The Report of the Tokyo Forum for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament

PART ONE:
THE NEW NUCLEAR DANGERS

1. A decade after the end of the Cold War, at the threshold of the 21st Century, the fabric of international security is showing signs of unravelling. Relations among major powers are deteriorating. The United Nations is in political and financial crisis. The global regimes to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD) are under siege. Nuclear tests by India and Pakistan have shown that not all countries share the view that the usefulness of nuclear weapons is declining. Years of relentless effort have not eliminated the clandestine WMD programs of the most determined proliferators. The US-Russia nuclear disarmament process is stalled, with adverse consequences for the global disarmament agenda. The situation in Asia is particularly fluid, portending negative changes for disarmament and non-proliferation in coming years. Political violence is taking an increasingly worrisome turn, with the possible advent of sub-state terrorist groups armed with weapons of mass destruction. And economic crises, sweeping over continents, generate instability and unpredictability well beyond the markets.
2. Relations among major powers, a primary factor in world order, are crucial to the future of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. Following a short rapprochement, relations between the United States and Russia have deteriorated. The United States no longer has a matching rival, and is perceived as a sole military superpower. Russia, concerned about its status, has revalued nuclear weapons, especially for "tactical" use. Misunderstanding on both sides is made worse by crises over issues such as enlargement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq, missile defences and Kosovo. Russia's growing irritation at US initiatives, which frequently ignore its views, has clear consequences for disarmament: ratification of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty II in the Russian Duma is repeatedly held hostage to bilateral disagreements. Relations are also troubled between the United States and China. These two countries not only differ in their approaches to such fundamental issues as human rights, missile defences, Taiwan and non-proliferation but also have potentially conflicting visions of their roles in Asia which could intensify in the next century. Europe, meanwhile, still lacks the sway it could hold in world politics. The European Union is going through further integration and enlargement, and is taking active steps to strengthen the implementation of its common foreign and security policies. At this stage, however, it is still punching below its weight on the world stage. Europe has a limited role even on such matters of vital interest as the former Soviet Union's WMD legacy, especially when compared with the US cooperative threat reduction programs. Finally, the cast of major powers on the world stage is changing, with more states aspiring to play a larger role.
3. Without a strong, effective United Nations, nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament efforts will fall short. But the UN system is adrift, financially compromised, and playing a limited role in international relations, sometimes performing vital services but sometimes bypassed entirely. The UN system reflects power relations and has suffered from deteriorating relations among major powers. This has left the United Nations Organization poorly equipped to face complexities arising from the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the growing importance of non-state actors ignoring basic international law, and new forms of violence involving mass civilian casualties. Unable to respond to some of the dramatic changes in the world in the 50 years since its creation, its effectiveness and to some extent its authority have been undermined. The divergent views on a UN standing military force, and on the new permanent membership of the Security Council, for example, illustrate the UN's problems. The United Nations, however, remains an essential institution for moving international relations towards cooperative security. Its operational capabilities must be strengthened. To deal effectively with international security problems in the next century, Security Council reform, new normative principles, operational arrangements, financial compliance and new sources of financing are urgently needed.
4. Recent advances in science and technology have made chemical and biological weapons more accessible. Furthermore, the bio-science revolution has opened possibilities for the making of a new generation of biological weapons which are more dangerous and difficult to protect against. Some of this activity is difficult to distinguish from legitimate civilian research, which makes proliferation harder to prevent. In the proliferation of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, increasingly complex methods of concealment and sources of supply are used. Delivery systems are also giving rise to increased concern, as missiles with extended ranges and increased launch readiness become more accessible. The uses proposed for nuclear weapons by the new nuclear-armed states are unclear; those of potential proliferators of biological weapons even more so. As a consequence, profound questions must now be raised concerning the new WMD arsenals. Are they intended as weapons of last resort? Are they seen as decisive weapons for use against countries armed with advanced conventional capabilities? Are they for the ultimate protection of authoritarian regimes? Or are they seen as instruments of regional domination?
5. At stages during the Cold War, the common interests of the superpowers to avoid nuclear conflict were strong enough to moderate hostile behaviour and create, through dialogue and confidence-building measures, some level of trust. Nothing of the like exists among the new proliferators and some of their neighbours. The world must now contemplate new and dangerous patterns of behaviour. The risks of cataclysmic war between major powers have subsided, but those of regional aggression with weapons of mass destruction have increased. Warnings have been sounded, including in Kashmir, the Persian Gulf and the Korean Peninsula. Non-proliferation and disarmament treaties have been used as smokescreens for clandestine weapon programs. Concerns over WMD programs in North Korea and Iraq, in two unstable regions, have proved strikingly difficult to resolve, either through cooperation or pressure. In both cases, 1998 and 1999 have been years of reassessment and latent crisis.
