Nuclear order and disorder

International Affairs

Volumn 76, Issue 4, 2000, Pages 703-724

  Walker, William ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 0039550223     PISSN: 00205850     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1468-2346.00160     Document Type: Article

References (50)

1. I am aware that this terminology may be controversial. In International Relations theory, but not in many other fields, the word 'system' is now commonly used to refer to a structural entity without normative content (especially in the neo-realist concept of an anarchic 'international system'), in contrast to 'order' which has structural and normative connotations. The systems of deterrence and abstinence alluded to here certainly contain strong normative elements. I have chosen to use the word 'system' in this broader sense (almost interchangeable with 'order') for two reasons: to avoid the linguistic clumsiness, repetitiveness and ambiguity that would have followed the alternative choice of 'order of deterrence' and 'order of abstinence'; and because the term system implies a rich and strong interconnectedness that is wholly appropriate.
2. Reykjavik was the location of the summit between Gorbachev and Reagan at which dramatic arms reduction and disarmament proposals were discussed. The agreements that quickly followed applied to strategic (long-range) nuclear weapons which had the greatest political and symbolic importance. There are today still no agreements covering tactical (short-range) nuclear weapons.
3. These ideas were developed in the Acheson-Lilienthal and Baruch proposals. See John Lewis Gaddis, The United States and the origins of the Cold War, 1941-47 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1972).
4. Kenneth Waltz's writings are, for instance, suffused with appreciation of the effects that nuclear weapons have on the behaviour of nation-states within the international system. This applies as much to general theoretical works such as his Theory of international politics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979) as to his more specialized writings on nuclear weapons. But nowhere does he describe how nuclear order is instituted. If he had given this due attention, he might have been less confident with his argument that 'more may be better' in, among other texts, Scott Sagan and Kenneth Waltz, The spread of nuclear weapons: a debate (New York: W. W. Norton, 1995).
5. Kenneth Waltz's writings are, for instance, suffused with appreciation of the effects that nuclear weapons have on the behaviour of nation-states within the international system. This applies as much to general theoretical works such as his Theory of international politics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979) as to his more specialized writings on nuclear weapons. But nowhere does he describe how nuclear order is instituted. If he had given this due attention, he might have been less confident with his argument that 'more may be better' in, among other texts, Scott Sagan and Kenneth Waltz, The spread of nuclear weapons: a debate (New York: W. W. Norton, 1995).
6. Some military analysts recognized this immediately while for others it was a more gradual awakening (perhaps especially in the Soviet Union). The development of the hydrogen bomb and intercontinental ballistic missile in the early 1950s largely dispelled any doubts.
7. Although this endeavour entailed more than developments in law, the resulting systems of deterrence and abstinence (especially the latter) formed part of the growing 'legalization of world politics' discussed (mainly with reference to the economic sector) in the recent special issue of International Organization. Kenneth Abbott, et al. identify three dimensions of legalization, each of which is present in the nuclear field: obligation (whereby actors are bound by rules and commitments); precision (rules unambiguously define the conduct they require, authorize and proscribe); and delegation (whereby third parties, including international organizations, are granted authority to implement). See Kenneth Abbott, Robert Keohane, Andrew Moravcsik, Anne-Marie Slaughter and Duncan Snidal, 'The concept of legalization', International Organization 54: 3, summer 2000, pp. 401-20.
8. Although this endeavour entailed more than developments in law, the resulting systems of deterrence and abstinence (especially the latter) formed part of the growing 'legalization of world politics' discussed (mainly with reference to the economic sector) in the recent special issue of International Organization. Kenneth Abbott, et al. identify three dimensions of legalization, each of which is present in the nuclear field: obligation (whereby actors are bound by rules and commitments); precision (rules unambiguously define the conduct they require, authorize and proscribe); and delegation (whereby third parties, including international organizations, are granted authority to implement). See Kenneth Abbott, Robert Keohane, Andrew Moravcsik, Anne-Marie Slaughter and Duncan Snidal, 'The concept of legalization', International Organization 54: 3, summer 2000, pp. 401-20.
