Complex and Diversified Global Nuclear Safety Environment---Li Hong

 Li Hong     Secretary General of China Arms Control and Disarmament Association

Nuclear weapons are regarded as the last resort for modern wars as well as one of the most important, obvious and direct factors influencing the international safety. For over 60 years, changes have happened to nuclear safety environment in the turbulent international relations and affected the evolution of the international relations, becoming the key index for measuring the global safety factor for a period.

I. The overall global nuclear situation is eased and the risks of massive nuclear war continuously decrease.

First, the themes of era including peace, development and cooperation facilitate the ease of global nuclear situation. After the Cold War, the global safety environment developed towards stability generally and the possibility of massive military conflicts and threat of nuclear war was decreased sharply. It directly leads to the obvious ease of global nuclear situation. It was demonstrated in latest U.S. Nuclear Posture Review that since the Cold War, “the threat of global nuclear war is far from human beings”.

Second, the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenal continuously fall down, bringing about the improvement in the global nuclear safety environment. In the new negotiation between the United States and Russia on nuclear disarmament, it was reaffirmed that in the future 7 years both sides would further reduce their number of deployed nuclear warheads to 1,550. The total number of the U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons was sharply decreased after the Cold War.

Third, the United States decreases the dependency of state safety on nuclear weapons, conductive to improving the global nuclear safety environment as a whole. In 2002, it was officially put forward in Nuclear Posture Review by Bush administration to “reduce the dependency on nuclear weapons” as well as to adopt new deterrence strategy of “trinity” to extend from the traditional nuclear deterrence to the regular one. In 2009, Obama administration out forward the “role of reducing nuclear weapons in state safety strategy”. From the perspective of 2010 U.S. defense budget, the U.S. planned to invest USD 250 million in researching and developing “Prompt Global Strike” (PGS) system, showing that the United States embarked on introducing new nuclear deterrence alternative scheme.

Fourth, the global nuclear-ban movement emerges and the call for nuclear disarmament upsurges, laying a sound consensus foundation for advancing the deep nuclear disarmament between the United States and Russia and global nuclear safety environment. In 2007, former four influential political personages jointly issued A Word Free of Nuclear Weapons and called on the global massive reduction of armament to decrease the number of nuclear weapons, establishing a nuclear weapon-free country. Obama government claimed to support the proposal of “nuclear weapon-free world” in public, thereby advancing a new nuclear-free wave. In September, 2009, President Hu Jintao clearly expressed that by no means, would China be the obstacle for nuclear disarmament at UN Security Council Summit on Nuclear Disarmament and Nuclear Nonproliferation. In 2008, France declared that it would reduce the number of its air-based nuclear weapons to its two thirds. In 2009, the UK reaffirmed its goal of elimination of global nuclear weapons and declared to reduce the number of its nuclear submarines.

Despite that, the role of nuclear weapons is irreplaceable so it is difficult for nuclear power to abandon the nuclear weapon-centered state safety strategy basically within a short period. The United States still won’t carry forward the “no first use” policy and continue to increase the budget for maintaining nuclear weapons. Therefore, there exists the risk of nuclear war and there is still a long way to go to eliminate the threat of nuclear war and enhance the global nuclear safety environment.

II. The threat of nuclear proliferation is increasing and becomes the obvious factor in impeding the improvement in international nuclear safety environment.

First, nuclear proliferation causes regional armament race and further results in regional turmoil. The armament race between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War is well known. In 1990s, Pakistan followed the nuclear test of India immediately, and in the past over decade, the South Asia has been suffered the nuclear war. The nuclear test of North Korea triggered the discussion between Japan and conservative force of South Korea on developing nuclear weapons, and became the key pretext for the United States to strengthen the military alliance and cooperation there, making traditional East Asian contradictions and historical problems more complicated. Iran nuclear program aroused a large number of its neighboring countries’ interests in nuclear skills. Once the new nuclear weapon countries emerged in that region, the chain reaction will be triggered, a disaster for the peace and stability of that region.

Second, nuclear proliferation has become the direct factor causing international disputes or even the military conflicts. The emergence of any new nuclear powers will impact the global nuclear safety framework. The United States, as the current leader of international safety framework, promotes power politics in the name of concerns about nuclear proliferation. Its second Gulf War launched in the name of Iraq’s production and mass destruction weapons can be set as the most typical example. Israel repeatedly threatened to launch military bombing to Iraq’s nuclear facilities and the United States expressed its intention to wage war against Iraq sometimes.

Third, western countries’ power politics and double standard on nuclear proliferation cause the opposition of developing countries. The United States made no comments on the Israel’s nuclear activities but expressed its outrage at nuclear activities of countries like Iran. The United States, ignoring the resolutions of the UN, signed the nuclear energy cooperation agreement with India who develops nuclear weapons. Such double standard is not popular and impedes the international efforts in preventing the nuclear proliferation. Western countries like the United States often take such high-pressure tactics as political and economic sanctions and force interception or even the military strike, and jeopardize sovereign states’ legal rights in peacefully use nuclear energy, incurring the strong revulsion and opposition of nuclear-free states, developing countries in particular.

