Category Archives: Nuclear Issues

The Chilling Prospects of Nuclear Devices at Large

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By

Vice Admiral (Retd.) Vijay Shankar

Keywords: US and USSR Nuclear Stockpiles, China, Nuclear Safeguards, Nuclear Proliferation, WMD technology and delivery systems, Nuclear Financial Conduits

This article was first published in the author’s monthly column on the Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies website on 12 May 2014

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union produced over one thousand tons of weapon grade Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium. By 1986 its stockpile numbered 45,000 warheads[i]; it was poorly inventoried; spread across the Republics with fissionable material salted away as reserve in shoddily secured warehouses (remembering that it was the nation that was secured). The post break-up Russian governments of Yeltsin and Putin through the nineties and into the new millennium managed to locate and harvest close to 99.9 percent of the stash leaving 0.1 percent unaccounted for, which translates to one thousand kilograms of weapon-grade fissile matter somewhere in limbo[ii]; adequate material to put together over one hundred, 20 kiloton yield explosive devices. It is not entirely clear what magnitude of unaccounted weapon-grade fissile matter is adrift from the US and NATO stockpile for at the height of the Cold War, they too had amassed a stockpile of over 30,000[iii] warheads and an indefinite number of tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs) deployed on the European front; and they are not telling. After all in the sample year of 1957 three US nuclear weapons were lost in the North Atlantic Ocean whilst ferrying them across in transport Aircrafts and remain so to date[iv].

In the meantime, China’s Premier Deng Xiaoping through the 1980s into the 1990s promoted and executed an aggressive policy of direct transfer, of nuclear weapon technology and launch vectors to reprobate States (Pakistan, North Korea, Libya, Algeria, Egypt, Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia) using North Korea as a clearing house for the deals. The policy has been continued by his successors unrelentingly[v].

The reasons for this profligate orientation are a matter of conjecture and may have originally reflected balance of power logic in the sub continental context; to offset and contain Indian comprehensive superiority. While in North Korea’s case to keep the USA and the Pacific allies embroiled in a snare of insecurities. In the Islamic world the motivations have a far more sinister purpose and perilous fallout.

Radical Islamic terrorists see the possession of a nuclear weapon not just as a symbol of power and an instrument of deterrence but as a means to destroy and dislocate an order that has so willfully kept the faithful under political, economic and spiritual subjugation. In this frame of reference, nations that have been singled out for retribution are the USA, India and Israel. It is here in these countries that the iniquitous probability of a nuclear device being detonated by radical Islamists looms large. Such an event gives to the non-state perpetuators an amorphous form that can neither be destroyed in armed retaliation nor their credo obliterated from the world of beliefs. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq stand in stark testimony to how rooted dogmas have a conviction of their own that deny change through force of arms. Rhetoric such as ‘rogue states’, ‘war on terror’ and ‘failed states’ raise more problems than provide solutions, for any rational interpretation of the terms will invariably indict the very nations that seek to drag out and drub.

Inquiry exposes the real enemy to be states and non-state actors that proliferate nuclear technologies with no other predisposition than to put the status-quo in disarray or driven by avarice. Global double standards and persistent tendentious views that exist on the subject has already brought selective legitimacy of such transactions and taken the world another step closer to a maverick nuclear detonation. Not only do current policies and attitudes to proliferation generate exceptionably high risks of a nuclear attack but there is an inevitability that is emerging if fissionable materials are globally not secured, retrieved and accounted.

Our narrative thus far has suggested that global clashes have moved beyond State to State conflict into a realm where the real threat of apocalypse comes from nuclear weapons in the hands of anarchic groups. These amorphous factions are driven by an ideology that seeks the destruction of what it considers antagonistic to its beliefs. The Nation State, on the other hand, is rationally driven by the will to survive. Perpetuation of the State is a national interest that is held supreme even if it means compromises that may cause profound changes. Radical Islam and its insurgents do not operate under such existential constraints; to them it the constancy of an abstract idea, that of their interpretation of the Koran.

The awkward irony is that the militant Islamist is financed by the same ungoverned trade that has made billionaires out of dubious entrepreneurs. The case of the Glencore Uranium Mining Corporation in Kitwe Zambia is a case in point. The sole owners of Glencore are the Marc Rich family now settled in Zug, Switzerland; the same Mr. Rich who was indicted for illicit Uranium trading with Iran, Israel and, one can only speculate, with which other entities. He also received a full and well funded Presidential pardon on Clinton’s last morning in office.[vi] The upshot is that the transfer of illicit wealth whether it is through the drug trade, uncontrolled resource access, sale of prohibited materials and technologies, illegal arms trade or as a deliberate policy eventually, in part, funnels its way to the nurturing of radical organisations. What we today stand witness to is the convergence of a parallel source of wealth and diffusing technologies together in the quest for weapon grade fissile materials. The means to dislocate and put in disarray the evolving world order is at hand.

