[A-List] The Treaty Wreckers

[Bill Totten <shimogamo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In just a few months, Bush and Blair have destroyed the global restraint on
nuclear weapons

by George Monbiot

Published in the Guardian (August 02 2005)

Saturday is the sixtieth anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. The nuclear
powers are commemorating it in their own special way: by seeking to ensure that
the experiment is repeated.

As Robin Cook showed in his column last week, the British government appears
to have decided to replace our Trident nuclear weapons, without consulting
parliament or informing the public. {1} It could be worse than he thinks. He
pointed out that the atomic weapons establishment at Aldermaston has been
re-equipped to build a new generation of bombs. But when this news was first
leaked in 2002, a spokesman for the plant insisted that the equipment was being
installed not to replace Trident, but to construct either mini-nukes or warheads
which could be used on cruise missiles. {2}

If this is true, it means that the government is replacing Trident AND
developing a new category of boil-in-the-bag weapons. As if to ensure we got the
point, Geoff Hoon, then the defence secretary, announced soon before the leak
that Britain would be prepared to use small nukes in a pre-emptive strike
against a non-nuclear state. {3} This put us in the hallowed company of North
Korea.

The Times, helpful as ever, explains why Trident should be replaced. "A decision
to leave the club of nuclear powers", it says, "would diminish Britain's
international standing and influence". {4} This is true, and it accounts for why
almost everyone wants the bomb. Two weeks ago, on concluding their new nuclear
treaty, George Bush and the Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh announced that
"international institutions must fully reflect changes in the global scenario
that have taken place since 1945. The President reiterated his view that
international institutions are going to have to adapt to reflect India's central
and growing role." {5} This translates as follows: "now that India has the bomb,
it should join the UN Security Council".

It is because nuclear weapons confer power and status on the states that possess
them that the non-proliferation treaty, of which the United Kingdom was a
founding signatory, determines two things: that the non-nuclear powers should
not acquire nuclear weapons, and that the nuclear powers should "pursue
negotiations in good faith on ... general and complete disarmament". {6} Blair
has unilaterally decided to rip it up.

But in helping to wreck the treaty, we are only keeping up with our friends
across the water. In May, the US government launched a systematic assault on the
agreement. The summit in New York was supposed to strengthen it, but the US, led
by John Bolton - the under-secretary for arms control (someone had a good laugh
over that one) - refused even to allow the other nations to draw up an agenda
for discussion. {7} The talks, unsurprisingly, collapsed, and the treaty may now
be all but dead. Needless to say, Bolton has been promoted: to the post of US
ambassador to the United Nations. Yesterday Bush pushed his nomination through
by means of a "recess appointment": an undemocratic power which allows the
president to override Congress when the members are on holiday.

Bush wanted to destroy the treaty because it couldn't be reconciled with his new
plans. Last month the Senate approved an initial $4 million for research into a
"robust nuclear earth penetrator" (RNEP). This is a bomb with a yield about ten
times that of the Hiroshima device, designed to blow up underground bunkers
which might contain weapons of mass destruction. (You've spotted the
contradiction). Congress rejected funding for it in November, but Bush twisted
enough arms this year to get it restarted. You see what a wonderful world he
inhabits when you discover that the RNEP idea was conceived in 1991 as a means
of dealing with Saddam Hussein's biological and chemical weapons. {8} Saddam is
pacing his cell, but the Bushites, like the Japanese soldiers lost in Malaysia,
march on. To pursue his war against the phantom of the phantom of Saddam's
weapons of mass destruction, Bush has destroyed the treaty which prevents the
use of real ones.

It gets worse. Last year Congress allocated funding for something called the
"reliable replacement warhead". The government's story is that the existing
warheads might be deteriorating. When they show signs of ageing, they can be
dismantled and rebuilt to a "safer and more reliable" design. {9} It's a pretty
feeble excuse for building a new generation of nukes, but it worked. The
development of the new bombs probably means that the US will also breach the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty - so we can kiss goodbye to another means of
preventing proliferation.

