Chapter III. Role of Non-Nuclear NATO Members in Promoting Disarmament

Chapter III. Role of Non-Nuclear NATO Members in Promoting Disarmament

Many NATO members have already begun urging the United States to meet its treaty obligations on a variety of fronts including the CTBT, the NPT, and the Kyoto Protocol. They have also advocated U.S. participation in the International Criminal Court, or at the very least and end to the efforts to undermine it. As former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott observed:

Clyde Prestowitz, a lifelong Republican, has argued at length in his book that the friends of the United States around the world are increasingly viewing it as "The Rogue Nation,"⁸² a most unfortunate development for the country that did so much to bring the idea of the rule of law into the world's political and legal arrangements.

So far, other NATO members have failed to gain U.S. support for the CTBT and for better compliance with the NPT. Moderate persuasion has failed. Indeed, U.S. policies in regard to nuclear weapons have become more militant and more rejectionist in relation to the CTBT and to U.S. NPT obligations. This has created an uncomfortable problem for the allies of the United States, and especially its non-nuclear allies. They must either put more pressure on the United States to comply, or risk falling into non-compliance with their NPT and CTBT obligations themselves.

The NATO allies, as members of the world's most powerful military alliance, have a heavy responsibility for steering the United States and the world away from the potentially disastrous course it is now leading. Yet their current policies as part of NATO are abetting a set of U.S. actions that, along with other incidents of proliferation, are rapidly putting the NPT in grave peril. The current proliferation situation is alarming, indeed. The volatility of the Middle East conflict, which shows no sign of abating, is made worse by the fact that Israel has nuclear weapons. Iran appears to have growing nuclear ambitions. However, it should be noted that, as of this writing, Iran has not been officially declared in non-compliance with its NPT obligations. However, leading Iranians, pointing to Israel, India, Pakistan, and the United States have pointed to a double standard and raised questions about why they should continue to forswear nuclear weapons.⁸³ North Korea withdrew from the NPT in January 2003 without the requisite three months notice and is likely pursuing a nuclear weapons program. That determination may have been strengthened by the U.S.-British war on Iraq, which was attacked without explicit U.N. Security Council authorization even after it submitted to U.N.-mandated inspections. These circumstances strongly suggest that all parties to the NPT must do whatever they reasonably can to strengthen it, or the NPT may fall apart.

We propose that the NATO allies of the United States adopt policies in the following areas in order to resolve the conflict between their membership in NATO and their commitments under the NPT and CTBT:

• Inform the United States that (i) it is essential that the U.S. respect the nuclear test moratorium and resume the path to CTBT ratification and (ii) a nuclear test by the United States would put their CTBT and NPT obligations in conflict with their NATO obligations, possibly forcing a difficult choice upon them and creating a very volatile situation for Europe, NATO, and the world.
• Urge and immediate, explicit, and unconditional no-first-use nuclear weapons policy for NATO.
• Permanent withdrawal of U.S. nuclear weapons from the six non-nuclear member states of NATO and no basing of nuclear weapons on the territory of another state, even if the other state is a nuclear-weapon state.
• An end to the nuclear sharing policy of NATO.

The achievement of the last two items would essentially make for a non-nuclear NATO and remove the threat that U.S. actions may make the non-nuclear members of NATO in non-compliance with the CTBT and NPT. That would also put them in a far better position to help salvage the NPT and CTBT and help put the world on a course to security and complete and universal nuclear disarmament, as required by the NPT.

While the specifics of the U.S. alliance with Japan are different, the broad arguments we have made here also apply to that relationship. Therefore, we also recommend that Japan adopt these general policies in regard to its alliance with the United States, to the extent that they apply.⁸⁴ Specifically, Japan should also make explicit to the United States that a nuclear test would put its commitments in its alliance with the United States in conflict with the spirit of its CTBT and NPT obligations. Japan should also urge the United States to adopt an unconditional no-first-use policy.

With regard to the policies in response to testing, we note that a renewal of testing would be a serious violation of the NPT. We believe that the stakes are so high that the NATO allies of the United States should do all they can to insist that the United States respect the nuclear test moratorium indefinitely.

The issues of no-first-use and nuclear sharing can be considered together. Ending nuclear sharing and adopting a no-first use policy can be made compatible with consultation in NATO on nuclear weapons questions. NATO will, after all, need to consider, how it is going to proceed to play its role in achieving complete nuclear disarmament and such discussions will be needed, if only in that context. If the United States refuses to remove its nuclear weapons, states should enact domestic laws banning the basing of nuclear weapons on their territories. One model for this program would be the domestic legislation of New Zealand which created a nuclear free zone for its territories.

The dangerous patterns that have put the NPT in jeopardy on several fronts must be reversed. Nuclear weapon states and their allies, in addition to seeking the enforcement of the non-proliferation obligations, must meet their NPT obligations. In the grave crisis that is evolving in the world, the measures that we advocate here appear to be the minimal obligations of the NATO allies of the United States if they are to continue to be part of the NPT and the CTBT in good faith.⁸⁵ These steps should be taken on an urgent basis, if possible before the Preparatory Committee meeting in April-May 2004 of the parties to the NPT. In any case, it is necessary to take these steps prior to the 2005 Review Conference, because that will be the point during which countries will be called upon to show their commitments to preserving the NPT and the CTBT.

Footnotes

⁸⁰ We wish to recall here that the analysis is here is largely based on Deller, Makhijani, and Burroughs, eds., 2002, forthcoming as a book published by Apex Press, New York.

⁸⁵ Of course, there is also more that they could do to promote the achievement of the 13 steps specified in the 2000 Review Conference. For instance, it would be highly desirable for the NATO allies of the United States to explicitly call for the removal of all nuclear weapons from high-alert status to reduce the risk of nuclear war by accident or miscalculation. A NATO position in favor of global and verified de-alerting of all nuclear weapons, starting with the removal of U.S. and Russian weapons from high-alert status would be a large step towards fulfillment of the 2000 Review Conference Final Document goals as well as to increasing global nuclear safety.