CTBT, NPT, MTCR and all the rest

Columnist MB NAQVI makes a case for Pakistan not to drag its feet in signing the CTBT, etc.

Pakistan Foreign Minister Abdus Sattar was in Karachi to plead that Pakistan should sign the CTBT. He naturally explained the entire background why he says so. The main ground on which he favours the government would, and should, sign the CTBT is that Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent would remain safe and the CTBT is in fact a toothless tiger. It is unlikely to come into force until 44 countries, including 8 that are thought likely to become nuclear powers or some of whom have actually become nuclear powers, sign it. This is a line that has been taken by many a hardliners in this country, as also in India, who think that the signing the CTBT is no hindrance in continuing not merely preserving the nuclear deterrent but in fact adding to it and go on improving it.

One thing can be said straightaway. This is an unworthy line to take. Who does not remember that Mr. Abdus Sattar wrote a series of articles a few years before he became the Foreign Minister in the military government and also a series written with Dr. Maqbool Bhatti in which he argued strongly against signing the CTBT. If CTBT is to be signed, in all fairness and honestly, it should be signed in its true spirit. It is intended to be the first step on the road to non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. The stated aim of CTBT promoters is to ensure the eventual signing of NPT (non-proliferation treaty). Those who had strongly argued against signing it are now promoting the same treaty. That looks not merely odd but it takes away something from their personal credibility.

The honest thing to do is to debate the issue. The debate ought not to be only on the first step. The debate ought to be whether Pakistan should have a nuclear deterrent or it can do without it. What precise benefits do the nuclear deterrent confer on it and whether they outweigh the disadvantages of having the nuclear weapons. Pakistan’s nuclear capability has not been an unmixed blessing as Mr. Nawaz Sharif had thought and propagated. It has brought the present economic crisis which in many ways is the supreme reality of today. It is, therefore, necessary to look at the problem afresh.

One is at one with Mr. Akram Zaki, the former Secretary General of the Foreign Office, in holding that the CTBT should only be signed when the nation is quite ready to take the road to non-proliferation without reservations. If the people have reservations about that and they want to have a nuclear capability in the shape of nuclear deterrent, then they should not sign the treaty. They should stand and be counted against the CTBT, NPT and all the rest of the others. It is clear that not signing the CTBT means one is against observing the limitations, whenever imposed, of the MTCR (missile technology control regime) and FMCT (fissile materials control treaty). It also means that one is against eventually signing the NPT and also the convention or treaties that may be signed for the destruction of the fissile nuclear material. In logic, one should also be against signing the conventions on other mass destruction weapons of biological or chemical types.

On the other hand, the proposition that possession of nuclear weapons is vital for Pakistan’s security needs to be reexamined more purposefully and objectively. There has to be a proper analysis of the cost-benefit ratio. How does the benefit that accrues to national security compare with the disadvantages of possessing these weapons. Among the disadvantages is the opposition of the entire G8, unpopularity in the UN, the bulk of the membership of which international body has condemned both India and Pakistan for going nuclear. They are unlikely to change this view. We have to stand alone in the world along with perhaps Israel and India, both of which are inimical to Pakistan. Indeed, Pakistan has to fear attacks on Pakistan’s own nuclear installations (if the proposition is practical) from both India and Israel. We shall be practically alone in the world in relying on nuclear weapons for Pakistan’s security in which it will not be supported by any other power in the world. Not even Israel and India will support Pakistan which are likely to be in the same position. Indeed they will be the main threats to Pakistan in the first instance and G8 in the next. The potentialities of this situation need to be analysed.

Let no one in Pakistan forget that a new dimension in international relations has been introduced by the US and the rest of the west by their interventions in Yugoslavia, first in Bosnia and later in Kosovo. The trend is also visible in various other African countries. International intervention is now being advocated on issues over which really influential powers that are able to manipulate UN. Even Pakistan has advocated the international intervention in the case of oppression of the Palestinians by the Israelis. The implications of this doctrine need to be analysed and assimilated. A time can conceivably come when the G8 as a whole might think of intervening with a view to taking out Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. It looks quite unlikely today, to be sure. But if Pakistan continues to be the odd man out with frequent military intervention and keeps on rattling nuclear weapons over Kashmir, the unlikely might make the transition from a mere possibility to a likelihood if not a probability.

As it happens the Americans through their influence over the IMF have ensured that Pakistan’s rulers are now utterly impatient for few hundred million IMF dollars. Islamabad is now said to be ready to accept many a suggestions of IMF. It may even be ready to accept a nominee of IMF as the nominal ruler of the country. It does look as if a time might come when the hitherto rulers of Pakistan might in effect give the whole of the state in receivership to the IMF and World Bank provided they get some money. It is a possibility that is looking Pakistanis in the face. Why is it so is because Pakistan economy has been mismanaged largely through overspending without being able to raise enough resources. The point in any case is that it does seem as if a substantial portion of our ruling elite or political class seems to have come to the conclusion that Pakistan economy cannot turnaround or improve its operation without accepting the onerous terms of the IMF. But it also means that a portion of the ruling elite is not willing to accept that; they would soldier on without IMF money and face the music of default if it becomes unavoidable. Indeed, if the IMF does not come through soon and provide a proper bailout, Pakistan will have to default and the threat of an economic collapse through sudden shortages of imported goods, runaway inflation and the rest of the nightmare would be on the agenda.

The fact that the ruling elites seems to be split on this big issue is fraught with dangers of its own. Insofar as it can be ascertained, the civil bureaucracy is equally divided. But it does seem as if the majority opinion is too pragmatic to be accused of wanting to come into the US-IMF, World Bank and the others umbrella. They would like to negotiate and see how much precisely is to be given against what. But on a matter of this colossal importance it is hard to accept the proposition that pragmatic negotiations might involve some minor give and take. The aim of the west in cornering Pakistan and making it as vulnerable as possible — in which they have more or less succeeded — and their aim needs to be kept in sharp focus. It has been to ensure that Pakistan becomes a non-nuclear weapons state. The kind of firm vibes that our hardliners seem to have received or perceived in their various Track II encounters in Shanghai and Delhi in recent years seem unrealistic: the impression they had gathered was that one way or another the US would eventually accept India and Pakistan as nuclear weapons powers and the process can be eased by India and Pakistan working out a detente over nuclear weapons in the way the Soviets and the Americans had done, including a dash of MBFR (mutually balanced force reduction) talks. That, one holds, is unrealistic.

The vibes that have been picked up by analysts and objective observers from the western media and the western governments’ think tanks is that insofar as Pakistan is concerned, they would like it to become a non-nuclear power. One is not interested in what they want vis-a-vis India. This is not germane to this life-and-death in this country. The debate so far has not been joined by the people. It is still a debate among the hardliners and less than hardliners but not the soft-liners. The real debate should be by the people over whether they think that nuclear weapons can and would play a positive role in the defence of the realm. There is an opinion that thinks that these weapons will not help Pakistan survive economically. The burden the nuclear deterrent is putting is such as to have started to break the back of this economy. And it is only the beginning. Nuclear arms and missiles races between India and Pakistan are only beginning. They have to go a long way before Pakistan can have the kind of nuclear deterrent it wants: survivable and with an effective second-strike capability, these are the essential prerequisites of a minimal nuclear deterrent. That is a long way off and to reach that position would require something like $ 30 to 40 billion more. It is unlikely that we can find this money. If we cannot, then by its own definition it would not be a deterrent. Possessing less than a deterrent while India goes ahead and perfects a deterrent would defeat the purpose it sets out to achieve. In the nuclear arms race phase the mutual trust plummets right through the flour. The likelihood of conflict and intensification of enmity becomes unstoppable. Where do we go from here? That is where the state of the debate today is.