ban Treaty)
Chair: Dr. Shireen M Mazari
11:30 - 12:10
Speakers
• Mr. Paul Ingram (Nuclear Non Proliferation after the Ban Treaty)
• Mr. Aaron Karp (Evolving US Nuclear Posture)
• Dr. Rabia Akhter (Evolving US Nuclear Posture)
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12:10 - 12:45 Discussion
12:45 - 13:00 Summary Remarks by the Chair
Session II
14:30 - 17:00 Supplier Cartels Focusing on the NSG – An
assessment of current trends including discussions
on the criteria based approach and possible
Indian and Pakistani membership.
Chair: Amb (Retd) Ayesha Riyaz
14:30 - 15:10
Speakers
• Amb (Retd) Zamir Akram (Supplier Cartels Focusing on the NSG)
• Dr. Dingli Shen (Suppliers Cartels Focusing on the NSG)
• Ms. Amina Afzal
15:10 - 15:45 Discussion
15:45 - 16:00 Summary remarks by the Chair
October 16, 2018 (Tuesday)
Session III
10:00 - 12:00 Impact of the Failure of JCPOA on Regional and
Global Security
Chair: Mr. Tariq Rauf
Speakers
• Ambassador (Retd) Ali Soltanieh Impact of the Failure of JCPOA on Regional and
Global Security)
• Mr. Robert Eienhorn
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• (Impact of the Failure of JCPOA on Regional and Global Security)
• Dr. Bruno Tertrais
• (Impact of the Failure of JCPOA on Regional and Global Security)
• Ms. Anastasia Shavrova
• (Impact of the Failure of JCPOA on Regional and Global Security)
10:40 - 11:15 Discussion
11:15 - 12:00 Summary Remarks by the Chair
Session IV
13:15 - 16:15 Global and Regional Developments
Review of certain global and regional arms
control developments and responses.
Chair: Shen Dingli
13:15 - 14:00
Speakers
• Mr. John Tierney (Developments on the Korean Peninsula)
• Ambassador (Retd) Dr. Sameh Aboul Enein (The Global and Regional Developments: Middle
East NWFZ/MWDFZ)
• Mr. Tariq Rauf (Current Challenges and Risks in Nuclear Arms
Control)
• Ms. Alexandra Bell (Global and Regional Developments: Russia US
Arms Control)
14:00 - 14:30 Discussion
14:30 - 14:45 Summary Remarks by the Chair
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Session V
15:00 - 17:15 Strategic Stability in South Asia: Recent
Developments
Review of military and arms control developments
in Pakistan and India; prospects for crisis and
strategic stability.
Chair: Mr. Khalid Banuri
(Former DG ACDA)
15:00 - 16:00
Speakers:
• Mr. Subrata Goshroy (Via Skype) (The Strategic Stability in South Asia: Recent
Developments)
• Mr. Tong Zhao (Strategic Stability in South Asia: Regional
Developments)
• Dr. Shireen Mazari
16:00 - 17:00 Discussion
17:00 - 17:15 Summary Remarks by the Chair
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INAUGURAL SESSION
Opening Remarks by DG SSII
Ms Amina Afzal
Distinguished guests, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, a very good
morning to all of you. On behalf of Strategic Studies Institute Islamabad,
it is my privilege to welcome you to this conference titled The Global
Non-proliferation Regime: Challenges and Responses. I would like to
extend a very warm welcome to our distinguished speakers and panelists
some of whom have travelled thousands of miles to be with us here
today. I wish all of you a very pleasant stay in Pakistan and two fruitful
days of discussion ahead of you. I would also like to take this
opportunity to thank Dr. Shireen Mazari, the Federal Minister for Human
Rights and the founder of SSII. Incidentally, Dr. Mazari is the person
who envisioned this conference and of course none of this would have
been possible without her constant support. So, without further ado, I
invite Dr. Shireen Mazari for her welcome remarks.
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Welcome Remarks by Minister for Human Rights,
Dr. Shireen Mazari
First of all, let me welcome the President of the Islamic Republic of
Pakistan Dr. Arif Alvi. I think there could not have been a better suited
person in the Presidency; a thorough professional who became a
politician and has a vision which we have debated and discussed and I
am proud to say that he has stood steadfast with his vision and I think it
is an amazingly good fortune for the country that Dr. Alvi is now in the
Presidency. Of course, he is also a very close personal friend and we
have had many discussions and debates on global politics including in
the area of arms control and disarmament. So, he comes fully prepared to
this conference and I really appreciate the fact that he took time off and
agreed to inaugurate this very important seminar. We know that the issue
of non-proliferation is very important for Pakistan. We have been
confronted with discriminatory approaches at the global level. We have
issues at the regional level also where there is this tussle between trying
to maintain stability of nuclear deterrence and others trying to up the ante
in the ballistic arms race with the introduction of ballistic missile defence
in the neighbourhood and other such issues. So, we felt it was time that
we really had thorough discussions on the global non-proliferation
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regime: the challenges; Is the NPT being undermined? What role is there
for the Ban Treaty? What about the NSG: Is it going to be a
discriminatory instrument? or is there now going to be a criteria-based
approach for new entrants for membership of the NSG. So, we hope that
over the next two days we will have thorough discussions on this. And
we also hope that we will be able to understand from our perspective, the
changing US position, especially on the JCPOA and the impact that will
have on the overall non-proliferation debate at the global and regional
levels. Any how these are the issues that we will be discussing later, so
without much more ado let me welcome everybody. Finally let me thank
the President Dr. Arif Alvi and invite him to make his keynote address.
Keynote address by President of Pakistan,
Dr. Arif Alvi
Honourable Dr. Shireen Mazari, Distinguished Director General of the
Strategic Studies Institute, Respected Scholars, Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is a pleasure for me to address this Conference. I thank the Strategic
Studies Institute (SSI) for inviting me as a Keynote speaker.
The subject of the Conference is of great contemporary relevance and
significance for Pakistan. The challenges to the global non-proliferation
regime ultimately impact peace and stability at all levels, national,
regional and global. For the Government in Pakistan, socio-economic
development and welfare of the people constitutes the topmost priority.
This, in turn, necessitates a peaceful neighbourhood in South Asia as
well as a stable global security environment. Therein lies the significance
of evolving a sustainable and equitable global non-proliferation regime
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which is based on recognition of the right to equal security for all states
and does not seek to preserve the security interests of the few at the
expense of others.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The international security landscape is far from encouraging. The
euphoria generated by the end of Cold War and the concomitant
expectations for meaningful steps towards global disarmament have
given way to a qualitative nuclear arms race among the leading nuclear
possessor states. The same is manifested in terms of increased reliance
on nuclear weapons in the national nuclear postures and policies of great
powers, plans to modernise and upgrade nuclear forces and testing of
new and more lethal weapon systems. Old conflicts continue to fester as
new ones flare up. Differences on perspectives, approaches and
modalities, are negatively impacting progress on nuclear disarmament
and non-proliferation. Double standards and exceptionalism are
undermining the credibility of the non-proliferation regime. As a result,
the global non-proliferation regime has come under increasing stress.
Alongside the existing challenges related to nuclear, chemical and
biological weapons, new threats have arisen. These include hostile uses
of Outer Space, offensive cyber capabilities, development and use of
Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems (LAWS) and armed drones. Such
weapons can lower the threshold for war and put machines at the helm of
decisions of life and death. There is a need for legally binding global
framework to regulate the use of the emerging technologies to safeguard
against the new threats to international peace and security posed by the
weaponisation of such technologies.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
In relation to the global non-proliferation regime, two opposing trends
are being witnessed.