In recent years, the Security Council more frequently and apparently involved the nonproliferation directly. In less than ten years, the Security Council passed seven resolutions on North Korean and Iraq Nuclear Problem successively. Moreover, No. 1540 and No.1887 Resolutions of the Security Council are directly concerned with nonproliferation. However, due to the complicated causes of proliferation and different interests held by each party, they encounter diversification in disposal methods and have different goals, making it quite difficult to solve the issue of nonproliferation. As long as there is the nuclear weapon, the nuclear proliferation will obsess the human beings and possibly become more complicated with current survival of nuclear energy wave.

III. Nuclear terrorism is prominent and becomes the new challenge for nuclear safety environment

With the global terrorism threat becoming more severe, the nuclear terrorism increasingly invites attention from international community, becoming new point and new challenge for nuclear safety environment. In The Convention on the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism passed by the UN in 2005, the acts of nuclear terror was divided into three categorizations: first, owing radioactive substances or nuclear devices for the purpose of jeopardizing human, people’s property and environment; second, using radioactive substances, nuclear devices or destruction nuclear facilities for the same purpose; third, threatening to use or attempting to own radioactive substances and nuclear devices for achieving these purposes. In April, 2010, the issue on responding to nuclear terrorism threat attracted unprecedented attentions at the Nuclear Safety Summit held in Washington.

In recent years, the terrorists and terroristic organizations have stronger will and more capability to capture nuclear materials to create terror. The nuclear smuggling network and nuclear black markets are incessantly exposed, making threat of terrorism more urgent and practical. The AlQaeda not only declared in public that it was the religion task to capture weapons of mass destruction but also made attempts to get highly enriched uranium in 1990s. According to the statistics, from 1993, the International Atomic Energy Agency handled over 800 of the nuclear smuggling cases. Until the middle of 2009, the reserve of the highly enriched uranium in the world was about 1,600 tons, and reserve of separated plutonium was about 1,800 tons, enough to manufacture 60,000 nuclear weapons respectively. With more countries developing the civil nuclear reactor, the nuclear materials maybe continue to be increased. The hoard of nuclear materials in large number will inevitably increase difficulty in supervision as well as increase the risks in proliferation or loss.

IV. Profound influence of guided missile defense systems and outer space weaponization on nuclear safety environment

First, the establishment of guided missile defense systems will break long international strategic balance of “mutually assured destruction”. The Antiballistic Missile Treaty that United States and the Soviet Union arrived at in 1972 was regarded as the cornerstone for the global strategic stability by the public, because it maintained the strategic balance of “mutually assured destruction” by forbidding the United States and Soviet Union establishing the guided missile defense systems for protecting the whole territory. This “balance of terror” effectively prevented the outbreak of nuclear war during the Cold War. The establishment of guided missile defense systems will severely damage the global strategic balance and stability, and jeopardize the mutual trust and cooperation between powers as well as the safety and interests of other countries.

Second, currently the guided missile defense systems exert limited influence on the states owning large-scale nuclear arsenal but impact states owning medium and small-size nuclear weapons greatly. With the guided missile defense systems further introduced, their performance is constantly improved and undoubtedly the states owning medium and small-size nuclear weapons will be ,more concerned about the fall in their nuclear deterrent,  so they will resort to any possible way to close it, may causing the imbalance and complexity of international strategic posture.

Third, the evolution and development of guided missile defense system will severely impede the process of nuclear disarmament and cause the armament race, in which the attack-and-defense relations between the nuclear weapons and missile defense play a decisive role. With the ABM Treaty losing its effectiveness, the development of guided missile defense system is not restricted any more and other nuclear powers dramatically lost their interests in participating in the nuclear disarmament in order to seek the way in effectively maintaining their nuclear deterrent. What makes the things worse is that some countries even reverse their due attitudes, severely impeding the process of international nuclear disarmament.

Fourth, guided missile defense system causes the outer space weaponization and stimulates the armament race in new areas, jeopardizing the international strategic stability in the long run and worsening the nuclear safety environment. The guided missile defense system features both attack and defense. In the view of its tactical performance on precisely intercepting the missiles, it can be used for the offensive attack. When the weapons are introduced into the outer space, the armament race in the field of outer space will be triggered definitely. At present, the modern lifestyle of human beings considerably depends on the outer space and we have to pay more importance to the outer space issue than ever before and make great efforts to maintain the pace of outer space in pursuing to improve the international nuclear safety environment.

The United States all the time energetically introduces the research on antiballistic missile skills and adopts the strategy of integrating the research and development with the deployment, severely impacting the global strategic stability. After Obama took the office, Russia made attempts to include the restriction on antimissile system in the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty between the United States and Russia, but the United States stands against it. The United States introduced its antiballistic missile system in Asia substantively all through the way, and made it an important tool for consolidating the US-Japan and US-South Korea alliances as well as drawing itself over India’s side and propping up India. Without any means to check it, it will further stimulate the armament races of Asia mainly on developing nuclear weapons and missile skills, unfavorable to the peace and stability of Asia.