6. The May 1998 tests in India and Pakistan have significantly changed the global non-proliferation and disarmament picture. Their message runs counter to wide expectations and hopes that the end of the Cold War would make nuclear weapons relics of the past. Instead, the tests signal that nuclear weapons could be a growing part of the strategic landscape of the future. They raise doubts about the extent to which nuclear weapons were linked only to the singular historical circumstances of the Cold War. They also pose a fundamental problem for the regime based on the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) by creating two states with demonstrated nuclear weapon capabilities but no recognised status. Achieving NPT universality under these circumstances is extremely difficult. Many countries that acceded to the NPT assuming there would be only five nuclear-weapon states (NWS) resent India's and Pakistan's tests as a challenge to their own policies of restraint. These tests, as well as complementary missile flight tests, greatly increase nuclear dangers in an area where four major conflicts between India and Pakistan, and one between India and China, have been fought since 1947. A capacity for mutual destruction does not ensure restraint. In the Middle East, where several armed conflicts have taken place since World War II, there is also the genuine possibility that further wars may involve weapons of mass destruction. During the 1973 Arab-Israeli war there were reports that Israel had contemplated using nuclear weapons; and even the United States ordered a nuclear alert. Chemical weapons were used in the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988. And the 1991 Gulf War raised fears about the use of chemical and biological weapons.
7. Implementation of the bilateral US-Russia disarmament agenda is stalled, with major repercussions for global disarmament and non-proliferation. The Russian Duma will have difficulty ratifying START II in the near future; START III may remain an unrealised treaty unless new efforts are made to reaffirm the START process. It would be a major setback if the two major nuclear powers abandoned their joint efforts in strategic reductions. It is too early to tell if the US-Russian Joint Statement of 20 June 1999 can revive START.
8. Tactical nuclear arsenals are also of increasing concern. Despite accounting for more than half of the global stockpile of nuclear warheads, they are not covered by any agreement. Both the United States and Russia maintain high alert rates for large numbers of nuclear weapons, based on plans of massive attack which have lost their meaning. Such plans are especially dangerous when Russia's early warning and command and control systems are weakened and its political structure is unstable.
9. The issue of fissile material control has become critical. Large stockpiles have been produced since the 1940s, and now plutonium and highly enriched uranium is being extracted from thousands of dismantled nuclear warheads. Despite international cooperation to strengthen Russia's capacity to control its fissile material, much remains to be accomplished; concerns persist that its fissile material may disseminate beyond its borders. Four nuclear-weapon states (the United States, Russia, France and the United Kingdom) have announced moratoria on producing fissile materials for weapons. It is hoped that China, India, Israel and Pakistan will also declare moratoria and adhere to them.
10. The US-China relationship has been deteriorating and is very unstable, with adverse consequences for disarmament. The United States is concerned about China's possible cooperation with Pakistan's nuclear and missile programs and China's development of its nuclear arsenal. China has already undertaken certain commitments: the unconditional no first use of nuclear weapons, no-use or threat of use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states, and the policy of no deployment of nuclear weapons outside its borders. China, however, has put in place few transparency measures. The implementation of further transparency measures would help dispel regional concerns and would support global nuclear disarmament efforts. For its part, China is concerned over aspects of US nuclear deterrence doctrine and the development of ballistic missile defences. The United States has put in place many transparency measures concerning its doctrines, deployments, fissile materials and technical developments. Further information, however, on reserve stocks would have a positive impact on steps towards nuclear disarmament.
11. Relationships between China and Russia, marked by China's new strength and Russia's present weakness, will be equally important in shaping the emerging international system. Reports about the development of a new missile by Russia, and about changes in Russian operational doctrine that could make nuclear weapons more readily useable, could over time raise concerns in China. On the other hand, China is not constrained by strategic arms reduction treaties while Moscow has agreed to forego land-based multiple warhead missiles and current Russian nuclear forces face block obsolescence. This juxtaposition of factors could cause increased concern in Russia.