On the one hand, there is dangerous talk of strengthening and expanding
nuclear capabilities to outmatch potential competitors. On the other
extreme, frustrated by the lack of progress on nuclear disarmament, a
group of Non-Nuclear Weapon States is promoting the recently adopted
Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (Ban Treaty). This Treaty
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trivialises the genuine national security concerns which have compelled
certain states to rely on nuclear deterrence for self-defence.
Pakistan believes that for global and regional peace and stability, the
motives which drive states to acquire weapons for self-defence need to
be addressed. These include threats from conventional and non-
conventional imbalances, existence of disputes and conflicts and
discrimination in application of international norms and laws. There is a
need for the UN to play its due role in facilitating the resolution of long-
standing disputes for example Kashmir and other conflicts which are
underlying factors for instability.
Distinguished participants,
Pakistan is committed to the objective of strategic stability in South Asia.
Prior to 1998, Pakistan relentlessly pursued the objective of keeping
South Asia free of nuclear weapons. Our proposals in this regard are well
documented. However, the nuclear tests conducted by our neighbour in
1998 ended any prospect for a nuclear weapons free South Asia. We
were forced to respond through our own tests to restore the strategic
balance in our region.
Pakistan has, however, not given up the pursuit of meaningful
engagement with India for confidence-building, avoidance of an arms
race and risk reduction. In this regard Pakistan’s proposal for a Strategic
Restraint Regime (SRR), encompassing nuclear and missile restraints,
conflict resolution and conventional balance, can provide a good basis.
Unfortunately, strategic stability in South Asia is being threatened by the
induction of destabilising weapons systems, such as the Anti-Ballistic
Missile systems (ABMs) and offensive force postures, such as Cold Start
and Proactive Strategy. Discriminatory exemptions by certain countries
for the supply of nuclear technology and advanced military hardware in
our neighbourhood further complicate the regional security dynamics.
While Pakistan will continue to demonstrate restraint and responsibility,
no one should doubt our resolve to deny any space for war to those
seeking such an opportunity despite the existence of nuclear weapons in
South Asia. We expect the international community to take serious note
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of talk of surgical strikes and limited war. The proponents of such
reckless fantasies would bear the responsibility for any consequences.
We hope that good sense prevails and both Pakistan and India are able to
agree on a framework for strategic stability. We owe it to our people to
employ greater efforts and resources towards their socio-economic
wellbeing.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Since its inception, the orientation of Pakistan nuclear programme has
been civilian. We were one of the early subscribers to the Atoms for
Peace vision and the Statute of the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA). We have a complete programme for harnessing peaceful uses of
nuclear energy including nuclear power plants, complete nuclear fuel
cycle capabilities, research reactors, agriculture and biotechnology
research centres, medical and oncology centres. As such, Pakistan can be
a significant contributor to the attainment of the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) through international cooperation. We,
therefore, intend to further strengthen partnerships at the international
level, including with the UN, IAEA and developing countries, as
providers of services and expertise, for civilian nuclear applications.
Pakistan has applied for the membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group
(NSG). Pakistan adherence to the NSG Guidelines reflects our
commitment and contribution to the non-proliferation regime. We will
continue to support and actively participate in efforts for non-
proliferation, nuclear safety and security. As a country with a significant
civilian nuclear programme and the ability to supply items controlled by
the NSG, Pakistan’s participation will further the non-proliferation
objectives of the Group.
For Pakistan, one of the most vulnerable countries to the impact of
climate change, nuclear power generation provides a cleaner and more
sustainable alternative for energy security. In this regard, we would like
to underscore the imperative for a non-discriminatory and rule-based
global order for access to peaceful uses of nuclear energy and other dual-
use technologies.
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Exceptionalism and discriminatory waivers from rules undermine the
credibility of the multilateral disarmament and non-proliferation
framework. Its future depends on the continuous commitment of the
international community to collective solutions. Challenges in the realm
of the non-proliferation regime have to be addressed through diplomatic
solutions and enhanced cooperation, not through polarisation, coercion
and exclusion. In this context, I would like to reiterate Pakistan’s full
support for the JCPOA and express our appreciation for Iran’s continued
implementation of its obligation under the agreement. We call upon all
concerned parties to honour their respective commitments. We also
welcome the recent positive developments in the Korean peninsula and
hope that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and other
concerned parties will abide by their international obligations for the
realisation of the goal of a nuclear weapon free Korean peninsula.
Ladies and gentlemen, we should be progressing for a nuclear-free world
but unless all countries come to some understanding and reduce the areas
of conflict throughout the world and look forward to preserving the
ecology, the environment, the world by itself, where in the last few
decades, we came up to a capability of destroying the world many times
over. The world where we live in, where human resource and human
poverty has led to situations where there is a big divide between the
haves and have-nots. Unless conflicts are resolved, unless we reduce our
postures, reduce our weapons, the world will not see peace easily and in
the near future. So, your deliberations in this conference are very
important and I think it will send out positive messages throughout the
world for what Pakistan wants and what the region deserves. Thank you
very much ladies and gentlemen, thank you Dr. Mazari, and thank you
the delegates who have come from abroad.
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SESSION I
Session Chair: Dr. Shireen Mazari
This is the first working session of the seminar and
it is on the future of the non-proliferation regime.
We have three excellent speakers. Mr. Paul Ingram
is from the UK and he is the Executive Director of
the British American Security Information Council
(BASIC) which is in London. He also has extensive
media experience. He is responsible for developing
the strategy of BASIC to help reduce nuclear
dangers through disarmament and collaborative non-proliferation. He has
authored a number of BASIC reports and briefings. He also hosted a
weekly prime-time talk show on IRINN, the Iranian domestic TV news
channel and in Farsi no less, where he addressed relevant issues relating
to global security between 2007 and 2012. He has recently co-founded
the Middle East Treaty Organisation project. There is a draft treaty
apparently that has been drafted to stimulate constructive discussions
around the Middle East WMD Free Zone. It should be interesting to see
the outcome of that since the Nuclear Weapon Free Zone for the Middle
East has died multiple deaths every time it is introduced. But anyhow, I
will start with Paul Ingram to give us his presentation.
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Mr. Paul Ingram
Thank you very much Shireen, and thank you very
much for inviting me to this really important event.
It would be strange of me to spend any time at all
talking to you about some of the shortcomings of
the Non-proliferation Treaty because I think you
know them, though I also think the Treaty has had a
number of successes. It is about to celebrate its 50th
year. A sign of its success. But the fact that it has
been around for 50 years is also part of the problem. It has become rather
stuck and the ability to adapt and evolve has been rather limited. And I
think it is important for our institutions to be sufficiently adaptable to
continually be looking for new ways of tackling the evolving problems.
Let me be clear that the problems do evolve and shift along with global
power balances and it is important for us to rediscover objectives for
each generation: what it is that we are trying to do and why it is
important for states to collaborate in a constructive manner. There are
areas that are often ignored or not given sufficient attention, not just the
changing power structures, but also the changing technologies. They are
very important both constructively, in the sense of technologies for
verification and cooperation, as well as in terms of military trends.
Military trends and technology are generally for smaller, more smart and
robust swarming technologies rather than very large explosions. This
threatens the existing arrangements that we have depended upon for
strategic stability. Specifically, disruptive technologies could alter the
balance of power and military impact, undermine stability, and turn
nuclear deterrence into a major liability.
But for today, I have been invited to talk about another disruptive
influence, namely the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
(TPNW) or the Ban Treaty. The introduction of the TPNW seems to
have further polarised the international community, and to have harmed
the search for middle ground. Some states believe it threatens stability
and could harm moves towards disarmament. But the Ban Treaty exists.
