Security and Nuclear Disarmament

A foundation of global strategic stability is regarded by a number of states as a prerequisite for progress on nuclear disarmament. In today’s troubled world, efforts to achieve such progress are seen as misguided, if not futile.

An alternative view is that the continuing existence of high numbers of nuclear weapons is a factor that contributes to the unsettled security environment. This perspective draws on a range of concerns about possessors of nuclear weapons—stalled efforts to reduce nuclear arsenals, increased investment in modernising those arsenals, apparent readiness of leaders or aspiring leaders to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons, and so on. Compounding this situation is the absence of trust between nuclear-weapon possessors and non-possessors and the abdication of responsibility by the Conference on Disarmament for negotiating on nuclear disarmament (and other) issues.

Proponents of these positions will be at loggerheads this month in the UN General Assembly-mandated Open-ended Working Group on taking nuclear disarmament forward (OEWG). The OEWG will conclude its work on 19 August and account for itself to the UNGA in October. Its respected chair Ambassador Thani Thongphakdi of Thailand has already circulated a draft report for the OEWG’s consideration.

Meanwhile, the beleaguered Conference of Disarmament gears itself up for making its own report to the UNGA. By the way, it is curious that some of those states that see the current international security environment as being unfavourable for progress on nuclear disarmament remain hopeful that the CD can in the same security situation nonetheless overcome its 20-year deadlock over how to negotiate issues of comparable strategic complexity.

In any event, perhaps in proposing a new topic (see our previous post), Russia is trying to get the Conference to side-step this impasse and turn instead to an issue of common concern—i.e., terrorism (in Russia’s proposal, relating specifically to acts of chemical and biological terrorism).

Another comparatively neutral option for the CD is to re-examine its ‘working methods’. For example, the idea of extending the one-month term of the CD’s rotating presidency has been put forward. But this would be a non-issue if the CD were actually in negotiating mode. This is because the chair of those negotiations would effectively become the CD’s power-broker. The Conference president would then become largely symbolic for the duration of the negotiations. The term of the negotiating chair, unlike the CD president’s, need not be confined to a single month.

Whether or not events this August in the CD will shape that body’s future and to what extent the course of negotiations on nuclear disarmament will be forged in the OEWG remain to be seen. But one thing is certain: the outcomes and their security ramifications will both be aired fully in the UN General Assembly later this year.

Tim Caughley

Resident Senior Fellow

Hiroshima in the news

These are comments made by UNIDIR Fellow, Tim Caughley, at a Public Meeting organised by UNITAR at the Hiroshima International Conference Centre, Japan, on 1 June 2016

Future perspectives for nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.

The immediate future for multilateral nuclear disarmament is difficult to predict. There are only two certainties.  The first is that the global security environment will remain a complicating factor for making real progress on nuclear disarmament.  The second is that a new review cycle for the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) will begin in May 2017, building up to 2020 and the 50^th anniversary of entry-into-force of the treaty that year. It can confidently be said that of the three pillars of the NPT all parties retain a strong interest in sustaining two of them, the proliferation and peaceful use pillars. However, efforts to agree effective measures for shoring up the shaky third pillar—on nuclear disarmament—are, for the meantime, taking place in a parallel forum, an Open-ended Working Group (OEWG) established by the UN General Assembly. Those efforts are intensifying despite—or perhaps because of—the highly unsettled international security environment.

For the rest, the future can only be a matter of further speculation:

1. In the NPT review, what will be the attitude of nuclear-weapon states (NWS) to the sharpening focus on the nuclear disarmament pillar of the NPT in the OEWG?

2. And in the immediate future, what will be the outcome of the work of the OEWG when it meets again this August to agree its report and make recommendations to the 71^st session of the UN General Assembly?

3.  Equally, what will be the outcomes of any initiatives in the General Assembly this October to reconvene the OEWG or any other new group or negotiation that may be set up by UNGA71?