We have noted that the trio of the USA, India and Israel have been declared by Radical Islam as primary targets for reprisal and therefore it may be inferred for special nuclear treatment. Counter action must, for this reason alone, be spearheaded by the troika. Four concrete measures are suggested:

  • Fissile Material. All fissile material globally must be retrieved, inventoried and secured. This must be an obligatory international effort despite the current situation in the Ukraine. Scientists and technicians involved in nuclear weapon design and fabrication must be profiled and political control by respective nations exercised over there movements and affiliations.
  • Inspection and Safeguards. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1970 along with the Additional Protocol, which gave the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) greater proliferation monitoring powers, was the designated instrument for safeguards. However the treaty has over the years been compromised by the inequities it represented, the discrimination that it promoted and the selective biases that it propagated. What it lacks is teeth to impartially enforce punitive measures against proliferators irrespective of nation. What is suggested is a retooling of the Treaty to make the IAEA the nodal proliferation control agency with mandatory surveillance, intelligence provisions and realistic controls on the production of fissionable material and movement of nuclear weapon technologies.
  • Choking the Money Conduits. Intelligence sharing and coordinated action to shut down ungoverned trade and illicit financial transfers is the key to starving radical organisations. Financial institutions must be obliged to collaborate in the matter.
  • China. As noted earlier, China has been the leading proliferator of nuclear weapon technologies and delivery systems. It has over the years transferred nuclear weapons design, provided testing facilities, passed on ballistic missiles along with production facilities and provided material, intellectual, logistic and doctrinal back up to client state nuclear weapon programmes. To some in Beijing the detonation of a nuclear device by Radical Islamists may even be seen as an effective route to upsetting the status-quo and opening the future to its hegemonic designs.

Thus far, as a global community, we have been blind to the dangers of untrammelled nuclear proliferation particularly by China as it supplies ready-to-use WMD technology along with delivery systems to States that are in the tightening grip of Radical Islamists. The manner in which Pakistan received a nuclear weapon design package and material support to build nuclear weapons which was then conveyed to Iran, Libya and others is suggestive of a pattern that seeks to deliberately provoke a  nuclear incident that can only serve China’s interests. The time is nigh when the trio of USA, India and Israel which have been designated as primary targets of Radical Islam to band together to enforce a Nuclear Non Proliferation regime that reigns in China.

——

End Notes

[i] Wikimedia Commons, US and USSR nuclear stockpiles.

[ii] Reed and Stillman. The Nuclear Express, Zenith Press Minneapolis 2009, pg 320

[iii] Wikimedia Commons, US and USSR nuclear stockpiles.

[iv] The Nuclear Express, 349.

[v] In 1982 Deng’s government began the deliberate direct/proxy proliferation of nuclear and ballistic missile technologies into the Islamic and Marxist worlds. China signed a covert nuclear reactor deal with Algeria; provided to North Korea comprehensive material and technological support to their nuclear weapons programme; sold CSS-2 missiles to Saudi Arabia and gave logistic, material, technological, intellectual assistance and doctrinal sustenance to the Pakistan nuclear weapons programme to ‘redress’ the nuclear imbalance on the sub-continent. See Proliferation: Threat and Response, Office of the US Secretary for Defence January 2001.

[vi] Reed and Stillman, The Nuclear Express, Zenith Press Minneapolis 2009, 310-311.

Nuclear Security Summit 2014: The Penitent Preachers

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By

Vice Admiral (retd) Vijay Shankar

 This article was first published in the author’s monthly column on the Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies website

Keywords: Nuclear Security Summit 2014, United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1540, Nuclear Black Market, Prague Declaration

The Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) has a singular sweeping aim: to prevent nuclear terrorism around the globe. The third of the series, which began in 2010 as a sequel to President Obama’s 2009 Prague declaration, has proclaimed an incontestable three- pronged strategy:

  • Reduce the amount of dangerous nuclear material around the world.
  • Improve security of all nuclear material and radio active sources.
  • Improve international cooperation.

Since nuclear terrorism is largely related to the ready and, at times, willing sale of nuclear material, it is ironic that the Netherlands, which is the venue for the third and penultimate summit, is also the nation that was at the centre of the nuclear black market for the closing three decades of the last century. The Dutch nuclear industry was the font of the AQ Khan illicit nuclear bazaar. The fact that the metallurgist Henk Slebos, considered the most notorious of Khan’s confederates, was charged and convicted for smuggling nuclear material and technologies to Pakistan served only four months in jail is suggestive of gravitas attached to the initiative and indeed the conviction to fight nuclear terrorism (see IISS strategic dossier on nuclear black markets, 2007). The light sentence given to other collaborating entities and personnel in Germany, Switzerland, the UK, Japan, Malaysia and Turkey hardly constitutes a credible deterrent to future networks.

