Australian Journal of International Affairs Vol. 59, No.

4,
pp. 431 !/437, December 2005

Selective non-proliferation or universal regimes?

ROBERT AYSON1
A clear choice has been presented by Marianne Hanson (2005) and Michael
Wesley (2005): the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is either too
important to ignore and must be strengthened, or it is too dangerous to
persevere with and must be replaced by a new regime. There are clear and
compelling merits to both of these arguments, but they share a key assumption
that the answer to the problems posed by nuclear weapons and proliferation in
the twenty-first century can be dealt with through a universal regime: ie, either a
strengthened version of the current one or a brand new one to replace it. This
assumption is challenged by what appears to be happening in the evolution and
employment of contemporary non-proliferation and counter-proliferation
strategies. The key trend, promoted by the United States but also being adopted
by other members of the international community, is towards a selective, case-
by-case approach to proliferation which utilises a different mix of instruments
depending on the proliferator (or potential proliferator) involved. It is difficult
to see this trend being reversed (and either of the competing hopes of Hanson
and Wesley being realised) without some sort of major crisis which leads states
to the brink of nuclear catastrophe*or the actual use of nuclear weapons by
/

panic, inadvertence or malice. But even such a disaster or near miss may still not
bring clarity, convergence and commitment around a single instrument.
The reality of this selective approach is evident in the variety of responses
which are being made to three prominent cases of nuclear proliferation concern.
In the most dramatic case, North Koreas nuclear ambitions have prompted a
multi-round Six Party Talks process involving the United States, China, Japan,
South Korea, Russia and North Korea itself (Park 2005). North Korea is being
pressured to abandon its nuclear weapons program, and the facilities and
processes associated with it, in exchange for a range of concessions including
the provision of energy from South Korea, other economic assistance and
security assurances from the United States. At the time of writing, opinion in
Washington remained divided on whether Pyongyang could be allowed to have
even the lightest of civilian nuclear energy programs*despite hopes that as part /

of its commitment to disarm, North Korea would return to the NPT, a treaty
which enshrines the right of its signatories to develop civilian nuclear facilities
for peaceful purposes.
North Korea also remains on the George W. Bush administrations most-
wanted list (as a member of the axis of evil) and is the main target of the

ISSN 1035-7718 print/ISSN 1465-332X online/05/040431-07 # 2005 Australian Institute of International Affairs
DOI: 10.1080/10357710500367232
432 R. Ayson

Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI)*a counter-proliferation measure designed

/

to intercept suspect cargoes on the high seas should they be considered as likely
to carry weapons of mass destruction or related materials. While very much a
child of the coalition of the willing impulse, this coalition has attracted some
rather unlikely members including New Zealand, a stalwart of international
nuclear disarmament by multilateral diplomatic means. North Koreas nuclear
weapons program has also been a cue for Americas renewed enthusiasm for
missile defence (albeit in a much more modest form than the Ronald Reagan
administrations Star Wars ambitions), an enthusiasm which is hardly restricted
to the worlds leading power. Japan and Australia are two other countries
whose cooperation with the United States on missile defence has been justified
in terms of the North Korean nuclear program which, even in the worst case
assessment, remains somewhat modest in terms of the number of weapons
which have so far been produced. Japan and the United States have indicated a
willingness to seek to refer North Korea to the United Nations Security Council
should the Six Party process continue to be stymied by Pyongyang.
The response to the nuclear ambitions of Iran, another member of the axis,
demonstrates enough differences to bring into question the existence of a one-
size-fits-all approach. Irans program is, it must be admitted, far less advanced
than North Koreas, and Tehran has justified its program as part of its right
(under the NPT) to develop a civilian nuclear program for energy purposes and
has tended to avoid North Korean-style rhetoric about a quest for nuclear
deterrence. But its insistence on participating fully in the nuclear fuel cycle has
understandably raised eyebrows not least in light of Irans own rich non-nuclear
sources of energy.
However, unlike North Korea, Iran remains a party to the NPT. It has
additional (and voluntary) safeguard arrangements with the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) (see Braun and Chyba 2004), a sign that the
international body responsible for ensuring compliance with the NPT can itself
countenance specific deals with individual countries. Moreover the main
negotiations with Iran have been undertaken not by the United States but by
three members of the European Union, France, Germany and the United
Kingdom (the EU3), who (with Washingtons tacit if sceptical support) offered
Iran assistance with low-proliferation risk aspects of its energy program in
exchange for Tehrans compliance with its IAEA/NPT commitments and the
avoidance of proliferation-risky activity. Its energy bluff having been called,
Tehran rejected the generous proposal in mid-2005, and the European states
were then keen to encourage the IAEA to refer the matter to the Security
Council for possible sanctions*a sign again that the United States is not the
/

