Week 4: Nonproliferation Regimes
Overview:
This week we will look into and assess the state of the international nonproliferation regimes.
Course Objective(s):
CO-3: Analyze the U.S. Government’s methods for providing resources to the Weapons of Mass Destruction Counter Proliferation Efforts and non-proliferation treaties.
Lesson Objective(s):
LO4.1: Identify historical non-proliferation regimes and describe their impact on U.S. security.
LO4.2: Assess the effectiveness of current non-proliferation regimes.
Topics of Discussion:
• Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT)
• International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA)
• Biological Weapons Convention (BWC)
• Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC)
• New START Treaty
• Australia Group
W4: Nonproliferation Regimes
Discussion Questions: Please discuss the current state the different international nonproliferation regimes. What are their strengths and weaknesses and how could they be strengthened? Has the time of the Nonproliferation Regimes ended or is there still hope for the future? Choose one regime and use it as an example to inform your post.
Introduction to Nonproliferation Regimes
In today’s world, the threat of terrorists and other non-state actors obtaining WMDs remains paramount. In the past, however, the greatest threat has been the possibility that these weapons would be used in war between rival states, potentially killing billions of people and changing the face of the world forever.
The threat posed by nuclear weapons was realized very early, arguably before the first nuclear attack, and the first attempts to control these weapons occurred almost immediately after World War II ended with the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Over the next six decades, similar agreements to control biological and chemical as well as nuclear weapons would be introduced, with various levels of efficacy.
Topics to be covered include:
• The Baruch Plan (1946)
• The Atoms for Peace Program (1954)
• The International Atomic Energy Agency (1957)
• The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (1970)
• Supportive agreements to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
• The Chemical Weapons Convention (1993)
• The Biological Weapons Convention (1972)
• New START Treaty (2011)
• The Australia Group (1985)
The Baruch Plan (1946)
NUCLEAR TENSIONS DURING TRUMAN’S PRESIDENCY
World War II ended with the United States monopoly on nuclear weapons. Friction was quickly beginning to rise between the United States and the Soviet Union, and many feared that the latter would not only develop nuclear weapons but also use them with abandon. The best way to prevent this from occurring was hotly disputed.
According to U.S. Secretary of War Henry R. Stimson and Secretary of Commerce Henry Wallace, the best route would be for the United States to share its nuclear secrets with the Soviets. This would engender cooperation rather than suspicion between the two nations, and the Soviet Union would presumably be transparent with its own nuclear program. But how could the Soviets assure transparency? Many others within President Truman’s administration, such as State Department official George F. Kennan, believed that the Soviets could not be trusted with such knowledge and that instead of enabling them, the United States should focus its efforts on preserving its status as the world’s singular nuclear power.
UNITED NATIONS ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION (UNAEC)
Whatever one’s opinion on the matter, all agreed that the proliferation of nuclear technology on an international level had to be controlled. The United Nations Atomic Energy Commission (UNAEC) was formed for this purpose in 1946. In June of that year, the United States sent Bernard Baruch to the United Nations to present a proposal to the UNEAC. Baruch was a Wall Street financier who had served as an advisor to President Wilson during World War I and President Roosevelt during World War II.
BARUCH PLAN
Central to the Baruch Plan, as this proposal became known, were four goals: 1) the regulation of the exchange of nuclear information geared towards peaceful purposes; 2) the placement of controls on atomic energy; 3) the elimination of all atomic weapons and those weapons adaptable to mass destruction; and 4) the establishment of safeguards through the use of inspections and other reporting to ensure state compliance.
Baruch sided with Kennan and the others who distrusted the Soviet Union. While Baruch’s proposal called for destroying all nuclear weapons and international oversight of any nuclear activity, it also stipulated that until the plan was in full force, the United States would maintain its world monopoly on nuclear weapons and not relinquish its existing arsenal. This plan was rejected by the Soviets, who subsequently proposed a plan to immediately ban all nuclear weapons—which the United States promptly rejected as well.