9. We still know too little about the evolution of Soviet deterrence theory and doctrine. There may be a danger of exaggerating the degree of conformity in Soviet and Western thought and practice in this regard. It also goes without saying that a fully coherent deterrence theory was never developed whether in the US or elsewhere.
10. 3 of the NPT: 'for the purposes of this Treaty, a nuclear-weapon State is one which has manufactured and exploded a nuclear weapon or other nuclear explosive device prior to January 1, 1967'.
11. Article VI states that 'each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes 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 on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control'.
12. There has been a tradition of thought, however, that the anarchic state-centred international system would itself have to be transcended before there could be escape from the threat of political violence coming from nuclear and other weapons. See, for instance, Ken Booth, 'Security and emancipation', Review of International Studies 17: 4, October 1991. A discussion of emancipation and transcendence in International Relations theory, and much else on the subject of international ordering, can be found in Nicholas Rengger, International relations, political theory and the problem of order (London: Routledge, 2000), reviewed in this issue of International Affairs.
13. There has been a tradition of thought, however, that the anarchic state-centred international system would itself have to be transcended before there could be escape from the threat of political violence coming from nuclear and other weapons. See, for instance, Ken Booth, 'Security and emancipation', Review of International Studies 17: 4, October 1991. A discussion of emancipation and transcendence in International Relations theory, and much else on the subject of international ordering, can be found in Nicholas Rengger, International relations, political theory and the problem of order (London: Routledge, 2000), reviewed in this issue of International Affairs.
14. There has been a tradition of thought, however, that the anarchic state-centred international system would itself have to be transcended before there could be escape from the threat of political violence coming from nuclear and other weapons. See, for instance, Ken Booth, 'Security and emancipation', Review of International Studies 17: 4, October 1991. A discussion of emancipation and transcendence in International Relations theory, and much else on the subject of international ordering, can be found in Nicholas Rengger, International relations, political theory and the problem of order (London: Routledge, 2000), reviewed in this issue of International Affairs.
15. An earlier changing of the game, over nuclear trade (the Carter Policy), need not be discussed here.
16. Frances Fitzgerald, Way out there in the blue: Reagan and Star Wars and the end of the Cold War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000).
17. The commitments made in SALT and other bilateral treaties with the USSR continued, however, to be honoured.
18. This is not to imply that the current proposals share quite the same fantastical qualities as the Strategic Defense Initiative.
19. See Lawrence Freedman, The revolution in strategic affairs, Adelphi Paper 318 (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the International Institute for Strategic Studies, April 1998).
20. The term 'marginalization' was usually avoided by governments because it lacked the finality and normative status of disarmament. But Camborne and Garrity are correct in asserting that marginalization was the guiding principle, especially in the US government of the time. See S. Camborne and P. Garrity, 'The future of US nuclear policy', Survival 76: 4, winter 1994-5, pp. 73-95.
21. This last project entailed, in particular, the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program which channelled funds from the US defence budget into rendering secure weapon-related fissile materials and facilities in the former Soviet Union.
22. By 1996, only five states - India, Israel, Pakistan, Brazil and Cuba - remained outside the NPT. Brazil joined the Treaty in 1998.
23. By the late 1990s, NWFZ were in force in Antarctica, Latin America and the South Pacific, and had been negotiated in South-East Asia and Africa.
24. This was the least successful of all these initiatives. In London and Washington, government officials used the prospect of capping these programmes to garner political support for the FMCT and, in some degree, the CTBT. This was a mistake: it detracted from the wider significance of these treaties and made them vulnerable to any failure to convince India, Israel and Pakistan that their programmes should be capped.
25. See George Perkovich's fine study, India's nuclear bomb: implications for global proliferation (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1999).