4. For instance, will UNGA71 agree on a new process stemming from one or other of two proposals made during the OEWG’s May for negotiations on a prohibition of nuclear weapons. One proposal was tabled by the entire group of Latin American and Caribbean states (CELAC). The other came from a cross-regional group (including 3 states from this region [i.e., Asia])?

5. Will states that do not support such a negotiation participate in it? The dynamic that might unfold could take this form: there could be pressure from nuclear-weapons states on their allies and friends not to participate.  On the other hand, there would be pressure from civil society on non-nuclear weapon states, including those that are allied to NWS, to attend and to press for a prohibition even if the NWS did not participate.

In any event, future perspectives are necessarily of a speculative nature at this stage.

Answers to pre-submitted questions covered the following points during the Hiroshima public meeting:

The latest meeting of the OEWG took place in May 2016. What is the significance of these sessions?

The significance lies in the fact that are taking place:

i) under UNGA rules of procedure (in which voting can occur if consensus is absent);

ii) in parallel to forums that have proved to be either blocked (Conference on Disarmament) or unproductive (NPT) and which both operate under the consensus rule for the taking of decisions.

As well as being able to take decisions by voting, the conduct of the meetings is more informal and flexible than the CD and the NPT. For instance, interactivity – i.e., an actual exchange of views or debate – is strongly encouraged.  Civil society participates actively.  The chair arranges experts to make presentations in order to stimulate debate.

How is the OEWG contributing to nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation?

The OEWG is providing a forum in which all states are able to participate alongside intergovernmental organisations and civil society unlike the CD (65 members) and the NPT (which doesn’t include nuclear armed states, the DPRK, India, Israel and Pakistan).

What are the limitations and opportunities of these Open Ended Working Group meetings?

Limitations have resulted because the nuclear armed states have chosen not to participate, leaving the defence of nuclear weapons possession and the stationing of US nuclear weapons on the territories of some NATO allies to states under the nuclear ‘umbrella’. The opportunity for a direct expression of views from the weapon states themselves is an important missing ingredient.

Opportunities stem from the ability for civil society to be heard and to contribute to the debate.

How do milestones such as the visits to Hiroshima by the US President and US Secretary of State affect nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation? Do these visits help promote this issue?

The visits have various symbolic impacts, especially President Obama’s as the first serving US President to come to Hiroshima since the dropping of the atomic bomb. The visits affect nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation by their recognition of the unique impacts of a nuclear weapon on civilians (as opposed to conventional bombing), an impact wreaked by a single weapon rather than hundreds of conventional ones, an impact which is indiscriminate and, because of radio-activity, goes on killing people and affecting the health of survivors long after the explosion. It is impossible to imagine that visitors would not be affected by their visit to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but with the aging of hibakusha (affected survivors) it will be left to all of us to honour their testimony and to press for a nuclear weapon free world.

What can be done to achieve a break-through for a world without nuclear weapons? What else could the people of Hiroshima do to promote nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation?

A nuclear weapon detonation, especially an exchange of nuclear weapons between enemies, will not respect national boundaries. And the risks of a damaging accident are difficult to calculate but are greater than zero. Therefore, everyone has a stake in nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. A break-through will require much wider public understanding that the health, safety and security of everyone is at stake. The hibakusha and other people of Hiroshima can continue with their moving efforts to remind us all of the horrific and lasting impacts of a nuclear weapon.

Tim Caughley

UNIDIR

Let’s polish up the crystal ball

The World Future Society recently released the Outlook 2008 Report as part of the November-December 2007 issue of its magazine “The Futurist”.

This report includes some 70 forecasts covering developments and breakthroughs in technology, energy and the environment, international relations and society in general.

Among the thinkers who have contributed to “The Futurist” magazine in the past years are current climate change activist (and just-announced Nobel Peace prize co-winner) Al Gore, former United States Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

So, what should we expect in the coming years? Here are the top 10 forecasts of the Outlook 2008 Report, some of which are directly relevant to human security and multilateral disarmament diplomacy:

1. “The world will have a billion millionaires by 2025”, as a result of globalization and technology innovations.