It is gaining ground and at some point, it will enter into force. So
wherever one sits on the spectrum of opinion around whether it is a good
or a bad thing, one has to accept that it is here to stay and that we need to
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maximise whatever opportunities it might bring, and minimise the
threats. We have to uncover what opportunities there may be for new
collaboration.
The Ban Treaty emerges from a very understandable frustration. It is
looking to deepen the norms of disarmament and to empower states that
have so far been excluded from the non-proliferation and disarmament
debate. The level of hostility towards the Treaty from the five NPT-
recognised nuclear weapon states has itself been a major dimension in
the polarisation within the international community. There are
opportunities here, within nuclear armed states, to see this as a
mechanism for engaging the international community. In the last year or
two since the Ban Treaty was agreed in New York, we have seen Ban
Treaty states be rather restrained in their criticism of the NPT. Expected
conflict over the Ban at the last PREPCOM was rather muted largely
because TPNW-supporting states wanted to demonstrate their continuing
commitment to the NPT and because they were not keen on driving a
conflict approach. This can be seen as an invitation to the nuclear
weapon states to engage in a more collaborative approach, to take more
seriously the agenda which, in the last few years, has been rather stuck.
States have the chance to choose a realistic agenda that requires more
political will than we have seen to date. It requires states to see beyond
their immediate national interests and to recognise that these lie in a
more constructive global conversation. We heard the President of
Pakistan earlier talk about the need for dialogue on strategic stability,
which is very welcome and could be built upon a raft of confidence
building measures. We need to look seriously at the realistic proposals
around risk reduction that are gathering steam, as governments support a
series of studies on the options available. We need to look at measures
such as transparency over posture and arsenals. We need to treat
seriously each state’s concerns when it comes to issues such as Fissile
Material Treaty, and the Test Ban, and move forward to realising these
goals. We need to drive progress on the Middle East WMD Free Zone as
a matter of urgency. The issue holds the key to a possible response to the
Ban Treaty that I think could be very constructive.
It is possible for the nuclear armed states to see the Ban Treaty in more
constructive and positive terms, without a short-term threat to their
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nuclear postures. We could see the TPNW as an expression of the
disarmament pillar that already exists within the non-proliferation
regime. It could be seen as a global nuclear weapon-free zone that
covered those states that ratify it and that expands gradually over the
years with the objective of covering the whole planet at some future
point. The nuclear armed states more generally could issue protocols to
this treaty, demonstrating their legal relationship to it. That I think would
transform the Ban Treaty from being a source of conflict into one of
cooperation and could transcend the discrimination currently within the
NPT itself. This opens opportunities too for South Asian leadership: both
in welcoming the principle of the Ban Treaty and in demonstrating that
the wider regime needs to shift and change. There have been
achievements in the past but future successes demand a more positive
change in tune.
Dr. Shireen Mazari
Thank you for a very illuminating aspect of the Ban Treaty because in all
honesty, the Ban Treaty has not been discussed much in Pakistan. And I
think we need to give it more attention and discuss the pros and cons of
it.
For our next speaker, I am going to invite Aaron Karp. He is a senior
lecturer in political science at old Dominion University in Norfolk,
Virginia. Previous teaching posts include Columbia, Rutgers, Stockholm
University and the US Joint Forces Staff College. He also has held
research position as Arms Trade Project Leader at the Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), External Mitarbeiter with
the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, Ebenhausen, and he was also
fellow with the Centre of International Affairs at Harvard University. Of
course, he has done a lot of work and has had much input into the
Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) as it finally came out. He
is also senior consultant to the Small Arms Survey, an independent
research institute in Geneva. He also did a lot of work on the missile
programmes of medium range powers at one stage. With no more ado let
me invite you to take the floor. And you are going to talk on the US
Nuclear Posture Review.
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Mr. Aaron Karp
Nuclear weapons may be unique among deadly technologies in
remaining overwhelmingly important because they resist change. Some
seventy-five years after the first nuclear detonation at Alamogordo, there
are innumerable military technologies of equal age that remain important
today. Some already were mature then, and cling for relevance today,
like tanks and fighter planes. Others were just born like turbojet engines,
radar, guided missiles, electronic computing and solid state electronics.
While some degree of their significance was readily grasped at the time
of their birth, they required decades to mature, and their full implications
took just as long to become evident. Many continue to morph
dramatically as we watch.
As Richard Rhodes recently reminded us, nuclear weapons always were
different, their distinctive danger understood by Robert Oppenheimer
and others from the start. Initially the technology developed regardless,
evolving at a frenetic pace through the first fifteen years after
Alamogordo, as if racing to deny their reality. Early nuclear history
witnessed radical reduction in their size and mass, massive increases in
destructive power, and creation of a spectrum of ever more versatile and
unstoppable delivery systems. It was a desperate search for technological
solutions to their dilemmas, but it ended instead in acceptance of the trap
they create.
Since the early 1970s nuclear technologies have been distinguished more
by acceptance and stability, especially among the countries that deployed
them and their allies. The pace of technical change for nuclear weapons
per se, warheads, slowed to an almost imperceptible pace. Nuclear
weapons policy—another secondary technology like ballistic missiles or
inertial guidance—became part of nuclear stability. There still is
extensive relevant research and engineering today, but it is almost
entirely in secondary technologies—delivery systems, defences and
hypersonic alternatives—not warheads.
Our current trouble comes just such secondary technologies. Nuclear
weapons may no longer be changing much, but the policy consensus that
arose to tame their existence and guide their acceptance no longer holds
as persuasively. Arms control lies in taters, more a legacy or memory
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that an active force. Its fraternal twin—nuclear deterrence—has been
diluted by changing circumstances, its relevance increasingly debated.
Both concepts are too foundational to become irrelevant. Something,
perhaps even quite a lot, will remain of both so long as nuclear weapons
themselves remain relevant. But their ability to explain the nuclear
environment is declining. Rather than focusing analysis and policy on
trying to patch them, students and policy-makers face unprecedented
demands to identify new foundations for nuclear stability, approaches
that include or replicate the remaining roles of deterrence and arms
control, but surpass their relevance for nuclear world emerging before us.
Have we reached the limits of nuclear policy?
This is not just a dangerous time for international security, it is an
awkward time. We are re-learning how to think about nuclear security.
President Trump’s refusal to accept the entire liberal order of arms
control and disarmament is the most extreme statement, which he made
literal in his repeated advocacy of overwhelming American nuclear
superiority. Trump has since shown that was just his wishful thinking;
he is unwilling to support the US defence budgets that nuclear
superiority would require. But he also left no doubt of his willingness to
junk of every element of legal restraint. Abandoning the Iran deal and
INF Treaty in 2018 can only be understood as first shots in a personal
war against all forms of arms control, an unwinding that is certain to
continue.
Trump is making the change more extreme than it has to be, but he did
not invent it. The underlying problem has been obvious since 2009,
when President Obama’s call for nuclear disarmament failed to light any
fires. The Obama Administration struggled mightily to breathe life into a
sick regime. The broad consensus among world leaders was not there to
reciprocate, reflecting public uncertainty that anything can be achieved
through security bargains. And America was unwilling to gamble on the
steep concessions that a healthier process requires. Among the lessons of
Obama’s personal frustration was the futility of basing future action on
past successes. The effort was enough to show there is no going back,
and no going forward.
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The arms control and disarmament formula that worked for over thirty
years, most clearly from 1963 to 1996, from the Partial Nuclear Test Ban
to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban. But even in the mid-1990s,
arms control and disarmament were not yielding consequential progress
any more. Failed negotiations and unratified treaties became hallmarks
of efforts at nuclear restraint. The successes that came since then were
due more to unilateral restraint, albeit often based on international
norms. The negotiating record among nuclear weapons states since then
has no clear success to show. Negotiated milestones include failures like
START II, ambiguous outcomes like CTBT, trivial like SORTS, or
modest in expectation and achievement, designed mostly to
institutionalise the status quo, like New START. The biggest possible
nuclear breakthroughs, like nuclear no first use or verifiable nuclear arms
control for other nuclear weapons states, have gone nowhere.