FAILURE OF BARUCH PLAN
The failure of the Baruch Plan is often seen as the commencement of the nuclear arms race. In September of 1949, the Soviet Union successfully tested its first nuclear weapon, and efforts to control the international proliferation of nuclear weapons were replaced with efforts by these two nuclear powers to develop more powerful and destructive weapons than the other.
The Atoms for Peace Program (1954)
Nuclear Technology Advances
Over the next decade, those two nations would produce some very powerful weapons. These would include the hydrogen bomb, capable of exploding with one thousand times the force of the first atomic bombs; the multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) missile, which was capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads; and the neutron bomb, designed to kill mass numbers of people while leaving buildings and other structures unharmed. Yet, simultaneously, people began to discover different uses for nuclear technology. Nuclear fission could produce massive amounts of energy that could replace coal, oil, and other nonrenewable, less clean fuel sources.
Atoms for Peace
On December 8, 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower gave a speech before the United Nations Assembly, where he called for forming an international agency to monitor nuclear weapons while promoting peaceful uses of atomic energy. In this speech, which became known as the Atoms for Peace Speech, Eisenhower stated that:
The United States knows that if the fearful trend of atomic military build-up can be reversed, this greatest of destructive forces can be developed into a great boon for the benefit of all mankind. The United States knows that peaceful power from atomic energy is no dream of the future. The capability, already proved, is here today. Who can doubt that if the entire body of the world’s scientists and engineers had adequate amounts of fissionable material to test and develop their ideas, this capability would rapidly be transformed into universal, efficient, and economic usage? (Eisenhower, 1953)
Proposed Nuclear Agency
In his speech, Eisenhower claimed that nuclear technology could destroy and improve humankind’s condition on both a social and economic level. The challenge would be to direct the focus away from warfare and towards more peaceful uses of atomic energy. The agency that Eisenhower proposed would collect, store, and distribute nuclear materials but would not technically own them. It would instead constitute an essential step towards establishing trust between nuclear powers through a “uranium bank.”
Atomic Energy Act of 1954
It was clear that such an agency would take years to establish, so much had to be done to promote peaceful uses of nuclear technology in the interim. In August 1954, the U.S. Atomic Energy Act was revised to allow nuclear material exports if the country receiving them committed not to use them to develop weapons. Funding for reactor programs was increased, and U.S. technology concerning their use was made available to other nations—provided they were allied with the United States.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
Three years later, Eisenhower’s vision was realized by establishing the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), whose statute was unanimously approved by 81 nations in October 1956 and ratified by the United States the following year. By this time, the Atoms for Peace Program had assisted many nations in developing nuclear capabilities, presumably for peaceful purposes. This plan was not without its critics, who feared it would help the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and with good reason. It is believed that the United States’ sharing of nuclear technology and materials with nations considered “friendly” directly led to India’s development of nuclear WMDs. In 1974, India detonated its first atomic weapon, and by 1998 was a full-fledged nuclear power.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (1957)
IAEA GOALS AND FUNCTIONS
The IAEA is still a major organization for the non-proliferation of nuclear WMDs today, with 151 member states. The goal of this international agency remains the promotion of safe, secure, and peaceful nuclear technologies. Its main functions towards this goal have been to encourage and assist the research, development, and practical application of atomic energy for peaceful uses throughout the world and to safeguard the activity that it helps towards so that it is not used to create WMDs or to further any other military purpose.
LOCATIONS
The IAEA Secretariat is headquartered in Vienna, Austria, with regional offices in Geneva, New York, Tokyo, and Toronto. The IAEA also operates research laboratories in several European cities. While the IAEA is an entirely independent organization, it reports to the UN General Assembly once a year. It conducts its activities in accordance with the UN Charter’s principles to promote peace and international cooperation.
