The Hindu : Opinion / News Analysis : Sending a dangerous nuclear message

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Friday, Apr 15, 2005

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Opinion - News Analysis

Sending a dangerous nuclear message

Richard Norton-Taylor

Contradictory U.S. and British nuclear proliferation policies will lead other states to conclude that nuclear weapons earn respect and deter attack.

A FEW days before the United Kingdom's general election on May 5, an international conference will confront one of the most pressing issues facing the planet. Its outcome will help determine the future security of states around the world, including Britain. It is a safe bet it won't get a mention during the election campaign.

The issue is nuclear weapons. On May 2, representatives of 189 countries will gather in New York to discuss how to stop them spreading further. The nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) review conference comes at time when Iran is widely suspected of trying to acquire nuclear weapons, North Korea says it has nuclear weapons, western governments are warning about the threat of nuclear terrorism and the United States administration is toying with the idea of building a new generation of "usable" mini-nukes.

Britain too has a particular responsibility. Last year the Blair Government renewed, with no debate, the U.S.-U.K. mutual defence agreement first negotiated in 1958 and regarded in London as a cornerstone of the "special relationship."

George W. Bush said the agreement helped Britain maintain a "credible nuclear force," giving weight to the argument put by the British American Security Information Council, an independent think-tank, that it is an "open-ended arrangement for two named states to `disseminate' information, technology and materials in their pursuit of more sophisticated nuclear weaponry." Yet the purpose of the NPT, it points out, is "the prevention of the wider dissemination of nuclear weapons."

Yet what is happening? The U.S. is developing new nuclear warheads that don't need testing and can be stored much longer than existing ones.

Sophisticated equipment, including what is said to be the world's most powerful laser, is being installed at the U.K.'s atomic weapons establishment at Aldermaston in southern England as part of a £ 2 billion scheme that will enable Britain, with U.S. help, to produce a new generation of nuclear warheads, though the U.K.'s Ministry of Defence says there are no existing plans to do so. The technology will enable Britain to get around obligations imposed by the comprehensive test ban treaty.

Both the U.S. and Britain are muddying the waters in ways that will scarcely make non-nuclear states feel more secure. The U.S. has weakened the concept of "negative security assurances" — whereby nuclear states would not threaten or attack non-nuclear states with such weapons — by suggesting that it might use them in response to a biological or chemical attack, or even in other circumstances.

The Bush administration has suggested that the "13 steps" agreed at the last NPT review conference in 2000 is simply a "historical document."

While freeing the U.S. from any commitment, Mr. Bush wants other countries to make ever more binding ones. The NPT does not stop states using enriched uranium to produce nuclear energy, as opposed to weapons. He does not want them to have any enriched uranium. Without irony, Mr. Bush stated last month: "We cannot allow rogue states ... to undermine the NPT's fundamental role in strengthening international security." His target was, of course, Iran.

Iran, meanwhile, accuses the U.S. and others of hypocrisy by turning a blind eye to the nuclear arsenal of Israel, which, unlike Iran, has not signed the NPT.

The lesson non-nuclear states seem to be learning is that nuclear weapons earn you respect and deter foreign countries from attacking you. That is a very dangerous message, one that can't be allowed to go unanswered. —

(Richard Norton-Taylor is the Guardian's security affairs editor.)

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