TRANSCRIPT

DISARMAMENT AND ARMS CONTROL OBJECTIVES

Panel discussion held April 11, 2001 in the United Nations by the NGO Committee on Disarmament, in cooperation with the UN Department for Disarmament Affairs and the UN Department of Public Information.

Panelists:

AMBASSADOR NORMAN WULF, Special Representative for Non Proliferation of the US President, leader of the US delegation at the 2000 NPT Review Conference

VICTOR VASILIEV, Political Counsellor, Mission of the Russian Federation to the UN

MINISTER MARIA ANGELICA ARCE DE JEANNET, Mission of Mexico to the UN

JONATHAN GRANOFF, President, Global Security Institute; Vice President, Lawyers Alliance for World Security (LAWS), Moderator.

Transcript:

JONATHAN GRANOFF: The very first resolution of the United Nations dealt with the elimination of atomic bombs. The nuclear weapons age began at 5:29am Mountain War Time, July 16, 1945 when the first atom bomb was tested and a portion of the bleak, barren, Alamogordo bombing range in the New Mexican desert, chillingly named Jornado de Muerto, (Journey of Death). After the thunderous roar of the shock wave, a huge pillar of smoke rose thirty thousand feet, creating the first icon of the nuclear age, the fearsome mushroom cloud. A blast of energy of unprecedented destructive magnitude bathed the surrounding mountainside in a brilliant light that could be seen up to 150 miles away. J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Director of the Los Alamos Laboratory, the organization responsible for the design of the first atomic bomb, uttered a sober description from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. "Now I have become death, destroyer of worlds."

Today, a generation later, there are currently more than 30,000 nuclear warheads worldwide. The United States has about 10,500, Russia maybe 20,000, France 450, China maybe around 400, the United Kingdom, a little less than 200. Yet we stand at an unprecedented moment of opportunity where none of the parties who have these weapons consider themselves enemies of one another. We also sit at a very unique moment in history when we have just had the Review Conference of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty in which the nuclear weapon states made an unequivocal undertaking to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear weapons.

On this harrowing backdrop, and on this note of opportunity, I would like to introduce our speakers this morning. The first will be Ambassador Norman Wulf, who serves as the Special Representative of the President of the United States for Nuclear Non Proliferation. He was the United States Representative to the Treaty on the Non Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and led the delegation at the recent review conference. Prior to this current position he served for 14 years as Deputy Assistant Director for Non Proliferation and Regional Arms Control of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Before that Mr. Wulf was an office director in the Department of State handling the Law of the Sea and marine science issues. In other words, he comes with a long history of dealing with international security issues and treaties. I have the privilege now of asking Ambassador Wulf to begin.

AMBASSADOR NORMAN WULF: Thank you very much, Jonathan, and thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for coming this morning. I think if I were to summarize my speech at the beginning, rather than at the end, which is traditional, I would probably have to quote from the Broadway musical a few years back called Oliver. There was a character in Oliver called Fagan, and one of his more classic songs in that Broadway musical was "I'm Reviewing the Situation..." That is fundamentally the essence of my message with respect to the Bush Administration's approach to nuclear arms control. Basically it is all under review, and at this point in time there is not much that can be said definitively. What I will try to do this morning is to walk through quickly the 13 points from the Final Document, which in many ways is a comprehensive list of the steps that can be taken in the area of nuclear disarmament, and see what we can glean, either from campaign statements or from statements made at confirmation hearings, which is basically about the only basis at this point in time in which one can make any guesses. And I think they have to be called guesses, on the policy the Bush Administration will pursue.

Jonathan was mentioning some of the historic firsts, and in some ways, this is a historic first. This is the first time that the NPT (Non Proliferation Treaty) produced a Final Document and then the Administration that negotiated that document left office and the Administration of another Party took office. So the question becomes which of the provisions that the Clinton Administration found acceptable is it likely that the Bush Administration will find acceptable. I say that is historic because this happens only once every 20 years that there is a coincidence of these two events, our national elections and a Review Conference. In 1980, the other time in the 31 year history of the NPT that there was such an event, there was no final document. We are in a situation we have not been before.

