Farewell to arms control

The Bush administration hasn’t been interested in maintaining the Cold War arms control framework and not looked at South Asia from the old lens of non-proliferation. Instead, it has cultivated both India and Pakistan on the basis of new global realities.

The US is also conducting research on more usable nuclear weapons and Russia has declared its intention to conduct more nuclear tests to strengthen its deterrent. The non-state actors further muddy the nuclear waters — as chillingly demonstrated by the discovery of the worldwide nuclear black-market run by A Q Khan. Iran seems to be following North Korea’s lead and is brazenly rejecting West’s calls to suspend its uranium enrichment programme. And the global arms control regime has so far been a rather impotent observer of these developments.

Is the failure of the arms control regime surprising? Or is it that all arms control must fail?

Disenchantment with arms control has been growing since 1980s. After a brief period of détente in the ‘70s, the two superpowers resumed their antagonism. This affected all the arms control measures agreed to during the détente. The signing of a plethora of arms control agreements during the détente was seen as a success of arms control rather than as reflecting relaxation of tensions. Arms control was credited with maintaining strategic stability and creating norms of international behavior. Despite this, the CTBT, one of the most in-depth agreements in terms of details of provisions, verification measures, and regime strengthening, was rejected by the US even though it faced no great power as a rival in the near term. Significant because if even one of the strongest arms control measures isn’t deemed worthy of acceptance, then there is a problem with the very idea of arms control rather than its specific provisions.

In the post-Cold War era this tendency has been more prominent. There’ve been numerous proposals for universal disarmament without any real evaluation of the impact on international security. There are significant strategic, political and technical obstacles to nuclear disarmament. Countries facing formidable national security obstacles will be disinclined to give up their nuclear weapons so long as the international system retains its anarchic nature. Also, there is a perception in some countries that nuclear weapons enhance their status in the international system. While this might not be the case so long as the nuclear weapon states cling to obscenely huge nuclear arsenals, it would be difficult to convince anyone otherwise. Further, the problem remains on how to convince states that the huge amounts of weapons-grade fissile material would not be used by any state after disarmament. An international agency cannot make countries hedge their bets against future uncertainty in international politics.

Even if these obstacles can be overcome, the larger question remains: is universal disarmament desirable? It may seem odd, but the huge nuclear stockpiles during the Cold War maintained international stability. Indeed, it was also important in the rather slow rate of nuclear proliferation since their huge arsenals allowed the two superpowers to provide extended deterrence to their client states, and reducing the value of nuclear weapons.

Today, as the global arms control regime crumbles under the weight of its own contradictions, India can rightfully claim that it was one of the first to draw the world community’s attention to these challenges.

The old security structure has failed and it’s time this gets recognised if the world hopes to tackle the emerging challenges. A radically new global security architecture is needed to tackle the emerging problem of proliferation and terrorism. Typically, world powers not only challenge the status-quo inimical to their interests but also provide responsible alternatives. It is time for

India to respond to its rising global profile and offer ideas on a new framework for international security that are suitable for the 21st century.

The writer teaches in King’s College London