NPT conference: why it may not ensure nuclear disarmament

The 10^th Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference, which was to be held in 2021 was postponed due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. The NPT Review Conference is now expected to convene in August 2022 at a time when the risk of nuclear proliferation and nuclear competition is growing. In the meantime, a recent article on the efficacy of the NPT published in the international research journal of Contemporary Security Policy draws our attention to important pointers. For example, Rebecca Davis Gibbon and Stephen Herzog state that “multipolarity may shake the scaffolding of the non-proliferation regime, presenting a significant test to the NPT’s durability.” Joelin Pretorius and Tom Sauer argue that “exiting the NPT can legitimately be used as a political tool to challenge the current status quo where five states claim a right to possess nuclear weapons based on the NPT, and to achieve nuclear order where nuclear weapons are illegal for all.”

In addition, Michal Smetana and Joseph O’Mahoney assert “NPT as an anti-fragile system” and “how contestation improves the non-proliferation regime.” Under this conceptual framework, they question “the impact of norm violations (e.g. India while contesting from outside in the 1970s and Iraq contesting from inside in the 1990s) on the regime stability.” Other key research pieces also equally question the credibility of the NPT. For example, Orion Noda argues that “the Treaty [NPT] not only fails to address non-quantitative forms of nuclear proliferation but also acts as a proliferator of the symbolic values of nuclear weapons” while a renowned scholar Jeffrey W Knopf on nuclear non-proliferation argues that “other props in the global nuclear order beyond its non-proliferation elements have been eroding, thereby putting more weight on the contributions of the NPT and other aspects of the non-proliferation regime.”

Since its inception in 1968 and the subsequent enforcement in 1970, the NPT eventually got an indefinite life extension in 1995 currently bearing 191 countries. This makes the NPT one of the largest treaties in the world. Since its onset, India, Israel and Pakistan were not a part of NPT while North Korea is the only country that quit the NPT and tested its nuclear capability in 2006. States party to the treaty meet every five years to review its implementation. Although the NPT has been awarded a lifetime extension with a bigger number of both nuclear-weapon states (NWS) and non-nuclear weapons states (NNWS), the treaty has been under critical international pressure for its perceived weaknesses and loopholes.

First and foremost, under its Article IX, the NPT continues to recognise only five major NWS i.e. the US, Russia, the UK, France and China that acquired nuclear weapons before 1^st January 1967. Nevertheless, this creates an outstanding issue between the haves and the have-nots making the NPT a discriminatory treaty.

Second, the states party to the NPT pledged in Article VI that they would meet the fundamental goal of nuclear disarmament at an early date in good faith. However, the NPT has failed to meet this goal for several reasons, as follows:

a) the Cold War rivalry between the US and the erstwhile Soviet Union led to both of them acquiring hundreds and thousands of nuclear forces deterring each other and surpassing the provisions of the treaty they pledged, b) because of the value of nuclear deterrence that creates the perceived fear in the mind of potential adversaries, there has been a consistent military and nuclear force modernisation between the established nuclear weapons states recognised by the NPT affecting the policies of other nuclear-weapon states and pushing them away from the NPT, c) the US and Russia’s abrogated and withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty of 1972 in 2002 and later from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty of 1987 in 2019 for security concerns and changing strategic environment. The New Start Treaty between the US and Russia does not become more promising, though it has been extended for five years in 2021. These are major setbacks that could, directly and indirectly, affect the efficacy of the NPT, and d) the competing strategies between the US and China in the broader Asia Pacific region and the US, and the resurgence of Russia in Europe trigger a new arms race which pushes the NPT Article VI to the backseat.

Third, Articles I and II — which prohibit the receiving by and transferring of nuclear-related materials from NWS and NNWS, party to the treaty, to countries outside the NPT — are widely considered to be violated. Particularly when it comes to the perceived US-India nuclear deal — India is receiving nuclear-related materials, which it could divert into making several warheads as India increases its delivery systems and advances its deterrent force modernisation.

Fourth, Article X allows member states to quit the treaty bearing no provisions of strict punishment if and when it faces an extraordinary threat to its sovereignty. North Korea is a classic example in this context.

Fifth, one of the important imperatives of the NPT review conference is the proposed Middle East nuclear-weapons-free-zone in the entire Middle Eastern region by Iran and Egypt since its approval by the UN General Assembly in 1974. The review conference has failed to implement this longstanding proposal because of the contemporary power politics in the Middle East.

Finally, and more importantly, NPT confronts several additional challenges that include the consistent lack of holistic structural reforms in the international non-proliferation order, strategic competition between nuclear weapons states, the increasing value of nuclear deterrence, unchanged attitude of the major nuclear weapons states, and the absence of unanimous agreement on nuclear disarmament at any specific time.

Given these fundamental concerns, the NPT loses its credibility, adoptability, fairness and expanded membership. Although the existence of the NPT is widely considered essential, the upcoming NPT review conference may not be able to fully address such concerns while ensuring the fundamental goal of nuclear disarmament in the so-called existing international non-proliferation order. Therefore, nuclear disarmament remains a pipe dream.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 25^th, 2022.

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