If you will indulge me, what I would like to try to do is give you at least some inkling as to where the Administration may come out, but I do have to stress that this is my view, and at this point there are virtually no official positions on any of these issues. Having said that, let me quickly go through the issues. I will try to do this in fairly rapid order, because I suspect we want to have adequate time for the questions and answers.

The first two of the practical steps in the Final Document of the NPT Conference focus on CTBT (Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty) ratification and a moratorium on nuclear testing. I lump them together because they are both nuclear testing related. President Bush, as a candidate, made statements indicating that he would not support the CTBT. Secretary of State Colin Powell, in his confirmation hearings, stated that the Administration would not be submitting the CTBT to the Congress for advise and consent for ratification during this term. Left unsaid is whether they will do it during the next term. Also, during the confirmation hearings, both Secretary Powell and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld acknowledged the report that had been submitted just prior to the confirmation hearings by General Shalikashvili and both indicated the Administration would be undertaking a study of the recommendations that General Shalikashvili had made in the report of approaches that could make the CTBT acceptable to the United States.

The third item from the NPT document was the negotiation of a FMCT (Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty). As you will recall, in 1995 there was no final document from the NPT conference, but the 1995 conference did produce a series of decisions. One of the decisions was "Principles and Objectives for further activities in nuclear disarmament," and one of the steps envisaged in that document was the negotiation of a FMCT. There has not been such a negotiation. No substantive work has yet been done on the question of a FMCT. The Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty has as its purpose the stopping of unsafeguarded production of nuclear materials that can be used in nuclear weapons. Those negotiations have not yet occurred, and it is not clear that they will occur. The US position is we are prepared to negotiate such a treaty now with no conditions. Other countries have insisted that there be linkages between the negotiation of an FMCT and the negotiation of nuclear disarmament. Others insist on a linkage between the negotiation of a treaty and negotiation of a treaty on outer space. The position of the Clinton Administration, and my expectation is the position of the Bush Administration, is that the US is opposed to negotiation now on outer space and to multilateral negotiation of nuclear disarmament, but it remains very supportive of the FMCT to stop further production of material that could be used in nuclear weapons.

I was a lawyer at one time in my career, and usually in law school you are taught that ambiguity is the enemy, that you should seek as much clarity as possible. But I have discovered after some 30-odd years working in multilateral negotiations that ambiguity oftentimes is your friend. Indeed, if you don't have ambiguity, you will not reach agreement.

Nothing could further demonstrate that point than the decision in the Final Document that calls for multilateral discussions dealing with nuclear disarmament. The Final Document emphasizes "the necessity of establishing in the Conference an appropriate subsidiary body with a mandate to deal with nuclear disarmament." That is designed to allow countries like the United States, and not just the United States, to support the language because we can interpret "to deal with" as not meaning to negotiate. And "an appropriate subsidiary body" allows us to say that such a subsidiary body would not be a negotiating body. Equally true for those who seek such a negotiation, "an appropriate subsidiary body to deal with nuclear disarmament" allows them to say that an appropriate subsidiary body is a negotiating body, and "to deal with" means to negotiate. The ambiguity is there, it is purposeful, and I think that rather than approaching the language in the Final Document as a legal document to be parsed, one is much better off approaching it as an indication of the general direction in which the international community, as represented at the NPT Review Conference, seeks progress toward nuclear disarmament.

The fifth measure is on irreversibility. Obviously in the area of nuclear arms control if you can readily reverse a measure to reduce or eliminate nuclear weapons, and reacquire those weapons, or additional materials for weapons, you are not really making real progress towards disarmament because it can be readily reversed. One of the goals of the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) would be to ensure that you could not produce additional materials.

Another objective in which the US and Russia are engaged is to take the surplus supplies of material that is useable in nuclear weapons and change it to such a form that it can no longer be used for weapons purposes. One illustration: The United States is purchasing 500 tons of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU). Russia is first down-blending that highly enriched uranium to a level of enrichment in the neighborhood of 3 to 5 percent. That is the level which we would call low enriched uranium, a level that is usually utilized as fuel for nuclear power reactors. The down-blending of this material is taking place under the supervision and inspection of the International Atomic Energy Agency. So 500 tons of this material is being irreversibly taken out of the Russian inventory.

