Hiroshima's
Children



The Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty
by  JOHN A. WEDGE

As the children of the post-Hiroshima era, we have grown up living with its falloutnot only in the era's legacy of nuclear armaments, but in the psychological imperative it has created for our age. The enormity of mass devastation by the use of technology has created the impulse of destruction in postmodernism, as well as the dynamic that governs society in the postwar world. When one is concerned with international politics and nuclear weapons strategies, it is easy to lose perspective of the fact that we have been forced to try and rationalize security based on deterrence and mutually assured destruction (MAD).
Anything that offers not only to stabilize but also to reduce this threat stands as a beacon of sanity in a potential nuclear night. In theory, the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) offers the prospect of limiting the number of states possessing nuclear weapons and of "the cessation of the manufacture of nuclear weapons, the liquidation of all existing stockpiles" (Preamble to the Treaty), as well as access to peaceful nuclear technology for all signatories.
In the 1960s the effort to control proliferation became a leading rationale for, and a route to, closer superpower cooperation. With the apparently imminent spread of nuclear weapons, it was hoped that the treaty, in addition to holding up the prospect of control, would ease international tension and strengthen trust among states.

A Changing Landscape
Since the NPT renewal conference began, the landscape has changed dramatically. Many nonnuclear countries want to see more positive action by those who belong, openly or covertly, to the nuclear club. These concerns have always existed, but with the nuclear states now cooperating to campaign for unlimited extension of an unamended treaty, they have been thrown into sharp relief.
Together the nuclear five are pressing for indefinite extension of the treaty on the grounds that the NPT is the centerpiece of all arms control, which has already made the world a much safer place. Critical nations point to the failure of the treaty to prevent the emergence of threshold states, which have secretly assumed nuclear status to offset regional threats of a conventional nature. This undermines the confidence of the nations who signed the treaty to safeguard against hostile neighbors acquiring nuclear weapons. Moreover, provisions that guarantee access to nuclear power, designed as an incentive for nonnuclear states, provide further contention because access is still being severely limited.
Of at least parallel importance, the nuclear powers all claim to have acted in the spirit of Article 6 which requires them to "pursue negotiations in good faith," to halt the nuclear arms race, and to disarm completely. Washington and Moscow point to deep cuts envisaged in the (still unratified) START II Treaty. Many third world powers would like to see more tangible commitments by the nuclear powers. To this end, Venezuela proposes a twenty-five-year "rolling" extension, to ensure that incremental standards are met. Either way, the vote is seen as crucial. The U.S. view is that anything other than a clear majority would rob the treaty of political and moral authority.

Contentious Issues: Implicit Threats
It is significant that the most contentious issue so far concerns the method of voting. Washington has pressed for a simple majority vote, but at least fifty nonnuclear states have rebelled, calling for a secret ballot or agreement by consensus. They argue that a public vote will expose opponents of the U.S. line to sanctions. This can be taken as evidence that the intense diplomatic activity of recent months and weeks has seen deals struck with a host of states in order to secure their support for the U.S. position. Regardless of U.S. motives, the irony of the situation appears to be lost on many people: a treaty to make the world a much safer place, for which support is apparently guaranteed by implicit threats.
On a more hopeful note, it would seem that most states remain in favor of the treaty, at least in principle. Arguments concern how the principles can be better applied and enforced. To this end, Mexico has floated the idea of renewal with an annex to include a comprehensive test ban. South Africa would see indefinite extension, with a committee elected to oversee progress to arms control and treaty compliance.
Projected voting currently stands at an estimated 95 in favor and 32 others leaning. This is more than the required majority. Consequently a renewal of commitments to halt the spread of nuclear weapons seems probable. The last twenty-five years have seen the emergence of three or four more nuclear states and no significant reduction of nuclear arsenals. The NPT has so far only been capable, at best of holding the line against the spread of nuclear weapons, but taking an optimistic view, even another twenty-five years will allow for further steps to be taken to eliminate nuclear weapons, if the political will exists to do so.



John A. Wedge is an undergraduate student in American Studies at the University of Reading in England. He spent the 1994-95 academic year as a study abroad student in the Department of Political Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is particularly interested in U.S. foreign policy and is currently writing his undergraduate dissertation on the impact of nuclear weapons on America and its foreign relations.



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Iraq and the Bomb
 by  JASON ZYCH

Iraq's recent nuclear weapons development program began after the destruction of the Osarik reactor by the Israeli air force. Up to that point, Iraq had considered the civilian reactor the first step toward the acquisition of nuclear weapons, but after its destruction, Iraq's program was again at square one. This setback demonstrated to Iraq that, to have a better chance of developing weapons, a number of parallel programs would be needed. By distributing resources along a number of different paths, no single attack could wipe out all the progress that had been made.