It is a measure of the depth of this blockage that nuclear strategic studies
have grown exponentially. Academic studies of nuclear weapons
proliferation and stability have never been more numerous. Their
methodological foundation also as achieved unprecedented levels of
scientific verifiability and reproducibility. It is reasonable to conclude
we have never known more about nuclear security. But it also would be
fair to conclude we don’t know much that is new or addresses the new
situation. Cutting edge research, like the flourishing world of nuclear
commentary, demonstrates extraordinary richness and depth, but as is
often the case with empirical social science, the price of certitude is
modesty. We know more and more about less and less.
Even in the less rigorous, but more imaginative environment of
commentary, there is precious little novelty on either side. Among
advocates of nuclear disarmament, the dominant themes are revealing in
their subjunctive tense: renewed disarmament could, should, would. In
essence, there is nothing wrong with old formulas, and no barriers that
greater political determination cannot solve. The most sensitive
commentary stresses the need to consider broader problems of changing
strategic circumstances, but offers no guidance on how to do that.
Similarly, advocates of re-energised nuclear re-armament stress there is
nothing wrong with old strategic formulas, and no barriers that greater
political determination to re-arm cannot solve.
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On both sides, nuclear strategic writing is dominated by romanticism.
Whether the work of disarmament or rearmament advocates,
commentary is overwhelmingly conservative; the solutions to
contemporary worries are to be found in the past. Rather than learn the
lessons of Obama’s disarmament failure, supporters persist in
emphasising his goal and methods, even though Obama repudiated those
in the last two years of his presidency, when he turned to comprehensive
nuclear rearmament. Similarly, nuclear re-armers, frustrated by the slow
pace of activity even under President Trump, would return to visions
from the 1950s and ‘60s.
Maybe, except for everything else
Nuclear romanticism would make sense if everything else remained
unchanged. If only. The greatest weakness of old fashioned arms control
and disarmament, and old fashioned superiority is everything else. With
the essential preconditions gone, the old formulas cannot generate the
same results. Never easy or guaranteed, their success is now undermined
completely.
It is tempting to see the problem as a crisis of political will, worsened by
the antics of Vladimir Putin—who wants the benefits of arms control but
refuses to pay the price—and Donald Trump—who neither understands
the benefits or is willing to learn why others do. But the earlier
frustrations of Obama and Medvedev prove there is stronger stuff at
work, forces that no amount of political will is likely to surmount. With
structural forces now dominant, argue neo-realists, expectations must be
severely lowered. Structural theorists say this is because arms control
and disarmament, like the benefits of superiority, always were
ephemeral. In essence, neo-realism cackles, after a long interlude of
wishful thinking, we’re just back to normal; sorry.
Few would challenge the diagnosis that things look bleak, but I question
the structuralist logic, that they have to be bleak. By investing everything
in forces beyond human control, structuralism leads to historicism,
confusing trends for inevitability and history for the future. It is much
more revealing to follow the lead of historians and post-structuralists
who see contingency at work. Events are ultimately events. Past
successes were real and offer vital lessons, but they also were historically
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contingent on specific conditions, often accidental or lucky, prevailing at
the time. Past success cannot be recapitulated, but nor is humanity
doomed to repeat past disasters.
The problems that nuclear weapons compel us to wrestle with lie
elsewhere, not in system structure, but in beliefs. While the international
system has changed, it has not changed as dramatically as the rapidly
different nuclear situations implies. What is different are the attitudes
and assumptions about how best to manage nuclear weapons. Above all
we confront an environment of doctrinal uncertainty. An entire spectrum
of policy assumptions—from procurement policy, to targeting and
launch planning, arms control and crisis management—has been melting
away. We cannot answer basic questions about the dangers of nuclear
war, where those dangers are most serious, what form nuclear war is
most likely to take, and how it is most effectively prevented or managed
should it occur.
The declining of faith in nuclear deterrence is among the most visible
manifestations of this lost faith. In its place came tailored deterrence,
initially a response to the difficulties applying deterrence to the kinds of
threats that dominated American strategic thought after the Cold War.
Classical deterrence was well and good for suppressing the risks of
nuclear war with established nuclear powers like China and Russia, but
would it work with Iran and North Korea, with nuclear terrorism, or non-
nuclear threats to American interests? It is a call for more nuanced
application of nuclear threats, missile defences, and pre-emptive
conventional force, configured in different combinations for each
potential threat. Tailored deterrence never became a concrete doctrine.
There are no five easy steps. Rather, I view it as a plea to keep
deterrence relevant when it was losing its hold.
As an effort to patch up a blunt tool for a more nuanced world, tailored
deterrence was less a doctrine than a menu. Behind it’s ever more
elaborate combinations one clearly saw declining certainty, not so much
of an effort to patch up deterrence, but growing readiness to abandon it
altogether. This willingness to abandon deterrence became explicit in the
2018 Nuclear Posture Review.
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As usual, the United States is most outspoken in its doctrinal
conditionality, but it is not alone. Russian nuclear doctrine remains as
nebulous as ever, and officials in Moscow do a fine job raising ever more
doubt, mostly through intermittent statements making its pervious
commitment to nuclear no first use ever more vaguely conditional.
China joined the tailored deterrence movement more explicitly when it
raised the possibility of using nuclear force to prevent Taiwan from
declaring independence and the possibly of using nuclear weapons in
regional conflict with the United States. Even India, the only nuclear
armed state to formally commit to nuclear no first use, is not widely
believed. Israel, North Korea and Pakistan, on the other hand, are only
too willing to appear to be wedded to first strike threats. One can only
sigh in relief for France and the United Kingdom.
Where ideas about stabilising nuclear order are shared, disarmament
remains possible. The strongest advocates of arms control and
disarmament today are states and NGOs, the actors with the strongest
doctrinal consensus. Getting the nuclear have-nots together to support
the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW, or simply the
Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty) in 2017 was frightfully easy. It was so
easy, they all but fell over each other in their rush to vote in favor of a
poorly written treaty, drafted in less than six months, a treaty all about
norms, not details. The document simply reaffirms the shared non-
nuclear consensus of its 122 supporters in the UN General Assembly.
But there are profound limits to what the have-nots can achieve by
themselves. As a treaty, the TPNW is better than the 2002 Strategic
Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORTS)—the comic relief of nuclear arms
control—which never was intended to be taken seriously. SORTS was
the first nuclear agreement to actually hurt strategic relations more than
it helped. It persuaded the Administration of President George W. Bush
that there would be no costs to abrogating the 1972 ABM Treaty.
It is hard to see how the TPNW could be worse than that at shaping the
nuclear environment, but there is little chance it can achieve more. The
non-nuclear parties don’t have to do anything except nod in agreement.
But implementation among nuclear weapons states would require several
meticulously designed agreements, matched to the specific problems of
disarmament processes and milestones, intrusive verification and
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safeguards. Above all, it would require nuclear weapons states to commit
their security to basic assumptions about nuclear non-use and
disarmament.
Lacking such provisions, the TPNW offers nothing to help nuclear
weapons states meet their pledge in Article 6 of the NPT, ‘to pursue
negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of
the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament’. And
it offers nothing for the nuclear states outside the NPT system that
cannot be dismissed with shrug. It reveals much about the contemporary
mood that the votes in favor of the treaty from Iran and Saudi Arabia are
seen by many as evidence of the document’s weakness, not its strength.
