In this essay, I look into the dilemma that sovereign states have when it comes to choosing between their unofficial right to nuclear deterrence and coming to harmonious terms with the global community’s efforts to manage the proliferation of nuclear weapons under a regulatory governance regime. Both contemporary and historical instances are being considered for this brief analysis.
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One week away from today, Iran’s new administration, headed by President Ebrahim Raisi, who took office in August earlier this year, will engage in its first-ever negotiation with the world powers in Vienna on reviving the nuclear deal that was agreed in 2015, but it has been caught in a state of limbo since 2018 with the withdrawal of the United States from it that year. Negotiations will resume after a gap of five months on November 29.
Further away, in the Korean peninsula, tensions have been stirring up lately with the testing of ballistic missiles of varied capacities by the two Korean states, with one being a nuclear-weapon state on its own and the other coming under the US nuclear umbrella. In the Indo-Pacific, Australia is poised to acquire nuclear-powered submarines in the next one-and-a-half years, as a result of a deal reached between the United States and the United Kingdom (AUKUS) in mid-September, this year.
And, I write this from a country that is sandwiched between two nuclear-weapon states and is itself one – India, home to a billion-plus people. South Asia accommodates two nuclear-weapon states – India and Pakistan – with an alarming one-fourth of the world’s population in a densely populated geography. The region also borders a continent-sized nuclear state – China, home to another billion-plus people.
The ties between India and China have turned adversarial in the past few years, particularly in the backdrop of a 19-month-long border standoff in eastern Ladakh that is still alive. A recent Pentagon report warned that that China is expanding its nuclear arsenal and capabilities faster than expected, inter alia. Perhaps, no region on the planet is as volatile and vulnerable to the nuclear endgame as South Asia is.
India still has not come to terms with the Treaties of Nuclear Non-Proliferation (NPT) and the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). She has her genuine security reasons to be so, and so do the other eight states possessing nuclear weapons, of which some exist within a highly hostile and deeply contested neighbourhood, particularly in South Asia and Northeast Asia. Unfortunately, the influential states in these regions bear the historical baggage of enmity towards each other.
The choices of sovereign states, to be or not to be
According to the latest data of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Russia and the U.S. together possess over 90 per cent of the world’s nuclear weapons. The extension of the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) by the military superpowers for five years in February, this year, brings much hope.
However, the real danger might come from the remaining 10 per cent stock of nuclear weapons and how it is being handled by the other seven nuclear states, particularly when it is in the hands of leaders with unpredictable or reckless behaviour such as in the case of North Korea.
At the same time, several examples can be hand-picked from history wherein nuclear diplomacy did triumph in every respect. The former Soviet republic of Ukraine dismantled its nuclear arsenal in 1994, which was believed to have been the world’s third largest at that time, in return for security assurances from the U.S., Russia, and the U.K.
Likewise, South Africa voluntarily ended her nuclear programme by 1991 and embraced the NPT. Mongolia, a country land-locked between two nuclear-armed giants, Russia and China, declared herself nuclear-free in 1992.
The treaties and the realities of nuclear governance
It is highly imperative today to arrive at the right balance between the unofficial right of nuclear deterrence of individual sovereign states and the regimes of nuclear governance at regional and global levels, using diplomatic negotiations as a tool.
It is true that the capacity for nuclear deterrence should not be limited only to a few handful of states, and at the same time there is also an all-time high demand to regulate weaponizing nuclear power and its horizontal and vertical proliferation around the globe.
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) entered into force in January, this year, in lines with the 1972 biological weapons convention and the 1993 chemical weapons convention. However, the TPNW overlooks a much more complex scenario.
Unlike the NPT that came into force in 1970, the TPNW is rejected by all the nuclear states equally and almost all of the American or Russian allies coming under their respective nuclear umbrella, including Japan, the world’s only victim of a nuclear attack. This is because agreeing on a complete ban would render their possession of nuclear weapons illegal in the eyes of international law, even if it is for the purpose of deterrence.