AUTHORITY
According to Title XII of the IAEA’s Statute, which describes the safeguards it uses to control the proliferation of nuclear WMDs, the agency has the authority “to examine the design of specialized equipment and facilities, including nuclear reactors, and to approve it only from the viewpoint of assuring that it will not further any military purpose, that it complies with applicable health and safety standards” (International Atomic Energy Agency, 1957). Inspectors employed by the IAEA regularly visit nuclear facilities to verify records maintained by State authorities, to check IAEA-installed instruments and surveillance equipment, and to confirm reported inventories of nuclear material.
The IAEA Annual Cycle
The IAEA verifies the legal commitments of its member states using its system of safeguards. These safeguards are implemented through four main processes that comprise an annual cycle:
INFORMATION
Collection and evaluation of safeguards-relevant information: The IAEA collects, processes, and reviews all safeguards-relevant information available to evaluate a member state’s consistency with its declarations concerning its nuclear program.
SAFEGUARDS
Development of a safeguards approach for a member state: An individual state’s safeguards approach includes the measures necessary to achieve the technical objectives for verifying the state’s declarations; these can vary from state to state.
PLANNING AND EVALUATION
Planning, conducting, and evaluating safeguards activities: The IAEA develops a plan to specify the activities to be performed in the field and at the IAEA’s headquarters. Once an action has occurred, the extent to which it has reached the technical objectives is evaluated, and inconsistencies that might need further inspection are identified.
CONCLUSIONS
Drawing of safeguards conclusions: The conclusions drawn by the IAEA are based on its independent verification and findings and provide the international community with the assurance that each state abides by its obligations concerning its nuclear program.
Nuclear inspections conducted by the IAEA fall into four categories. Ad hoc inspections are conducted to verify initial nuclear reports issued by states. Routine inspections, as their name suggests, are performed routinely and are the most common type of inspection. Special inspections are conducted under unusual circumstances, and safeguard visits are inspections of declared facilities to confirm the safeguard design information.
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (1970)
Need to Control Nuclear Technology
As the world entered the 1960s, scientists and engineers worldwide developed a greater knowledge of nuclear technology—and its uses in both war and peace. As the understanding grew of how dangerous nuclear WMDs could be, the need to control the materials and methods used to produce them became more apparent. In 1961, a debate concerning nuclear proliferation in the UN General Assembly resulted in a consensus that no countries not already possessing nuclear weapons should be allowed to develop them, that countries that did possess them should first commit to not producing more and then to destroying their existing arsenals.
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)
This debate sowed the seeds from which the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) would grow a decade later. Negotiations leading to this landmark treaty first began between the United States and the Soviet Union, in which the United States agreed to abandon plans for a “multilateral force” of naval vessels armed with a variety of nuclear weapons, and the Soviet Union agreed to allow its rival to deploy nuclear weapons in West Germany. Under the treaty, the United States, Soviet Union, China, France, and Great Britain would all be allowed to possess nuclear weapons (for the time being), and all other states would be asked to accept an agreement prohibiting them from possessing or developing nuclear weapons.
Not All States Signed
China and France had acquired nuclear weapons during the negotiations; the NPT draft permitted them to join the treaty with the same rights and duties as the other nuclear-weapon states. India actively participated in NPT negotiations as a non-nuclear state but refused to join because China, a fierce rival at the time, was allowed to possess these weapons. Pakistan, also a rival of India, refused to ratify the treaty if India did not, and Israel refused as well.
Ratified in 1970
Finally, the treaty was negotiated in 1968, and by 1970, enough states had ratified it to go into force. The scope of the inspections that the IAEA would conduct remained a controversy. It was disputed long after the NPT was ratified, often being the main topic of discussion at the NPT conferences every five years. First negotiated for a 25-year term, the NPT was extended indefinitely upon its expiration in 1995. At that year’s conference and the one held in 2000, attention focused on the NPT-related promises of ceasing nuclear testing, reducing the number of nuclear weapons, and the end goal of complete disarmament.