12. Terrorism using nuclear, chemical or biological weapons has been possible for some time, but serious policymakers have traditionally seen other threats as more pressing. This perception has been changing since the early 1990s. The probability of WMD terrorism may still be relatively low, but it is growing with the ability of sub-state terrorist groups to master the technical challenges of developing and using these weapons, and their growing access to the very significant monies obtained from the traffic in illicit drugs. National controls on weapons-grade fissile materials were tight during the Cold War; now it is increasingly possible that non-state actors might obtain them. The prospect of WMD terrorism is particularly alarming because it would be hard to prevent and the perpetrators hard to identify. The effects of WMD terrorism could be so severe that it must be regarded as a serious security challenge for the coming decades. Trends in political violence and a propensity toward inflicting mass casualties appear to be rising in recent years. Chemical weapons have already been used against civilian populations in internal conflicts, setting a dangerous precedent, especially when civilian casualties and displacement are war aims in some ethno-nationalist conflicts.
13. Maintaining and reinforcing the WMD non-proliferation regimes is vital to global peace and security. Despite increased membership, key states remain outside the NPT, the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). Implementation decisions have weakened verification of the CWC, and the BWC verification protocol remains distant. Compliance challenges generate increasing concern, and there are no accepted multilateral processes for assessing and enforcing compliance, despite an array of non-proliferation norms, treaties and institutions. Political issues also divide the parties, including the pace of disarmament, commitments to peaceful cooperation, and the specific regional challenges of implementing a Middle East zone free of weapons of mass destruction and missiles.
14. Prospective missile defence deployments complicate the picture and are causing much debate. Proliferation may increase the perceived need for missile defences: the dramatic changes in threat assessment caused by the emergence of Iranian, Israeli, North Korean, Indian and Pakistani medium-range missile systems contributed to the new interest in missile defences. Alternatively, defences could, among other things, also increase and diversify the threat of WMD proliferation, as some states, including some of the five nuclear-weapon states, may try to compensate for defensive deployments. The question of missile defences should take into account all these implications, so as to have the net effect of reducing, not increasing, nuclear dangers, and avoiding further destabilisation of the international security system. The 1997 Protocol to the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty governing advanced missile defences does not fundamentally affect the ABM Treaty or undermine the mutual deterrence model. Prospective US-Russia discussions on the ABM Treaty should also meet these criteria.
15. A realistic dialogue on the most effective means to address underlying security concerns must replace outdated nuclear doctrines on the one hand and artificial disarmament deadlines on the other. The international community must find new approaches to reduce nuclear dangers in these troubled times. Non-proliferation norms will need to be strengthened if the regime is to be kept alive in the next century. Not only regional but also global security is at stake. The 1991 Gulf War showed how a regional conflict could have global implications. Nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament are not the preserve of the nuclear-weapon states or powers in troubled regions. The NPT is based on a contract involving all parties. While the nuclear-weapon states have to fulfil their Article I, IV and VI obligations and pursue nuclear disarmament, the non-nuclear-weapon states (NNWS) need to firmly support effective action in the most difficult cases of non-compliance. Concerted action by both camps is the only way to renew the partnership to reduce nuclear dangers. New approaches in US-Russia bilateral nuclear reductions and steps by China to cap its arsenal and fissile material stocks could assist progress towards multilateral negotiations on nuclear disarmament. At the same time, regional security threats in the Middle East and Northeast Asia need close attention, as do the security problems among India, Pakistan and China. These three areas are potential flashpoints where use of weapons of mass destruction cannot be dismissed.
16. It will be hard to maintain stability and nuclear security under these circumstances. It will require a vision and a roadmap of how these complex issues can be solved. It will also require, at the global and regional level, new initiatives to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and new spheres of strategic cooperation among major powers. The world has witnessed a decade of unexpected challenges and disturbances since the end of the Cold War. As a new century begins, there is a strong risk that the world will become more chaotic and troubled, threatening the security of all, unless work begins now to turn recent setbacks into potential solutions. This calls for understanding the stakes, and putting in place new means of maintaining stability, reducing WMD threats and increasing transparency.
17. Much has therefore changed since the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons issued its important report in 1996. Troubling signs are now evident on many fronts. The report and recommendations of the Tokyo Forum are aimed at clarifying the alarming nature of recent developments and the urgent need for steps to stop the decline in regional and international security. We call on the international community to meet the challenges posed by proliferation and increasing nuclear dangers. In the body of its report, the Tokyo Forum will identify how these challenges can be addressed in three mutually-reinforcing ways: mending strategic relations to reduce nuclear dangers, both among major powers and at a regional level; stopping and reversing the proliferation of nuclear weapons; and developing the architecture of, and taking new initiatives for, nuclear disarmament.