26. Anxieties that such a shift was occurring were also aroused inter alia by the US Senate's reluctance to ratify arms control treaties and agreements with Russia; its unilateral exemption of the US from certain provisions of the CWC; the US government's obstruction of efforts to strengthen the Biological & Toxin Weapons Convention (a multilateral treaty dating from 1972 which had banned these weapons without providing any means of verification) on the grounds that verification could not work and the Convention might damage American commercial interests (a telling statistic is that the US had by June 2000 submitted only six out of the 415 governmental working papers supporting these efforts); and the huge investments to develop alternative testing techniques under the Department of Energy's Stockpile Stewardship Program, including the National Ignition Facility.
27. Richard Litwak, Rogue states and US foreign policy: containment after the Cold War (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000). The manner in which potential threats from rogue states and from biological weapons were used, among other arguments, to discourage a comprehensive review of US deterrence policy in the early 1990s is discussed in Janne Nolan's fascinating An elusive consensus: nuclear weapons and American security after the Cold War (Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1999).
28. Richard Litwak, Rogue states and US foreign policy: containment after the Cold War (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000). The manner in which potential threats from rogue states and from biological weapons were used, among other arguments, to discourage a comprehensive review of US deterrence policy in the early 1990s is discussed in Janne Nolan's fascinating An elusive consensus: nuclear weapons and American security after the Cold War (Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1999).
29. Although these states (and Libya) attracted most attention, the challenge was not limited to them. Especially in the Middle East, other states were developing chemical and biological weapon capabilities despite international efforts to prohibit them.
30. The US-North Korean Agreed Framework established a phased programme leading to the dismantlement of the North Korean nuclear weapon capability and the submission of its fissile materials to IAEA safeguards.
31. A book that conveys this mood tellingly is Ashton Carter and William Perry, Preventive defense: a new security strategy for America (Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1999). How the factors identified in the following indented text underpinned calls for missile defences is very evident in Keith Payne, 'Looming security threats: the case for National Missile Defense', Orbis 44: 2, Spring 2000, pp. 187-96.
32. A book that conveys this mood tellingly is Ashton Carter and William Perry, Preventive defense: a new security strategy for America (Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1999). How the factors identified in the following indented text underpinned calls for missile defences is very evident in Keith Payne, 'Looming security threats: the case for National Missile Defense', Orbis 44: 2, Spring 2000, pp. 187-96.
33. Samuel Huntington, The clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order (London: Touchstone Books, 1997).
34. There were fierce arguments between the Russian and US governments over the Russian decision to help Iran complete its Bushehr nuclear power reactors; and by concluding a sale of power reactors to India in 1998, Russia was retreating from the policy of full-scope safeguards that had been adopted by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (of which it was a member) in 1992. The Russian government claimed in mitigation that negotiation of the deal had begun before 1992.
35. For an interesting attempt to develop an approach that bridges counter- and non-proliferation, see Brad Roberts, 'From non-proliferation to anti-proliferation', International Security 18: 1, summer 1993, pp. 139-73.
36. The criteria were technical progress, the threat, system costs and the impact on arms control.
37. A sustained and influential critique of NMD has been provided by Theodore Postol among others. See, for instance, George Lewis, Theodore Postol and John Pike, 'Why national missile defense won't work', Scientific American 281: 2, August 1999, pp. 22-7.
38. While this intent was clearest in relation to China, the following extract from an article by Loren Roberts shows that some US analysts also had Russia in mind: 'In the years after the end of the Cold War, defense became both more feasible and more necessary…some US intelligence analysts believe that the [Russian nuclear] arsenal will deteriorate to less than 1000 usable weapons by 2010. Defense will accordingly be easier, especially if attack comes in the form of a limited - accidental or unauthorized - nuclear launch. But the same internal decay driving down warhead numbers also makes nuclear accidents, security breakdowns and proliferation more likely. With assumed stability of the Cold War era gone, active defense becomes more necessary'. See 'Military supremacy and how we keep it', Policy Review 77, October-November 1999.
