Josh Childress, Anya Erokhina, Manuela Micoli, and Margarita Zolotova
Shortly after the first nuclear explosion, the global community grew aware of the deadly effects and dangers of these weapons. The United Nations was the first international organization tasked with controlling the spread of nuclear arms and leading nuclear disarmament, but soon a horizontal nuclear non-proliferation process led to the establishment of numerous international organizations responsible for mitigating the risks posed by nuclear weapons and their development.The cornerstone of what is now dubbed the nuclear non-proliferation regime is the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Opened for signature in 1968, it consists of three pillars: (1) preventing further spread of nuclear weapons; (2) commitment to nuclear, as well as “general and complete” disarmament; (3) recognition of the “inalienable right” to peaceful uses of nuclear energy under effective safeguards.
Each of us served our International Professional Service Semester in an international organization responsible for upholding and enforcing these three pillars. The Conference on Disarmament (CD) and the Disarmament Commission (UNDC), under the hospices of the United Nations, are both responsible for facilitating negotiations between Member States. The United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) is responsible for not only assisting these conferences, but also disseminating accurate information and informing the international community about the progress of disarmament and its benefits. Additionally organizations such as the Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean (OPANAL) lead disarmament efforts by enforcing nuclear weapon-free-zones (NWFZ) in cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
However, many of the above mentioned organizations were created before the NPT entered into force and have since taken on additional responsibilities including nuclear material security, military doctrines, sensitive technology sharing, and political and regional tensions. While there has been success addressing these and other issues, many still pose challenges that have only been exacerbated by the shifting international environment.
The international system has undergone a transformation, mainly caused by: (1) the end of the Cold War; (2) the growing role of developing states; (3) technological advancements; and (4) globalization. The aging policies of these international organizations are struggling to adapt and keep pace with these rapid changes. Furthermore, recent proliferation breaches and disarmament failures have placed the nonproliferation regime under severe stress and highlight the need for new organizational approaches. The following pages will briefly outline these global shifts and how they have affected international organizations responsible for upholding the three pillars of the NPT.
Out of the rubble of World War II, the United States and the former Soviet Union emerged as two victors both militarily and economically. Their two distinct ideological and political goals instigated the Cold War as both countries began intensely competing for global influence, allies, and military might. Nuclear weapons became the definition for military superiority and further fueled the already existing rivalry between the United States and former Soviet Union. As each country produced more weapons to stay ahead in the numbers game, the rest of the world grew afraid of a potential nuclear holocaust.
The end of the Cold War marked the sudden shift in the global order that catapulted progress on nuclear disarmament forward. Significant arms reduction treaties between the two countries decreased international weapon numbers, military doctrines deemphasized the importance of nuclear weapons, and nuclear disarmament grew more popular in the international community.
At the same time however, the collapse of the Soviet Union also disseminated nuclear weapons and the greater nuclear weapons complex across numerous newly independent states, decreasing the security of these armaments and their fissile material. Black market sales of uranium and plutonium increased significantly during the early 1990s amid fears that these sensitive materials would fall into the hands of unstable countries or non-state actors.
Furthermore, an end to the Cold War also meant an end to the tenuous stability created by the bipolar system and opened a power vacuum that other states scrambled to fill. Countries previously under the influence of either the Western capitalism or the Soviet communism began seeking self-reliance and pursuing economic and military might. These states, most of which belong to the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), have since become an important influence in the field of nuclear disarmament that seeks to transform aged global norms, most of which belong to the
NAM created a political partnership between comparatively weak, developing countries that tried to resist the political pressures of the United States and the former Soviet Union. Post-1991 however, NAM suddenly seemed out of place in a world without a bipolar military or ideological confrontation. In order to survive as a coalition, NAM redefined itself as an entity that will help build a multipolar global order and champion topics such as international peace and national sovereignty. With over 118 member states, NAM as an entity and its individual members, have become a powerful political force and has achieved the diplomatic clout to deeply influence disarmament negotiations.
In sheer numbers, NAM is capable of blocking consensus in each of the major nonproliferation and disarmament negotiating forums. The coalition successfully forms a coherent, united position that is often at odds with the political goals of other political blocs such as the European Union or the P-5. But use of diplomatic prowess and bullying tactics, NAM has often demonstrated its ability to obtain compromises from the Western powers without giving up its primary positions.
At the same time, the NAM coalition position often cannot reflect the heterogeneity of the group nor represent the nuanced opinions of its individual members. Indeed there are many examples where NAM states have stepped out of the mold in order to express national positions on substance, issue priorities, negotiating mandates, rule of consensus, etc.
The way NAM functions within international organizations illustrates its members ability to weave in and out of the group rhetorically and at times politically. In this manner, developing nations have used their burgeoning influence to constrain Western nonproliferation initiatives, pursue nuclear disarmament, while struggling to maintain their national sovereignty.