The United States in addition is presently engaged in a similar activity where we are down-blending some 54 tons of Highly Enriched Uranium under IAEA supervision. This also will be put into the nuclear power program, as opposed to the nuclear weapons program.

The sixth item is the one that I think Jonathan referred to in his opening introduction, the so-called "unequivocal commitment to the total elimination of nuclear weapons." This language, I suspect, amongst all the items in the Final Document, perhaps was the most intensely negotiated, and not because there is any disagreement that when Article VI of the NPT uses the term, nuclear disarmament, that we disagreed as to whether nuclear disarmament means zero or not. It does mean zero. The real question became were there any qualifications attached to the unequivocal commitment to eliminate all nuclear weapons. In the United States there is a condition attached to it, that is the condition that it is related to Article 6. It is the US government's position that the unequivocal commitment set forth in the Final Document of the 2000 NPT Review Conference is a restatement of Article 6 in the Treaty. But, as the Ambassador of Mexico said in his concluding statement, it makes explicit that which had always been implicit, and therefore is a significant step forward.

Provision Seven calls for early entry into force of the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, START II, and quickly moving to START III negotiations between the United States and Russia and the preservation of the ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) Treaty. On this one let me take a little time to try to set forth where I think things may be going. This is the area in which the most intense review is presently going on in Washington. The outcome will not be known until some time in the late spring or early summer. Obviously what that outcome will be I don't think any of us can predict.

With respect to further reductions, candidate Bush, and subsequently, as President Bush, has said that he seeks the lowest possible numbers consistent with international security. He has indicated during the campaign that he believed that those numbers could be significantly less than what was contemplated for the START III negotiations. For those who are not familiar with the numbers from START III, what that contemplated was in the area of 2,000 nuclear weapons being retained by both sides. President Bush has indicated, subject to the study, that he would favor going below that number of 2,000, how far below remains to be seen. He has also indicated some impatience with the present process of lengthy negotiations with the Russians to try to come up with these new numbers and has suggested that perhaps a better model might be to take a unilateral step, where the United States unilaterally reduces down to a lower number, and then seeks to have Russia take a similar step.

This in large part is based upon an action, I think, that his father took in 1991, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. At that time then Presidents Bush and Gorbachev agreed to withdraw all tactical nuclear weapons, or sub-strategic nuclear weapons, back onto their national territory. This had the effect, in the case of Russia, of removing tactical nuclear weapons from what were to become shortly the newly independent states. This was done unilaterally. I would call these parallel unilateral actions. In some ways formal arms control has become a very complicated process because Congress, through a number of pieces of legislation, has sought to place extremely severe restrictions on the ability of the Administration to take certain measures. But those did not extend so far as to prevent parallel unilateral actions. I personally believe that President Bush thinks that you can continue to do parallel unilateral actions in the field of strategic systems, as well as with sub-strategic.

The other issue mentioned is the ABM Treaty. As I have said, the key to reaching agreement in the 2000 NPT Review was preserving ambiguity. The language of the Final Document says "while preserving and strengthening the Treaty on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems." Preserving is something that the Clinton Administration believed in, but they also believed in and sought to strengthen it through amending it. Russia, on the other hand, believes that its strategic stability depends upon preserving the ABM Treaty and they interpret the word strengthen to mean amendments that were adopted in 1996 that would make modest changes in the ABM Treaty to allow some testing of theater missile defenses. Clearly this is a difference of view papered over by this language.

The Administration has made clear that they will seek to deploy missile defenses as soon as it is practically feasible. Indeed I would note that it is a matter of law. Congress passed legislation that said it is the policy of the United States to deploy missile defenses as soon as it is technologically feasible. The Clinton Administration, I think, would have gone ahead with a deployment decision had the tests of the ABM systems gone well, but they didn't go well and therefore they delayed the decision for this Administration. This Administration is presently reviewing the situation and the results of that review are not in. But I think that as soon as there is a technically feasible system, and what that system will be remains an open question, there will be a decision to go ahead with deployment, preferably, and the President has made this clear, after extensive consultations with friends, allies, and with Russia and China.