Weaknesses
Over the last five decades, the NPT’s weaknesses have been revealed. In 1991, Iraq’s weapons program was discovered following the Persian Gulf War after the UN Security Council ordered a more intrusive inspection than the IAEA had required before. North Korea’s weapons program reached the surface largely due to North Korea’s own admissions. Iran’s failure to disclose plutonium separation and uranium enrichment experiments to IAEA inspectors led to an international standoff.
Non-nuclear States
Non-nuclear states are not the only member nations that have failed to honor the NPT. The United States has not universally complied with its obligations, promising to negotiate a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 1995 as a condition for indefinitely extending the NPT. President Bill Clinton signed the CTBT in 1996, but the Senate failed to ratify it in 1999. President George W. Bush’s administration opposed the CTBT, and as of 2016, it remains not ratified by the United States.
The Strategic Arms Limitations Talks
SUPPORTIVE AGREEMENTS
The NPT stands as the main pillar of the nuclear weapons nonproliferation regime. There are also a number of supportive agreements following the NPT that enhance the mission of the nuclear nonproliferation regime.
STRATEGIC ARMS LIMITATIONS TALKS (SALT)
The Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT) were a series of negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union that dealt with nonproliferation as it applied to these two nations. These two talks, held in 1972 and 1979, focused on halting the production of strategic missiles that could carry nuclear WMDs. President Lyndon B. Johnson first suggested the negotiations in 1967, the two nations agreed to discuss the matter in 1968, and full-scale negotiations began in 1969.
NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION ACT
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act was a federal law passed by the U.S. Congress in 1978. It tried to establish a framework of controls to reduce the threat of weapons proliferation and promote the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. In passing this law, which would only apply to the United States, President Jimmy Carter and the U.S. Congress hoped that other nations would follow suit to become more accountable for their own actions regarding nuclear weapons.
FIRST U.S.-SOVIET STRATEGIC ARMS REDUCTION TREATY (START I)
Over a decade after SALT II was signed, President George H.W. Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev signed the first U.S.-Soviet Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) in 1991. START I was the first treaty to call for deep reductions in strategic nuclear weapons for both the United States and Soviet Union/Russia and played an enormous role in ensuring the predictability and stability of the strategic balance. In 1997, its successor, START II, was signed by Presidents Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin to complement the agreements made in START I.
More Supportive Agreements to the NPT
STRATEGIC OFFENSIVE REDUCTIONS TREATY (SORT)
START I expired in 2009, and Russia withdrew from START II in 2002. The latter was replaced with the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT), signed by Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin that same year. SORT was later superseded by New START, which Presidents Obama and Dmitry Medvedev signed in 2009.
FISSILE MATERIAL CUT-OFF TREATY (FMCT)
The Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) was first proposed in 2004. This international agreement would prohibit the production of the two main components of nuclear weapons, highly enriched uranium and plutonium. Currently, the UN Conference on Disarmament (CD) is discussing this agreement on a preliminary basis, though no negotiations have yet been arranged. If put into force, the FMCT would provide new restrictions for the five recognized nuclear weapon states and the four nations that do not belong to the NPT.
MISSILE TECHNOLOGY CONTROL REGIME (MTCR)
The Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) was established in 1987 to limit the spread of unmanned delivery systems that could be used for chemical, biological, and nuclear attacks, chiefly ballistic missiles. The 35 members of this regime include most of the world’s key missile manufacturers, who have agreed to restrict their exports of missiles and other devices capable of delivering WMDs. The MTCR has successfully stopped or slowed several missile programs, making it more difficult for prospective buyers to obtain the necessary technology.
COOPERATIVE THREAT REDUCTION (CTR) PROGRAM
The Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Program, also known as the Nunn-Lugar Act after the two U.S. senators who sponsored the legislation to initiate it, is part of the strategy to prevent the proliferation of all types of WMDs and related materials and technologies from former Soviet republics. The CTR program has also worked to help these states meet the requirements of arms control treaties such as START. With funding from the CTR Program, Kazakhstan became a non-nuclear weapons state in 1995, followed by Ukraine and Belarus in 1996.