Nuclear analysis and policy after strategic arms control
It seems extremely likely that the 2010 New START treaty, the last
strategic nuclear arms control treaty still limiting the arsenals of Russia
and the United States, will die when it is scheduled to expire on 5
February 2021. As with INF, President Putin wants to extend it, but
refuses to pay the price of negotiating away his advantages, in this case
superiority in tactical nuclear weapons, let alone solving linked issues
like Russia’s annexation of Crimea. In Washington, the Republican
Party opposes any limits on American missile defence, which Russia
probably would require. A simple extension remains feasible, but
President Trump seems unhappy with any element of international law
restraining American power.
The collapse of New START will mark the first time Russian and
American nuclear arsenals are unrestrained by a strategic treaty in 49
years. Nor are we simply witnessing a return to the nuclear environment
of 1972. Things are better in some ways; the American and Russian
arsenals are much smaller and better deployed for mutual security. Both
sides have greatly improved their ability to detect attack, and appear to
have reduced their sensitivity to false alerts, which probably strengthens
crisis stability. On-sight inspection, the top contribution of New START,
will be missed but can be coped with unilaterally.
But we also face a much more complicated strategic environment than
ever, with several other nuclear weapons states and potential nuclear
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states greatly complicating stability. Despite President Trump’s personal
confidence, North Korea is becoming more of a threat to the United
States, and the danger of regional crisis escalation with China and Russia
is worse than it was in 1972. No less important, as argued here, is the
decline of belief in nuclear deterrence. In 1972 it was mutually accepted
by the governments that mattered most. Deterrence remains, but it is
greatly diluted. As evidence of their lack of belief in the reliability of
deterrence, in many conceivable situations, several nuclear armed states
are ready to launch first strikes.
Deprived of its greatest technologies, nuclear analysis and official policy
is poorly prepared to deal with the change. Based on assumptions that
seem increasingly peripheral, analysis and policy are weakened, unable
to offer helpful long-term guidance. Nuclear classics from Bernard
Brodie and Thomas Schelling, and current policy documents like the
2018 Nuclear Posture Review, seem vague and remote. The closest
historical guidance comes from the 1950s and early ‘60s, before
superpower deterrence became fully mutual. That era of bombast, threats
and hair-raising crises is hardly inspirational.
Deprived of concepts that would offer long-term guidance, analysis and
policy cannot do much more than advise on immediate problems. That’s
no small thing when nuclear weapons are involved, but hardly satisfying
given the stakes.
Dr. Shireen Mazari
Thank you, Aaron. That leaves a lot of food for thought and discussion
which I am sure will follow. Let me introduce the last speaker of the
session, Dr Rabia Akhtar. She holds a PhD in Security Studies from
Kansas State University. She joined University of Lahore and is the
founding Director of the Centre for Security Strategy and Policy
Research. Her research is focused primarily on US non-proliferation
policy towards Pakistan. And she also of course does Foreign Policy
analysis specially of the inter linkages within the US foreign policy
making structures, including issues relating to congressional oversight of
US foreign policy and she has focused on US foreign policy towards
Pakistan from Ford to Clinton. She was a Fulbright Scholar 2010 to 2015
and she co-authored a research monograph on Nuclear Learning in South
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Asia which was published in January 2015 by the Regional Centre for
Strategic Studies, Colombo, Sri Lanka. The floor is yours, Rabia.
Dr. Rabia Akhtar
It needs to be stated at the outset that the US
Nuclear Posture Review 2018 is as aggressive,
impulsive and threatening as President Trump
himself is. And just like him, it leaves you baffled.
Instead of reducing the number and reliance on
nuclear weapons, the US Nuclear Posture Review
2018 calls for an expanded role of nuclear weapons
in US nuclear security strategy. It expands to
include one of the non-traditional scenarios of
nuclear use; a major cyber-attack in the United States. The new
terminology that is being used is ‘non-nuclear strategic attacks’, but
there is hardly any explanation for it as to what does it entail. Can you
imagine a nuclear first use by a US president in a non-nuclear scenario?
Imagine the doors it will open for others. Instead of strengthening its
non-nuclear capabilities to fight non-nuclear scenarios, the United States
under Trump Administration is moving to cover non-nuclear strategic
space with nuclear weapons. Expanding the space to make US nuclear
weapons more usable than they already are on hair-trigger alert posture
should be alarming for all countries across the globe. At a cost of 1.25
trillion dollars over the next 30 years, US nuclear triad will be replaced
and upgraded. At sea, the US plans to deploy low yield nuclear warheads
on submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and develop new
submarine launched cruise missiles (SLCMs). It looks like the Cold War
is back since at the end of the Cold War, the US had off-deployed
nuclear SLCMs under the Bush Administration. Some US arms control
experts criticise the US need for more low-yield options when the US
nuclear deterrent already possesses low yield weapons. Reason for
lowering the nuclear use threshold in the US case does not come with
satisfactory explanation on this count. Experts also ask and rightly so;
how will the enemy who is at the receiving end on the nuclear SLCM
know that the missile is loaded with a low yield or full yield weapon?
This ambiguity is anything but stabilising. According to an estimate, the
US has 4000 operational warheads and nuclear weapons and around
1000 low yield nuclear weapons. Yet, it needs more low yield nuclear
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weapons to signal the credibility of its deterrence towards Russia and
perhaps China. While the renewed US quest for low-yield nuclear
weapons diverts the world’s attention from Pakistan’s low yield nukes, it
is an unsettling development nevertheless. What does this expansion in
US nuclear arsenal - modernisation of nuclear triad, lowering of nuclear
threshold to include nuclear first use against non-nuclear strategic attacks
- mean for the non-proliferation regime? There is not much cause for
enthusiasm about the non-proliferation regime and its deliverables.
Therefore, US, as leader of the non-proliferation regime, losing face in
front of the global non-proliferation community on its assurances and
alliances is simply an idea whose time has come. Now at least the world
will openly see that the US does not care about non-proliferation policy
or nuclear disarmament. Had it been serious, it would have taken
measures to ensure that no agreement made by one president is so easily
discarded by the others who follow especially when it is made in
consensus with other regional powers to ensure nuclear compliance. A
case in point is the US walking away from the Joint Comprehensive Plan
of Action (JCPOA) with Iran and now bullying other countries to discard
it and not work with Iran.
The threat environment has not complicated for the United States – it is
the other way around. The evolving US nuclear posture is become
threatening for other countries. One key takeaway from this NPR is that
if the US being the conventional and nuclear super power needs more
nuclear weapons to feel more secure then perhaps the smaller nuclear
weapon states would need even more than they currently have to feel
secure as well. This has to be the most damaging lesson. It does not bode
well for the nuclear non-proliferation regime which after all these years
has been trying to achieve just the very opposite.
Lately, the US-Russian equation has started to resemble that of India-
Pakistan duo. Emphasis on the Russian strategy of ‘escalate to
deescalate’ and limited nuclear use talk to escalate out of a conventional
crisis situation gone bad are exactly those worries US scholars have been
writing about in the Indo-Pak context. Indians tried to mimic the US post
9/11 and started saying that if the US could attack Afghanistan to avenge
9/11, so could we on Pakistan to avenge the 2001 attack on the Indian
Parliament. The problem is not that Pakistan or Russia, if it will come to
that, cannot defend themselves. They can, they are not Afghanistan. The
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problem is that this kind of grand thinking can take root because rhetoric
matters. Words are important; you can ridicule twitter or President
Trump’s tweets, but they are read and they are policy statements taken
on face value. If you have a nuclear state in your neighbourhood that has
grandiose designs about becoming a global power, has threatening
missile ranges to cover as many continents possible, is moving towards
ensuring the centrality of nuclear weapons in its national security
strategy and idealises the United States, then following its footsteps is
only going to be a matter of time. India will only be encouraged by how
US modernises its nuclear arsenal therefore, making it difficult for
Pakistan to maintain strategic parity. With the evolving US nuclear
posture, there are direct negative implications for South Asian strategic
stability and the global non-proliferation regime.