The next of the thirteen steps is the trilateral initiative, an initiative between the United States and Russia and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that would call for the IAEA to verify the elimination of these surplus nuclear stocks. In addition to HEU, another material that could be used is separated plutonium. What the trilateral initiative would address is what verification arrangements would apply to the excess separated plutonium. Right now the United States and Russia have both committed themselves to dispose of 54 tons of separated plutonium. Unlike HEU you can't just blend it down and burn it in a nuclear power reactor. You can, however, do one of two things, and this is what the two parties had agreed that they would do. One option is to take the highly enriched plutonium and mix it with uranium, making what is called a Mixed Oxide fuel or MOX. This MOX can then also be burnt in power reactors, and in fact this is taking place now in Japan, France, Switzerland and a couple of other countries.

The other alternative is to take the plutonium and blend it down with trash so that essentially it is as difficult to separate that plutonium back out from that trash substance as it was to separate the plutonium in the first place. It is not clear what option the United States would pursue when this can be firmed up. It is clear that Russia wishes to go the mixed oxide route. It is clear that would also cost several billions of dollars, and it is clear that the United States will not pay all those costs alone. We are committed thus far to 200 million dollars to that effort. We are seeking commitments from other countries, particularly in Europe and Japan, for the additional funds. It is not clear that additional funds will be forthcoming.

The ninth element called for unilateral steps. It calls for increased transparency. There are clearly more areas where the United States could be more transparent, but among the other nuclear weapon states there are some that have not provided much information, or perhaps no information, with respect to their nuclear arsenals. This is a plea for greater transparency. It also asks for further reductions in the non-strategic nuclear weapons. This in part, I think, is the result of the US and Russian initiatives from the 1991 time frame. The United States has eliminated about 80% of its total inventory of non-strategic systems. Of the other 20%, some remain deployed in Europe, but most of them are back here in the United States awaiting destruction.

Concrete measures to reduce the operational status of nuclear weapons. As you know, all bombers in the US fleet have been de-alerted. All systems in Europe, all nuclear weapons that the United States had deployed in NATO, have been withdrawn, except for gravity bombs. The aircraft to deliver them have been reduced in number and the alert status of those aircraft is better calculated in weeks and days than in minutes and hours, as during the Cold War. This again is an area in which President Bush, in the campaign, said that he wanted to see more progress made in reducing further the alert status of our weapons. That is a key part of the ongoing review.

A diminishing role for nuclear weapons in security policies is also part of the review. Lastly, because specific measures are aimed at the United States and Russia, there is an engagement by all nuclear weapon states in the process of further reduction that primarily is aimed at the other three nuclear weapon states. I think that covers the major elements of the Final Document. Let me stress again that we really don't know where this Administration will come out. We should know before the end of the summer. Thank you very much.

JONATHAN GRANOFF: Thank you, Ambassador Wulf. Of course the future is always ambiguous, and that puts a greater responsibility on those of us who want to influence the future. 97% of the nuclear weapons in the world are in the hands of two countries, the United States and Russia. I now have the privilege of introducing Victor Vasiliev, who is the Political Counsellor of the Russian Mission to the UN specifically covering disarmament and other international security issues. He was a member of the Russian delegation to the 1995 Review and Extension Conference of the NPT and the 2000 Review Conference. He was also a member of the Russian delegation to the PrepComs of the respective conferences.