Pakistan is no exception, for, observing that Khan’s foreign accomplices remain free and the nuclear world having placed commerce above security, he on political grounds remains free too. The ambivalent approach that has so far been apparent on nuclear proliferation has prompted some cynics to even suggest that the policy to set-a-thief-to-catch-one does not quite work! But this would trivialize the dangers that nuclear terrorism actually present, which President Obama, in his now celebrated Prague speech, so eloquently beseeched the world to recognize, as the “most immediate and extreme threat posed to global security”. He announced an international effort to secure vulnerable nuclear material and vowed to break up international nuclear black markets, detect and intercept unlawful nuclear material in transit and to use financial tools to disrupt illicit nuclear trade. This declaration translated to the Nuclear Security Summit.

The first summit of 2010 held in Washington formulated the “Washington Work Plan” which proposed that the participating states make a commitment to voluntarily implement the Plan consistent with and without prejudice to national laws. It took a non-binding, volitional and uncompelling approach. The Plan tendered the following twelve proposals before the 43 participating states and three organisations:

  •       Reaffirm the fundamental responsibility of States, consistent with their respective       international obligations.
  •       Call on States to work cooperatively.
  •       Recognize that highly enriched uranium and separated plutonium require special       precautions.
  •       Endeavour to fully implement all existing nuclear security commitments and work       toward acceding to those not yet joined.
  •       Support the objectives of international nuclear security instruments.
  •       Reaffirm the essential role of the International Atomic Energy Agency in the                 international nuclear security framework.
  •       Recognize the role and contributions of the United Nations.
  •       Acknowledge the need for capacity building for nuclear security and cooperation      at bilateral, regional and multilateral levels.
  •       Recognize the need for cooperation among States to effectively prevent and               respond to incidents of illicit nuclear trafficking.
  •       Recognize the continuing role of nuclear industry in nuclear security.
  •       Support the implementation of strong nuclear security practices.
  •       Recognize that measures contributing to nuclear material security have value in         relation to the security of radioactive substances also.

The second edition of the Summit was held in Seoul, South Korea. 53 heads of State attended along with four other international organisations. It built on the objectives of the Washington Work Plan and concentrated on Cooperative measures to combat the threat of nuclear terrorism, protection of nuclear materials and related facilities and prevention of illicit trafficking of nuclear materials. It set about defining specific actions to be taken by states on a non mandatory basis. Three issues stand out in the joint communiqué that was released at the end of the Summit:

  •       Time lines were put out for progressing nuclear security objectives.
  •       Nuclear security and safety were to be managed without prejudice or jeopardy         to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.
  •       Radiological terrorism was to be the subject of more rigorous preventive                     measures.

Clearly, while the outcome of the Washington Summit was long on hope and a little economical on precision which Seoul sought to remedy, neither summit could obligate conformance to the declarations.

Now what of United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1540 which was adopted in 2004 and is universal in scope, mandatory in application and recognises non-state proliferation as a threat to global peace and obliges states to modify their internal legislation? Resolution 1540 was adopted by the UNSCR not just in response to the discovery of the Abdul Qadeer Khan proliferation network but also with the aim of preventing the acquisition of nuclear, biological, chemical and radiological weapons by terrorist groups and non-state actors. Besides, it is obligatory for all UN members, whether or not they support its aims. The Resolution is a significant evolution in the history of the UN for it attempted to reconcile individual sovereignty with the needs of global security. It has faced considerable flak because many states have criticised the resolution for being cumbersome and ill-adapted to their situations. The objection is to interference by the UN in individual states’ national sovereignty, in that it obliges member states to make internal legislative changes. Opposition is also to the belief that the 15 member Council had a mandate to usurp control and stewardship of global proliferation. And yet it is abundantly clear that if action is to be taken to combat nuclear terrorism then global coordination and regulation is necessary and the only entity that is acceptable and best positioned to undertake it is the UN.