39. An account of recent debates in Moscow about the orientation of Russian defence policy is provided by Nikolai Sokov, 'The "denuclearization" of Russia's defence policy', Disarmament Diplomacy 48, July 2000, pp. 15-18. It is possible that the Kursk submarine accident in August 2000 might also convince the Russian political and military elites that the competitive game was becoming too dangerous to play even by the modified rules of the post-Cold War era.
40. On the implications of the NMD proposals for China, see Brad Roberts, Robert Manning and Ronald Montaperto, 'China: the forgotten nuclear power', Foreign Affairs 79: 4, July/August 2000, pp. 53-63.
41. Rather than respond directly to the Indian nuclear threat, China has countered it partly by helping Pakistan to build up its deterrent capabilities.
42. Inside and outside government, many Americans were appalled by this trend, but they were unable to arrest it. See, for instance, the impassioned editorials by Spurgeon Keeny in successive issues of Arms Control Today, the journal of the Arms Control Association.
43. For discussions of the Conference, see Rebecca Johnson, 'The 2000 NPT Review Conference: a delicate, hard-won compromise', Disarmament Diplomacy 46, May 2000, pp. 2-20; and especially Tariq Rauf, 'An unequal success? Implications of the NPT Review Conference', Arms Control Today 30: 6, July/August 2000, pp. 9-16. One should not overlook the importance of the prior meetings held by the US and Egyptian governments to resolve differences over Israel and its responsibilities.
44. For discussions of the Conference, see Rebecca Johnson, 'The 2000 NPT Review Conference: a delicate, hard-won compromise', Disarmament Diplomacy 46, May 2000, pp. 2-20; and especially Tariq Rauf, 'An unequal success? Implications of the NPT Review Conference', Arms Control Today 30: 6, July/August 2000, pp. 9-16. One should not overlook the importance of the prior meetings held by the US and Egyptian governments to resolve differences over Israel and its responsibilities.
45. In Article VI, Paragraph 15.7 of the Final Document, reference is made to preserving and strengthening the ABM Treaty. By using 'strengthening' as a euphemism for 'amendment', the drafters of the Final Document cleverly averted controversy.
46. The Final Document recognizes the necessity of negotiating the FMCT, but effectively makes it conditional upon the Conference on Disarmament (where the treaty would be negotiated) agreeing a programme of work. In recent months, China has insisted that negotiation of a treaty prohibiting the militarization of outer space should be part of this programme, a demand that the US in particular has not been prepared to accept.
47. On 4 June 2000 in Moscow, Presidents Clinton and Putin also highlighted this word when signing a Joint Statement of Principles of Strategic Stability, which was followed in Okinawa on 21 July by their Joint Statement on Cooperation on Strategic Stability.
48. For reasons of space, I have been unable to give due attention to regional approaches to nuclear ordering, and to the essential role of conflict resolution (Kashmir and Taiwan being high on the list). Daryll Howlett and his colleagues warn that 'the existence of disparities between geographic areas of high and low nuclear salience is likely to create the potential for retrograde steps in regions where disarmament has been moving forward. One way to help prevent this outcome would be for policy-makers to take a contextual approach to security - one that emphasizes and attempts to understand the regional context of nuclear behaviour'. See Darryl Howlett, Tanya Ogilvie-White, John Simpson and Emily Taylor, Nuclear weapons policy at the crossroads (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2000).
49. See 'Nuclear Missile Defense', Fact Sheet, Office of the Press Secretary, The White House, Washington DC, 1 September 2000. The Fact Sheet states that 'the NMD program is sufficiently promising and affordable to justify continued development and testing, but…there is not sufficient information about the technical and operational effectiveness of the entire NMD system to move forward with deployment'.
50. Early September 2000 also saw the collapse of the case against Wen Ho Lee, the Los Alamos scientist accused of transferring warhead design information to China; and the US Senate's decision to cap expenditure on the National Ignition Facility (and submit its programme to independent review) which had aroused concerns that weapons laboratories would use it to develop new warhead designs, thereby undermining the CTBT's purpose. Together with the predictions that Senator Gore would probably win the coming federal election, the tide was perceptibly if not decisively turning.