Not a Setback but a Step Forward
The post-Gulf War inspections of Iraq's nuclear program demonstrated that Iraq had done just that. It had apparently invested in research along three different paths to uranium enrichment. The major progress was made in the area of calutron enrichment. Iraq already had a well-funded research site set up and was beginning to prepare for large-scale enrichment at two different sites. The Iraqis had also made some progress with a gas centrifuge enrichment technique, but this path had not developed quite as quickly as the calutron path. There had also been experiments with chemical enrichment, but these, too, had moved slowly.
Blueprints were also found, detailing Iraq's weapons plans and putting to rest any speculation that the Iraqi program was indeed a peaceful one, as they claimed. The plans and records indicated that, even working at a fast pace, Iraq was still a year or two away from a working weapons design and was still two or three years away from having its full-scale enrichment operations in action.
The relevance of the Iraqi nuclear program to future nonproliferation efforts is found in the details of Iraq's procurement network. Nuclear-relevant materials are supposedly tightly controlled by the countries that manufacture this technology. Iraq's methods of circumventing these controls provide a case study of the shortcomings of the nonproliferation regime.
Iraq had very little trouble purchasing factories, power equipment, and other general materials that it used to build the framework of its program. However, as its requests became more specific, it found that it could not directly purchase everything that it needed. One method that Iraq used to circumvent this problem was to establish middlemen and fronts for its efforts. When the fact that Iraq was the true destination was disguised, the controls on material were often easier to circumvent. Iraq also seized any uncontrolled equipment that was available. Often, this was done regardless of whether or not the nuclear program had progressed enough to be able to use such materials. It was in part these actions that made observers think Iraq was closer than it really was to a functional weapon.
Iraq's efforts to develop calutron technology were successful largely because that technology is not tightly controlled. The elements of calutrons are not as nuclear-specific as those of other technologies, and the nuclear powers also had few concerns about calutron technology because they had found it inefficient and therefore could not imagine anyone wanting to use it. Iraq's gas centrifuge program, on the other hand, developed more slowly precisely because its elements are more tightly controlled by the nonproliferation regime.
Iraq was able to circumvent centrifuge controls to some degree, however. They had been able to smuggle German materials and components into Iraq, and the blueprints for Iraq's centrifuges closely matched the Urenco gas centrifuge. By the time of the Gulf War, Iraq had not settled on a final centrifuge design, but knew what was necessary to make key components.

West's Sympathy Aided Acquisition
Many of the sales to Iraq were undertaken because of the West's sympathy for Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. The feeling was that Iran was the enemy, and Iraq, which was fighting Iran, must be our ally. The operative policy among parts manufacturers seemed to be that "the enemy of my enemy is my customer." However, as Iraq became more of a threat, the manufactures obliviously continued to supply it with the materials it wanted.
While much of Iraq's progress was due to its own research and development, progress in many areas was made with the help of information acquired from other nations and organizations. In these situations, the export controls designed to prevent the spread of weapons technology failed, and it is in these areas where improvements must be made in order to prevent such failures in the future.
First, we need a public that better understands the current political climate and suppliers who better appreciate the dangers inherent in the spread of weapons technology. It must be made clear that we may be supporting a regime not because it is our ally, but because it is, in a sense, the lesser of two evils. Under such circumstances, suppliers should be wary of selling sensitive technology to a nation, even if we are aiding that nation militarily in order to achieve other ends.
Second, we need to keep commercial greed and deception in check. Many of the companies that aided Iraq have refused to take responsibility for their actions, even if those actions were inadvertent. Instead, these companies have vigorously denied any involvement in Iraq's nuclear ambitions. Unfortunately, the evidence indicates that many actually gave intentional, not inadvertent, help. Supplier nations, especially Germany, must tighten export controls, and the international community must enact harsher punishments on suppliers who choose to look the other way for their own financial gain.
Third, suppliers must look more closely into the supposed intentions of "dual-use" materials that are ordered so that sensitive materials are not inadvertently shipped to a weapons program under the guise of being for peaceful uses. Efforts should also be made to develop new alternatives to such "dual-use" materials that provide the same "civilian" features but cannot be used in weapons and related technology.
If the nonproliferation community is to prevent another nation from coming as close as Iraq did to having nuclear weapons, actions must be taken to further close off the paths to nuclear weapons technology. Otherwise, Iraq, the knowledge of its scientists still intact, could very well rebuild its program as soon as it is given the chance.



Jason Zych is a computer science major. He graduated in May 1995 and plans to continue his computer science studies in graduate school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.



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