Strategic Panorama 2009 - 2010 - IEEE

Vicente Garrido Rebolledo
In fourth place, as a logical consequence of the foregoing, the negotiation
of new nuclear disarmament accords between the US and Russia
(such as the aforementioned renewal of the START Treaty), but without dismissing
the possibility of involving the three other de iure nuclear powers
in the process, especially China. Beijing has stated on several occasions
that it would be willing to cut back its nuclear arsenal (it should be borne in
mind that of the five nuclear powers China is the only one to have increased
its arsenal by 25% since 2005) if the US and Russia were to reduce
theirs to under 1,000 warheads each. Such a decision would also require
Washington to reconsider the composition and size of its nuclear force,
especially the withdrawal of some of its modern submarines, and also to
limit the number of warheads in its missile force. In official statements
and in the addresses delivered to the Conference on Disarmament or the
First Committee of the United Nations on Disarmament and International
Security, Chinese representatives generally hold that the purpose of disarmament
and armaments control is «to increase the security of all states»
and that it therefore «should not be used by stronger nations (in allusion
to the US) to control weaker nations». In addition «countries should refrain
from trying to achieve absolute security. Only by reducing threats from
militarily stronger countries will weaker countries feel security enough to
refrain from improving their nuclear arsenals».
Fifth, the implementation of mechanisms to ensure full verification and,
more importantly, the irreversibility of the processes of nuclear disarmament
(but also chemical and, to a lesser extent, biological, until the necessary
conditions for verification are met) as this is not guaranteed under the
current Moscow or SORT Treaty.
Sixth, progress in defining and adopting an international agreement
on security assurances (positive and negative) from nuclear states to the
non-nuclear states, and redefinition of the doctrine on the utilisation and
role of nuclear weapons in national security strategies. This is an aspect
of particular interest because the three main nuclear powers are currently
reviewing their nuclear stance.
The 2009 work programme of the Conference on Disarmament also
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