only country willing to consider coercion as a response to proliferation

problems.
The evolution in Washingtons response to Indias nuclear proliferation
demonstrates the selectivity in approach which has been increasingly evident. In
mid-2005, just as it was saying that North Korea could not be trusted with even
 Selective non-proliferation or universal regimes? 433

minimal nuclear energy facilities, the Bush administration agreed to the transfer
of significant civilian nuclear energy technologies to New Delhi (Potter 2005).
Unlike the North Korean and Iranian cases, Indias nuclear proliferation is both
undisputable and complete. After conducting peaceful nuclear explosions in
1974, India was regarded as a closet nuclear weapon state. It came clearly out of
that closet by testing five nuclear devices in 1998, and by continuing to develop
a not insignificant arsenal, all of which has stimulated corresponding actions by
its near neighbour, Pakistan. India remains outside of the NPT, and any of the
minimal, half-hearted sanctions imposed after the 1998 testing have been
replaced by signs that it is regarded by Washington as the unofficial sixth
member of the nuclear weapons club (not counting Israel). India is more likely
to join the Security Council than to be referred to it. As with the rather limp-
wristed response to Pakistans involvement in nuclear proliferation*even to the
/

point of tolerating claims by Pervez Musharrafs regime that Mr A. Q. Khan

was acting without the knowledge of the powers-that-be in Islama-
bad*Americas embrace of India has benefited from the environment following
/

the 11 September terrorist attacks. But it must be said that Indias undeniable
democratic credentials, growing economy, emerging great power status, and in
particular its potential ability to help balance a rising China, have given the
Bush administration additional reasons to overlook New Delhis clear breach of
non-proliferation norms.
This all suggests three different deals for three countries, and four approaches
if Pakistan is to be included in the mix. Moreover, what are presumably global
instruments are themselves applied selectively. For the United States (the
country often, and occasionally unfairly, criticised for being almost entirely
responsible for the state of the NPT), it actually matters a lot whether North
Korea and Iran adhere to NPT commitments. The same applied in the 1990s in
terms of Iraqs commitment to the disarmament of its biological and chemical
weapons under the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) and its
adherence to its non-nuclear commitments as monitored by the IAEA*another /

case where this international agency dealt with a particular country on a special
case basis. Indeed, the case for war against Iraq in 2003 was built in part on the
argument that Iraq had defaulted on these obligations. No-one is under the
illusion, moreover, that the PSI or missile defence are aimed equally at all
possessors or would be possessors of nuclear weapons (see Cotton 2005).
One should perhaps not be surprised at this selectivity. As Hanson and
Wesley both remind us, there is an inbuilt inequality within the NPT which
favours the five states who were fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to have been
possessors of nuclear weapons at the time of its creation. And in earlier years the
sort of voices which had called for preventive attacks against the Soviet and
then the Chinese weapons programs as these two communist states were
crossing the nuclear weapons threshold (Trachtenberg 1991; Burr and Richelsen
2000/01) were not nearly as concerned about the nuclear weaponisation of
developments in two allied democracies, Great Britain and France. Moreover,
434 R. Ayson

the degree of international reluctance to censure Israel for its long-standing

nuclear weapons program is hardly a monopoly enjoyed by the United States.
In this imperfect and inconsistent world of international nuclear politics the
NPT almost requires the impossible. As Hanson reminds us, this treaty is the
most universal of its type in international relations. Yet, the treaty is aimed at
the prevention of what Albert Wohlstetter (1961) called the n"1 problem: so
/

