2012 Conference on Disarmament Pakistan’s Approach towards FMCT
Pakistan & FMCT: A Debate
Since the beginning of 2012 Conference on Disarmament sessions, the majority of security observers have been concluding that Pakistan was/is the only state, which could obstruct the 2012 CD Agenda, particularly FMCT. It seems that they fail to understand the apt assessment of the UN Secretary General about the stalemate at the CD, when he argues: “Some states want negotiations on nuclear disarmament. Some want to ban the production of fissile material for use in nuclear weapons. Some want a treaty protecting non-nuclear-weapon states against the threat or use of nuclear weapons. Others want a treaty to prevent an arms race in outer space.” More precisely, different states have different priorities in the realm of arms control and disarmament, owing to which the delegates in the CD failed to construct a consensus on any item of the CD agenda during the last fifteen years.
Pakistan has become a focal point in the CD related debates due to four reasons. Firstly, it is a nuclear weapon state, and its nuclear weapon program is advancing both qualitatively and quantitatively without the direct/indirect external support. Secondly, the biased propaganda against Pakistan’s nuclear program has been going on in the Western media. Thirdly, the country’s internal political, economic and security situation has been presented in such a manner as to create doubts about the safety and security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapon program, providing its adversaries with a substance to malign it and construct a hostile environment for it at the international forums. Lastly, its straightforward stance(s) on the core items of the CD agenda, during the recent years, are not acceptable to the United States and other likeminded Western and Asian countries. On October 24, 2011, Pakistan’s Ambassador Zamir Akram stated:
“The primary purpose of creating the CD was Nuclear Disarmament – an agenda item on which no progress has been allowed by some major powers for the last 32 years. The leading critics of the CD are themselves responsible for dragging their feet on the most important issues of Nuclear Disarmament, Negative Security Assurances, and PAROS. These countries have also played a major role in ensuring CD’s inactivity for decades and stalled deliberations in the Disarmament Commission. Their self-righteous concerns are limited to progress on a single issue in the CD, with no interest to the other three core issues on its agenda.”
Islamabad remains very vigilant about the international nuclear developments. On December 14, 2010, the National Command Authority met under the Chairmanship of Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani and reiterated to ensure credible minimum nuclear deterrence capability of the country. The NCA also expressed concerns over the ‘policies and trends of selectivity, exceptionalism and discrimination related to strategic export control regimes’. It highlighted that these discriminatory policies are detrimental to international peace and security, undermine the credibility of the existing non-proliferation regime and are inconsistent with the national laws and international obligations. It added that the revisionism based on strategic, political or commercial considerations accentuates asymmetries and would perpetuate instability, especially in South Asia. These strategic perceptions construct Islamabad’s approach towards FMCT negotiations in particular and other core items in general at the CD. Consequently on January 13, 2010, NCA meeting was held under the Chairmanship of Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani at Rawalpindi, in which it decided that:
“As far as the consideration of a Fissile Material Treaty (FMT) at the CD is concerned, Pakistan’s position will be determined by its national security interests and the objectives of strategic stability in South Asia. Selective and discriminatory measures that perpetuate regional instability, in any form and manner, derogate from the objectives of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation and, therefore, cannot be accepted or endorsed. Pakistan will not support any approach or measure that is prejudicial to its legitimate national security interests.”
The preceding discussion underscores that Pakistan would be having affirmative stance on global nuclear disarmament, negative security assurances, and prevention of an arms race in outer space. Even on FMCT, it is only insisting on broadening the scope to include disarmament in the objectives of FMCT and elimination of the preexisting stocks of weapon grade enriched uranium and plutonium, and to keep regional security architectures into account. However, these demands are not acceptable to the United States and other likeminded states.
The anti-Pakistan nuclear lobby frantically recommended in 2011 that international community should reject Pakistan’s stance on the CD, and should constitute and approve the FMCT in the United Nations General Assembly. Pakistan, instead of submitting to the pressure, took a firm stance in General Assembly on July 28, 2011, and warned that it would boycott any process to negotiate FMCT outside the deadlocked UN Conference on Disarmament—the sole negotiating forum for multilateral disarmament. Speaking in the UN General Assembly, Acting Ambassador of Pakistan, Raza Bashir Tarar, opposed the process to take negotiations for the FMCT outside the Conference of Disarmament. He categorically stated: “Pakistan will not join any such process nor would it consider accession to the outcome of any such process.”
The Pakistani delegation has been encountering colossal pressure in the CD since January 2010 todate, while defending its principle stance which is essential for its sovereign defense. Gradually, the pressure on Islamabad to alter its stance and subsequently join the negotiations on the FMCT at CD in 2012 would increase. Some Pakistani security observers have also been chorusing the logic of Western powers to convince the government to alter its stance. Prior to the making of any decision vis-à-vis FMCT, it is imperative to do an objective analysis of a few important factors and developments taking place concurrently in the global and regional strategic environment. These developments are not ignorable, while chalking out Pakistan’s defense strategy and formulating its diplomatic tactics to maximize its advantageous position at the international arenas.
Regional and Global Strategic Environment: The complexity of South Asian strategic environment has been multiplying since the end of Cold War. The American strategic analysts have been declaring China as a strategic peer of the United States since the mid-1990s. At the same time, India has been trying to secure US support, or at least US understanding, for strengthening its pre-eminent position in South Asia and the Indian Ocean region via transfers of advanced military technologies, training in modern modes of warfare and ensuring Washington’s political and diplomatic support at the international forums. Moreover, the increasing military capability of India is in the interest of Washington, which is determined to use it to balance the rising power of Beijing. For these mutual benefits, the US is supporting India’s endeavor to acquire Great Power status that has been increasing security dilemma of its neighbors.