Dr. Shireen Mazari
Thank you Rabia for a very straightforward assessment of the prevailing
situation especially after the Trump Administration came in. The floor is
open now for questions and comments.
Question & Answer Session
Question
Albert Einstein once defined insanity as doing same thing again and
again and expecting different results. So, I think that it has been
happening in nuclear non-proliferation regime. Unless the big powers
like the US, Russia and China reduce their stockpile of nuclear weapons,
rather they are increasing it day by day, how can they sermonise,
pressurise or even threaten the countries like Pakistan, Iran and other
emerging nuclear states? As Mr. Karp pointed out that Japan, South
Korea and UK are the only countries which really believe in arms control
and reducing nuclear stockpile. My question is why the other countries
like the US, Russia and China, they adopt the same policy?
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Mr. Aaron Karp
Going back to the original 1968 NPT deal, the article 6 statement, I do
not want to call it a commitment because I think it glorifies it, it was
never sincere. It was always speculative for the depository states or the
nuclear weapon states. The idea of nuclear disarmament has always
been this vague, that is why President Obama’s 2009 Prague speech was
so dramatic. He committed the US to this goal of disarmament. Of
course, he did not want his government to vote against the Nuclear Ban
Treaty which would have contradicted with that policy. So, we just did
not show up that day at the UN General Assembly. Nor did, however
many, what 60 other countries just did not show up, which is an extra
ordinarily powerful statement. On the other hand, I do not want to sound
too depressing. No, we are not building a lot of new nuclear warheads
right now. There is no nuclear arms race and that is a big enigma. We
cannot explain why there is no arms race. There was one country that
was arms racing until very recently, even North Korea appears to have
stopped racing and I do not know if they can do anything else. But there
is no racing anymore and that is very good. Pakistan is building up its
nuclear forces but it is not racing. So, there is stability out there. We just
do not understand it very well.
Dr. Shireen Mazari
I would be interested to know Aaron how you define racing? I mean, is
this a numbers thing that it is not just steady increase? Differentiate.
Mr. Aaron Karp
A classical arms race means France, Britain and Germany building
battleships in response to each other in a big spiral spending all of their
money. That is a great example and that also not only just defines but it
also contains the domain of an arms race. Usually when we use the term
arms race, it is just a metaphor. It is a way of saying, we are not in
control. That is really what we mean. But when you start measuring
things, defence expenditures are not going up very much. Nobody but
nobody spends more than 4% of the national wealth on defence, except
the Saudis. But ok. I just don’t see it.
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Amb. Ali Asghar Soltanieh
Amb. Ali Asghar Soltanieh, former Ambassador of Iran to the IAEA and
United Nations: One important thing that we have to focus on now is the
notion of nuclear arms control. I think this notion; this policy has in fact
put nuclear disarmament in archive because arms control itself has
legitimised existing nuclear weapons. How can we control it? Similarly,
another notion which I do not endorse is ‘no first use’. I appreciate that
China is accepting the no first use. No first use is a term to deceive the
real attention of public that look we are doing something. Therefore, the
arms control of the two super powers without any international
verification has pushed us where we are right now. Last but not the least,
you would not be surprised, as of course, I am talking about in my
personal capacity, the NPT itself is the most discriminatory treaty in the
world because the notion of non-proliferation means that existing
weapons, no more. As we noticed that lack of implementation of article 6
proved that it was a mistake and therefore, while I have some
reservations regarding the Ban Treaty, that in fact, reduces and defuses
the pressure on non-nuclear weapon states while putting it on weapon
states. But anyway, it was a concept, it was reality. Let us see what we
can do. We can put the things at right place. No talk anymore
highlighting arms control, let us talk about disarmament.
Dr. Shireen Mazari
Would anyone like to comment on this.
Mr. Paul Ingram
So, I began my talk being quite critical of the Non-proliferation Treaty.
The NPT is getting a bashing so I want to just come to its defence.
Because, 50 years ago, there was the expectation of great deal of more
proliferation and we have not seen it. Indeed, we ought to just
acknowledge the amount of nuclear arsenal in the world has come down
a huge amount. So, it is not a question of black and white here. It is a
score sheet and it is not entirely negative but it is also not positive. It is
complex and this brings me to a very personal explanation about where I
come from. I used to be a member of the peace movement in Britain. I
would break into American Airforce bases, apologies to the Americans
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here! I would be arrested and I would be put in prison and I would be out
again and I would be, with my placards I would be demonstrating along
with the rest of them. What help did it bring? It raised the issue. The
awareness was there but it also actually made people feel very
comfortable with where they were at already. I believe that models of
change require cooperation with people who fundamentally disagree
with you and when you communicate, you need to be open to other’s
perspectives. That is the personal explanation. Now how does this apply
when you are talking about international communication? Well, it
applies by trying to understand and empathise even with the President
Trumps of this world to understand why and how they get the support
they get and to try to be cleverer in the way you engage in that
communication. Simply demanding disarmament is not going to get you
anywhere. Agreeing a Ban Treaty is not going to achieve the change that
the Ban Treaty states are looking for. But what we require is far more
understanding. That is why I am here in Islamabad today. I want to
understand better; why it is that Pakistan feels so locked into the
relationship it currently has with India and that requires me to listen and
not to preach. There is far too much preaching and not enough listening
that goes on in these conversations.
So, when it comes to achieving disarmament, I think arms control plays a
role. I am very sympathetic where you are coming from Ambassador
Soltanieh. I too in the past have been critical of arms control but arms
control is part of the confidence building required to achieve eventual
disarmament. I understand that the people manipulate and they use in
very cynical ways the arms control mechanisms in order to give the
impression that they are going in the right direction, when they do not
have intentions of doing so. But in order to bring them to a process
where there are eventually willing to relinquish the perceived advantage
they get from having nuclear weapons, one has to engage in a dialogue.
This is why whenever I have been to Iran, I have heard and believed a
commitment to the Non-proliferation Treaty. That I think is stronger than
it is in the United States and that is because there is a belief that I have
picked up in Iran, that nuclear weapons need to be got rid of and if we
believe that we need to engage openly with people who believe
otherwise. That is not a confrontational approach that is going to
succeed. I may speak more about it later, but, I think I have probably
said enough.
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Mr. Robert Einhorn
Robert Einhorn from Brookings Institution in Washington: I have one
question for any of the panellists. A comment, a question to Aaron and
one to a comment on Rabia’s presentation. Question to anybody:
Looking at Aaron’s various mysteries, the mystery of why non-
proliferation regime has been so stable; 25 years ago, there were nine
countries with nuclear weapons, today there are nine countries with
nuclear weapons. I would say 10 and 15 years from now, there will be
nine countries with nuclear weapons. Why that stability? I have my own
explanation for that. One is that not many countries see a need for having
nuclear weapons. They do not feel the threats that would generate
support for nuclear weapons. Those that feel threatened, either have
acquired nuclear weapons or they have a protector who is prepared to
help them with their security. But what is the explanation for the
stability? Aaron you mentioned, your thesis was that we should not look
so much toward these endogenous factors, we have to look at the
exogenous ones. What are those exogenous factors and why are they
going to make much of a difference in the world of arms control and
non-proliferation?
To Rabia, I am less alarmed than you are about Trump’s 2018 Nuclear
Posture Review. Most of it is a kind of posture review that President
Obama would have issued under current international circumstances.
