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

Summary and Recommendations

The world situation is precarious and requires the reinforcement of multilateral security treaties, particularly in regard to nuclear non-proliferation. North Korea has withdrawn from the NPT. There is increasing discussion even in Japan about the acquisition of nuclear weapons. There is more and more concern that Iran may become a nuclear weapon state. A world of nuclear haves and nuclear have-nots is becoming untenable.

A continued slide by the United States and its NATO allies in the direction of NPT violations could greatly increase proliferation dangers and even contribute to the collapse of the NPT and nuclear chaos. As the United States prepares to operationalize its new nuclear doctrine by building new nuclear weapons manufacturing plants, designing new types of nuclear weapons, and continuing its preparations to resume testing, the responsibilities of the allies of the United States to help stave off such an eventuality are greater and more urgent than ever.

1. The United States is continuing to maintain readiness to test nuclear weapons and is very likely to officially commence research into new weapon types.
2. The most urgent issues for NATO are the nuclear test moratoria and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). All NATO states except the United States have ratified the CTBT and have committed to ensuring its entry into force. The test ban is intimately linked with the nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament goals of the NPT. For any state to test a nuclear weapon would, in effect, be declaring its abandonment of its NPT commitments, a circumstance that would likely lead to testing by other states, both within and outside the NPT.
3. If the United States resumes testing nuclear weapons, those weapons may be incorporated into NATO nuclear policy. Integration into NATO of a weapon developed through resumed testing would put NATO allies in violation at least in the spirit of their fundamental CTBT obligations.
4. Global security requires reinforcement of multilateral security treaties, particularly in regard to nuclear non-proliferation. The further undermining of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) by the United States and its NATO allies could greatly increase proliferation dangers. The NPT is under great and increasing strain from the double standard under which a few states insist on the prerogative of maintaining nuclear arsenals, while denying them to others, in ways that can even include the use of force.
5. Between 1995 and 2000, three major developments gave sufficient specificity and clarity to the disarmament obligations of the NPT, so that all parties to the NPT have explicit obligations to further the goal of the complete elimination of nuclear weapons. Specifically, all nuclear weapons states affirmed at the 1995 NPT Review Conference that they are obliged to achieve complete nuclear disarmament, and at the 2000 Review Conference to take specific, irreversible steps to achieve it. In 1996, the International Court of Justice affirmed in a unanimous advisory opinion that nuclear weapons states were obliged to achieve complete nuclear disarmament.
6. While the five nuclear-weapon-states parties to the NPT have the principal obligation to achieve the explicit goal of total elimination, non-nuclear parties also have a major role to play both in ensuring the non-proliferation end of their bargain and in steering the nuclear weapons states toward upholding their NPT disarmament commitments.
7. The United States is in violation of its NPT commitments to complete nuclear disarmament and to create an irreversible direction of its military policy towards complete nuclear disarmament. Contrary to the express commitment made at the NPT Review Conference in the Year 2000, the United States has abandoned the ABM Treaty. It has also abandoned its longstanding commitment to ratify and adhere to a CTBT. It has announced that the test moratorium now in effect is not likely to be permanent and is not being maintained as an international obligation. U.S. policies regarding its nuclear-related treaty obligations have serious implications for its NATO allies.
8. NATO continues to rely on nuclear weapons as an "essential political and military link" and the "supreme guarantee" of alliance security. NATO maintains a policy that relies on the threat of use of nuclear weapons under circumstances that are not well-defined. All NATO states, with the exception of France, are involved in the nuclear planning group, which determines among other things, issues of deployment of nuclear weapons; and the United States has deployed an estimated 150 to 180 nuclear weapons on seven European NATO states, six of which are non-nuclear weapon states. As long as these policies endure, NATO countries cannot in good faith claim that they are making the progress toward disarmament that has been demanded as an NPT Article VI obligation since 1995.