The UN is still not regarded as a world-level government that can strictly enforce its authority over the individual sovereign states, and the latter still reserves its indefeasible right to decide on how to perceive or attach legality to the TPNW based on their unique security circumstances.
In all practical sense, the TPNW is reflective of the wishful thinking of a nuclear-weapons-free world, but it is very much the ultimate goal of global nuclear governance. But, why is it still a distant dream? To understand that, we will have to get a glimpse of what the NPT entails, including its flaws.
Looking through the NPT
Today, the NPT largely remains successful, with 191 states supporting it, including five nuclear states. The treaty happens to be the world’s only legally-binding multilateral agreement that is purpose-driven towards the goal of complete nuclear disarmament, both horizontally and vertically. The NPT is relatively closer to reality than the TPNW, but not too close.
The idea of an all-round nuclear prohibition, per se, seems far-fetched, considering the global spread of knowledge about the myriad uses of nuclear energy today. However, the use of it for military purposes is ‘preventable’ and ‘regulatable’, rather than ‘bannable’, even though complete disarmament is the utmost necessity of a peaceful and stable world.
The safeguards system, as envisioned in the NPT and entrusted with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for implementation is proving to be an effective mechanism in the prevention of the diversion of nuclear technology or nuclear-potential materials towards weapon-making, the most recent example being the ongoing negotiations with Iran.
It has been 51 years since the NPT came into effect. However, it is not free of its flaws, even today, particularly considering the persistent allegation of non-P5 nuclear-weapon states that the NPT is inherently discriminatory in nature and divides the world into ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’. India is one of the only five countries that either did not sign the NPT or have signed but withdrew from it.
India has opposed the international treaties aimed at non-proliferation as they were selectively applicable to the non-nuclear powers, thereby legitimising the monopoly of the five P5 nuclear-weapon states. This is clearly evident from the stipulation of January 1, 1967 as the cut-off date to determine the status of being a nuclear-weapon state. This is a serious flaw of the NPT which has to be rectified.
The need for regional-level efforts alongside
Confidence-building measures (CBMs) among regional rivals would go a long way in minimizing their mutual trust deficit, and it can be done with the support of regional groupings such as the East Asia Summit or the SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) and organisations such as the United Nations, IAEA, or ICAN (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons).
Of all the nuclear regions today, North America and Western Europe have evolved into a trusted security community and remains largely at peace, unlike Eurasia or West Asia, where people live in the shadow of a nuclear-edged sword of Damocles that dangles over their everyday lives. Being nuclear-weapons free zones (NWFZs), Southeast Asia and Central Asia can act as role models for the rest of Asia and the world, so do the South Pacific, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.
The truest sense of security is achievable only by building a regional political consensus for peaceful co-existence, rather than by an incautious build-up of deterrence capabilities by individual states that could only give a parochial sense of security, as seen in the periodic flare-ups that occur in the frontier areas between India, on the one hand, and China and Pakistan on the other, despite all three being nuclear-weapon states.
The realistic way ahead
If a state is to be practically prevented from going nuclear, the multilateral system needs to categorically assuage all the apprehensions surrounding its security and survival in a supposedly hostile region, and should fill the gaps in access to nuclear technology for cheap energy generation and other peaceful purposes by channelizing the needed expertise.
Concrete action should, thus, come from the states, supported by the strong political and diplomatic will to reconcile varying interests. All allegations against the global nuclear governance regime that it is being discriminatory in any manner have to be dealt with in a pro-active and realistic manner by bringing in all the concerned stakeholders to the negotiating table.
If the aforementioned steps are executed in a proper manner, aspiring nuclear states can effectively be persuaded against nuclear armament. Moreover, the current nuclear states can be guided in the direction of a gradual, step-by-step disarmament, using the existing diplomatic and legal mechanisms. However, this could not be possible without involving the big powers and the concerned international organisations in its every stage. Thus, a realistic way out of this unending nuclear dilemma is not impossible to be figured out.
