The Demise of the Global Arms Control Regime - Drafted By: Dr. Harsh V. Pant

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Now that North Korea has tested a nuclear weapon, perhaps the time has come to openly accept the demise of the global nuclear arms control and non-proliferation regime. From Iran and North Korea to the nuclear black market of Pakistan's A.Q. Khan, new challenges continue to emerge and threaten to undermine the global arms control architecture.

Forced by India's open challenge to the global arms control and disarmament framework in May 1998, major powers in the international system were forced to re-evaluate their orientation toward global arms control and non-proliferation. The North Korean nuclear explosion has become yet another nail in the coffin and international arms control seems headed for a slow but inevitable demise.

The origins of this shake-up of the global security environment can be traced to the Indian challenge to the status quo in May 1998, soon followed by Pakistan. India's nuclear tests were the first open challenge to the system, especially by a "responsible" as opposed to a "rogue" member of the international community. It can be argued that surreptitious Chinese weapons proliferation and clandestine nuclear programs had undercut the arms control regime long before the Indian nuclear tests. Nonetheless, the nuclear tests significantly altered the contours of the existing security architecture that was already under stress in the post-Cold War era. India's open defiance marked the real beginning of the end of the non-proliferation regime and the consequences for global security have been nothing less than revolutionary.

The first major blow came in the form of the rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by the U.S. Senate in 1999. Then, the United States decided to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (A.B.M.) Treaty of 1972. Washington argued that the new threats of the post-Cold War period, especially ballistic missile threats from "rogue" states and terrorist groups, made this treaty irrelevant to the altered security needs of the United States. The withdrawal of the United States from the A.B.M. treaty paved the way for Washington's pursuit of its ballistic missile defense program without any formal restrictions.

Today, India and Pakistan continue with their nuclear weapons programs without adhering to any restrictive global agreement. Despite its best efforts, the United States has so far failed to achieve any of its non-proliferation and arms control objectives vis-à-vis India and Pakistan. Moreover, the Bush administration has not been interested in maintaining the Cold War arms control framework and has not looked at South Asia from the old lens of non-proliferation. Instead, it has cultivated both India and Pakistan on the basis of new global realities.

The United States, meanwhile, has conducted research on more usable nuclear weapons and Russia has declared its intention to conduct more nuclear tests to strengthen its deterrent. The non-state actors further muddy the nuclear waters as chillingly demonstrated by the discovery of the worldwide nuclear black market run by A.Q. Khan.

Iran seems to be following North Korea's lead and is brazenly rejecting calls by the West to suspend its uranium enrichment program. Other states such as Japan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia are waiting in the wings to see how the events unfold. The global arms control regime has so far been a rather impotent observer of these developments with no significant influence on the course of events.

In what is termed as the "arms control paradox," it is argued that if arms control is needed in a strategic relationship because the states in question might go to war, then it will be impractical for that very reason. The record of the Cold War shows that the United States and the former Soviet Union were equally responsible for reneging on their arms control promises. Not only did both of them attempt to gain nuclear superiority during the Cold War despite a plethora of arms control agreements, but both were equally responsible for encouraging proliferation in various ways. As the great powers try to maximize their share of power, their interests inevitably come into conflict with arms control and this causes these agreements to unravel.

Disenchantment with arms control has been growing since the 1980s. After a brief period of detente in the1970s, the two superpowers resumed their antagonism. This affected all the arms control measures agreed to during the detente. The signing of a series of arms control agreements during the detente was seen as a success of arms control rather than a reflection of the relaxation of tensions. Arms control was credited with maintaining strategic stability and creating norms of international behavior.

Despite this fact, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, one of the most in-depth agreements in terms of details of provisions, verification measures, and regime strengthening, was rejected by the United States even though it faced no great power as a rival in the near-term. This is significant because if even one of the strongest arms control measures is not deemed worthy of acceptance, then there is a problem with the very idea of arms control rather than its specific provisions.

In the post-Cold War era, this tendency has been more prominent. There have been numerous proposals for universal disarmament without any real evaluation of their impact on international security. There are significant strategic, political and technical obstacles to nuclear disarmament. In an international system that remains anarchic in nature and where states have to fend for their own security, states will be reluctant to give up their nuclear weapons since these weapons serve as an excellent deterrent. Also, there is a perception in some countries that nuclear weapons enhance their status and influence in the international system.

Moreover, the problem will remain of how to convince states that other states would not cheat and renege on their commitment of not using the huge amounts of weapons-grade fissile material for weapons purposes. It is doubtful that international organizations of any kind would be effective against states trying to deal with endemic uncertainty in global politics.

Even if these obstacles can be overcome, the larger question remains: is universal disarmament desirable? It may seem odd, but the huge nuclear stockpiles during the Cold War maintained international stability. Indeed, it was also important in the rather slow rate of nuclear proliferation since their huge arsenals allowed the two superpowers to provide extended deterrence to their client states and this reduced the value of nuclear weapons.

For long, major powers have deftly used various arms control provisions to constrain the strategic autonomy of other states in the international system. India's nuclear tests were the first direct challenge to the great powers and the result has been a complete overhaul of the international security environment. The demise of the international arms control regime is a small part of that overhaul.

India has always been dissatisfied with the global non-proliferation and arms control regime because it constrained its autonomy to make foreign policy decisions as dictated by national interests. It argued that an inequitable regime that gave only a few countries the permanent right to nuclear weapons and denied others this right was inherently unstable. It is this fundamental instability that has come to haunt the global nuclear order today.

A new global security architecture is needed if there is to be an attempt to tackle the emerging problem of proliferation and terrorism since the old security structure has largely failed.

Report Drafted By:
Dr. Harsh V. Pant