only one defection out of nearly 200 adherents can be the straw breaking the
camels back. While it would make sense in many ways to add India to the list of
recognised nuclear weapon states, such a move would mean repudiating the
NPT in order to reform it. Moreover, being nearly universal is not really good
enough: it matters a great deal that three notable states (four including North
Korea) remain outside it and even more that they are all weaponised or
threshold states. With this in mind it is surprising not so much that the NPT has
reached a crisis point but that it has taken so long for it to do so.
There is thus a good case to be made for getting real about the irreversibility
of much of the proliferation which has been occurring and, as Wesley suggests,
putting the NPT onto the scrapheap and starting again. But finding a new
regime to replace the old one may be as difficult as efforts to strengthen the NPT
itself are proving, as Hansons commentary on the 2005 Review Conference
reveals. Both approaches*regime replacement and regime strengthening*seek
/ /

an international consistency which will be hard to come by.

In the absence of truly dramatic developments (more on which below),
attempts to retain and strengthen the NPT will continue to founder on the rocks
of great power politics, an art which the ending of the Cold War initially
suggested might be obsolete, but which is now coming back to haunt and
animate the international system. The NPT itself was something of a sign of a
concert among the five nuclear weapon states to retain the monopoly for
themselves, but it would take a much stronger concert for them to divest
themselves through a process of complete disarmament.2 Moreover, they know
(and I suspect even the advocates of that complete disarmament know) that
even this would not convince every other member of the system of states to do
away with their own programs (and to trust the five to go to zero). The grand
abolitionist combination of a renewed commitment to nuclear disarmament
with missile defence as an insurance policy against breakout or blackmail
(Ayson 2001) is some way off despite its theoretical appeal.
The NPT emerged during a period of detente between the two superpowers
who, earlier in the decade, had looked at the nuclear precipice during the 1962
Cuban missile crisis and decided to cooperate for their common survival. Today
the United States does not have such a willing partner in the dance*and in any
/

case there are doubts about how much the United States wants a partner even if
it is clear it needs one. China is the obvious candidate, but as a re-emerging
power which still feels vulnerable and sensitive over its own security, the Middle
Kingdom cannot be expected to make nuclear disarmament a compelling
priority. Indeed, as Wesley has pointed out, China is more concerned about
 Selective non-proliferation or universal regimes? 435

North Koreas political stability than its nuclear program. Beijings interests in
Iranian hydrocarbons and in its de facto alliance with Pakistan easily trump any
concerns it may have about Tehrans and Islamabads nuclear programs. A
common commitment to retaining strong nuclear retaliatory forces is part of the
glue for Sino!Russian cooperation. The United States and China are likely
/

headed for a period of intensified competition (despite their obvious mutual

economic interests): this is not a recipe for a revitalised NPT. Neither is a
severely weakened United Nations, which is far from being entirely Washing-
tons fault.
If a new regime to replace the old one is a logical next step, it is unlikely to be
an easy one. New regimes require behaviour and expectations to converge
around new norms. It is unclear what convergence would be possible around
the idea of accepting the reality of nuclear proliferation to states among whose
number would be those who are either severely disliked or severely mistrusted,
or both*even if they did promise to play by the new rules. While the NPT has
/

been unable to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons to some of these

states (although the numbers crossing the threshold remain low) it has also been
part of the mechanism used by states to abandon existing nuclear programs and
even weapons: would the international community really want to close off this
potentially valuable pathway? Even so, the tacit acceptance of nuclear
proliferation, as long as it is transparent, accountable, and incorporated in a
deterrence-only framework, is already occurring*as we see today with the de
/

facto recognition of Indias place in the club. But it is difficult to regard this as
part of a new regime in any consistent and universal sense, and even less the way
forward towards a formal mechanism (ie, a new treaty) to replace the NPT at
the new regimes heart.
All this might change in the event of the sort of catastrophe or near miss
which all (or most) are keen to avoid*a major crisis where the international
/

