ICAN around the world
The politics of nuclear weapons
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NATO nuclear weapons
Under the NATO nuclear-sharing programme, the United States today has about 350 nuclear weapons deployed in six European NATO member states. One of them, the United Kingdom, is itself a nuclear-weapon state, while the other five — Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany and Turkey — are non-nuclear-weapon states. The NATO nuclear doctrine has hardly changed, despite the shift in the security–political situation since the end of the Cold War. NATO recently conducted a review of its nuclear policy and concluded that the deployed nuclear weapons in Europe still are absolutely necessary to protect Europe.
NATO’s non-nuclear members are to differing extents involved in the nuclear policy of the military alliance. Some states do not allow the placement of nuclear weapons on their territory in time of peace, while others have US nuclear weapons deployed on their territory to be used if needed by the United States and/or its own air force. All NATO member states participate in the NATO Nuclear Planning Group, where the implementation of the nuclear policy and organization of exercises are discussed. France is an exception, after pulling out of the NATO military structure in 1966.
NATO’s nuclear cooperation has been criticized for violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or at least being against the spirit of the treaty. Article I of the NPT prohibits the five official nuclear-weapon states — the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France and China — are not allowed to transfer nuclear weapons to “any recipient whatsoever”. According to Article II of the treaty, non-nuclear-weapon states are not allowed to produce or in any other way acquire nuclear weapons.
Nuclear non-proliferation
Since 1968, when the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty established five official nuclear-weapon states, another few states have acquired nuclear weapons. These new possessors of nuclear weapons are called de facto nuclear-weapon states, but are not considered official nuclear-weapon states under the NPT. India and Pakistan are de facto nuclear-weapon states that proved their nuclear-weapon capacity by nuclear testing in 1998. North Korea conducted nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009. Israel is yet to confirm its nuclear weapons officially, but the existence of Israeli nuclear weapons is considered a well-established fact.
As long as one state possesses nuclear weapons, other states will desire their own nuclear arsenals. What is security to one state will mean insecurity to others. The only way to tackle the problem of nuclear proliferation is by acknowledging that nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation are two sides of the same coin, making complete disarmament of all arsenals in all nuclear-weapon states the only solution to the risk of proliferation. Knowledge of nuclear weapons production and technology will obviously not disappear, but nevertheless the political threat and the international inequality that today make nuclear weapons an attractive alternative to several states can be addressed.
There are two types of nuclear weapons proliferation: vertical and horizontal. The most widely discussed, at least among nuclear-weapon states, is the horizontal spread. It means new states or non-state actors acquire nuclear weapons. Vertical spread means the continuous development and upgrading of nuclear arsenals within nuclear-weapon states. Development of smaller, more “usable” battlefield nuclear weapons is one example of vertical proliferation.
Iran’s nuclear programme
Throughout the years, a number of states have been caught with far-reaching clandestine nuclear weapons programmes, for example, Libya and Iraq. Iran has been one of the most debated cases in recent times. Iran claims its right as a member to the Non-Proliferation Treaty to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. The process of enriching reactor-grade uranium and weapons-grade uranium is, however, the same. The United States and some other nations suspect an Iranian intention to develop nuclear weapons. However, a US National Intelligence Estimate has stated, with a high degree of certainty, that Iran today does not have nuclear weapons, and should not have the technical capacity to develop a nuclear weapon programme until 2015 at the earliest.
Iran has considered itself one of the major powers in the Middle East for centuries. This has resulted in some antagonism from neighbouring Arabic countries. Agents for democratization in Iran during the 20th century were repeatedly let down by governments in Western Europe and the United States. In later years, some groups in Iran have become hostile towards Israel. After the Islamic revolution in 1979, a large fraction if Iran’s army was dissolved and when Iran was attacked by Iraq in 1980 the country could not initially offer much resistance. The war lasted eight years, with a high number of Iranian casualties and refugees.
Since the early 1970s, Iran has had a nuclear programme. In the early years, there were plans to acquire a large number of nuclear reactors. After becoming an Islamic republic, Iran experienced difficulties in importing technology and fuel for its reactors, which led to the desire to run a complete nuclear fuel cycle. With the capacity of enriching uranium for nuclear power use comes the capacity of enriching uranium for nuclear weapons. Iran could, in the future, leave the NPT, just as North Korea did in 2003, and therefore prohibit International Atomic Energy Agency inspections of its facilities.
Nuclear North Korea
There is a great level of uncertainty surrounding the North Korean nuclear weapon program. The country has operated a reactor producing nuclear weapons-grade plutonium since 1986. Independent experts claim it has produced about 43kg of separated plutonium. Depending on technical knowledge and the desired yield, North Korea may have produced something between 5 and 10 nuclear warheads. It is uncertain if it has produced nuclear warheads that actually can be delivered by a missile.
North Korea conducted its first underground nuclear test on October 9, 2006. The expected blast was less than 1 kiloton, which can be compared to the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 with a blast effect of 19 kiloton. The test most likely did not achieve the expected effect, yet showed that North Korea has mastered the nuclear fuel cycle and has the capacity to produce at least more primitive nuclear weapons. It conducted a second nuclear test in 2009.
