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October 26, 2006
Proliferation legislation
North Korea's recent nuclear test only confirmed what had long been suspected: the global non-proliferation regime has failed spectacularly. Although the powers of East Asia, the United States, and the United Nations have each issued stinging condemnations of the test and passed an array of punitive sanctions, nothing will change the fact that North Korea is now, unambiguously, a nuclear-armed state. The mid-term elections, however, are only days away. With the very real prospect of a leadership change in one or both houses of Congress, the legislature may soon have an opportunity to strengthen U.S. counter-proliferation efforts.
Congress can influence non-proliferation efforts in a number of ways, ranging across a spectrum of formality. Most formally, the Senate can ratify non-proliferation treaties negotiated by the executive branch. The most important of such treaties is the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which was ratified by the Senate in 1969 and entered into force in 1970. The NPT confirms the nuclear status of those states that had nuclear weapons at the time of negotiation: the Untied States, the Soviet Union (whose responsibilities under the treaty have since been assumed by Russia), the United Kingdom, France, and China. All other parties to the treaty pledge not to develop nuclear weapons of their own and to allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to verify their compliance. In return, the IAEA provides assistance to these states to develop civilian nuclear technology for energy-production purposes. The NPT certainly has its shortcomings. India, Pakistan, and Israel are acknowledged nuclear powers but have refused to sign the NPT; Iran has been pushing the limits of the treaty and is suspected by many of secretly violating its terms; and North Korea's latest test was preceded by its renunciation of the NPT and its expulsion of IAEA inspectors in 2003. Nevertheless, the NPT remains the bedrock of global non-proliferation efforts, and the Senate was a constitutionally mandated part of the ratification process.
The Senate, however, does not serve merely “rubber-stamp” treaties already negotiated by the president. In 1996, President Clinton signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which would have banned all nuclear explosions, in all environments, around the world. But in 1999, the U.S. Senate refused to ratify the treaty by a vote of 51-48. Although 135 countries have already ratified the CTBT, the treaty will only go into effect when it is ratified by the 44 countries that possessed nuclear reactors in 1996. At present, only 10 of those 44 countries (including the United States) have not yet ratified the CTBT. In this particular case, then, the Senate is not only responsible for excluding the United States from an important non-proliferation treaty. Its continued rejection of the CTBT actively prevents the treaty from entering into force, even among those states that have already ratified it. During the debate over ratification, Senator John Warner (R-VA)—Chair of the Armed Services Committee then as he is now and an opponent of the CTBT—framed his position in terms of U.S. credibility: “If there were some feeling of weakness about [the US] stockpile, it could induce a leader of another nation or some rogue element or some terrorist to challenge the United States ... There can be no doubt about the credibility of that stockpile.”
Less formally, Congress can influence non-proliferation efforts outside the parameters of treaty ratification. Perhaps most notable among such efforts is the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. Created in 1991 and named after its cosponsors, Senators Samuel Nunn (D-GA) and Richard Lugar (R-IN), the program provides U.S. funding and expertise to decommission nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons in the former Soviet Union. Following the collapse of that country in the early 1990s, there was a great fear that weapons of mass destruction—and the skilled scientists that developed and maintained such weapons—would end up in the wrong hands. The Nunn-Lugar program was intended to address this concern, and thus far it has proven quite successful. It claims to have destroyed or deactivated nearly 7000 nuclear warheads and almost 600 nuclear-capable ballistic missiles since its inception. Congress has generally been very supportive of the Nunn-Lugar program, and over the past decade, it has expanded the program to cover a wider range of weapons, to provide WMD expertise to first responders in U.S. cities, and to secure WMD facilities outside of the former Soviet Union. In November 2005, Lugar joined with Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) to sponsor a supplement to the program. Their proposal would increase coordination efforts with foreign governments and expand Nunn-Lugar to cover conventional weapon stockpiles. “We are convinced that the United States can and should do more to eliminate conventional weapons stockpiles and assist other nations in detecting and interdicting weapons of mass destruction. We believe that these functions are underfunded, fragmented, and in need of high-level support,” Lugar noted.
Non-proliferation efforts that originate from Congress, such as the Nunn-Lugar program, possess several advantages over treaties such as the CTBT. Foremost among these advantages is their relative ease of conception. Whereas formal treaties must be negotiated simultaneously among multiple foreign governments, programs such as Nunn-Lugar follow a legislative process much more familiar to members of Congress as well as to the public at large. Like any other bill, Nunn-Lugar needed to pass both houses of Congress and earn the signature of the president in order to become law. Although this is by no means an easy process, it is significantly more straightforward and accessible than the complex and time-consuming process of negotiating a formal international treaty. Once enacted, the executive branch—through the State and Defense Departments—must make arrangements with foreign governments regarding the application of Nunn-Lugar funds and the access to be granted to U.S. personnel. Again, such international negotiations are by no means easy. But they are generally much simpler than the exhaustive deliberations required for a formal treaty like the CTBT.
Perhaps the most informal efforts to combat nuclear proliferation are those that are enacted by the executive branch alone, with limited input required from Congress. Foremost among such efforts is the Bush administration's Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI). The PSI is a multinational program intended to interdict shipments of WMDs and related materials on the high seas. Fifteen countries—including Australia, Japan, France, the United Kingdom, and others—have signed on to the program as core members, while over 60 countries have agreed to participate on an ad hoc basis. In 2005, on the occasion of the second anniversary of PSI, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice revealed that the program was responsible for 11 interdictions in the previous nine months. As conceived by the Bush administration, the PSI is not a formal treaty, so it requires no consent from the Senate. Likewise, as an executive act, the PSI has faced no formal review by Congress. Although the legislature may withhold the funds necessary to operate the program, the PSI has not yet faced serious opposition from members of Congress. Indeed, several bills introduced during the current Congress have specifically called for the expansion of the program.
As far as North Korea is concerned, it would be easy to suggest that further non-proliferation efforts would be for naught. The regime enacted by the NPT has clearly failed, and the CTBT is not yet even an operative treaty; programs such as Nunn-Lugar simply are not applicable in a case such as North Korea's. Having finally tested a weapon, North Korea faces a response that is more punitive than anything else, and the Bush administration has worked through the United Nations to secure such punitive sanctions. In the future, however, one could expect a far greater emphasis on informal counter-proliferation programs such as the PSI. Now that North Korea has definitively demonstrated its nuclear arsenal, the goal should be to prevent it from transferring that technology and know-how to the highest bidder. Indeed, some of the latest sanctions levied on North Korea could mirror or bolster the PSI's interdiction efforts. But if relatively informal efforts such as the PSI begin to usurp formal international regimes like the NPT as the cornerstones of U.S. counter-proliferation policy, Congress may demand a greater voice in their conception and implementation It is a matter of tremendous and increasing importance, and if control of Congress changes hands on November 7, it will surely be addressed.
Foreign Policy Association, 26 October 2006
Posted by Daniel Widome at 06:33 PM to Trans-geographical,