Now, I think it was rather restrained. I do agree with you that it
articulates a number of contingencies in which the US might consider
using nuclear weapons that are broader than what Obama talked about; A
response to strategic non-nuclear attacks and will United States really
use nuclear weapons against conventional bombing of a population
centre, I do not think so. I do not think the Trump Administration would
use the nuclear weapons in some of the contingencies that it is talking
about. But the Trump Administration believes that a strong rhetorical
position on using nuclear weapons will reinforce deterrence. I am
concerned about that because I think there can be some
counterproductive effects. I mean if the US signals that it might use
nuclear weapons early in a conflict, would it not give incentives for
adversaries to employ them first? It might be better off. So, I think it is
dubious but I am not quite alarmed about these two new nuclear systems;
nuclear Sea Launched Cruise Missile, the low yield Submarine Launched
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Ballistic Missile. I am not convinced at the rationale for needing those
systems in European context. But I am aware of the tremendous support
those systems have in US allied states in Northeast Asia where they
contribute to US extended deterrence and could be important factors in
reducing the incentives of Japan and South Korea to develop their own
indigenous nuclear weapon capabilities.
Mr. Aaron Karp
Thank you very much, I was looking forward to your questions. On
nuclear proliferation, what happened to President Kennedy’s prophecy of
25 or more by 1970? He was really good on the moon; he said the moon
by 1970. But he also expected 25 nuclear proliferators. Fortunately, he
did not get that one so good. A part of it obviously is yes, the world is
fairly a secure place. Countries are assured and another big element is
you did your job. Thank you! You did a really good job. You made it
really tough for countries to go out and get the bomb. It is not easy
especially if they go the reactor route which is extremely difficult. But
now it has happened. I think with centrifuge enrichment technology it
has got much easier to develop a surprise programme and I am very
worried about big surprises as a result of that. Because, of the enormous
sensitivity we do not need 25, we need one and I think it is going to blow
our little minds when that comes. I worry about the stability of regime
and our willingness to trust the regime after that one comes, whenever it
is. As far as exogenous forces, above all, I am concerned about the
transformation in international legitimacy. The people in this room used
to be everything in arms control and disarmament. They wrote the
agreements, they convinced the governments to accept the agreements
and then they implemented them and it worked really well. With the
transformation of legitimacy with the rise of populism, that is not
acceptable anymore. Your expertise does not give you authority. It
undermines authority. The man on the street, the common man, and the
common man’s predilections are determinate and we see in the United
States, the whole debate over the meaning of the Nuclear Posture Review
within US. I mean, so what, yeah you got document cool! Ok, now what
we are going to do, it is a huge disjuncture because the political system
makes the noised disjuncture between the drafting of policy statements
and action policy. They are different universes. They are different people
and we have to deal with that. This goes to Paul’s point about listening, I
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think. The arms control and disarmament community need to listen to
people who love and I mean literally love Vladimir Putin and who love
and literally love Donald Trump. We have to listen to that to an end of
that. We have to reconcile arms control and disarmament ambitions with
the desires of those people.
Dr. Rabia Akhtar
Thank you so much for your comments, it is very well taken and I will
bring my alarm levels down after it coming from you. But the point I
was trying to make, which you also made while commenting, was use of
rhetoric to reinforce deterrence and that is what is dangerous. Because
when thoughts take root; the next step is action. And if it is coming from
you know a person like Trump, who is unpredictable by the minute, one
does not really know where is the line between rhetoric and reality. It
becomes profound.
Mr. Paul Ingram
I think there are many explanations, some better than others. I will just
force the fact that we have stability that we were expecting. I have
already mentioned the non-proliferation treaty itself and the norms that
come with it. But I would question, whether people actually believe that
nuclear weapons are as effective as they often are assumed? Because
they have not been used so it is all rather conjectural and the concept of
nuclear deterrence makes sense internally and it appeals to people
because it seems to make sense. But I think it is also in peoples’ mind
that there is also a contradiction at the heart of it. Because it is
impossible to know whether it really works. So, they are very expensive
financially and in political terms, their use is uncertain. As I said in my
talk that military trends are in a very different direction towards useable
small scale, small in size possibly large in number, of units operating in
smart and targeted ways. The military do not generally tend to like
nuclear weapons because they are not usable and they are really quite
political in nature. The one reason that I can see why countries like
Britain and France still retain nuclear weapons is; Bruno will disagree
with me here, but I think it has a lot to do with status frankly. I think that
there is perception that these things bring power within the international
community and I think it is deeply challengeable and increasingly so as
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actually the measure of power is far more based upon economic power
and other matrix than it is upon the possession of nuclear weapons. I see
that going, this is a very unusual perspective and I see that increasing. I
think the increasing salience of nuclear weapons more recently is a blip.
Over the longer period, the utility of nuclear weapons in terms of their
perception is I believe in the other direction. And I think the fact that
fewer countries have acquired them is an indication of the fact that
people are increasingly seeing nuclear weapons as irrelevant to global
power status and to defence more generally.
Mr. Khalid Banuri
Khalid Banuri, I am former Director General of Arms Control and
Disarmament at Strategic Plans Division. I have two questions, even if it
is stating the obvious. First to Paul: If the interest in Ban treaty by the
states that have nuclear weapons is lukewarm at best, what do you think
can actually incentivise all of these states for a formal control of nuclear
weapons? There is some win-win where you think all states that have
nuclear weapons can agree? Question to Aaron and Rabia on the
posture, let me throw out this scenario which might appear very
preposterous but we know of Donald Trump’s twitter politics; what if
there is this situation of an intent of use of nuclear weapons, what would
be the mechanism within the American command and control to ensure
that the decision to use nuclear weapons will be well considered and not
ad hoc. Thank you.
Mr. Paul Ingram
So, what will incentivise the nuclear weapon states to engage in
disarmament conversations; my perception sitting in London is that I am
detecting that there is interest within the British Government to engage
more seriously, partly my perception as a result of the Ban Treaty. That
is because they are concerned as many states are with the state of Non-
proliferation Treaty, they see the Ban Treaty as a symptom of the
challenge and they value the Non-proliferation Treaty hugely for several
reasons, obvious it being the norm, that has been used to try to prevent
further proliferation. But secondly, it provides the legitimacy upon which
they sit and if that legitimacy is being shaken, then they need to engage.
So, my perception is the part of the reason that why we have seen
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nuclear weapon states being so critical of the Ban Treaty. It is actually a
symbol of its success and this is coming from somebody who is quite
sceptical about the Ban Treaty. I am not a Ban Treaty supporter
naturally. But actually, most recently, I have come to see it as a positive
disruptive factor. It holds challenges and it holds opportunities and I
think it is important for people, say across the spectrum, however they
sit, to see the threats and the opportunities that come with this
instrument. I perceive that some on the more reasonable end are starting
to come around to the idea that they need to engage more seriously on
the disarmament agenda and they are thus talking more openly. Now I do
not think you can continue to engage in a confrontational way and I will
be appealing to the Ban Treaty states to see if they can find ways and
continue to try to bring treaty into force. They inevitably will continue
their efforts and I think they will succeed at some point either before or
after the review conference. They also need to be reaching out for
dialogue and conversation with the nuclear weapon states to see if we
can build a framework and drive the disarmament agenda forward. It is
important to see states as more complex then we often do; we see states
often in terms of immediate special interests and of course they play a
role. But states also are made up of individuals, human beings who
desire to see progress, who desire to climb out of the traps they are in
and we are all in traps. I think if we engage more constructively and
more openly then there is more chance of climbing out of those traps.
