Strategic Panorama 2009 - 2010 - IEEE

Vicente Garrido Rebolledo
in the development of his country’s nuclear programme, proposed that a
distinction be drawn between vertical nuclear proliferation for the first case
and horizontal nuclear proliferation for the second.
India referred constantly to the acquisition of atomic weapons by
established nuclear states as «vertical», «de facto», «existing», «actual»,
«continued» or «real» proliferation, and to non-nuclear states’ option of
going nuclear as «horizontal», «additional», «future», «possible» or «likely»
proliferation. In India’s view, vertical nuclear proliferation was the direct
cause of horizontal nuclear proliferation: the growing acquisition of nuclear
weapons by the nuclear powers had a direct impact on states that did not
possess them as it threatened their security. Therefore, India (as one of the
leaders of the Non-Aligned Movement) stated that the NPT should crack
down on the proliferation of all forms of acquisition of nuclear weapons,
including vertical proliferation (that is, an increase in the number of nuclear
warheads of states already possessing nuclear weapons or even the technical
enhancement of these arsenals) instead of focusing solely on horizontal
proliferation (15), as advocated by the United States and the Soviet
Union in their respective treaty drafts (16).
Indeed, the USSR had its own draft treaty, submitted to the United
Nations General Assembly at the end of 1965, establishing a total ban on
the manufacture, possession, control or use of nuclear weapons by any
non-nuclear state. Moscow made it clear during the debates held at the
UN that the real aim of the project for an Atlantic nuclear force proposed
by Washington was to supply nuclear weapons to the Federal Republic
of Germany. During the secret talks held at the end of 1966 between US
Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko,
Washington relinquished the idea of setting up a multilateral nuclear force
but, in exchange, Moscow agreed to the presence of US nuclear weapons
on the territory of US allies and did not object to consultations between the
latter on the possible use of weapons of this kind—that is, to the establishment
of a Nuclear Planning Committee within NATO (17).
(15) GARRIDO REBOLLEDO, V., «Guía para entender la política nuclear de India» Papeles de
Cuestiones Internacionales, No. 59-60, CIP, Madrid, December 1996, pp. 37-42.
(16) Document of the Conference of the Eighteen Nation Committee on Disarmament ENDC/
PV. 223. On the positions of other states see SCHÖTTLE, Enid, Postures for Non-
Proliferation. Arms Limitation and Security Policies to Minimize Nuclear Proliferation,
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Taylor & Francis Ltd., London,
1979.
(17) GARRIDO REBOLLEDO, V., «El futuro del desarme y la no proliferación», Política
Exterior, No. 105, May-June 2005, pp. 93-101.
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