The Indo-US nuclear deal effectively granted India highly sought-after access to sensitive nuclear technology only accorded to states in full compliance with global nonproliferation standards. For instance, on September 6, 2008 the 45-member Nuclear Supplier Group (NSG) agreed in Vienna to exempt India from NPT guidelines that require comprehensive international safeguards as a condition of nuclear trade. The NSG waiver has not only facilitated numerous foreign firms to supply sophisticated nuclear technology to India, which already have eight unsupervised thermal power reactors, but it rolled back three decades of nuclear trade restrictions on India as well. Notably, these restrictions were imposed in a reaction to New Delhi’s violation of peaceful nuclear cooperation agreements by detonating its first nuclear bomb on May 18, 1974.
The Indo-US nuclear deal and the NSG waiver has gradually been improving India’s nuclear infrastructure, which undoubtedly have positive impact on the its nuclear weapons program. Daryl G. Kimball argued: “…nuclear fuel sales to India for Indian power reactors may marginally help increase India’s energy output, but at the same time it will free up India’s limited domestic uranium supplies to be used exclusively for bomb-making.” Thus, New Delhi continues to produce fissile material and expand its nuclear arsenal. Therefore, the Indo-US nuclear deal would have encouraging, rather than discouraging, influence on the Indian nuclear weapons program, which adds an additional destabilizing variable in the South Asian strategic environment.
Presently, NSG treats India in much the same way as the five NPT nuclear weapon states by exempting it from meaningful international nuclear inspections. The nuclear deal is very much to India’s advantage because it has enabled India to obtain enriched uranium to fuel its nuclear reactors, acquire nuclear reactors from the international market, and participate in international nuclear research and development. The discriminatory nuclear cooperation policies pursued by United States, undermining the international non-proliferation norms in pursuit of power and profit, have created insecurities and imbalances in the region. They have also accentuated the asymmetry in fissile material stocks in South Asia.
In addition, since November 2010, the Obama administration has been supporting India’s full membership in four multilateral export control regimes, namely the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), the Australia Group (AG), and the Wassenaar Arrangement (WA). In 2010, the United States lifted export restrictions on India’s defence and space industries. The blacklisted Indian organizations, including the Defence Research and Development organization, which develop weapons, were cleared. The support for India’s full membership in these regime manifests that commercial ventures would, in fact, encourage arms control and disarmament in the global politics. These developments accelerate India’s military buildup. Understandably, Islamabad and other regional countries cannot afford to ignore the gigantic military buildup in their neighborhood.
Importantly, a few Pakistani security observers have also been propagating that Pakistan’s stance on FMCT at the CD is irrational and therefore it should be part of negotiations. A few of them opined that many states including India and Israel have been benefiting from Pakistani stance. Once Islamabad altered its stance, these states would be exposed. They recommend that Pakistan should enter into the negotiations on the FMCT at CD, and then block the negotiations where it finds things are going against it. Theoretically, this option seems very simple and appropriate. Nevertheless, Pakistan’s non-confrontational attitude during the Indo-US nuclear deal’s negotiations, especially in the beginning of 2008 and its consequences were not a good experience for the Pakistani deterrence optimists, who are now convinced that they should be vigilant about their national interest. In the real-politick, especially in the strategic realm, one needs to be conscious and proactive rather than submissive or guessing that if one be nice with the supporters of arms control treaty, it would serve one’s national interest in the future. In simple words, one should know what one needs and chalk out the policy which serves one’s own national interest.
The proponents of FMCT assert and warn that the current stance of Pakistan at CD will confirm Pakistan’s diplomatic isolation, but they fail to substantiate their argument by underscoring the cost of this perceived notion of ‘isolation’. In simple words, the question is more about what Pakistan will receive in reciprocity by changing its stance on FMCT. A careful review of literature on the international treaties and agreements could reveal the fact that sovereign states would join the treaties only after careful analysis of the cost of sacrificing their sovereignty, as well as calculating the benefits, which these states would reap after joining any international or regional treaty. Importantly, one needs to realize that treaties are negotiated between or among sovereign states for ‘win-win effect’, rather than ’win-lose outcome’. Thus, in the international politics states join the treaty formulation process only when they are convinced that the benefits would be higher than sacrifices. Otherwise, the sovereign states always oppose the treaty which increases the sacrifices and lowers the benefits. Indeed, Pakistan will be compromising on the production of its fissile material without any tangible gains by supporting and later on joining the FMCT based on Shannon Mandate.
In the Pakistani strategic community, genuine concern persists on the issue of how much weapon grade enriched uranium and plutonium the country needs for its credible minimum deterrence. It sounds logical to demand that there should be limits on the production of weapon grade fissile material to avoid developing overkill capacity. Islamabad ought to avoid arms race and remain committed in letter and spirit with its declaratory nuclear posture i.e. ‘minimum credible deterrence’. The problem with the concept of minimum deterrence is that it is intangible. It is not countable. Moreover, the limit or numerical strength of the arms could only be identified in a strategic environment in which strategic peers have bilateral or multilateral arms control arrangement. Otherwise, it is not possible.
The challenge to Pakistan’s minimum deterrence is the Indians colossal investment in its military buildup and doctrinal transformation, i.e. Cold Start Doctrine. New Delhi seemed determined to alter the existing strategic equilibrium between India and Pakistan in its strategic advantage by introducing new category of weapons, such as, missile defense systems. India has been developing missile defense systems since 1980s. Presently, it is enjoying the support of Tel Aviv and Washington to perfect its both offensive and defensive missiles. Once missile defense systems operationalized, it would completely transform the twentieth century nuclear deterrence strategy. Hence, intellectual and political movements in favor of nuclear-weapons-free Pakistan suffer from unconvincing rationales, inherent contradictions, and unrealistic expectations.