| “Today – on what happens to be the 30th anniversary of the talks that led to the Limited Test Ban Treaty – I declare my hope and declare it from the bottom of my heart that we will eventually see the time when the number of nuclear weapons is down to zero and the world is a much better place.”
These insights were offered by General Colin Powell to the U.S. Army in 1993. Powell’s wishes were undeniably idealistic. They were also wholly universalistic. But this seems to be exactly the predicament of anti-nuclear sentiment – hopeful it starts, hopeful it remains.
The first of July marks the fortieth anniversary of the signing one of the most important anti-nuclear documents in history.
On that historic day in 1968, 58 nations including the cold war superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NNT.) The treaty, which consists of a preamble and eleven articles, is widely interpreted as having three cornerstones, or pillars: non-proliferation, disarmament, and the right to peacefully use nuclear technology.
The treaty, however, has seen both success and failure. Crucially, such international covenants depend upon the ‘goodwill,’ or consent, of nation-states to ratify and enforce their obligations. Equally, reservations may be made under international law, with states able to modify legal obligations, and even to withdraw from, suspend or terminate treaties.
This has been the case with the NNT. Four nations have declined signing the covenant: India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea. India and Pakistan have been confirmed as nuclear powers, both possessing and having tested nuclear devices – India in 1974 and Pakistan in 1998, as a reaction to another Indian test.
Israel has maintained a stance of uncertainty regarding its nuclear program, with the government repeatedly refusing to deny or confirm weapon possession or use. Some intelligence sources have claimed that a site for developing weapons has been operating at Dimona since 1958 – analyst David Albright has estimated that as many as 100-200 warheads may have been manufactured there. In 1986, Mordechai Vanunu, a nuclear technician, openly broke Israel’s secret about itsweapons program by revealing details to the U.K. Sunday Times.
North Korea, however, is perhaps the nuclear world’s most infamous member. It ratified the NNT in 1985, and then withdrew in 2003. The U.S. had alleged that the ‘rogue’ nuclear state had been illegally enriching uranium for its weapons program, a fact that North Korea confirmed in 2005. Then, on October 3, 2006, the country announced an imminent test, with U.S. reporting a 4.2 seismic disturbance 15 km from the city of Kimchaek on October 9, 2006. Whilst international condemnation was unanimous, multiple sources have since disputed the success of the detonation, arguing that the test was a failure and did not fulfil expectations.
The NNT was not, however, the only treaty designed to minimise the spread of nuclear weapons. The 1972 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I) halted the spread of missiles at 1972 levels; the 1979 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II) placed a 2,400 ‘cap’ on delivery vehicles; and the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty imposed a limit of 6,000 warheads. The 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty also banned all nuclear explosions in all environments, for military and civilian purposes – 26 out of 44 nations both signed and ratified the treaty. India, Pakistan, and North Korea did neither.
The now-famous doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) continues to be invoked well after the Cold War as a pertinent reminder of the fact that total nuclear warfare, if it occurred, would result in nuclear annihilation. The doctrine, which was widely used in the 1960s during the tenancy of Robert S. McNamara as U.S. Secretary of Defence, asserts that both attacker and attackee would launch nuclear weapons at each other after the first attack – thereby resulting in total annihilation, and hence mutual destruction.
Several international organisations have also been established to oversee the NTT. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is the most significant of these, and has attempted to maintain an active check on weapon creation and distribution since its establishment in 1957. Whilst the organisation has provided a minimum level of transparency and information-sharing, numerous loopholes have been identified in the system – the most significant being the 1991 revelation that Iraq had been developing a clandestine missile programme, in breach of international law and in contradiction to its own submission to the IAEA.
Treaties like the NNT and organisations like the IAEA are significant developments in the attempt to rid the world of nuclear weapons. Yet a full resolution to the nuclear question is still caught between a complex international security dilemma and the lofty hopes of idealism.
Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General of IAEA, expressed this conflict when he delivered his Nobel lecture in Oslo in 2005.
“Imagine what would happen if the nations of the world spent as much on development as on building the machines of war. Imagine a world where every human being would live in freedom and dignity. Imagine a world in which we would shed the same tears when a child dies in Darfur or Vancouver. Imagine a world where we would settle our differences through diplomacy and dialogue and not through bombs or bullets. Imagine if the only nuclear weapons remaining were the relics in our museums. Imagine the legacy we could leave to our children,” he said.
“Imagine that such a world is within our grasp.”
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