The question that now begs an answer is why then the Nuclear Security Summit? Is it not duplicating, diluting and eroding the efforts of UNSCR 1540? In balance the Summit; a one Man’s vision which has gained some traction because of its non-obligatory appeal to the ‘enlightened self interest’ of its participants (measures such as creating particularised centres of excellence and internal regulatory bodies) and yet unattractive to some due to its origins, badgering nature and without a conviction of longevity (the next summit in 2016 is the last of the series almost as if a deadline has been drawn). On the other hand is UNSCR 1540 which addresses the same issues of the Summit and has similar if enlarged objectives; in addition it is mandatory and has international legality but lacks popularity because it is seen to imply a compact with America’s war on terror. The awkward paradox is that both Summit and UNSCR 1540 are in the same boat but wearing out each others exertions!

Perhaps ‘Penitent Preachers’ will find the endeavour far more focussed and rewarding if the Summit made support to and promotion of UNSCR 1540 the single point in the agenda for its final edition in 2016.

Strategic Non-Nuclear Weapons: An Essential Consort to a Doctrine of No First Use

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By

Vice Admiral (Retd.) Vijay Shankar

This article was first published by the Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, New Delhi, in January 2014.  

Keywords: Strategic Non-Nuclear Weapons, Doctrine of NFU, Indo-Pak-China Nuclear stability, Non-State Actors, Counter-force strike

Politico-Military thought often harbours a puzzling phenomenon when it organises concepts and institutions in a mosaic of sometimes antithetical notions. Contrary ideas are indeed intrinsic to the art of political sagacity, but when form is defined by a belief, in apparent conflict with content, then there appear distortions more illusory than what logic would suggest. So it is with the emergence of strategic nuclear weapons. They are destructive to the extent that the purpose of warfare is itself obliterated, underscoring a compelling theory of war avoidance. By its side are strategic non-nuclear weapons whose intent is to target nuclear weapons that, ironically, seek a (precarious) stability.

Conventional savvy will first suggest that non-nuclear weapons can neither deliver the requisite high explosive payload to assume a counter-force role against silo-based or caverned nuclear systems; nor do they come with the probability of kill that is demanded with such a role. But just around the technological corner lurks high impact penetration and shaped charges that make a mockery of hitherto simple overpressure reckoning. Second, nuclear pundits will insinuate that a partially successful counter-force strike may in point of fact catalyse escalation to a full blown nuclear exchange; both contain candour of their own.

But strange is our circumstance when on the one hand Pakistan presents us with a nuclear nightmare which when articulated is a hair-trigger, opaque deterrent conventionalised under military control, steered by a doctrine obscure in form, seeped in ambiguity, and guided by a military strategy that carouses and finds unity with non-state actors. The introduction of tactical nuclear weapons into the battle area further exacerbates credibility of their control. It does not take a great deal of intellectual exertions to declare that this nightmare is upon us. However, the very nature of the power equation on the subcontinent and the extent to which it is tilted in India’s favour will imply that any attempt at bringing about conflict resolution through means other than peaceful is destined to fail. In this context it is amply clear that the threat of use of nuclear weapons promotes only one case and that is the Pakistani military establishment’s hold on the nation. On the other hand is a Janus-faced China which, in collusion with Pakistan’s nuclear weapon programme, has not just entrenched proliferatory links, but also doctrinal union that permits a duplicitous approach to the latter’s declared No First Use (NFU) posture and an option to keep the South Asian nuclear cauldron on the boil. Also significant is the alliance bucks the existing global non-proliferation structure.

What may be derived from the current state of affairs, with any conviction, is the political and military unpredictability that prevails. This denies hope for stability and the expectation of fitting conditions into a convenient model, let alone providing for security guarantees. Governments faced with such a conundrum more readily prepare for a worst case scenario than try and reconcile the true dimensions that uncertainty introduces. It is preparedness, therefore, that endows the only tool that can deter possible confrontation of a nature that has earlier been designated as nightmarish.

India today is in a position to impress upon its adversaries a deterrent relationship based on nuclear war avoidance, with the proviso that the rationale of nuclear weapons as a political tool and a means to preclude a nuclear exchange are recognised and adhered to. China’s galloping entwinement with the rest of the world makes this proposition a real probability; contingent upon our resolve and policies of seeking mutuality with like-minded nations to rally around the single point of preventing reactionary overturning of the status quo. This despite the unilateral tensions that China has precipitated in the East and South China Sea over sovereignty, air defence identification zones and the right to control fishing.

Pakistan is, however, a different cup of tea for it portrays a perilous uncertainty, as would any nation under military control that perceives in nuclear weapons the ultimate Brahmastra. As with that weapon of mass destruction, answers lay not just in the promise of disproportionate retaliation but also in the credible ability to prempt and counter its use. India has in place nuclear weapons driven by a doctrine of NFU and massive retaliation. What its strategic forces must now equip itself with is select conventional hardware that tracks and targets nuclear forces (all under political control). This would provide the pre-emptive teeth to a deterrent relationship that leans so heavily on NFU.