The CTR Program has grown since the 1990s to expand in several areas. The following are some examples.
Biological Threat Reduction Program (BTRP)
Protect the United States, its Armed Forces, and our allies from biological threats by strengthening the capabilities of partner nations and the international community to prevent, detect, and prepare for outbreaks caused by biothreat pathogens.
Proliferation Prevention Program (PPP)
Strengthens the capability of partners to detect and interdict WMD-related trafficking across borders or through maritime jurisdictions.
Global Nuclear Security (GNS)
GNS supports the cooperative dismantlement of nuclear weapons programs, as well as the transportation and disposition of associated materials, and builds the capacity of international partners to secure nuclear weapons, high-threat radiological material, and related components, materials, equipment, technology, and expertise, and to counter nuclear smuggling.
Chemical Security and Elimination (CSE)
CSE supports the cooperative elimination of chemical weapons, related materials, and infrastructure and builds the capacity of international partners to secure toxic industrial chemicals and chemical weapon precursors, as well as associated components, materials, equipment, technology, and expertise.
Strategic Offensive Arms Elimination (SOAE)
SOAE supports the cooperative elimination of WMD delivery systems, related materials, and infrastructure, including the disposition of interdicted delivery systems and related commodities, and builds partner capacity to secure related components, materials, equipment, technology, and expertise.
The Chemical Weapons Convention (1993)
Early Curtailment of Chemical Weapons
For nearly as long as chemical weapons have existed, efforts have been made to curtail their use. The first occurred in the seventeenth century when France and Germany agreed to use poisoned bullets in battle. The Brussels Convention on the Law and Customs of War, held in 1874, further addressed the use of poisons and poisoned weapons. With the advent of poisonous gas weapons, a peace conference was held at The Hague in 1899 to prohibit chemical weapons of this variety.
Geneva Protocol
The Brussels Convention was a success in the long term; The Hague Peace Conference was not. World War I showed the horrors of full-scale chemical warfare on soldiers and civilians alike. In 1925, the Geneva Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and Bacteriological Methods of Warfare was agreed upon. The greatest weakness of the Geneva Protocol was that it prohibited the use of chemical weapons in warfare but not their development, production, or possession. This ambiguity made many countries wary about entering into this protocol. What was the purpose of maintaining a chemical arsenal if those weapons could not be used? Could chemical weapons be used against non-member nations? If a nation was attacked using chemical weapons, could it respond in kind?
Reduced Stockpiles of Chemical Weapons
To the surprise of many, several countries began reducing their stockpiles of chemical weapons in the following years. World War II saw very little chemical weapon use, even with discoveries leading to improvements in nerve gas technology. Throughout the following decades, chemical weapons and their prohibition remained a present but secondary issue in many multilateral discussions on disarmament.
Geneva Conference
In 1978, the Geneva Conference met and established an ad hoc working group on chemical WMDs. In 1984, the United States proposed intrusive verification measures, including mandatory challenge inspections. After it was announced that chemical WMDs had been used in the Iran-Iraq War, the conference agreed to negotiate an international ban on these weapons.
Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC)
However, an international ban on chemical WMDs would meet several more stumbling blocks before finally coming to fruition. It was in 1992 that the text of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) was written and brought before the UN General Assembly, with the request that it be opened for signature in 1993. The following January, 130 nations signed the CWC within the first two days. According to the terms of the Convention, the CWC would enter into force 180 days after the 65th country ratified it. Hungary became the 65th country to do so in late 1996, and the CWC entered into force on April 29, 1997, with 87 members.
