test_pdf.pdf

ASSESSING
THE RECORD
OF ARMS
CONTROL
us this morning on controlling the spread of nuclear weapons.
NOBUYASU ABE: Thank you, Professor Steinbruner.
I’m pleased to be here participating in the Paul Warnke Conference. I traveled from New York yesterday to
snowy Washington, D.C. These days it’s always challenging to travel by air because you’re constantly reminded of
the terrorist threats. You have to remove everything—almost everything metallic from your body. You even have to
remove your shoes. I think sooner or later, you may have to come to the airport in pajamas and get on the plane.
(Laughter.)
But I’m all in favor of security measures against terrorist threats. I took advantage of my stay in Washington
yesterday to measure the temperature in the capital of the United States for arms control and disarmament. I’m afraid
the temperature’s not so high in Washington. But today I think we can help raise the temperature.
Since Mr. Newhouse just addressed the U.S.-Soviet and U.S.-Russia relationship and other speakers will be
addressing the problem of chemical and biological weapons, I will focus upon the past international efforts in the
field of nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation and their successes and failures. I think the ultimate test of the
success in these fields can be summarized by one word: results. By results, I do not mean simply signatures of this or
that document or pleasant words uttered at ceremonial diplomatic occasions. When it comes to nuclear arms control
and disarmament, results consist of real achievements in reducing and eliminating the risk of the willful or accidental
use of nuclear weapons. The assumption is that the greater the number of nuclear weapons and the wider they are
spread, the greater is the risk they [might be] used willfully or accidentally.
The international community has worked for many decades to achieve results using a variety of means—in
particular, national and multilateral measures against the global proliferation of nuclear weapons and to promote
nuclear disarmament, as well as more recent efforts to combat nuclear terrorism. Though nuclear arms control has
experienced its ups and downs over the years, it is to the progress that I would first like to turn.
Over a half century after the nuclear attacks at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we are fortunate indeed to observe
that there has not been even a single use of nuclear weapons and that there are only five recognized nuclear-weapon
states, and only four states with the non-recognized nuclear weapons capability outside the NPT [nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty]. George Bunn recently estimated that without the NPT, there could have been at least 28 additional
states with nuclear weapons. This alone is a significant achievement. Several states, including South Africa, Brazil,
and Argentina have voluntarily given up their nuclear weapons programs. There are now four regional nuclearweapon-free
zones, which cover virtually the entire southern hemisphere; not to mention treaty regimes that prohibit
the stationing of nuclear weapons on the seabed, in Antarctica, in orbit, on the moon and other celestial bodies, or the
testing of such weapons at sea, in the atmosphere, or in space.
Commitments on paper like these can be quite meaningful, but commitments backed by credible verification
measures bring us closer to what I would call real progress in nuclear arms control. The IAEA [International Atomic
Energy Agency] safeguards system is one such measure to the extent that it has served as an intrusive, agreed,
multilateral means to verify the peaceful uses of nuclear material. While these safeguards have by no means eliminated
all threats from the misuse of peaceful nuclear technology or material, the world is undoubtedly better off with
these binding, intrusive safeguards than without them. The new authorities contained in the Additional Protocol
will further enhance the ability of safeguards to verify the peaceful use of commitments.
More generally, I must note, on the positive side of the ledger, the enormous, virtually universal support that
exists in the world today for the fundamental norms of nonproliferation and disarmament and against nuclear
terrorism. This support is demonstrated not just in declaratory resolutions adopted each year in the UN General
Assembly but in the form of legally binding commitments made by states to regional and global nuclear arms control
treaties, commitments that are increasingly being reinforced by concrete national actions.
The indefinite extension of the NPT in 1995 and the adoption a year later of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test
Ban Treaty [CTBT] were two specific landmark events in the evolution of nuclear arms control norms. Though the
latter has not yet entered into force, the world has witnessed for many years now a de facto moratorium on nuclear
tests, and the steady buildup of the international monitoring system under the provisional CTBT Secretariat, adding
a significant deterrence against any clandestine testing.
I have to recall, however, that negotiation of this treaty was a major part of the package deal that led to the NPT’s
indefinite extension in 1995. After all, the NPT succeeded in preventing a significant number of industrial nations
that had significant technological capability at that time from acquiring nuclear weapons. With the passing of time,
that non-nuclear-weapon status has settled down very well in those countries’ body politics.
Preventing such nations as Japan, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Canada, and Australia [from pursuing
nuclear weapons] is no means a small accomplishment. If it is about conventional weapon, I think the NPT would
have very well earned a passing grade. But the nature of such WMD [weapons of mass destruction] as nuclear
11
11