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Russia and nonproliferation: the way forward
Alexei Arbatov

Nuclear nonproliferation was a cornerstone of cold war international relations, and remains absolutely crucial to the global security environment. After briefly summarising the wider context of historical efforts at disarmament, this article will present evidence that nonproliferation has now moved down the foreign policy priority list of the two major nuclear powers, resulting in a deadlock with nefarious consequences for the global security environment.

A snapshot of post-cold war nuclear proliferation

Among the myths about international security, one is that since the end of the cold war, nuclear weapons proliferation has been inexorably accelerating. It has not. During the four decades of the cold war, seven states had acquired nuclear weapons. Since 1991, while the nuclear club has been joined by three new states, eight have abandoned their military nuclear programmes and let go of nuclear weapons on their territories. Currently, only Iran is suspected of having a nuclear weapons development programme despite its claims of purely peaceful intentions.

The perception of threat of nuclear proliferation is now so acute partly because past fears of a global nuclear war have been alleviated. However, there are still many reasons to worry. First, nations with nuclear military capability that are not party to the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) are located in unstable regions. Second, the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) remain insufficient and many countries have not entered into agreement with the IAEA on comprehensive controls. Third, a "black market" stemming from Pakistan is known to have developed in nuclear materials, technologies and expertise. Fourth, the world nuclear energy market is projected to expand to compensate declining oil and gas reserves, and the spread of nuclear civil technology may facilitate access to military capacity. Fifth, there is a growing danger of terrorist attacks on nuclear stockpiles or of terrorists using nuclear weapons. Finally, the current policies of nuclear NPT member states, primarily the United States and Russia, are also a cause for concern. While reducing the huge surplus of nuclear weapons that remained after the cold war, the Big Five nations continue to modernise their nuclear arsenal, in violation of their NPT obligation to pursue disarmament.

Past efforts at nuclear disarmament

This contemporary de facto abandonment of disarmament goals is all the more worrying if one considers that the biggest successes in enhancing the NPT system and regime happened at the same time as intensive nuclear disarmament talks and real reductions in nuclear weapons were taking place, between 1987 and 1997: the INF Treaty, the three Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties (START), the ABM delineation agreements, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and unilateral reductions of tactical nuclear arms by the US and Russia. During the same period, around 40 new countries, including two nuclear powers, France and China, joined the NPT. The treaty was indefinitely extended in 1995, and the IAEA Additional Protocol was drafted in 1997, providing a theoretically watertight verification system. With 188 UN member states party to it, the NPT became the most universal international agreement and only four states remain outside its framework.

Present trend reversal

However, the tide turned and no treaty on nuclear disarmament was concluded or entered full legal force after the START-1. The United States has embarked on a policy of reneging on nuclear disarmament treaties since the year 2000, and subsequent treaties have not been fully implemented or have failed to acquire a proper verification system. As of today, there are no plans to prolong START-1 after its expiration in 2009, or to provide SORT (2002) with counting rules and a verification system to make it a substantive treaty. Russia also seems to have abandoned the goal of disarmament, suspending its compliance with the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty and threatening to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) in 2007.

This is perceived by most non-nuclear NPT member states as a major failure to fulfil great powers' obligations to pursue disarmament under Article VI of the NPT. Many non-nuclear NPT-signatory states consider US and Russian policy a violation of the understanding reached when the treaty was indefinitely extended in 1995. This undermines the great powers' political capacity to advance a range of measures to bolster the non-proliferation regime. These measures would include making the 1997 IAEA Additional Protocol universal, introducing more stringent procedures and conditions for withdrawing from the NPT, tightening export control rules through the Nuclear Suppliers Group, abandoning national nuclear fuel cycle programmes in favour of international fuel cycle centres, and so on. It is very difficult to impose these measures on non-nuclear states party to the NPT in a situation where nuclear powers give themselves almost complete freedom in their military nuclear activities.

Mutual nuclear deterrence: the revival of MAD?

Currently, misperception and conflict have moved to the foreground of US-Russian relations instead of cooperation on nonproliferation. The US and Russia have gone back to mutual nuclear deterrence, with the risk of a new arms race between the great powers. This deadlock in nuclear disarmament talks only serves to fuel the mutual mistrust and suspicion of political elites in these countries. It is in this context that the US plans to deploy ballistic missile defence sites in central Europe against Iran is seen by Russia as a threat to its defence and security.

Mutual deterrence and geopolitical controversies place strict limitations on developing international cooperation between great powers on non-proliferation, particularly on issues such as sanctions against third countries and reaching a common position in negotiations with third states (the six-party talks with North Korea and the negotiations with Iran). The prospects for joint military operations (as part of the Proliferation Security Initiative), and the development of joint missile warning systems and cooperative missile defence projects (which Russia and the US agreed on in 1998 and 2002 respectively) are even more limited.

Nonproliferation on the international agenda

Contrary to many official declarations by governments, ensuring nonproliferation is not a top priority of foreign policy and security strategy, just as nuclear proliferation is not perceived as a principal threat.

Russia's main fears are regarding the instability and bloody conflicts across post-Soviet space, the threat of expanding Muslim radicalism in central Asia, Russia's own geopolitical strength vis-à-vis the rising economic and military power of China, an enlarging Nato encroaching on post-Soviet space, and US plans to deploy BMD sites in the Czech Republic and Poland, and to accept Ukraine and Georgia as Nato members.

Russia is not an exception in giving nonproliferation secondary importance. There are serious doubts as to the real motives of the US military operation in Iraq: whether it was an action of counter-proliferation or whether it was seeking "regime change" under the pretext of nonproliferation. Similar doubts are related to US policy on Iran and North Korea. Likewise, US support for Israel and Pakistan, and recent advances to India with the intention of containing China's power, all obviously have higher priority than nonproliferation. The same is true of the policy of Nato expansion in post-Soviet space, which is being promoted by Washington despite its clear detrimental effect on US-Russian cooperation on nonproliferation.

