A wind of change seemed to be blowing in the esoteric world of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. Strategic asymmetries began to widen; renewed and an expanded global arms race seemed to be taking shape. New terms like “Nuclear Renaissance” and, more recently, “Nuclear Spring” came into circulation. Nuclear observers and analysts started talking of a new nuclear order that may be taking shape. This was spurred in large measure by growing concerns in regard to carbon emission resulting from the use of fossil fuels for producing energy. Not long ago, in the wake of the Fukushima disaster on 11 March 2011, the international community, particularly the Western countries, had begun shunning nuclear power generation, but the new scare of global warming that set in with the turn of the new century, restored nuclear power as a “kosher” source. Nuclear energy was adjudged as environmentally “safe,” despite the vexing problem of waste disposal, for which it is was argued that improving technology will eventually solve the problem or at least make it manageable. From about the middle of the last decade, many countries began contemplating setting up nuclear power plants. At present a total of 32 countries are involved for generating electric power.
The flip side of nuclear power is, of course, the danger of nuclear proliferation. For a long time, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was considered an effective regime for guarding against nuclear proliferation (which essentially involved the diversion of nuclear fuel for power to weapons grade fissile material). The Treaty provided for International Atomic Eenergy Agency (IAEA) inspection of nuclear power facilities in adherent states to stop them from acquiring nuclear weapons capability. The first half of the 1990s saw the voluntary renunciation of nuclear programs geared to weapons capability by Argentina and Brazil and later South Africa, and the termination of nuclear programs in the Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and the Republic of Belarus. The NPT Review Conference in 1995 was an upbeat, self-congratulatory meeting, in which the NPT was given a permanent lease of life.
However, the nuclear tests conducted by India and later Pakistan in 1998 had a significant impact on the NPT Review Conference in 2000. Then, in the very first few years of the new century, some NPT signatory states were found to be in violation of their obligations of abstaining from any steps leading to weapons development: North Korea and Libya, which confessed and came out clean, and Iran, where traces of enriched uranium were found on imported centrifuges, were the countries found in isolation. The NPT regime seemed to be collapsing, as its own members were found to be in violation of its provisions. The NPT Review Conference in 2005, held in New York, in which I was the Pakistan Observer, met for a month, took more than two weeks to even agree on an agenda, and ended without an agreed statement, which had never happened before. The nuclear order, carefully crafted in 1968, much like the Treaty of Versailles of 1919 in the inter-war years, was fraying at the seams and spiralling downward towards possible collapse. As the North Korean and Iranian programs continued eluding international monitoring and inspection, the descent towards collapse seemed to continue unchecked, and many feared, had become unstoppable. To boot, with the entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) decisively blocked by the United States (US) Senate, and the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) negotiations stalemated, the outlook of global non-proliferation looked bleak. It is this situation that the US administration found itself confronted with at the start of the second decade.
Obviously, a lot has changed since 1968 when the NPT was drafted. As we look back more than fifty-five years ago, and glance at the nuclear order that has prevailed over these years, we notice certain glaring shortcomings that characterized the old order:
- It lacked equity, as the NPT allowed only five countries to have nuclear weapons, and disallowed the rest of the world from having them. However, some important states that remained outside the NPT developed nuclear weapons, thus undermining the entire international non-proliferation regime.
- Since 9/11 and the global terrorist threat, the total inadequacy of the old order or the non-proliferation regime to deal with threats of nuclear terrorism, emanating from sources outside state systems, usually called non-state actors, further diminished its efficacy.
- The old order has not brought about the entry into force of the CTBT or meaningful negotiations on the FMCT, which are both vital adjuncts to the NPT.
In the wake of the nuclear renaissance on the one hand, and the angst of the international community, particularly the Western countries, at the collapsing international regime on nuclear non-proliferation on the other, new initiatives and approaches seemed to suggest that an emerging nuclear order was in the offing. The status of US-Russia new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) on reducing their respective arsenals by 30 percent, can be a factor which would affect the nuclear order in terms of arms control objectives.
This action, if taken, will indicate new or revised thinking in regard to the major issues of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, which is likely to result in substantial changes in the nuclear order that now prevails. As this new outlook represents a hopeful future, enthusiastic supporters have dubbed this period as a nuclear spring. While the contours of the new order have yet to take shape and form, it is possible to make an educated guess of some likely features that would characterize it. These may be:
- A degree of flexibility in the rigid non-proliferation regime of old, as has already manifested in the Indo-US nuclear deal. The US decision to extend to India extensive nuclear cooperation, under the deal, despite the fact that India did not sign the NPT and developed a nuclear weapons program in open defiance of the non-proliferation principles, was a body blow to the NPT, and demonstrated its virtual obsolescence.