VICTOR VASILIEV: For us to understand what happened at the 2000 NPT Review Conference we need to review the atmosphere under which the Conference took place. I believe that the end of the twentieth century was characterized by dramatic achievements in nuclear disarmament, but unlike the seventies, when the former Soviet Union and the United States were engaged in talks on the limitation of nuclear arms, at the end of the nineties Russia and the United States were engaged in a more substantial process, the reduction and elimination of certain types of nuclear weapons. As you all know, in December, 1994 the START I Treaty, the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, came into force. Under this treaty, up until now, more than one thousand intercontinental ballistic missiles were eliminated and more than 30 strategic submarines and 30 heavy bombers have been dismantled by Russia. In total, under this START I Treaty, 40% of the Russian strategic nuclear forces will be reduced by December of this year. One must not forget the economic dimension of this process, because it requires a lot of energy and resources. As you know, Russia is in a transition period and sometimes it is very difficult to find the resources for the destruction process. As you are all aware, many people were involved in the military industry, and it is difficult to find new jobs and new spheres for those who for decades were involved in military production. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of people.

In January 1993 another important treaty, START II, was signed by the Russian Federation and the United States, which provided for even higher reductions of the Russian and American nuclear arsenals to the level of 3,500 nuclear weapons each. What is important about the START II Treaty is that it also provided for the total elimination of intercontinental missiles with Multiple Independently targeted Re-entry Vehicles. Last spring the Russian Federation ratified this very important and crucial treaty while the United States unfortunately, as of now, has not ratified this treaty. In March of 1997 the Presidents of the Russian Federation and of the United States agreed to go ahead with the process of nuclear arms reductions. They agreed on the framework of the START III process. They agreed that the nuclear potential would be reduced to the level of 2500 nuclear warheads, a dramatic reduction. Those were the bilateral efforts by the US and the Russian Federation before the NPT Conference.

There was also a multilateral process going on, with the conclusion of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the indefinite extension of the Non Proliferation Treaty and some other important events. These achievements determined the atmosphere under which we entered into the process of reviewing the NPT Treaty in the year 2000. I think it is not a coincidence that at that time, rather, a little prior to that time, a new initiative in nuclear disarmament emerged. I am not going to "eat the bread," as we say it in Russian, of my Mexican colleague who will be talking of the New Agenda Coalition, but this is a good example of how the process of nuclear reduction can pave a way for a pragmatic approach to nuclear disarmament. If in the past we were speaking about two approaches, one by the nuclear weapon states, and another by the non nuclear weapon states, which were totally different,. now we have a new environment, a positive environment, I would say. We, of course, together with Ambassador Wulf, may argue with some of the elements of the New Agenda Coalition, but the very idea of a positive approach, aimed at breaching the gap between the nuclear countries and the non- nuclear countries, is a good example and it shows that we are moving in the right direction.

Ambassador Wulf has already mentioned the main outline of the Final Document of the 2000 NPT Conference. All of us speaking this morning, and some of you in the hall, were present the dramatic night when agreement was reached. We have a lot of stories to tell about how many sandwiches were eaten, how many cans of soda were drunk, including bottles of whisky, even, in anticipation of the outcome of the telephone conversations with major capitals to find a solution to some dramatic questions. Ambassador Wulf has mentioned many provisions of the NPT Final Document. I just want to direct your attention to one area which was not covered in his presentation, which was the question of the Middle East. This issue was also a major problem in the 1995 Review and Extension Conference.

I think we are all aware that the nuclear process didn't stop with the conclusion of the Final Document. After the 2000 Review Conference the Presidents of Russia and the United States met three times and each time they discussed strategic issues and came up with new initiatives. President Putin made a proposal to cut missiles down to the figure of 1500 and he said during the Millennium Summit, this is not the limit. Russia could agree on a smaller number of nuclear missiles. In addressing the Millennium Summit President Putin proposed an initiative on an energy supply for the sustained development of mankind, a radical solution of the problems posed by the proliferation of nuclear weapons and global environmental improvement. Behind this initiative with a long and technically complicated title is an idea to phase out plutonium and greatly reduce the threat that it will be used in the military sphere.

Russia is still fully committed to the obligations undertaken at the NPT Review Conference. I would like to finish by singing as Ambassador Wulf began, but unfortunately I am not a good singer. I don't know whether it is a Russian bear or an American bear who stepped on my ear. I will just echo his tune that we are "in the process of reviewing the situation." Unfortunately we are not in a position to say where this review will lead us.