community stands once again on the very brink of a war involving nuclear
weapons or the use of nuclear weapons themselves. Despite the reminders which
have come from the sixtieth anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic
bombings, the arms control and disarmament impulse is not in great heart
internationally. It needs a jolt to get things moving again. Ironically, a major
and unpleasant crisis involving the near use of nuclear weapons might just do
what the Cuban crisis did for international arms control*part of the /

momentum which helps explain the origins of the NPT and which extends
also to the partial nuclear test ban, the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks and
their descendants, and numerous confidence-building measures. Of course it
might also do the opposite in convincing the nuclear weapon states that crises
can be withstood successfully, or (as some interpretations of the Kargil crisis
between India and Pakistan might suggest) that the presence of nuclear weapons
allows a limited conventional war to be fought without catastrophic escalation
(Ashraf 2004).
436 R. Ayson

The same dual logic might apply to any disaster involving the actual use of
nuclear weapons*perhaps as a state panicked about its own security (pre-
/

emption in the true sense of the word), perhaps inadvertently as the result of a
collapse of civil!military relations or command and control failings, or perhaps
/

out of malice or sheer bravado. This sort of event might just be the wake-up call
for the international community to commit to the sort of treaty which would
strengthen and replace the NPT at the same time: an international convention
for the disarmament of nuclear weapons. This might be the case if it could be
shown that nuclear deterrence had failed, but if a nuclear weapon state was the
initial victim, a truly horrible catastrophe might result once the almost
inevitable nuclear retaliation had occurred. Any resulting commitment to
disarmament might therefore come from an international community so
traumatised and disfigured that the costs of the lesson would easily outweigh
any of its resulting benefits.
Moreover just as the worlds only atomic bombings to date tended to
encourage the great powers towards nuclear arms races rather than towards
disarmament in the early Cold War years, a twenty-first century nuclear attack
or exchange might scare states into further nuclear proliferation and build-up.
This might be the case especially if the victim of the attack was shown to have
little or no nuclear weapons arsenal*and thus lacked the means of nuclear
/

deterrence. This event would no doubt generate a huge international outcry and
a major disarmament campaign. But some states might well conclude that they
needed nuclear weapons to make sure that this sort of thing did not happen to
them.
Even the unlikely use of nuclear or radiological weapons by a terrorist group
would not necessarily bring the world to its senses. On the one hand it could
generate enormous common interest between the worlds great powers*a kind /

of massive 11 September effect with a non-state actor as the common enemy

uniting the members of the United Nations. Yet some governments might also
conclude that nuclear weapons should remain the monopoly of those members
of the international community who could be trusted with them: ie, themselves.
They might also seek out states thought to have assisted or harboured the
terrorists*a recipe more likely to generate nuclear reprisal than universal
/

nuclear disarmament.
If the future seems rather grim for the NPT, it may therefore be nothing
compared to the mess which could accompany the breaking of the six decade-old
taboo on nuclear use. The world does need a shot in the arm if it is to commit
itself to strengthening or replacing the existing regime. But the medicine required
may be too strong or hazardous for the patient (the international system).
Perhaps then it is better to accept that the disease (the spread of nuclear weapons)
is unlikely to be dealt with successfully any time soon, but to regard it as a
chronic rather than a fatal condition. Muddling through may therefore be a
better approach than grand designs. To adapt the old saying, even if it is partially
broken, one might hesitate before trying completely to fix (or replace) it.
 Selective non-proliferation or universal regimes? 437

Notes
1. The author is grateful to Brendan Taylor and Michael Wesley for their comments on an earlier
draft.
2. Even a selective, case-by-case approach to proliferation problems might require a concert of
sorts among the great powers to be effective. Such coordination might be challenging to
arrange and maintain should China and Russia, for example, resist Americas unofficial
leadership in many of these situations. Without that coordination, any selective system may be
precariously reliant on US policy. I am grateful to Michael Wesley for pointing out this
potential difficulty.

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