Reducing and Eliminating Nuclear Weapons: Country Perspectives on the Challenges to Nuclear Disarmament Reducing and Eliminating Nuclear Weapons: Country Perspectives on the Challenges to Nuclear Disarmament www.fissilematerials.org © 2010 International Panel on Fissile Materials This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial License To view a copy of this license, visit www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0 Table of Contents About the IPFM 1 Overview 2 Country Perspectives China 10 France 16 Germany 22 India 26 Iran 30 Israel 36 Japan 46 North Korea 56 South Korea 63 Pakistan 67 Russia 74 United Kingdom 84 United States 93 Endnotes 102 Contributors 123 About the IPFM The International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM) was founded in January 2006. It is an independent group of arms-control and nonproliferation experts from seventeen countries, including both nuclear weapon and non-nuclear weapon states. The mission of the IPFM is to analyze the technical basis for practical and achievable policy initiatives to secure, consolidate, and reduce stockpiles of highly enriched urani- um and plutonium. These fissile materials are the key ingredients in nuclear weapons, and their control is critical to nuclear disarmament, halting the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and ensuring that terrorists do not acquire nuclear weapons. Both military and civilian stocks of fissile materials have to be addressed. The nuclear weapon states still have enough fissile materials in their weapon stockpiles for tens of thousands of nuclear weapons. On the civilian side, enough plutonium has been sepa- rated to make a similarly large number of weapons. Highly enriched uranium is used in civilian reactor fuel in more than one hundred locations. The total amount used for this purpose is sufficient to make about one thousand Hiroshima-type bombs, a design potentially within the capabilities of terrorist groups. The Panel is co-chaired by Professor R. Rajaraman of Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi and Professor Frank von Hippel of Princeton University. Its members include nuclear experts from Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. Professor José Goldemberg of Brazil stepped down as co-chair of IPFM on July 1, 2007. He continues as a member of IPFM. IPFM research and reports are shared with international organizations, national governments and nongovernmental groups. It has full panel meetings twice a year in capitals around the world in addition to specialist workshops. These meetings and workshops are often in conjunction with international conferences at which IPFM panels and experts are invited to make presentations. Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security provides administra- tive and research support for the IPFM. IPFM’s initial support is provided by a five-year grant to Princeton University from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation of Chicago. This report was made pos- sible by additional support from the Princeton Institute of International and Regional Studies (PIIRS) for a workshop on “The Control and Disposition of Fissile Material in a Transition to a Nuclear-Weapon Free World,” held at Princeton in May 2009. About the IPFM 1 Overview This report explores the major policy obstacles that stand in the way of the nuclear- armed states deciding to eliminate their weapons. It includes perspectives from thir- teen countries: the current nine nuclear-weapon states, and four non-nuclear states (Germany, Japan, South Korea, and Iran). The report is a companion to Global Fissile Material Report 2009: A Path to Nuclear Disarmament, which used the lens of fissile- materials policies to examine challenges to the achievement of a nuclear-weapon-free world. The broad subjects covered in the country perspectives presented here are: • The commitment by states to the elimination of nuclear weapons as reflected in their public statements, their plans to modernize their weapon complexes, and their views on the potential uses of nuclear weapons; • The linkages to other security issues that they see as standing in the way of progress towards the goal of nuclear weapon elimination; • Their views regarding the increased transparency and verification that would be re- quired by nuclear disarmament; and, • Their perspectives on control of fissile materials, including a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, which would provide a basis for the process of nuclear disarmament. The country perspectives are based on government statements and national debates on nuclear disarmament. The preliminary and speculative nature of the perspectives reflects the fact that, for the most part, governments have not yet focused seriously on the practical, near-term steps required by the adoption of nuclear-weapons abolition as a major policy goal. Commitment to elimination There is a long history of all of today’s nuclear weapon states committing in principle to nuclear disarmament. Article VI of the 1970 nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) commits its five nuclear-weapon-state parties: the United States, Russia, United King- dom, France and China, as a matter of international law “to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to the cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament.” In a 1996 Advisory Opinion, the World Court interpreted the Article VI obligation as requiring states to bring such negotiations to a successful conclusion. The weapon states outside the NPT, Israel, India, North Korea and Pakistan, also have made political commitments to disarmament. 2 Overview The United States and Russia are reducing the size of their deployed arsenals but the gen- eral view among the other nuclear-armed states is that the two “nuclear superpowers” must reduce the numbers of their nuclear warheads from thousands to hundreds each before the other nuclear-armed states will consider seriously taking significant steps to- ward nuclear disarmament. The country studies reveal that most nuclear weapon states consider the achievement of nuclear disarmament to lie far beyond any planning ho- rizon and are therefore investing in significant modernization of their nuclear-weapon complexes and delivery systems. In 2009, President Barack Obama declared that the United States was committed to seeking “the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”1 He qualified this commitment, however, by stating that “This goal will not be reached quickly—perhaps not in my lifetime.” He also added that “as long as nuclear weapons exist, the United States will maintain a safe, secure, and effective arsenal.” The report of the Obama Administration’s Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) released in April 2010, formalized this perspective by establishing a goal of nuclear disarmament but also commitments to retain the U.S. triad of nuclear-weapon delivery systems, life extensions for more than one thousand nuclear warheads, and the modernization of the U.S. nuclear-weapon production complex.2 In its most direct reference to nuclear disarmament, the NPR called for: “initiating a comprehensive national research and development program to support continued progress toward a world free of nuclear weapons, including work on verification technologies and the development of transparency measures.”3 In 2009, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev joined President Obama in expressing support for “a nuclear weapon free world.” But, as the chapter on Russia explains, “the prevailing view in Russia’s political-military leadership is that nuclear weapons play a key role in ensuring Russia’s security.” Indeed, Russia is replacing its aging strategic nu- clear-weapon delivery systems—although not at a rate equal to their rate of retirement. President Medvedev has argued that, “The whole world is doing this … this process will continue and our nuclear shield will always be effective and sufficient for protecting our national interest.”4 Similarly, in early 2009, the United Kingdom issued an official study, “Lifting the Nuclear Shadow: Creating the Conditions for Abolishing Nuclear Weapons.”5 This laid out a perspective on moving towards disarmament. The UK continues, however, to invest in upgrading its nuclear-warhead R&D and production complex, and is moving forward in implementing a controversial decision to replace its ballistic-missile subma- rines. The missiles are leased from the United States. In July 2009, France joined the U.S., Russia the U.K. and the other G8 countries in a joint statement that “we are all committed to seeking a safer world for all and to creating the conditions for a word without nuclear weapons.” This is for France an un- precedented expression of support for nuclear weapons elimination. France has cut its nuclear arsenal since the end of the Cold War, which is now half of its Cold War peak. France also has closed its nuclear weapons test site and military fissile material produc- tion facilities. France too, however, has been deploying new warheads and delivery systems and modernizing its weapons R&D and maintenance infrastructure. In a September 2009 Security Council Resolution, China joined the other permanent members of the UN Security Council in a commitment “to seek a safer world for all and to create the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons.”6 China, unlike the United States, Russia, U.K. and France, has supported calls for the negotiation of a con- vention to ban nuclear weapons at an early date. In the meantime, however, China is introducing more survivable land-mobile and submarine-based nuclear-armed missiles. Overview 3 India, Israel and Pakistan, the three nuclear-armed states that never joined the NPT, and North Korea, which withdrew from the Treaty in 2003, have all indicated support in one way or another for the goal of nuclear disarmament. India, although an early advocate for a time-bound process for nuclear-weapon elimination, has made clear that it will maintain a nuclear arsenal until there is global nuclear disarmament.