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by Praful Bidwai
The mushroom cloud rising over Nagasaki, Japan. The city of Nagasaki
was the target of the world’s second atomic bomb attack at 11:02 a.m. on
August 9, 1945.
Published on Thursday, December 28, 2006 by Inter Press
Service
NEW DELHI, India - Dec
28 - If prospects for nuclear weapons reduction took a turn for the
worse in 2006 the New Year holds out little hope for containing
proliferation. In
October 2006, eight years after India and Pakistan crossed the nuclear
threshold, the world witnessed yet another breakout, when North Korea
exploded an atomic bomb and demanded that it be recognised as a nuclear
weapons-state. Talks aimed at persuading Pyongyang to give up its
nuclear weapons, in return for security guarantees and economic
assistance, collapsed last week.
In 2006, the ongoing confrontation between the Western
powers and the Islamic Republic of Iran over its nuclear programme got
dangerously aggravated. The United Nations Security Council imposed
harsh sanctions on Iran but these may prove counterproductive.
Tehran dismissed the sanctions as illegal and vowed to
step up its "peaceful" uranium enrichment programme. It added one more
cascade of 164 uranium enrichment centrifuges during the year and is
preparing to install as many as 3,000 of these machines within the next
four months. (Several thousands of centrifuges are needed to build a
small nuclear arsenal.)
Developments in South Asia added to this negative
momentum as India and the United States took further steps in
negotiating and legislating the controversial nuclear cooperation deal
that they inked one-and-a-half years ago. The deal will bring India into
the ambit of normal civilian nuclear commerce although it is a nuclear
weapons-state and has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Meanwhile, India and Pakistan continued to test
nuclear-capable missiles and sustained their long-standing mutual
rivalry despite their continuing peace dialogue.
Looming large over these developments in different parts
of Asia are the Great Powers, led by the U.S., whose geopolitical role
as well as refusal to undertake disarmament has contributed to enhancing
the global nuclear danger in 2006.
According to a just-released preliminary count by the
Federation of American Scientists, eight countries launched more than 26
ballistic missiles of 23 types in 24 different events in 2006. They
include the U.S., Russia, France and China, besides India, Pakistan,
North Korea and Iran.
"One can list other negative contributing factors too,"
says Sukla Sen, a Mumbai-based activist of the Coalition for Nuclear
Disarmament and Peace, an umbrella of more than 250 Indian organisations.
"These include U.S. plans to find new uses for nuclear armaments and
develop ballistic missile defence ("Star Wars") weapons, Britain's
announcement that it will modernise its "Trident" nuclear force, Japan's
moves towards militarisation, and a revival of interest in nuclear
technology in many countries."
"Clearly," adds Sen, "61 years after Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, the world has learnt little and achieved even less so far as
abolishing the nucleus scourge goes. The nuclear sword still hangs over
the globe. 2006 has made the world an even more dangerous place. The
time has come to advance the hands of the Doomsday Clock."
The Doomsday Clock, created by the Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists, published from Chicago in the U.S., currently stands at
seven minutes to midnight, the Final Hour. Since 1947, its minute hand
has been repeatedly moved "forward and back to reflect the global level
of nuclear danger and the state of international security".
The Clock was last reset in 2002, after the U.S.
announced it would reject several arms control agreements, and withdraw
from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which prohibits the development
of "Star Wars"-style weapons.
Before that, the Doomsday Clock was advanced in 1998,
from 14 minutes to midnight, to just nine minutes before the hour. This
was primarily in response to the nuclear tests by India and Pakistan in
May that year.
The closest the Clock moved to midnight was in 1953, when the U.S. and
the USSR both tested thermonuclear weapons. The Clock's minute hand was
set just two minutes short of 12.
The lowest level of danger it ever showed was in 1991,
following the end of the Cold War and the signature of the Strategic
Arms Reduction Treaty between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The Clock
then stood at 17 minutes to midnight.