The global political environment and social medium have also undergone revolutionary changes concerned in technology development and communication practices, inevitably affecting the ways the world perceives and approaches nonproliferation and disarmament matters. The international community has constantly adjusted its international security paradigms and policies with accordance with emerging technologies. These alternations have affected how nonproliferation issues are resolved and communicated worldwide.
The end of the Cold War, in a sense, deteriorated the core assumptions under which international community had consumed and media had previously covered global political news, including the nonproliferation and disarmament topics. This Cold War dictated narrative referring to the standoff between the two superpowers had provided media with a clear ideological framework, which guided the international community on who is “right” and who is “wrong.” Without such a conceptual “road map,” the public and the journalists were left in a cognitive and emotional vacuum that had to be filled with new explanations of global political and humanitarian developments.
The “CNN effect” combined with the absence of a main default political framework concerning global affairs and general globalization has made nonproliferation policy-making as partisan as any other political matter worldwide. Furthermore, the same 24/7 communication cycle applied to domestic issues is a new “requirement” for global affairs, which creates an illusion of an open world, but allows for a very limited flexibility with regard to such sensitive issues as humanitarian crisis, nonproliferation and disarmament strategy, regional military conflicts, etc.
Indeed, this high volume line production of a media message moves the foreign policy discourse to the media sphere, demanding a constant, almost immediate public reaction from political actors and international organizations regardless whether such reaction on the subject matter is constructive. Hence, it becomes quite a challenge for policy-makers and international organizations to separate the political “noise” and hype when it comes to discussing the nonproliferation and disarmament matters in such 24/7 mode – both in traditional and new media.
Therefore, a significant growth of global new media communication created a rather profound dilemma for those advocating for universal disarmament. Should the international public be left out of the conversation on disarmament and nonproliferation matters? Or should the policy-makers and IGOs tap into this open engaging medium that potentially is capable of shifting the public mindset on feasibility of the goal of elimination weapons of mass destruction worldwide? Recent political changes in the Middle East and Africa have indeed challenged the long-prevailed assumptions that the idea shared by many thousands like-minded individuals cannot be translated into a real political change. It became evident that “mass” awareness enables the society to redefine the norms. Apparently, a real political change is exactly what the international disarmament effort has been in a great need for over the last decades.
Finally, continuous development of communication technology poses a dramatic challenge to the nonproliferation export controls globally. Experts, including those from the states participating in the Wassenaar Arrangement, consider effective control over Intangible Technologies Transfers (ITT) as one of the biggest tasks for the Nonproliferation regime, and a critical element for the credibility and effectiveness of their domestic export control regimes. Internet-based communication technology provides one of the ways for ITT to be carried out; it is also a difficult type of export to trace and monitor.
The nonproliferation regime has been in search of ways to deal with the states, whose compliance with the NPT is questioned. In this era of rapid technological development that permits the transmission of sensitive information instantly anywhere in the world, the importance of defining optimal export control rules over Internet communications is vital. Exercising control over downloadable software and Internet communication systems is equally important as regulating the export of conventional weapons systems or parts used in nuclear arms development.
Ultimately, the international community is faced with achieving a complex strategic balance: it must weigh maintaining strict sanctions vis-à-vis the nations in question in order to limit export of sensitive technology against the potential of allowing average citizens in those countries free and open access to global information, which may undermine the stability of the regimes from within. How far can the global community go in terms of easing export control regulations over new media and other communication technology with respect to the so-called outliers in order to support the internal liberalization movement in these states?
Among policy areas that need to be further explored are methods and strategies for export controls enforcement designed to monitor the usage of authorized Internet technology by users worldwide in order to detect potential misuse of resources and prevent leak of sensitive information. Furthermore, due to the peculiarity of that type of communication, the surgical balance between communication methods and export controls have to be constantly reassessed and adjusted based on real-time usage and technology evolution in order to achieve the long- term political goal of bringing all world players in line with global Nonproliferation regime.
In sum, the shift from the Cold War model of monitoring and analyzing the easily identified tensions between two nuclear superpowers to the globalization of potential nuclear warfare from outliers worldwide and clandestine nuclear activities that may prove to be sinister, has changed the perspective of disarmament strategy and policy. The media has emerged as a voice in the political mix, questioning the validity and strength of political rhetoric, investigating its own sources of nuclear danger, and offering continuous and sometimes conflicting reports on a daily, non-stop, cycle. Moreover, this global information via all forms of “media” is both a source of potential power to the world citizen to effect change and a potential threat to the security of nonproliferation strategy and enforcement, especially in the areas of export control mechanisms and technology. Striking a balance between these two tensions is a worthy task for the players in this high stakes and high-risk enterprise.
Our service at our respective international organizations allowed us to witness firsthand how the institutions of the nonproliferation adapted to the changing international environment and responded to the continuing nonproliferation and disarmament challenges. Generally speaking, each organization has made concrete efforts to modify aged working methods or procedures to better fit the current global context. At the same time, endemic problems continue to slow the work of these institutions. The following chapters will evaluate specific functions within international organizations, their responses to rapid global change, and provide a set of recommendations for how they can effectively adapt and respond to continuing challenges.
