Table Of ContentBeyond 1995
The Future of the NPT Regime
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ISSUES IN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
Series Editors: Robert E. Pendley and Joseph F. Pilat
BEYOND 1995: The Future of the NPT Regime
Edited by Joseph F. Pilat and Robert E. Pendley
EUROPEAN SECURITY IN THE 1990s: Deterrence and Defense after
the INF Treaty
Walter Laqueur and Leon Sloss
A Continuation Order Plan is available for this series. A continuation order will bring delivery
of each new volume immediately upon publication. Volumes are billed only upon actual ship
ment. For further information please contact the publisher.
Beyond 1995
The Future of the NPT Regime
Edited by
Joseph F. Pilat and
Robert E. Pendley
Center for National Security Studies
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos, New Mexico
Foreword by
Hans M. Blix
PLENUM PRESS • NEW YORK AND LONDON
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
BeYDn" 1995 the future of the ;lJPT reglme / ed;yed by Joseph F. Pilat
ar.d Robert E. Pendley.
p. crL -- (Issues Hi internatlonal security~
Includes bib1iographlca1 references.
1. Nuclear nonproliferation. 2. Security. International.
I. Pilat. Joseph F. II. Pendley. Robert E. III. Serles.
JX1974.73.B49 1990
327. 1 '74--dc20 89-29827
CIP
ISBN-13: 978-1-4684-1317-5 e-ISBN-13: 978-1-4684-1315-1
001: 10.1007/978-1-4684-1315-1
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© 1990 Plenum Press, New York
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 1990
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The Center for National
Security Studies
The Center for National Security Studies (CNSS) is a studies and analysis organiza
tion of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Drawing on the broad knowledge at
Los Alamos of science and engineering relevant to national security issues, the
Center's research focuses on the interaction between technology and policy and on
developing insights that may improve the relationship between the development of
new technology and the achievement of national policy goals.
The principal mission of the Center is to promote and conduct long-term
research and analysis in the broad areas of defense policy and arms control, focus
ing in particular on the requirements for technology that derive from trends in
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v
vi The CNSS
The publications program of the Center is intended to communicate the results
of studies to Laboratory personnel and to reach a wider policy analysis community
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emphasis on how these issues shape and are shaped by technological developments.
The Authors
Richard Butler, Ambassador of Australia to Thailand
Antonio Carrea, Counselor on Nuclear Affairs for the Embassy of Argentina in
Austria
Lewis A. Dunn, Assistant Vice President, Science Applications International Cor
poration, McLean, Virginia
David Fischer, Consultant, International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, Austria
Ryukichi Imai, Ambassador of Japan to Mexico
Ashok Kapur, Professor of Political Science, University of Waterloo, Ontario,
Canada
Munir Ahmad Khan, Chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission,
Islamabad, Pakistan
Harald Muller, Senior Fellow and Director of International Programs, Peace Re
search Institute, Frankfurt, Federal Republic of Germany
Robert E. Pendley, Staff Member, Center for National Security Studies, Los
Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico
Joseph F. Pilat, Staff Member, Center for National Security Studies, Los Alamos
National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico
Benjamin Sanders, Coordinator of the Programme for Promoting Nuclear Non
Proliferation, New York, New York
Lawrence Scheinman, Professor of International Law and Relations, Cornell Uni
versity, Ithaca, New York
vii
viii The Authors
Mohamed I. Shaker, Ambassador of the Arab Republic of Egypt to the United
Kingdom
Raju G. C. Thomas, Professor of Political Science, Marquette University, Mil
waukee, Wisconsin
Foreword
There is almost universal support for the view that the world would be an even more
dangerous place if there were to be more nuclear-weapon states. There would be
more fingers on more triggers and, probably, a greater risk that a trigger might be
pulled with incalculable consequences. It is easy to see, therefore, that there is a
collective interest in avoiding the spread of nuclear weapons to further countries.
Nations do not, however, normally undertake or refrain from actions because
of such a collective interest; they do so because of their individual interests. This is
especially true in the field of national security. A nation perceiving that it has a real
interest in developing nuclear weapons is not very likely to refrain from doing so
merely because it is told such development would be bad for the world community.
If the global interest in avoiding the spread of nuclear weapons to more coun
tries is to succeed, conditions that make it in the interest of each individual nation to
renounce nuclear weapons need to be created or maintained. Fortunately, conditions
have prevailed in which the vast majority of nations have seen an advantage in
making legally binding nonproliferation commitments. An important rationale for
many of these countries has been that these commitments would facilitate the
transfer of desired civil nuclear technology. For many developing countries, which
have seen neither any potential usefulness in possessing nuclear weapons nor any
possibility within a foreseeable time to acquire such weapons, the advantage of
assistance in acquiring various techniques for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy
has probably been another rationale. For yet other countries, the potential dangers
flowing from the possession of nuclear weapons-for example, the risk of becom
ing the target of a preemptive strike in a crisis situation-might have been a factor
speaking in favor of an explicit and binding nonproliferation commitment. The
assurances given by nuclear-weapon states to seek agreement on disarmament,
along with the assumed high thresholds for the use of nuclear weapons, may have
been enough to raise hopes among nonnUclear-weapon states that they will not face
threats or the use of nuclear weapons in an armed controversy.
These factors, which have led states to make binding commitments to non
proliferation, notably through the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weap-
ix
x Foreword
ons (NPT), are also the factors that will be decisive for the future of the treaty.
While several of the excellent contributions to this book wisely explore the grave
consequences of an unraveling of the NPT, there are, I think, some grounds for
optimism.
First of all, the present international climate augurs well for a reduced reliance
on force or the threat of force and for disarmament, including nuclear disarmament.
With a substantial reduction of the nuclear threat perceived, there should also be a
lessening of the perceived need for nuclear weapons for defense. Such a change
might help not only to maintain existing binding nonproliferation pledges but might
even trigger some additional pledges as well. Second, a continued facilitation of,
and direct assistance in, the transfer of nuclear technologies to countries that have
made binding nonproliferation commitments will be a factor favoring their con
tinued commitment. Any risk of a discontinuation of such transfers in the event of a
lapse of nonproliferation commitments, conversely, will be a factor suggesting to
governments that they should not allow these commitments to expire or otherwise
be terminated.
While these general rationales, hopefully, will be decisive for states' attitudes
to the question of continuing the NPT beyond 1995, and may even be persuasive
vis-a-vis countries that have not, so far, made binding nonproliferation commit
ments, special arrangements will probably be needed to obtain such commitments in
some specific areas, notably the Middle East. When we have witnessed, recently,
how one intractable problem area after another-Afghanistan, Cambodia, the
Western Sahara, Angola, Namibia-seem to be moving toward settlement, one
may perhaps dare to be optimistic also about nonproliferation and drastic disarma
ment. There is no lack of tasks to which the resources now spent on nuclear arms
production and development could be better used.
HANS M. Bux
Director General
International Atomic Energy Agency
Vienna, Austria
