16.    INTERNATIONAL ARMS CONTROL AND DISARMAMENT

16.1   Prospects for progress on arms control and disarmament are now less favourable than they were in the early/mid 1990s. There is an increasingly widespread perception that international disarmament initiatives have run out of steam, and in some instances may be in danger of losing ground.

16.2   The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was made permanent in 1995 in the expectation that all parties would meet their obligations under the treaty. There is an increasingly widespread view that the nuclear weapons states are not doing so. Many countries have asked the UN Conference on Disarmament (CD) to initiate discussions (if not formal negotiations) on nuclear disarmament and thereby give effect to Article VI of the NPT; that has been strongly resisted by all five of the nuclear weapon states who have all regarded the obligations of Article VI as their business alone. There is a fear that the five year review of the treaty, to take place in April-May 2000, will end in failure.

16.3   Russia and the US have made substantial progress in reducing their strategic nuclear arsenals in accordance with the START I treaty. A second treaty (START II) requiring further substantial reductions has been signed and was ratified by the US in 1995. (See annex for chart showing changes to the nuclear forces of the nuclear weapon states). But since then the process has slowed. The Russian Duma has scheduled hearings on START II, but it is not clear that it will approve ratification soon. The US has said that it will not begin formal negotiations on START III until Russia has ratified START II. (Informal discussions have been under way for some time.)

16.4   There is no impediment to either side reducing their arsenals unilaterally. Even after a START III Russia and the US would be left with much larger stocks than the UK, France and China - which have between 200 and 450 warheads each. Reductions beyond START III become progressively harder to achieve, as arsenals reach whatever bottom line each country considers essential for the protection of its vital national interests. Further disarmament would then be likely only if international relations improved and alternative means were found of guaranteeing national security in that changed international climate. That must be considered a long term prospect at best. In the meantime there is no pressure on the UK, France and China to join the nuclear disarmament process. Nevertheless France and the UK (but not China) have made small cuts in their arsenals in the past few years.

16.5   The public avowal of their nuclear capability by India and Pakistan in 1998 was a serious blow to nuclear disarmament. The arsenals of the two South Asian rivals are small but they are worrying on three counts.

• For the first time since the end of the cold war two countries engaged in a head-on confrontation are nuclear armed. There are no structures or processes around managing what is now a nuclear relationship. The two countries have a long, common border, any number of flashpoint issues, and strongly nationalist constituencies.

• After an initial bout of criticism and opposition, the nuclear powers seem to have decided to accept the reality of a nuclear subcontinent, and work to control it (securing India and Pakistan's accession to the CTBT - see below), rather than roll it back. This does not mean that the terms of the NPT will be changed. But in effect India has secured what it has long sought - recognition as a significant power; while Pakistan has acquired a nuclear shield.

• The demonstration effect: India's success in gatecrashing the ranks of the nuclear powers sends a powerful message to other would be proliferators: despite all the rhetoric of disarmament, if one has the bomb one is taken much more seriously. (The attachment of the five nuclear weapons states to their nuclear capabilities makes the same point.) While there is no immediate likelihood of a new nuclear power emerging (Israel has every reason to keep its ambiguous status) the precedent will stand.

16.6   Nevertheless, other countries that might seek to acquire nuclear weapons may not find it easy to follow India and Pakistan. All others that might do so are party to the NPT; in acquiring or developing nuclear weapons they would either have to leave the treaty or breach their obligations. Either way, they could be subject to stronger international sanctions than were imposed on India and Pakistan once their intentions became known. But they might nevertheless conclude that the political and security benefits they could gain would outweigh the costs.

16.7   Any potential proliferator would also need to take into account the experiences of North Korea and Iraq, both members of the NPT that were, or were suspected to be, developing nuclear weapons. North Korea negotiated an agreement freezing its nuclear activities when war over its refusal to accept its full obligations loomed as the alternative. On the other hand, Iraq had come close to producing nuclear weapons, before being stopped by the coincidence of its defeat in the Gulf War.

16.8   Another complication for nuclear disarmament is the increasing concern in the US at the potential threat it faces from long-range ballistic missiles, possibly armed with nuclear, chemical or biological warheads, fired by so-called rogue states (currently perceived to be North Korea, Iran, Iraq and possibly Libya). The US is now planning national missile defences (NMD) that, initially, would provide limited protection to the entire country against the rogue state threat. But such defences could breach one of the cornerstones of the nuclear arms control system - the 1972 US/USSR Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM). This ensures that each side cannot deploy defences that could prove sufficient to call into question the effectiveness of the other's strategic nuclear deterrent. Russia cannot afford to emulate the US in developing missile defences, and thus fears that US defences could call into question the efficacy of its numerically declining nuclear deterrent forces at a time when it is increasingly reliant on them for national security. This could threaten further progress on strategic arms reduction.

16.9   The US is also proceeding with the development and deployment of theatre missile defences (TMD), designed to protect US forces overseas and US allies from ballistic missile attack. TMD is permitted generally by the ABM treaty, subject to certain conditions which were elaborated in 1997. Nevertheless, China opposes US and Japanese plans for a TMD system based in Japan (principally because of the implications were it extended to cover Taiwan). It also opposes US NMD plans, as an operational system capable of countering an attack by only a few missiles from a rogue state could also provide significant protection against the limited strategic ballistic missile forces China currently possesses. Over the past year, Chinese opposition to both TMD and NMD has been translated into a proposal that the CD should negotiate measures to prevent an arms race in outer space. China has found widespread support, but the US opposes it.

16.10   The US failure to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) means that there is no prospect of the treaty coming into effect in the near future. (The US is one of 44 countries that must ratify the treaty before it can enter into force. Others include Russia, China, France, the UK, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea. Of these only France and the UK have ratified. India, Pakistan and North Korea have not even signed the treaty.) The US decision means that there is now less pressure on other countries to ratify the treaty. Some countries may also feel that there is less pressure on them to continue to refrain from carrying out further nuclear tests. But all of the nuclear weapon states have committed themselves to continuing to respect the terms of the treaty; India and Pakistan have declared a moratorium on further testing, in Pakistan's case conditional on India not testing again. So the provisions of the treaty are being observed, if not as a binding international obligation.

16.11   The international community is continuing to make progress on global chemical weapons disarmament through the implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). Slow progress is also being made on the development of a verification regime for the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). But it remains to be seen how stringent (and therefore how effective) a regime the negotiating countries are prepared to accept. Iraq's evasion of intrusive inspections may undermine attempts to enforce compliance with the challenge inspections of the CWC or any similar provision that may be agreed in the verification protocol to the BWC. A particular concern of biotechnology industries in developed countries is the protection of proprietary information, especially during onsite inspection and verification activities.

16.12   The international community has reached agreement on two measures to reduce conventional arms: the 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe treaty (CFE) which has been successful in lowering the levels of conventional weapons stocks in that continent; and the 1997 Ottawa treaty banning the production, exchange and use of anti-personnel land mines. Attention is now being focussed on the availability of large quantities of small arms worldwide, particularly to dissident and terrorist groups. International action to introduce measures to control the trade in small arms is now under way. But given the widespread nature of the problem, it is likely to be some time before an acceptable solution can be found.

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