Annexes to the CWC
The CWC includes three Annexes concerning Chemicals, Verification, and Confidentiality. Its goal is the elimination of all chemical WMDs by prohibiting their development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, retention, transfer, or use by its members, which comprise 192 nations. Members of the CWC are called upon to do what is necessary to enforce that prohibition within their state’s jurisdiction.
Requirements of Member Nations
Upon signing, all member nations were required to destroy their chemical weapons and any production facilities used to create them by 2007. Its power comes from its inspection organization, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). The OPCW is granted the authority to conduct both routine and unannounced inspections of companies using chemicals that the CWC regulates. Members may also request challenge inspections of other members if they have good reason to believe a violation has occurred. Trade sanctions on chemical exports from non-member nations are also allowed under this treaty.
The Biological Weapons Convention (1972)
People often associate biological weapons with their chemical counterparts. Many of the mid-century efforts to control chemical WMDs lumped them together with biological WMDs, which these efforts focused upon, and the perceived link between these two distinct classes of WMDs was primarily responsible for hindrances to international non-proliferation agreements concerning them.
Biological Weapons Research
Unlike chemical WMDs, biological WMDs had yet to be used in modern warfare, even though their ancient use extended centuries into the past. In 1969, the United Kingdom submitted a draft for a convention that focused on eliminating biological (and not chemical) weapons. After the convention was negotiated in the UN General Assembly, it was opened for signature at Washington, London, and Moscow in 1972. Entered into force on March 26, 1975, the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) currently has 165 members.
Anthrax
Prohibited under the BWC are the development, stockpiling, acquisition, retention, and production of all biological agents and toxins without peaceful applications and the weapons, equipment, and delivery vehicles designed to use these agents and toxins in warfare. It also prohibits the transfer or procurement of agents, toxins, weapons, and equipment prohibited under the BWC.
The BWC required its member nations to destroy any agents, toxins, weapons, equipment, and means of delivery they possess (or to convert them to use for peaceful purposes) within nine months of the convention’s entry into force. While the BWC does not ban biological and toxin weapons, it does reaffirm the Geneva Protocol, which has prohibited their use since 1925.
Weakness and Violations of BWC
Of the three main non-proliferation regimes discussed here (the NPT and CWC being the other two), the BWC is the weakest for three reasons.
NO INSPECTION OR VERIFICATION
It lacks any type of protocol for inspection or verification. Instead, states are simply taken at their word that they are complying with its mandate.
NO VOLUNTARY ADMISSIONS
No nation, BWC member or otherwise, has openly confessed to possessing biological WMDs.
CONTINUED RESEARCH ALLOWED
The BWC also allows for research to continue on biological weapons as long as that research is meant for “defensive purposes,” a term that is unclear. For instance, member nations are prohibited from turning anthrax into a deliverable weapon. However, they are allowed to “research” its potential to be turned into a weapon to help defend against this potential threat.
These reasons have allowed for repeated violations of the BWC. The Soviet Union maintained an enormous biological WMD program after ratifying the BWC despite being one of the convention’s state parties. Iraq’s violations of its commitments to the BWC were exposed in 1991 when the UN Special Commission on Iraq uncovered its biological weapons program after the Persian Gulf War.
New START Treaty (2011)
Treaty Structure: The Treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, also known as the New START Treaty, enhances U.S. national security by placing verifiable limits on all Russian deployed intercontinental-range nuclear weapons. The United States and the Russian Federation have agreed to extend the treaty through February 4, 2026.
Strategic Offensive Limits: The New START Treaty entered force on February 5, 2011. Under the treaty, the United States and the Russian Federation had seven years to meet the treaty’s central limits on strategic offensive arms (by February 5, 2018) and are then obligated to maintain those limits for as long as the treaty remains in force.
Aggregate Limits: Both the United States and the Russian Federation met the central limits of the New START Treaty by February 5, 2018, and have stayed at or below them ever since.
