Brian Bradley
NS&D Monitor
4/3/2015
While five diplomats agreed during last week’s Carnegie Nuclear Policy Conference that the upcoming Review Conference (RevCon) of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty would be successful, Russia’s annexation of Crimea and officials’ nuclear rhetoric are presenting new challenges for diplomats, according to Jacek Bylica, Principal Adviser and Special Envoy for Non-Proliferation and Disarmament for the European Union. “I think there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that the Russian action, especially the violation of the Budapest Memorandum, has inflicted a damage on the prospects on global disarmament and nonproliferation,” he said during a Carnegie NPT panel on March 23. “The question is how great a damage? How great will be the long-term consequences? And same time, one has to recognize that the Russian Federation has a stake in the NPT as one of the recognized NPT nuclear-weapon states and as an exporter of nuclear technology.”
Russia, the U.S. and the United Kingdom in 1994 signed the Budapest Memorandum, which provided “security assurances” to Ukraine in exchange for that country relinquishing its nuclear weapons in 1996. Several geopolitical experts have said Russia’s annexation of Crimea constituted a reneging of the memorandum. In recent months, Russian President Vladimir Putin has also ratcheted up nuclear saber-rattling, most recently saying in a Russian TV documentary that he was considering stationing nuclear weapons in Crimea during his country’s occupation of the territory.
‘I Don’t Think the Sky Will Fall’
While Amb. Adam Scheinman, U.S. Special Representative of the President for Nuclear Nonproliferation, highlighted Russian non-acceptance of a U.S. offer of one-third nuclear stockpile reductions, he also emphasized the continuity and consistency of the New START Treaty, which is bringing trans-Pacific warhead levels to historic lows. Current tensions between the U.S. and Russia could limit the RevCon’s ability to reach consensus, a priority several diplomats have outlined. “Our goal is to go beyond contention and try to focus on a consensus outcome,” Scheinman said. “I don’t think the sky will fall if we fail to achieve a consensus. The treaty will go on. It’s gone on for years. It’s survived the lack of consensus final documents, but it would be a huge lost opportunity, I think, if we take a complacent view and don’t work very hard, deep into the night and take all our vitamins as we prepare for this war of attrition that is the four-week Review Conference.” Amb. Takeshi Hikihara, Director-General for Disarmament, Non-Proliferation and Science in Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, called for the RevCon to address issues including nuclear transparency, further warhead reductions and multilateralization of disarmament negotiations.
Multilateral Disarmament Structure Not Working?
Scheinman decried the state of multilateral disarmament discussions, highlighting recent stagnation in the Conference on Disarmament (CD). Both he and Nilvana Darama, Director of Nonproliferation Affairs in Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, pointed to an impasse in the CD on negotiating a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty. Pakistan blocked talks on such a treaty in 2012, as consensus is required to move forward. “The multilateral disarmament regime is clearly not working very well,” Scheinman said. “The Conference on Disarmament hasn’t negotiated a thing in many, many years, and there’s a tendency to look beyond the [Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty] CTBT and the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty and think about the next or the last step on the disarmament pathway. I think that is fundamentally mistaken, because CTBT and FMCT are both foundational agreements.”
The State Department has recently ramped up efforts to re-educate the American public about the CTBT through addresses at universities and similar groups. Officials have said their goal is to eventually move the discussion to Capitol Hill, hinting at a possible effort before President Barack Obama’s term expires in 2017. The U.S. signed the treaty in 1996, but the Senate did not ratify the treaty when it came before a vote in 1999.
Conference to Start Later this Month
The once-every-five-years NPT RevCon will take place from April 27 to May 22 at United Nations Headquarters in New York. The 2010 RevCon resulted in a final declaration and a 64-point Action Plan addressing the three pillars of disarmament, nonproliferation and peaceful uses of nuclear energy. The final document stopped short of establishing a disarmament deadline as previous final documents did. Specific items in the 2010 Final Document include a commitment by nuclear-weapon states to reduce and ultimately eliminate nuclear weapons through unilateral, bilateral, regional and multilateral measures, a pledge by all nuclear-weapon states to honor existing security assurances, and an encouragement for all states to maintain the “highest possible standards” for security and physical protection of nuclear materials and facilities. The 2005 RevCon resulted in no final document. In an open letter to delegates of the 2010 RevCon, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged the conference to collaborate despite differences of opinion. “There is too much at stake for the conference to repeat the failure of 2005,” he wrote.
Will Middle East Nuke-Free Zone Be Established?
During the last RevCon, establishment of a Middle East Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone was a major sticking point and no agreement was reached. Diplomats on the Carnegie panel indicated the issue would be a nexus of discussion during the meeting, but the RevCon facilitator said he wouldn’t prod to generate a certain outcome. “The parties, including the Arab countries and Israel, have presented important proposals during the preparations,” said Jaakko Laajava, Under Secretary of State for Foreign and Security Policy in the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs. “I want to respect the work that has gone into them and do not want to impose anything on anybody.”
NPT Not ‘Neighborhood Policing Team’
Hikihara said there are many contentious issues surrounding the NPT, but qualified that the treaty does not necessarily have to solve every issue. “Our NPT stands for ‘Nonproliferation Treaty,’” he said at the Carnegie Conference. “It does not stand for, for instance, ‘Neighborhood Policing Team.’” Arms control and nuclear security advocates have recently criticized the speed of which NPT parties have implemented treaty initiatives.
At October’s Arms Control Association annual meeting, Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova, director of the International Organizations and Nonproliferation Program at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, blasted current U.S. nuclear modernization plans, suggesting they could undermine the country’s nonproliferation credibility. “You cannot invest a trillion dollars into something that you plan to get rid of in any kind of stable future,” she said. “So revising that would really help strengthen the U.S. position going into the NPT review conference.”