"The strongest reason to move the minute hand forward
today is the inflamed situation in the Middle East," argues M.V. Ramana,
an independent nuclear affairs analyst currently with the Centre for
Interdisciplinary Studies in Environment and Development, Bangalore.
"Iran isn't the real or sole cause of worry. It's
probably still some years away from enriching enough uranium to make a
nuclear bomb. But there is this grave crisis in Iraq, which has spun out
of Washington's control. And then there is Israel, which is a de facto
nuclear weapons-state and is seen as a belligerent power by its
neighbours in the light of the grim crisis in Palestine. All the crises
in the Middle East feed into one another and aggravate matters," adds
Ramana. At the
other extreme of Asia, new security equations are emerging, partly
driven by the North Korean nuclear programme.
"Today, this is a key factor not only in shaping
relations between the two Koreas, but the more complex and important
relationship between North Korea, China, Japan and the U.S.", holds Alka
Acharya, of the Centre of East Asian Studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru
University here.
Adds Acharya: "The U.S. has failed to resolve the North Korean nuclear
crisis diplomatically. North Korea's nuclear weapons programme will spur
Japan and South Korea to add to their military capacities. There is a
strong lobby in Japan which wants to rewrite the country's constitution
and even develop a nuclear weapons capability. Recently, Japan
commissioned a study to determine how long it would take to develop a
nuclear deterrent."
Japan has stockpiled hundreds of tonnes of plutonium,
ostensibly for use in fast-breeder reactors. But with the fast reactor
programme faltering, the possibility of diversion of the plutonium to
military uses cannot be ruled out. Similarly, South Korea is likely to
come under pressure to develop its own deterrent capability.
"Driving these pursuits are not just nuclear
calculations, but also geopolitical factors," says Prof. Achin Vanaik
who teaches international relations and global politics at Delhi
University. "The U.S. plays a critical role here because of its
aggressive stance and its double standards. It cannot convincingly
demand that other states practise nuclear abstinence or restraint while
it will keep it own nuclear weapons for 'security'. Eventually,
Washington's nuclear double standards will encourage other countries to
pursue nuclear weapons capabilities too."
In particular, the joint planned development of ballistic
missile defence weapons by the U.S. and Japan is likely to be seen by
China as a threat to its security and impel Beijing to add to its
nuclear arsenal.
Adds Vanaik: "The real danger is not confined to East Asia or West Asia
alone. The overall worldwide impact of the double standards practised by
the nuclear weapons-states, and especially offensive moves like the
Proliferation Security Initiative proposed by the U.S. to intercept
'suspect' nuclear shipments on the high seas, will be to weaken the
existing global nuclear order and encourage proliferation. The
U.S.-India nuclear deal sets a horribly negative example of legitimising
proliferation."
"A time could soon come when a weak state or non-state actor might
consider attacking the U.S. mainland with mass-destruction weapons. The
kind of hatreds that the U.S. is sowing in volatile parts of the world,
including the Middle East, could well result in such a catastrophe,''
Vanaik said. The
year 2006 witnessed a considerable weakening of the norms of nuclear
non-proliferation. Until 1974, the world had five declared nuclear
weapon-states and one covert nuclear power (Israel). At the end of this
year, it has nine nuclear weapons-states -- nine too many.
No less significant in the long run is the growing
temptation among many states to develop civilian nuclear power. Earlier
this month, a number of Arab leaders met in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia and
decided to start a joint nuclear energy development program.
"Although this doesn't spell an immediate crisis, nuclear
power development can in the long run provide the technological
infrastructure for building nuclear weapons too," says Ramana. "The way
out of the present nuclear predicament does not lie in non- or
counter-proliferation through ever-stricter technology controls. The
only solution is nuclear disarmament. The nuclear weapons-states must
lead by example, by reducing and eventually dismantling these weapons of
terror." ©
Copyright 2006 IPS - Inter Press Service
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