- Greater focus on safety and security of nuclear materials and nuclear technology, to avoid the danger of nuclear terrorism, resulting from nuclear material falling into the hands of non- state actors and terrorist groups.
- In regard to non-proliferation, efforts towards an early entry into force of the CTBT, and negotiations towards an early conclusion of an FMCT, would continue, but for various reasons the realisation of these objectives, at least in the short term was unlikely.
Interestingly, for Pakistan these trends carry positive implications for Pakistan. It is well-known that Pakistan has been against the status-quo in regard to the existing nuclear order. Whatever flexibility or change takes place in the present unfair and rigid international nuclear regime, Pakistan is bound to benefit. Pakistan considers the CD a vital organ of international security architecture and an indispensable part of the UN disarmament machinery. As the only multilateral institution where all militarily significant states participate on an equal footing, the CD’s role and place remains unique.
Moreover, Pakistan also reiterated its call for the immediate commencement of negotiations on a comprehensive Nuclear Weapons Convention, without further delay as Pakistan also supports the immediate start of negotiations in the CD on a Convention on legally binding Negative Security Assurances (NSAs) and a Treaty on Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space (PPWT). Proposals for NSAs have been on the CD’s agenda for the longest duration. Pakistan believes that the issue is most ripe for treaty negotiations and has the significant potential to create the necessary environment for confidence building and easing of tensions.
In the Nuclear Security Summits that were held from 2010-2014, Pakistan participated as a prominent nuclear power state specifically with regard to offering and accomplishing volunteer offer of ‘gift baskets’ by establishing Pakistan’s National Centre of Excellence, contributing to Sustainable Nuclear Security. Pakistan also applied for NSG membership hoping to develop a framework for nuclear cooperation with Western countries, particularly the United States. If this happens, Pakistan would be able to break out of the present virtual and unfair isolation that it faces from the international nuclear community. Pakistan remains committed to the goal of a nuclear weapons free world that is achieved in a universal, verifiable and non-discriminatory manner.
Pakistan has also offered to be a supplier state for providing nuclear fuel to a future fuel bank in the envisaged plan for internationalisation of the nuclear fuel cycle. In this regard, Pakistan argues that it is one of the few countries in the developing world which has mastered the entire process of the nuclear fuel cycle. This enables it to produce low-enriched uranium, used as fuel in its nuclear power plants. Besides its own needs, Pakistan could produce nuclear fuel for sale to other states, which do not have a nuclear fuel cycle program. Thus, Pakistan could qualify as a supplier state. It should be possible for Pakistan’s offer to be accepted under a new nuclear order.
Pakistan had placed on the table, some years ago, a proposal for the setting up of nuclear power parks, in which foreign private investors can build nuclear power reactors in the designated parks, and operate as foreign enterprises, much as investors in other sectors, and of course, under IAEA supervision and Pakistan’s regulatory requirements. This was proposed by Pakistan in the IAEA General Conferences in 2003 and 2004. This scheme does not depend upon a nuclear deal with the US or any other country and can become effective if the IAEA Board and perhaps the NSG approve it. As the building and operation of the nuclear power plants will be in the hands of foreign companies, and the electricity can be sold locally or to other countries, it should not cause any proliferation concerns either. The time may soon come when it would be possible to receive a positive response from the IAEA in this regard. If that were to happen, Pakistan would have access to state-of- the-art nuclear technology, albeit under IAEA supervision and foreign ownership.
What is amply clear is that various possibilities for Pakistan will open up once the old order loses its rigidity and sole focus on nuclear non-proliferation. The days of heavy sanctions and restrictions on a country like ours, whose ‘sin’ was of developing an indigenous nuclear program, should soon be over. Pakistan has long remained “out in the cold,” in the phrase of John le Carre, and deserves to come back inside. If that happens, Pakistan would indeed benefit from Nuclear Renaissance, and the new nuclear order that may take shape.
About the Author
Ambassador Naqvi is presently serving as the founding Executive Director of the Center for International Strategic Studies (CISS), Islamabad