North Korea was a member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty but announced its withdrawal in early 2003. Only a few months later, North Korean officials revealed for the first time during a roundtable talk with the United States that the country had produced nuclear weapons. It also stated that it possessed and would consider exporting plutonium rods unless the United States would accept bilateral negotiations. Negotiations with North Korea, which have been ongoing for many years with long periods of standstills and cooperation problems, have been conducted under the so-called Six-Party Talks among North Korea, the United States, Japan, South Korea, China and Russia.
UN nuclear watchdog
In order to ensure that nuclear power states do not all of a sudden turn their nuclear technology into nuclear weapon programmes, an international control body was established: the International Atomic Energy Agency. One of its main tasks is to conduct inspections of nuclear power plants and research reactors in all nuclear power states. By signing and ratifying the IAEA Safeguards Agreement and its Additional Protocol, a state allows for short-notice on-site inspections. More than 145 states have joined these agreements. The IAEA is not allowed to conduct inspections in states not party to the safeguards agreement.
Security assurances
A positive security assurance means that a nuclear-weapon state pledges to come to the aid of a non-nuclear-weapon state if that state is the victim of a nuclear attack. A negative security assurance is a declaration that a country will not use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear-weapon state. Many states believe that these assurances should be codified in an unconditional, legally binding instrument. This would be a means to reducing the nuclear proliferation threat, as non-nuclear-weapon states would not need to consider acquiring nuclear weapons for their national security. Through treaties establishing nuclear-weapon-free zones, many states have received these kinds of assurances.
Nuclear terrorism
In recent years, the issue of nuclear terrorism has gained a lot of attention in the international nuclear weapons and disarmament debate, especially after the September 11 attacks. The risk of terrorist groups acquiring a large enough amount of fissile material to produce a smaller nuclear weapon cannot be ruled out. After the fall of the Soviet Union, fissile material may have disappeared, and still today complete control over the world’s stockpiles of uranium, plutonium and dismantled nuclear weapons is lacking. Efforts are made, particularly with the help of the United States, to gain total control over these stockpiles.
Terrorists wishing to produce a nuclear weapon need to get hold of highly enriched uranium (HEU). Approximately 20kg of HEU would be enough to produce a weapon. The easiest way to acquire it involves stealing HEU from a stockpile of excess material or from a research reactor. There are at least a hundred such reactors in the world, often with a serious lack of security arrangements. On the other hand, it would be difficult for terrorists to produce a plutonium bomb, as this requires more advanced technology and competence. There is also the possibility of a nuclear-weapon state transferring a functioning nuclear device to a terrorist group.
Nuclear terrorism could also mean terrorist acts aimed at a nuclear power plant. If the terrorists manoeuvring the planes to hit the World Trade Center on September 11 had instead hit the nearby nuclear power plants on Three Mile Island or a nuclear fuel waste storage facility, large quantities of radioactive particles would have been released, and with the explosion radioactive fallout would have been transported far from the epicentre. The consequences would have been both deaths and acute radiation sickness, and large areas contaminated with radioactive fallout for a long time.
New nuclear doctrines
Partly as a consequence of a changing political and social climate in the world over the last decade, a number of nuclear-weapon states have renewed their nuclear doctrines. For years, it has been considered imperative to keep the threshold for nuclear weapons use very high. In principle, use of nuclear weapons was, during the Cold War, not considered in any other case than retaliating against a nuclear attack. Many nuclear-weapon states issued so-called “no first use” policies, meaning the state would never be the first to use its nuclear weapons against any other actor.
Today this is no longer the case. In March 2005, the US Department of Defense posted and then cancelled a controversial draft revision of its doctrine for nuclear weapons operations on its website. The draft used unusually clear language regarding policies on the use of nuclear weapons in a wide variety of circumstances other than retaliation for nuclear weapons use by another state. In 2006 France launched a new nuclear doctrine, announcing that French nuclear weapons could be used against power centres in states that in any way sponsor terrorist acts aimed at French interests.
Russia, too, has revised its nuclear doctrine to lower the threshold for nuclear weapons use. In January 2008, a radical manifesto was presented by five senior military officials about a new NATO. The suggested manifesto underlines preventive nuclear attack as a necessary alternative for the Western world to stop proliferation of nuclear weapons. The changing attitude to nuclear weapons use can also be seen in the development of smaller, tactical nuclear weapons for battlefield use.
Blix Commission report
The threat of continued proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, or the use of existing weapons by states and non-state actors, is today highly topical. At the same time, the development in recent years indicates a renewed rearmament, rather than steps to terminate states’ possession of weapons of mass destruction. To this background, on the initiative of the United Nations and the Foreign Minister of Sweden Anna Lind, an independent international commission was appointed: the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission.
Hans Blix was asked by the Swedish government to chair the commission and to appoint other commissioners. On October 16, 2003, he presented a group of 14 commissioners from all over the world, with a thorough political, military and diplomatic experience of peace and disarmament work. The commission began its task in January 2004.
It launched its final report Weapons of Terror: Freeing the World of Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Arms on June 1, 2006. The report describes the international system of non-proliferation, disarmament and arms control and includes 60 recommendations as to what the international community — governments, civil society and the business world — can and should do to meet the global challenge posed by weapons of mass destruction. The report and its recommendations have called for great attention all over the world.