But the biggest disaster was Bush's meeting with Manmohan Singh a fortnight ago.
India is one of three states which possess nuclear weapons and refuse to sign
the non-proliferation treaty (NPT). The treaty says it should be denied access
to civil nuclear materials. But on July 18th, Bush announced that "as a
responsible state with advanced nuclear technology, India should acquire the
same benefits and advantages as other such states". He would "work to achieve
full civil nuclear energy cooperation with India" and "seek agreement from
Congress to adjust US laws and policies". {10} Four months before the meeting,
the US lifted its South Asian arms embargo, by selling Pakistan a fleet of F-16
aircraft, capable of a carrying a wide range of missiles, and India an
anti-missile system. {11} As a business plan, it's hard to fault.

Here then is how it works. If you acquire the bomb and threaten to use it, you
will qualify for American exceptionalism by proxy. Could there be a greater
incentive for proliferation?

The implications have not been lost on other states. "India is looking after its
own national interests", a spokesman for the Iranian government complained on
Wednesday. "We cannot criticise them for this. But what the Americans are doing
is a double standard. On the one hand, they are depriving an NPT member from
having peaceful technology, but at the same time they are cooperating with India,
which is not a member of the NPT." {12} North Korea (and this is the only good
news around at the moment) is currently in its second week of talks with the US.
While the Bush administration is doing the right thing by engaging with
Pyongyang, the lesson is pretty clear. You could sketch it out as a Venn diagram.
If you have oil, but aren't developing a bomb (Iraq), you get invaded. If you
have oil but are developing a bomb (Iran) you get threatened with invasion, but
it probably won't happen. If you don't have oil, but do have the bomb, the US
representative will fly to your country and open negotiations.

The world of George Bush's imagination comes into being by government decree. As
a result of his tail-chasing paranoia, assisted by Tony Blair's cowardice and
Manmohan Singh's opportunism, the global restraint on the development of nuclear
weapons has, in effect, been destroyed in the course of a few months. The world
could now be more vulnerable to the consequences of proliferation than it has
been for 35 years. Thanks to Bush and Blair, we might not go out with a whimper
after all.

www.monbiot.com

References:

1. Robin Cook, 29th July 2005. Worse than Irrelevant. The Guardian.

2. Richard Norton-Taylor, 18th June 2002. MoD plans GBP 2 billion nuclear
expansion. The Guardian.

3. Geoff Hoon, 24th March 2002. The Jonathan Dimbleby Show, ITV 1.

4. Tom Baldwin and Michael Evans, 28 May 2005. The hunt for a new nuclear option.
The Times.

5. Office of the Press Secretary, 18th July 2005. Joint Statement Between
President George W Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The White House.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/07/20050718-6.html

6. Article VI, Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Entered into
force 5th March 1970. United Nations Department for Disarmament Affairs.

7. See for example BASIC/ORG, January 2005 and following. The Non-Proliferation
Treaty Review Conference: Breakthrough or Bust in '05?
http://www.basicint.org/nuclear/NPT/2005rc/nptoverview.htm#01;
and Robin Cook, 27th May 2005. America's broken nuclear promises endanger us all.
The Guardian.

8. For example, Friends Committee on National Legislation, 3rd May 2005. Robust
Nuclear Earth Penetrator: Questions and Answers.
http://www.fcnl.org/issues/item.php?item_id=88&issue_id=48

9. See Jonathan Medalia, 20th July 2005. Nuclear Weapons: The Reliable
Replacement Warhead Program. Congressional Research Service Report for Congress.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/RL32929.pdf.

10. Office of the Press Secretary, ibid.

11. Ashley J Tellis, 2005. South Asian Seesaw: A New US Policy on the
Subcontinent. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfmfa=view&id=16919&prog=zgp&proj=zsa

12. Simon Tisdall, 28th July 2005. Tehran accuses US of nuclear double standard.
The Guardian.

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2005/08/02/the-treaty-wreckers-/


Bill Totten     http://billtotten.blogspot.com/