We therefore recommend that the NATO allies of the United States, and in particular its non-nuclear allies, call for adoption of the following measures before the 2005 Review Conference of the NPT:

1. Test ban: The NATO allies of the United States should immediately inform the United States that a nuclear test would put their obligations under the NPT and CTBT in conflict with their NATO membership. That would likely precipitate a much larger crisis between Europe and the United States, and hence also in the world. They should inform the United States formally that it is crucial that the U.S. commit itself to maintaining the nuclear test moratorium indefinitely and to resuming the path of CTBT ratification if it wishes to avoid a major rift within NATO. This is the most important short-term step that the NATO allies of the United States should take. A formal communication regarding the need to make the nuclear test moratorium permanent and ratify the CTBT is highly desirable to help stem the slide toward proliferation and nuclear chaos that is becoming more serious as world events are evolving at present. It should be sent to the United States before the Preparatory Committee meeting of the NPT parties in April-May 2004, and in any case before the 2005 NPT Review Conference.
2. Negative security assurances: It is also crucial that the NATO allies of the United States make a commitment to a formal policy within NATO that negative security assurances to non-nuclear NPT parties are binding and that this should be reflected in an explicit and unconditional no-first-use nuclear weapons policy for NATO.³
3. NATO de-nuclearization: The NATO allies of the United States should work for a de-nuclearization of NATO by a) withdrawal of U.S. nuclear weapons now stationed in six non-nuclear member states of NATO (Belgium, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Turkey) and in Britain, b) dismantlement of the nuclear infrastructure in Europe related to U.S. nuclear weapons and not certifying follow-on delivery systems (such as the Typhoon aircraft/"Eurofighter") for nuclear weapons use and c) an end to the nuclear sharing arrangements, which are of dubious legality at best, that could result in a transfer of U.S. nuclear weapons to its NATO allies in time of war.

If the United States refuses to withdraw its nuclear weapons from non-nuclear NATO states, they might consider the model of New Zealand and adopt domestic legislation to make their countries into nuclear free zones. Further, a withdrawal of U.S. nuclear weapons from European territory and an end to nuclear sharing in NATO would relieve the NATO allies of the United States of legal responsibility for U.S. nuclear policy or U.S. nuclear tests, and put them in a much better position to save the NPT should the U.S. decide to test a nuclear weapon. An adoption of such a policy by the NATO allies of the United States along with steps to try to preserve a permanent end to testing may be the most important single step that they could take to prevent the NPT from collapsing.

The NPT is already under great stress on several fronts due to (i) the failure of the nuclear weapon states, led by the United States, to fulfill their NPT obligations, (ii) the continued failure to make any progress on a nuclear weapon free zone in the Middle East in the context of persistent severe violence in Israel/Palestine, (iii) the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review, which mentions several non-nuclear states as potential nuclear weapon targets, (iv) the nuclear ambitions of North Korea, which has announced its withdrawal from the NPT, and possibly Iran, a non-nuclear party to the NPT, (v) the failure of the nuclear weapons states to provide unequivocal and verifiable negative security assurances, and (vi) increasing pressures in some non-nuclear states to develop nuclear weapons in light of the above. The U.S.-British war on Iraq has added to these stresses.

In the face of these stresses, the NATO allies of the United States, whose partnership is based on a multilateral treaty, should be committed to the international rule of law, the system in which states agree to a set of restraints in exchange for increased security and protection of rights. The laws that make up this system are in urgent need of strengthening and improved compliance. The question posed by this report is whether the non-nuclear members of NATO are willing to take the necessary steps to ensure compliance with the spirit of two key treaties, the NPT and the CTBT, and whether they can act to restrain other more powerful actors from their refusal to adhere to this system. NATO's policy of continued reliance on nuclear weapons and the U.S. maintenance of an active option of testing have created a situation in which the global disarmament obligations of NATO states are on a collision course with continued membership in NATO.

The 2005 Review Conference of the NPT is likely to be turbulent even if the US would change its nuclear policy for the better. It could be a catastrophe if there is no change of course regarding Article VI commitments on the part of the nuclear weapon states and the NATO allies of the United States, and unless the test moratorium is maintained by all nuclear weapons states. It is therefore crucial that the NATO allies of the United States, and particularly the NATO non-nuclear states, should act on these recommendations before the start of the 2005 NPT Review Conference.

The governments of the NATO allies of the United States are in various states and levels of agreement with U.S. nuclear policies as it relates to NATO. There has been modest disagreement, but that has been papered over and not risen to the level needed to change policy. It will be up to the people of the NATO allies of the United States to re-invigorate the movements for nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation that have been so vigorous in the past so that they can pressure their governments to take urgent action to fulfill their disarmament commitments.

We believe that our recommendations are not only important for the NATO allies of the United States and for the NPT and CTBT. They are also crucial for the United States and its security. In the past few years, the United States has been turning its back on many of its treaty obligations and on its own best tradition regarding the rule of law. It needs the help of its friends to steer itself away from its unilateralist course onto a path that will be more secure for everyone, including itself.

Next: Chapter I. Disarmament Obligations and the NPT