One issue is the ABM Treaty. This treaty was negotiated and concluded with the objective not to deploy a missile defense of the territory of the countries and not to provide a base for such a defense. It is clearly stated in Article 1 of the Treaty. If this article is revised, or "strengthened," whatever words are used, it means we will no longer have an ABM Treaty. But it is not just a phrase that the ABM Treaty is the cornerstone of strategic stability. It really is a prerequisite to the arms reduction treaties I referred to at the beginning, START I, II and III. When the Russian Duma, or parliament, ratified START II, the Duma made a specific reference to the preservation of the ABM Treaty. If the ABM Treaty is ruined it may lead to, I wouldn't say a continuation of the arms race, but to what Ambassador Wulf said, reviewing the situation. I hope that this review will be a positive one. This afternoon, the depositories of the NPT will be going to visit Ambassador Baali and some people in the Secretariat to start a new review process in preparation for the 2005 NPT Conference. And I hope that the next conference will be also a positive one and will also conclude with a final document. Thank you so much.

JONATHAN GRANOFF: For many of us who are not part of the process, the documents have importance, but what is more important is to see the fulfillment of the promise of the documents. Often it is only your best friend who can tell you that your tie and your suit clash. Some of us have noticed dramatic inconsistencies between the maintenance of nuclear systems by Russia and the United States on hair trigger alert as they were at the height of the Cold War, the promises contained within the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty and the continued centrality of nuclear weapons in both countries' strategic policies. I now have the privilege of introducing Minister Maria Angelica Arce de Jeannet who has been a member of the Mexican Foreign Service since 1981. She has worked in Geneva and Stockholm, and has held a variety of positions within the Foreign Affairs Ministry of Mexico with a particular emphasis on disarmament issues. She has been addressing these issues in New York since 1996. It is fitting, when Mexico has a new dynamic, creative President, and Mexico has shown extraordinary leadership on these issues, to introduce Angelica Arce.

MARIA ANGELICA ARCE DE JEANNET: Thank you very much for the invitation to participate in this round table. First, let me give you some information regarding the 2000 Conference of the Treaty on the Non Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. It has been underlined this morning by my two colleagues that the core topic was the negotiation of the nuclear disarmament article. But the Treaty has several provisions dealing with the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, with nuclear-weapon-free zones, and with the activities carried out by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna regarding the safeguards agreements concluded by the IAEA with countries. So the Final Document adopted last year at the NPT Conference covers the full range of topics included in the Treaty. The question to be answered this morning is how can the commitments made at the Non Proliferation 2000 Review Conference be fulfilled.

Before answering this question I would like to emphasize that the successful outcome of the Conference was due to the flexibility and political will shown by all States Parties of the Treaty, in particular, by the five nuclear weapon states and the New Agenda Initiative. The New Agenda Initiative States are Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Sweden and South Africa, countries that renounced the option of developing a nuclear weapon program. On 9 June 1998 the Foreign Affairs Ministers of these seven countries adopted a joint declaration entitled "Towards a Nuclear Weapon-Free World: The Need for a New Agenda." They stated that those seven countries could no longer remain complacent at the reluctance of the nuclear weapon states, and the three nuclear weapons capable states, India, Pakistan and Israel, to make a clear commitment to the speedy, final and total elimination of their nuclear weapons and their nuclear weapon capability. The seven Ministers also expressed that the international community should not enter the third millennium with the prospect that the maintenance of nuclear weapons could be considered legitimate for the indefinite future. For those reasons the 2000 NPT Review Conference provided an excellent opportunity to make progress in the field of nuclear disarmament.

The New Agenda Group, coordinated by Mexico at the Conference, presented a working document on nuclear disarmament with proposals to be included in the final outcome of the conference. We engaged in a long negotiating process with the five nuclear weapon states and other nations. Several proposals of the New Agenda were accepted. The most important of them, no doubt, is the unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear weapon states to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals leading to nuclear disarmament to which all States Parties are committed under Article 6 of the Non Proliferation Treaty. I must say that this wording is not the original proposal presented by the New Agenda, but as in any negotiation, this is a compromise language. Our original proposal was more ambitious.

Continued