Hooked on nukes

Britain shows how to proliferate

THE Nuclear Proliferation Treaty’s (NPT) 10th review conference was supposed to happen in April last year, but it didn’t. It may happen in August. Or it may not. This on-again, off-again NPT review conference is perhaps a reflection of a deeper problem: the death of nonproliferation and disarmament, two of the three pillars of the treaty. The third pillar is peaceful use of nuclear energy. To still have nuclear weapon states (NWS) 51 years and 199 signatories later cannot, by any measure, be said to be a success for the NPT. In the estimation of The Economist, there are nine states that possess nuclear arms, but the NPT recognises only five — Britain, the United States, France, Russia and China. Excluded, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea stay out of the NPT’s radar. Recognised or otherwise, the NWS appear not to want the NPT to succeed. Sadly, its obituary is being penned in nine state capitals. London is one of them. Britain’s Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy tabled in Parliament on Tuesday may not read like one, but the intent is there. There, Britain brushes aside global disarmament to grow its nuclear stockpile to 260 warheads.

This is in stark contrast to what the British government announced in 2010: paring it down from 220 warheads to 180 by last year. Reasons? Growing technological and doctrinal threats. As if technology and ideas can be nuked out of existence. If it should come to this, Britain, like the US, will live to regret its Hiroshima-Nagasaki moment. Russia appears to be on Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s mind. Even if Russia is a menace to Britain, why aren’t the warheads that were enough during the Cold War, sufficient now? If Britain’s “nuclear deterrent” managed to check even extreme threats for 60 years, as the review thumbs its chest at page 77 of the 144-page tedious text, why can’t it do the same for another six decades?

Britain must realise that it is helping to spread deadly nukes, not checking it. Nuclear stockpiles built on warped logic such as that of Britain’s will make NPT’s ultimate goal of global disarmament an impossibility. There is another reason why the NPT is failing. The NPT is being used by the nuclear “haves” to keep the rest as nuclear “have-nots”. Double standards such as this will surely kill NPT. If the “have-nots” can’t have nuclear arms, the “haves” must begin to retire what they have. Not increase them. Iran and North Korea have a point. If they can’t have nukes, why should Israel? Nuclear warheads aside, it is the most armed state in the Middle East. For the West to continue arming this rogue state and help it go under the NPT radar is the kind of double standard that will eventually send the treaty to the grave. Trust in the NPT is slowly being eroded with every increase in nuclear arsenal. The US, still the most powerful nation, wants and gets more warheads. Russia is rushing there, too. China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel are all in the keeping-up-with-the-“haves” game. The NPT was supposed to die a natural death in 1999 when it reached its sunset date. Even then it didn’t achieve anything. But hope springs eternal in the “have-nots” breast. Despite the errant behaviour of the “haves”, they agreed to keep the NPT alive in perpetuity. Now it may die an unnatural death. Thanks to 10 Downing Street.

The NPT is being used by the nuclear ‘haves’ to keep the rest as nuclear ‘have-nots’.