Mr. Aaron Karp
Let me thank Air Commodore Banuri for the questions. If I might refer
to the Nuclear Ban Treaty, the analogy that comes to my mind is the
Hague code of conduct on ballistic missiles, 2002. There is an interval,
the Ban Treaty will never go away. It is permanent, it is there. Is it going
to become consequential? So, there is period in which this thing has to
mobilise, it has to take off. It has to get enough ratifications first before
coming into force. But even then, is it going to have its effect greater
than the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban? Is it going to do better than
that? That will be the test and I think by the time Donald Trump leaves
office by the year 2024, he will definitely be gone by then so we will
know, the fate of this. Regarding American command and control of
nuclear use, of course you recall the debate we were having a year ago
when we were all remembering Richard Nixon, when he was not doing
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so well and arrangements were made apparently. The grownups were in
the room and now watch the grownups leave. We are very confident that
within fairly decent time, all the grownups will be gone and that has to
happen. So, what is going to happen then? It is purely personal,
observing Donald Trump; he cares about two things in governance that I
can tell one is trade deficits, the other is allied burden sharing. I do not
know if he cares about anything else. Literally, I do not think he cares
about international security that much. He does not have an emotional
stake in this. That is very helpful, that is good. He does not have an
emotional stake so he cannot be reasoned with on this. The other thing I
would emphasise about Donald Trump is, he does negotiate everything.
His negotiating tactic is very well known. Shoot for the moon, ask for
everything and settle for something just a little bit beyond what your
adversaries are comfortable with and then you are done.
Dr. Rabia Akhtar
I think he really answered it well. But had it been anybody else other
than Trump, looking at all previous administrations, I would have had a
lot of faith that there is a system in place and the systems will work. Just
because they have nuclear weapons; this means they can use it, is not
going to happen. So, one can only hope that the things are still pretty
much in control even though he is the Commander in Chief. It is really
quite unpredictable with him being at the helm of affairs.
Ms. Sadia Tasleem
I am Sadia Tasleem from the Department of Defence and Strategic
Studies at Quaid-i-Azam University. Thanks chair and all the panellists
for such wonderful presentations. I have two questions: One for Rabia
and one for Paul. Rabia my question for you is, given the kind of power
transitions that we are witnessing today, how central is the United States
to the future of non-proliferation? Also, I understand the imitation
argument, I have been working on how Pakistan and other states have
been imitating the US deterrence thinking but given the decline in the US
soft power and also with the US facing a sort of reputational crisis, how
much incentive there is for other states to imitate what the United States
does?
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To Paul, being a proponent of the Ban Treaty, I am asking this question,
as Dr Mazari has already mentioned that we have not seen any
conversation on Ban Treaty in Pakistan. But we also have not seen any
engagement from the proponents of the Ban Treaty with Pakistan on this
question. Is there a strategic rationale for this, which is like once the
major powers or the P5 fall in place other states will follow, is there that
kind of logic that is guiding the kind of engagement the Ban Treaty
proponents have with the other states? Or is there a perception that the
response probably would not be favourable? What is stopping the Ban
Treaty proponents from engagement.
Dr. Rabia Akhtar
Thank you, Sadia, I think, you know as long as United States is the
centre of the world from where research comes out from, its credibility is
not at stake and whatever other countries follow on deterrence literature,
on arms control and non-proliferation. As long as this is coming from the
United States, they are in control of generating the narrative that they
want the rest of the world to follow. That is where everybody will be
looking at. There is no research coming out of Pakistan, for example,
since we are here gathered here today, all researchers and scholars talk
about these issues. There is no article or paper any research scholar has
written in Pakistan as to what deterrence means to Pakistan and as to
how it is going to take shape let say in next 5 to 10 years. Everything you
refer back to American scholars, western scholars for that matter. As
long as that control is with the United States, as long as that research
centre is there, you can bet on it, that any new thing any new thinking
that is going to come out is going to be from there and rest of the world
will continue to follow like it has been. On the other hand, I think states
have their own limitations as India and Pakistan, over a period of years,
have found out that what worked during the Cold war for Soviet Union
and the United States cannot work for India and Pakistan. But, that
learning, the nuclear learning takes time and I think after twenty years of
nuclearisation, both India and Pakistan have come to a point where they
are thinking that each has their own limitations and they can only push
the envelope. You know, they have been learning whether they can fight
limited war under nuclear umbrella or not and how far can they go. We
will continue to see crisis situation between India and Pakistan. As this
learning which will become indigenous learning that is going to happen
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in coming years of time. But you know, third point that I would like to
make is that the credibility of the United States is probably not going to
be damaged by just one president. You know Trump is here today, he
might not there tomorrow. You might get another Obama like president
to restore some of the faith of humanity and bring the leadership back to
the United States. So, it is quite transitional; this personality-based
assessment and I do not think that should let us judge as to you know its
veining all together. It is the leader, it is the sole super power in this
world today. It is the leader of the non-proliferation regime, whether
anybody likes it or not. It is the biggest contributor in the United Nations
and other structures in the world and all other organisations. As long as it
keeps putting in the money, it is going to remain in that leadership
position.
Mr. Paul Ingram
I would like to emphasise that I am not a proponent of the Ban Treaty.
But my observations were very much from the perspective of somebody
who wants to see disarmament and progress. I believe that the reason, the
two you gave, the second is the reason. There is a belief that Pakistan
would not engage constructively within international civil society groups
that are operating to promote the Ban Treaty. I believe that comes from a
lack of analysis, lack of understanding of the conversation that could
happen here in Pakistan. Because for the reasons I gave in my talk I
think the Ban Treaty is disruptive, potentially positive and potentially
negative disruptive force within the non-proliferation regime. And
Pakistan would like to see a disruption to the current regime. So, there
are good reasons from a Pakistani perspective to support the objectives.
Even though one cannot imagine Pakistan formally joining the Ban
Treaty anytime soon. I think they have missed the trick and I think that
comes from ignorance rather than any strategy.
Mr. Tariq Rauf
Tariq Rauf from Vienna, I have a question to Aaron. So, I saw in your
bio slide, the very last line said that you had provided some of the
intellectual underpinning to the missile technology control regime. And
for the last 10 chairs of the MTCR, I have gone to them and said, do you
know that within the MTCR, there is one nuclear armed state that leases
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strategic ballistic missiles from another nuclear armed state and this is
the UK which leases SLBMs from the US and puts warheads on them or
tests dummies and when it fires one off, it pays the US the value of it. So
how would you tolerate this within the system? because, it is clearly
against the intent and ranges within the MTCR and each of these chairs
feel very uncomfortable. This is the first time, somebody hit them
between the eyes on this issue. They all promised to look into it and then
they all come back and do nothing. Since you were one of the intellectual
strengths behind this, I was wondering if you had any views about this
particular issue.
Second, Aaron you are also concerned about proliferation of centrifuge
technology. Nuclear energy is growing in the world today. There are 65
new powerplants under construction. If the world is to meet sustainable
development goals, nuclear energy will play a critical role in keeping
emissions below 2% or whatever it is. So, for that in the future we will
need new enrichment technology to provide low enriched uranium for
these new nuclear powerplants. At the moment commercial enrichment
is controlled by four providers, and there are others who are waiting in
the wings. So, spread of enrichment technology in and out itself need not
be bad, it depends how it is done and in the Nuclear Suppliers Group at
the moment there is a strict ban on further dissemination of what is
called ENR i.e. enrichment and reprocessing technology. But it is leaked
out as you have pointed out yourself. So, I have always argued that
technology controls which are based on denial have failed and the
missile technology control regime and the Australia group and the
Nuclear Suppliers Group. We need to have a better way of dealing with
how we, in a sense, promote the dissemination of technology for
peaceful purposes while limiting its misuse. So, I was wondering
whether you