Those limits are:
• 700 deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), deployed submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and deployed heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments;
• 1,550 nuclear warheads on deployed ICBMs, deployed SLBMs, and deployed heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments (each such heavy bomber is counted as one warhead toward this limit);
• 800 deployed and non-deployed ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers, and heavy bombers equipped with nuclear armaments.
See Fact Sheet: New START Treaty Aggregate Numbers of Strategic Offensive Arms(this link opens in a new window/tab) (May 13, 2023)
New START limits all Russian-deployed intercontinental-range nuclear weapons, including every Russian nuclear warhead loaded onto an intercontinental-range ballistic missile that can reach the United States in approximately 30 minutes. It also limits the deployed Avangard and the under-development Sarmat, the two most operationally available of the Russian Federation’s new long-range nuclear weapons that can reach the United States. Extending New START ensures we have verifiable limits on the mainstay of Russian nuclear weapons that can reach the U.S. homeland for the next five years. As of the most recent data exchange on September 1, 2020, the Russian Federation declared 1,447 deployed strategic warheads. The Russian Federation has the capacity to deploy many more than 1,550 warheads on its modernized ICBMs and SLBMs, as well as heavy bombers, but is constrained from doing so by New START.
Force Structure: Each Party has the flexibility to determine the structure of its forces subject to the central limits. The New START Treaty gives the United States the flexibility to deploy and maintain U.S. strategic nuclear forces in a way that best serves U.S. national security interests.
Verification and Transparency: The treaty contains detailed procedures for implementing and verifying the central limits on strategic offensive arms (discussed above) and all treaty obligations. These procedures govern the conversion and elimination of strategic offensive arms, the establishment and operation of a database of treaty-required information, transparency measures, a commitment not to interfere with national technical means of verification, the exchange of telemetric information, the conduct of on-site inspection activities, and the operation of the Bilateral Consultative Commission (BCC).
(Source: Department of State)
On 21 February 2023, Vladimir Putin announced suspending Russia’s participation in the New START treaty, saying that Russia would not allow the US and NATO to inspect its nuclear facilities.
The Australia Group (1985)
Australia Group Founded
While the CWC and BWC focused their efforts on compliance and control in the activities of their member nations, they were limited in their ability to control potential WMD activity in the nations that were not members of these conventions. In 1985, the Australia Group was established as a voluntary, informal arrangement to control the export of chemicals and biological agents that may be used to create WMDs, as well as the equipment, technologies, and knowledge required.
Supplement to CWC and BWC
Forty-one nations are members of the Australia Group and the European Union. All participants are members of the CWC and the BWC, and all hold the view that the Australia Group is a practical way to supplement these conventions’ common core purpose: preventing the spread of chemical and biological WMDs.
Origins
The Australian government created the group 1985 to unite fifteen countries that had independently established controls on weapons-related exports. At its first meeting, the Australia Group focused on chemical WMDs but, by 1990, had also widened its scope to include biological WMDs. In 2002, the group moved to address WMD materials and equipment flow to non-state actors, such as terrorists.
Informal Group
As an informal arrangement, the Australia Group has no constitution or charter. Its unstated goal is to increase the effectiveness of existing controls, and all of its participants have licensing measures over 63 chemical weapons precursors. Participants also require licenses for exporting specific plant and animal pathogens, biological agents, biological and chemical manufacturing facilities, equipment, and related technology.
Measures
Measures agreed on by the Australia Group during their annual meetings are applied nationally. Under these measures, exports are denied only if there is a well-founded concern about potential diversion for WMD production or development.
Conclusion
By the end of the twentieth century, the potential threat that all forms of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons posed to the planet and its people were clear, and the nations of the world responded by making agreements not to use those weapons. But as time wore on, technicalities and ambiguities made these agreements less effective, and encouraged many countries to ease from their commitments or even flagrantly defy them. However, non-proliferation efforts have been successful in other ways, in that no major WMD attacks have occurred since the very first atomic bombs ended World War II. Their level of success in the future has yet to be determined.
References
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