2. “Fashion will go wired as technologies and tastes converge to revolutionize the textile industry.” Smart fabrics – such as colour-changing or perfume emitting textiles –, digital wallets and computer shoes are just a few examples of the new technologies that will radically transform the textile industry.

3. “The threat of another cold war with China, Russia, or both will replace terrorism as the chief foreign-policy concern of the United States.” According to Luttwak, terrorist attacks are a relatively minor threat to the United States that Soviet missile capabilities.

4. “Counterfeiting of currency will proliferate, driving the move toward a cashless society.”

5. “The earth is on the verge of a significant extinction event. The twenty-first century could witness a biodiversity collapse 100 to 1,000 times greater than any previous extinction.”

6. “Water will be in the twenty-first century what oil was in the twentieth century.”

7. “World population by 2050 may grow larger than previously expected, due in part to healthier, longer-living people.”

8. “The number of Africans imperiled by floods will grow 70-fold by 2080”. The predictions indicate a 38cm increase of sea level by 2080. If this is the case, the number of Africans affected by floods is estimated to grow from 1 million to 70 millions.

9. “Rising prices for natural resources could lead to a full-scale assault on the Arctic”. According to Brigham, the control over arctic natural resources will be a major political challenge in the next decades.

10. “More decisions will be made by nonhuman entities”. Because of the ever-increasing complexity of the world, artificial intelligence will play an increasing role in decision-making processes.

Of course, “The Futurist’s” predictions could well be proved wrong. That’s the problem with prediction – hence we’re not getting around in jet cars or rocket-powered backpacks despite assertions that it would be the case by today a few decades ago. Conversely, few saw the Internet or the iPod coming.

Humans often make their predictions based on current evidence and past experiences. If there’s one thing we’re learning in an increasingly interdependent world it’s that plenty of social phenomena are non-linear and inherently unpredictable. In complex systems – and complex social systems in particular –, actions sometimes have unintended consequences.

So, while forecasts like those in “The Futurist” are stimulating, I’m sure we’re in for some even more way-out surprises it didn’t predict – both good and bad.


Aurélia Merçay


Reference

The top ten forecasts from the Outlook 2008 report by the World Future Society are available online.

Bulletproof Babies

This week, a friend of mine sent me a link to the webpage of bulletproofbaby.net along with his commentary that "something is profoundly rotten in America." I can understand his exasperation, seeing as he is a researcher on the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons whose main goal in life is to find ways of reducing armed violence in the world.

The company's homepage features the above video of a woman demonstrating the protective power of a bulletproof stroller by placing a baby (presumably her own) in it and then opening fire with an automatic weapon. The baby emerges unscathed and smiling from the episode.

A few things made me question whether all of this was for real. The way the company's founder and CEO described how she came up with the idea for her products struck me as surreal. She explains, "When stray bullets hit the pram but narrowly missed my son, I realised there was a gap in the market for a range of products to protect babies in today's increasingly violent society." Not the thought that would be going through most parents' minds in such a situation.

In the video, the stroller would have been overturned by live ammo, so blanks were obviously being used. I also found it strangely inconsiderate that the mother firing the assault rifle at her baby should be wearing glasses and ear mufflers while her baby wore no such protective gear (apart from the kevlar stroller that is).

Finally, some of the company's products were also a bit puzzling; not least the toddler taser. How could a toddler possibly use a taser!? I surmised that the taser was perhaps meant to be used on the toddler when tantrums showed signs of escalation.

After a bit of digging, I found out that the whole thing is a hoax designed to promote a particularly violent film entitled, imaginatively enough, "Shoot 'em Up," which features, it seems, babies crawling frequently into the line of fire. I won't be rushing out to see that one and I sincerely hope that this posting does not cause anyone else to do so.