Official policy statements notwithstanding, there is a broad consensus among Russia's political elite and strategic community that US nonproliferation concerns should not be taken more seriously than Russia's own worries. While Moscow has an interest in enhancing nonproliferation regimes, this is not the main priority of its foreign policy or security strategy. It views the global strategy of nonproliferation and counter-proliferation declared by the United States as a strategy based on double standards, designed to veil other political, military and commercial interests (including nuclear exports). For this reason, Russia is not inclined to sacrifice its own economic and political interests in peaceful nuclear cooperation with other countries for the sake of an abstract nonproliferation ideal. It will give preference to diplomatic and economic instruments for reinforcing the NPT. Russia has supported recent UN Security Council resolutions on Iran and North Korea but will resist "hard sanctions" (ie freezing the Buhsher project, an oil embargo, cutting air and sea communications, etc) and will veto the use of force-at least as long as Iran stays within the NPT.

The present great powers' nonproliferation policies, foremost those of the US and Russia, are virtually in a deadlock. Further increases in US-Russian and Nato-Russian tensions on a number of key issues (Nato expansion, Abkhazia and South Ossetia after Kosovo, Iran, BMD, START-1 follow-on, INF-SRF Treaty etc) will most probably precipitate a general collapse of the NPT regimes and mechanisms - if not de-jure than certainly de-facto as to their nonproliferation effect.

This would be highly detrimental to the long-term interests of both Russia and the west in many respects. Russian national security cannot be ensured in broader terms in a situation of military confrontation and a new arms race with the west. Also, it is hardly possible to imagine Russia evolving as an advanced market economy and democracy without good relations with the United States and gradual economic, political and security integration with the European Union. For the western community, cooperation with and the integration of Russia is equally important in terms of providing for security in Eurasia, gaining from Russia's resources of science, technology and culture, coping with the shortage of supply of energy and raw materials, containing Islamic radicalism, dealing with international terrorism, and preventing China from adopting an expansionist foreign and military course.

The current situation cannot continue as it is. The great powers officially declare that non-proliferation and the fight against international terrorism are their supreme security policy priorities, but they pursue foreign, military, and economic policies based on completely different geopolitical and commercial interests. Even worse is when they act ostensibly in the name of non-proliferation to pursue these interests, thereby discrediting the very concept of non-proliferation and undermining cooperation between NPT parties (as was the case of the military operation in Iraq in 2003).

The way forward

It is necessary to lower the level of tension and rivalry between the great powers, especially between Russia and Nato. Nato should not start expansion to Ukraine and Georgia, and Russia must reconfirm its allegiance to the territorial integrity and sovereignty of its neighbours, providing they remain neutral. The United States and Russia should move rapidly to agree on verification procedures and warhead counting rules in implementing the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty of 2002. The conflict over planned US deployment of BMD sites in Poland and the Czech Republic should be settled by an agreement on their joint use of the radar in Azerbaijan (and possibly in Ukraine and the Czech Republic) and on non-deployment of US anti-missile interceptors in Poland, unless Iran tests medium-range ballistic missiles of its own. In the meantime, the infrastructure for the base in Poland may be built. The two sides should begin negotiations on SORT-2 with the aim of reducing strategic nuclear arms to around 1,000-1,200 warheads by 2017, and should agree on verified lowering of their levels of launch-readiness through various technical and operational methods. Russia should refrain from withdrawing from the INF-SRF Treaty and return to full compliance with the CFE Adaptation Treaty-in parallel with Nato states proceeding with ratification of this agreement.

In order to enforce a more stringent NPT regime, the great powers must make progress towards fulfilling their nuclear disarmament obligations under Article VI of the NPT. In the short term, the five nuclear powers-the US, Russia, UK, France and China-should reduce the priority given to nuclear weapons in their national security strategies. Furthermore, this conceptual decrease in priority should be reflected in their doctrines and programmes. An important first step in this direction would be for the five powers to bind themselves to a strategy of no-first-use of nuclear weapons against any state party to the NPT.

To insure joint reaction to missile threats, the Moscow Centre for Data Exchange on the launches of missiles should be revived. Its functions should be further developed and expanded to cover other links in the missile early-warning systems. Steps should be taken to activate dialogue on the long-term development of a joint strategic missile defence system in accordance with US-Russian official obligations of May 2002. Joint development of Russian-Nato Theatre BMD should serve as the starting point for strategic defence cooperation. Until the CFE adaptation agreement comes into force, all US and Russian tactical nuclear weapons should be withdrawn to centralised storages on their national territories.

The effectiveness of IAEA safeguards should be raised and, for this, the 1997 Additional Protocol needs to be universalised. This will involve improving the export controls system, and directly relates to countering nuclear terrorism. The procedures for withdrawal from the NPT should be made more difficult. The proposed Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the treaty prohibiting the production of fissionable materials (above all weapons-grade uranium) for military purposes (FMCT) should be established. Obligatory and verifiable international standards need to be developed for the accounting, physical protection, secure transport and storage of nuclear materials. Financial and technological assistance needs to be provided for this process. States that are loyal to the NPT should receive material incentives. First, through guaranteed access to the products and services of the to-be-developed international nuclear fuel cycle centres, and in the long term, they should be involved in the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership programme. The measures outlined above would be the first steps in guarding against nuclear catastrophe and moving towards a more secure future.

Alexei Arbatov is head of the Center for International Security, Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences.