Moving beyond the CTBT towards nuclear stability & legitimacy

Contributing Editor Dr SHIREEN M MAZARI discusses the CTBT issue

In the final analysis, Pakistan does not need - nor can it afford - thermonuclear weapons for its security needs and therefore any further explosive testing for Pakistan's nuclear development is not needed. Instead it can use cold tests and computer simulation to continue evolving its nuclear arsenal. Beyond forbidding nuclear explosive tests, the CTBT holds no other constraints in terms of a country's nuclear development and it does not distinguish between nuclear and non-nuclear countries. Having gone overtly nuclear, it is unfortunate that we are expending needless energy over the CTBT.

Where attention needs to be focused is on the Fissile Material Cut Off Treaty (FMCT) for which negotiations are presently going on in Geneva. Depending on the format that is finally adopted, a Fissile Material Cut Off Treaty will impinge directly on our future nuclear weapons' development. Yet no one is debating this crucial issue - especially the benchmark for the cut-off of fissile material production and stockpiles. We have no idea what line our negotiators are taking on this issue which will define the state of our nuclear weapons' capability for the future. If ever a national consensus needed to be evolved before we commit ourselves, it is on this crucial issue.

As for the fear that if we sign the CTBT we will sign the NPT also - this simply reflects a lack of confidence in our own abilities to protect our interests. Yet the reality is not so dismal on this count. After all we signed and ratified the Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) - of which the CTBT is an extension - yet we have not succumbed on the issue of the NPT. Where compromises on our nuclear programme were made - such as freezes and rollbacks - these were not because of any treaty obligation but the political whims of the Pakistani ruling elite. In any case, now the NPT is irrelevant in our nuclear context. So even if some government wished to sign the NPT it cannot do so unless the NPT is revised to accommodate Pakistan and India's nuclear status. The glaring contradiction between the reality on the ground and the NPT has been made only too clear with the Americans admitting that while Pakistan and India are in reality nuclear weapon powers, the NPT signatories cannot accept them as such. But then that is a problem for the NPT members to resolve and come to terms with the nuclear reality of South Asia which cannot simply be wished away!

With the US now admitting that they are coming round to accepting India's nuclear reality, Pakistan basically needs to concentrate on seeking legitimacy for its nuclear status at the global level. For this purpose, a bilateral dialogue with the US is not the only path, so if the US is not prepared to dialogue with Pakistan on the nuclear issue in the same manner in which it has done so with India, there are other options that have been and are still available for Pakistan - and one is at a loss to understand why our foreign policy makers have failed to act more cohesively on this front.

For instance, Pakistan needs to adopt a two-pronged approach towards gaining nuclear legitimacy through becoming part of the mainstream global arms control regime. This does not require immediate acceptance of the country's nuclear status by the US. Instead, as a first step Pakistan needs to declare that it is now going to abide by the Missile Technology Control Guidelines (MTCR). Contrary to the Foreign Office's insistence that the MTCR is a treaty that is now closed for signatures, the MTCR is a Suppliers' Club arrangement where exporters of military and dual-use missile technology agree to refrain from this export. So while it does not impinge upon a country's own missile development it reassures the rest of the world that such a country will not aid in the proliferation of missile development. This scribe had suggested that Pakistan agree to adopt the MTCR guidelines immediately after it had tested Ghauri - but our foreign policy decision-makers seem unable to move out of their narrow, strait-jacketed confines. Even now we can gain diplomatically from such a move.

Already, by 1991, Argentina, China, Israel and South Africa had all declared that they would unilaterally respect the MTCR guidelines. Obviously, the MTCR guidelines were not seen as having an adverse effect on the defence capabilities of any of these states. So what exactly is the MTCR?

It is an effort to coordinate national export restrictions prohibiting transfer of missiles and technology for missiles capable of delivering a 500 kg payload over a range of 300 kms. The regime itself was the result of a process begun quietly in the late 60s, and which continues today. Before the MTCR came into being, there was also the London Suppliers' Club that placed restrictions on nuclear technology based on the Zanger List - especially in the wake of the Indian nuclear explosion of 1974. The MTCR itself was originally negotiated by Britain, Canada, France, Germany (what was then West Germany), Italy, Japan and the US in the mid-eighties. It was first made public in 1987.

It is very important to be aware of the fact that it is not a treaty. In fact, it is little more than a list of proscribed technologies and an agreement to cooperate on enforcing this list. The MTCR comprises primarily tacit assumptions implicit within its guidelines along with supporting diplomacy. States who commit to the MTCR agree to forgo trade advantages in order to enforce the proscribed technologies list. There are seven main guidelines and a comprehensive equipment and technology annex, the latter having been enlarged in the 90s. Critically, the guidelines are not designed to impede national space programmes or international cooperation in such programmes as long as such programmes do not contribute to nuclear weapons delivery systems. Also, of course, the MTCR allows trade in smaller weapons.

All in all, Pakistan, by declaring its intentions of abiding by the MTCR guidelines, has nothing to lose and everything to gain. For a start, it becomes part of the mainstream missile-powers as - having already acquired and shown its missile capability. Also, it may then have access to a lot of the sensitive Category A items of the MTCR - that is, those items of greatest sensitivity. For there is a provision for transfer of such items under binding government to government undertakings and assurances by the recipient government to ensure that such an item is put only to its stated end-use (Guidelines 2 & 5). Once Pakistan acquires a status quo position on the missile front, the restrictions on access to several dual purpose technologies may ease up over time.

In addition, Pakistan should by now have declared its intentions of signing Additional Protocol II of the Tlatellolco Treaty (establishing a nuclear-weapon-free-zone in Latin America). This Protocol calls on all nuclear weapon states to 'undertake not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against the Contracting Parties of the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America.'

Unlike other similar treaties which only acknowledges five nuclear weapon powers in Britain, China, France, USA and USSR (now Russia), this Treaty does not identify any limited number of nuclear weapon powers by name. So when India tested its nuclear device in 1974 it was asked to accede to Protocol II by the member states since they felt that for all practical purposes India was a nuclear weapon state. Of course, at the time, India refused to acknowledge this characterisation overtly.

Now that Pakistan has gone overtly nuclear it should declare its intentions of signing Additional Protocol II of the Tlatellolco Treaty. By doing so, and by the signatories to the Treaty accepting its signature, Pakistan will have gained limited legitimization of its nuclear weapon status. This idea was as usual ignored by the 'experts' of the Foreign Office which is unfortunate since a number of opportunities are being lost even as we maintain a narrow focus on a US-centric approach to gaining legitimacy for our nuclear status.

There are many avenues open to bring sanity and legitimacy to the nuclear equation in South Asia, but to make use of these opportunities requires a new, innovative approach to the whole nuclear issue. And that means shedding the baggage of decades of bureaucratic malaise and decay.