Revival of nuclear concert diplomacy
The recent P5 statement on nuclear disarmament is hollow and contradicts the policies of most UNSC members. From India’s perspective, the statement does nothing to allay concerns about China modernising its nuclear arsenal
The global agenda is teeming with unaddressed critical issues. The coronavirus pandemic is refusing to abate. The climate crisis remains a dominant concern. Supply chain disruptions are impacting trade flows. Cyber threats are accentuating insecurity. Great power rivalry is entering uncharted territory. Into this mix comes the New Year statement on “Preventing Nuclear War and Avoiding Arms Races” from the leaders of the so-called P5, the permanent members (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States) of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).
It is not unusual for the only five countries recognised as nuclear weapons states under the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty (NPT) to band together on such issues. What is new is the attribution of the statement to the leaders.
Although the plans for holding the 10th review of NPT (held every five years) in January were disrupted by the Omicron wave, the statement prepared for that event was issued as a New Year’s gift, rather than being held back till the conference happens.
It is the first time that the P5 collectively refers to the Reagan-Gorbachev era phrase — “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” Those who follow nuclear issues are nostalgic that the initial use of the phrase in 1985 led to a series of arms control measures and a reduction of the US and Russian nuclear arsenals from 70,000-plus warheads to around 12,000 in 2021. The revival of that evocative phrase is arousing hopes of reducing nuclear dangers, primarily through the lens of strategic risk reduction. The phrase has been used twice in the past few months. Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin used it after their summit in Geneva in June 2021. Presidents Putin and Xi Jinping (China) mentioned it in a joint statement later the same month.
The incremental value is that the remaining two North Atlantic Treaty Organization alliance nuclearweapon states, the UK and France, have joined an old call. This is a limited gain. The UK in March 2021 announced it would increase its strategic warheads. Does joining such a statement now mean the UK is having a rethink? No. France, for its part, led the P5 hostility towards the Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) — a good faith effort against the development, testing, production, possession, use or threat of use of nuclear weapons that entered into force in January. The statement does not refer to any introspection of that collective P5 stance towards TPNW.
Also, the claim in the statement that “nuclear weapons only serve defensive purposes, deter aggression, and prevent war” contradicts the policies of most of the P5. If nuclear weapons were for defensive purposes, all of them should be able to declare a no-first-use (NFU) policy. They can, at least, issue legal negative security assurances to states in nuclear weapon-free zones (NWFZ). The P5 have not even signed all the protocols confirming they would not use nuclear weapons against NWFZ states. In short, the statement confirms the gap between their words and deeds.
From India’s perspective, the statement does nothing to allay concerns about China modernising its arsenal. China is acquiring new platforms and increasing its nuclear arsenal. Simultaneously, it is vociferously opposing calls to join in arms control negotiations. How, then, will the goal of “reduction of strategic risks” be credibly achieved? None of the instruments that the US and Russia have employed for decades to reduce nuclear risks — hotlines, agreements with defined reduction targets, timelines and structures — apply to China.
The claim to work for “reduction of strategic risks as our foremost responsibilities” in the statement is contradicted by the policies that China has been pursuing. It has not shown any interest in implementing the mechanisms of strategic risk reduction. Such statements give China a free pass to use this diplomacy of the nuclear concert to avoid nuclear commitments. No wonder China has lauded the statement as expressing, “the common voice of maintaining global strategic stability.”
China previously used its P5 perch to steer nuclear diplomacy to its advantage. It was China which initiated the P5 ministerial meeting in Geneva in June 1998, following the nuclear tests in South Asia. China was instrumental in enshrining nuclear apartheid in the joint communique issued then. It ensured that a host of prescriptive outcomes of that meeting — such as the need to address the root causes of the India-Pakistan tension, including Kashmir — were added to UNSC resolution 1172 (1998), while ignoring cross-border terrorism. The P5 concert approach to nuclear diplomacy has worked to India’s detriment in the past. When a State with which we have serious security concerns, including on the nuclear front, is in an exultant mode on a nuclear weapons statement it helped craft, we need to be watchful.
It is nobody’s case that nuclear weapon issues are not of cardinal interest and should not be addressed. Every effort to deter a nuclear catastrophe should be pursued vigorously. However, just as we in India see the climate crisis as a global issue and want to address it through the UNFCCC mechanism, we need to emphasise that the sole globally accepted platform for negotiating nuclear issues is the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. Revival of nuclear concert diplomacy, based on a system of stratification which no longer reflects reality, will not work. New dynamics need accommodation. Only then can nuclear diplomacy proceed beyond pious New Year offerings of the kind that the statement is.