A ‘cloaked’ nuclear security process

Beyond the familiar rhetoric, NSS process has been just another global junket in the global non-proliferation agenda

At the Third Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) in The Hague earlier this week, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif made a strong case for Pakistan’s non-discriminatory access to nuclear technology for peaceful uses, including nuclear power generation, to meet our growing civilian programme — the lynchpin of its strategy to overcome chronic energy shortages. His predecessor Yousaf Raza Gilani, too, had made similar presentations at the last two summits held in Washington, DC (2010) and Seoul (2012).

In presenting Pakistan’s case at three consecutive summits, Pakistani leaders spared no effort in seeking to alleviate the unfounded fears about Pakistan’s nuclear security by citing its decades-long experience of safe and secure operations of nuclear power plants, a highly trained manpower and a well-established safety and security culture. They also apprised the world leaders of the measures Pakistan had taken like any other nuclear weapons-state to strengthen the safety and security of its nuclear installations and materials.

Nawaz Sharif further reinforced the case by informing the conference of Pakistan’s five pillar-nuclear security regime encompassing a strong command and control system; an integrated intelligence system; a rigorous regulatory regime; a comprehensive export control regime; and active international cooperation. Pakistan’s nuclear security regime covers physical protection, material control and accounting, border controls and radiological emergencies. By all objective yardsticks, Pakistan meets every criteria-based benchmark to become a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and other export control regimes on a non-discriminatory basis.

But this reality is not what the world’s nuclear arbiters holding the reins of the newly instituted NSS process are interested in. The focus now is not on nuclear “disarmament”; it is on nuclear “terrorism” and on countries considered “troublesome” in their reckoning. US President Barack Obama had started this process in 2010 with the stated goal of preventing terrorists from acquiring nuclear weapons or materials. Whatever the stated motivation, the real purpose of this process was only to use the perceived “terrorist threat” to further tighten the noose for the have-nots’ access to nuclear materials and technology.

Indeed, at that first summit in Washington, President Obama did manage to give a new dimension to the whole nuclear issue. The focus was no longer as much on nuclear disarmament as it was on “nuclear terrorism”, ambitiously seeking to secure nuclear materials in four years as part of the NSS process. Attended by 47 states, the Washington Summit laid out a clear global strategy “to secure vulnerable nuclear materials, break up black markets, detect and intercept materials in transit and use financial tools to disrupt illicit trade in nuclear materials.” A time-barred Work Plan was also adopted, outlining specific measures to be taken by participating states.

The Washington strategy may have served to reinforce the already existing systems and tighten the legislative controls and administrative mechanisms on export controls. But to be effective, its applicability needed to be non-selective and non-discriminatory, and in dealing with the countries known to possess nuclear capability, a criteria-based approach by the NSG was necessary to ensure a properly accountable and verifiable civil nuclear cooperation. Another stark reality conveniently ignored in the NSS process was that biological and chemical materials are more vulnerable.

The 2012 Seoul Summit, as a follow-up to the Washington strategy, though attended by 53 states, was a non-starter from the very beginning. Differences of approach were clearly visible between the two camps. The US-led group of NSS proponents wanted an ambitious additional menu of measures in the field of nuclear security. On the other hand, non-aligned countries including Egypt, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Pakistan and South Africa considered nuclear security as a national responsibility, rather than an international one. China shared the non-aligned countries’ approach looking at the NSS approach as too “selective” a multilateral process.

No wonder, the Seoul Summit communique could not go beyond reiterating a joint call to “secure all vulnerable nuclear material in four years” and backing the IAEA’s “essential role” in “facilitating international cooperation”.  There was nothing binding other than “baskets” of voluntary commitments. Now the outcome at The Hague Summit 2014 seems to have further shrunk to just anodyne statements of participants’ “commitment” to nuclear disarmament, nuclear non-proliferation and the use of nuclear energy only for peaceful purposes. Again, there were no binding joint commitments, other than in a separate joint initiative of the US, the Netherlands and South Korea, signed only by 35 out of 53 participating states.

This initiative was conspicuously shunned by 18 important countries, including the known nuclear powers, Russia, China, India and Pakistan, because they considered it as too intrusive into their national jurisdiction. It clearly highlighted the divided positions at the Summit on substantive issues. The only tangible agreement emerging at The Hague was to hold the next Summit in Chicago in 2016. It seems the NSS process has already run its course with Obama merely seeing the twilight of his presidency in a high-profile global event in his hometown.

Ironically, even if the NSS strategy has worked to secure vulnerable nuclear materials against unauthorised use or capture and disrupt their illicit trade in black markets, fears and concerns over the risks of a disastrous nuclear conflict remain unaddressed. The future of the world remains hostage not merely to one act of terrorism but to a larger degree, to one accident or one strategic miscalculation. In that sense, nuclear dangers abound on many fronts. All told, there are currently nuclear weapons materials in more than 40 countries, some “secured by nothing more than a chain-link fence”.

To our friends in the Western world, the nuclear question has traditionally been uni-dimensional. The high priests of non-proliferation do not scratch below the surface. The symptom, not the disease, is their problem. Their undivided focus has been and remains on non-proliferation only as a concept adapted to their own self-serving intent and purpose. The all-important underlying causes impelling nuclear proliferation are conveniently ignored. A whole vast field of the non-proliferation regime has been built up to confine everybody within their four walls.

On the other hand, the expediency-led world continues to witness an erosion of arms control and disarmament measures, reversal of non-proliferation policies of the key powers, weakening of UN disarmament institutions and country-specific preferential waivers in violation of treaty obligations. Beyond the familiar rhetoric, the NSS process has been just another global junket in the global non-proliferation agenda, which is already being followed in an arbitrary and discriminatory manner.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 29^th, 2014.

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