All the same, this episode is startling; not least because it is believable, which is a dire reflection on the state of insecurity and fear in which many people in the world today live, especially in urban areas. I'm sure that people tried to buy these products - the "baby bomb blanket" maybe (effective against most pipe bombs and hand grenade fragments), or "my first gas mask" (to protect against chemical weapons, dirty bombs or nerve agents). In fact, it would not surprise me to learn that there were so many hits on the site that some enterprising individual is taking up the idea for real.

Watch this space.

Patrick Mc Carthy


References:

Video from fakiris33 on youtube.

Can global warming be a trigger for conflict?

On 17 April, for the first time ever, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) debated the relationship between “Energy, Security and Climate”, based on a concept paper put forward by the United Kingdom.

In introducing these themes into the Security Council, the UK reportedly faced opposition from China, Russia, the United States and some developing countries via the Group of 77. These states apparently objected on grounds that global warming isn’t a matter of international peace and security. Some accused the Security Council of “ever-increasing encroachment” on the role and responsibility of other UN organs.

Such concerns have been heard before in other contexts whenever the UNSC has shifted its gaze (think terrorism or initial controversy about UNSC resolution 1540 on weapons of mass destruction). It still leaves the big question: is global warming likely to increase the probability of war?

Yes, is what a growing chorus of experts thinks. For instance, the vice-chairman of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Prof. Munasinghe, said with regard to the situation in Sri Lanka:

“A major part of Jaffna and other northern areas will be submerged when the sea-level rises. So people are fighting and dying over areas that may soon not be there.”

For its part, the UK’s concept paper outlined several ways in which it believes climate change will impact on the likelihood of conflict, listing border disputes, migration, energy supplies, other resource shortages (notably, freshwater, cultivable land, crop yields and fish stocks), societal stress and humanitarian crises:

“The immediate drivers of conflict are likely to remain national and regional power struggles; ideology; ethnic, religious and national tensions; and severe economic, social or political inequality. The cumulative impacts of climate change could exacerbate these drivers of conflict, and particularly increase the risk to those states already susceptible to conflict, for example where weak governance and political processes cannot mediate successfully between competing interests.”

And, the paper also noted, “parts of the developing world are both particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, and least equipped to cope with them.”

Media reporting on the debate indicates that controversy over discussing these issues in the UN’s premier security forum meant that, not for the first time, UNSC deliberations have generated more heat than light (no pun intended). Some studies, meanwhile, indicate that rich nations in the temperate north may escape or even benefit from the effects of warming, which is widely blamed on their use of fossil fuel. Not only would this be a very cruel irony. It also heightens suspicions that industrialized countries, whose interests are well represented in the UNSC, will use the body to try to impose self-serving measures on other poorer nations, in the process impeding their development.

Matters seem a very long way from that. Meanwhile, the discussion is at least a start in attempting dialogue about the links between climate, energy and security. And the UK’s concept paper underlines the need for new approaches to achieving and maintaining security that better respond to global interconnection in more productive ways.

Viewed from outside, fractious and ideological politics in the Security Council just highlight the limits of security perceptions based on Cold War certainties, and must seem a million miles away from the looming problems of human insecurity faced by ordinary Sri Lankans, Bangladeshis, Pacific Islanders and others because of the consequences of climate change on their lives. Maybe it’s time to ask how their perspectives can be brought into the process in order to keep it real, rather than rhetorical.


Aurélia Merçay & John Borrie


References

The UK’s concept paper and other documents from the UNSC discussion can be found here.

"Global warming could spur 21st century conflicts," Reuters, 16 April 2007, available at http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L16221115.htm

“UN looks at link between global warming and unrest,” The Associated Press, 18 April 2007, available at http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/18/news/climate.php

“Climate change worse than civil war – UN expert,” Inter Press Service News Agency, 24 April 2007, available at http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37463

Photo retrieved from Flickr