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Al-Ahram Weekly 28 Oct. - 3 Nov. 1999 Issue No. 453 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 28 Oct. - 3 Nov. 1999 Issue No. 453
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Profile Study Special Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Out of control?
By Mohamed Sid-Ahmed
When the Soviet Union collapsed and, with it, the bipolar world order, it was widely believed that the nuclear threat had disappeared and that the 'balance of terror' had finally lost its raison d'être. During the Cold War, the world was spared the horror of a nuclear conflagration not because of an understanding or agreement between the two hostile superpowers, but because, despite the relentless nature of their confrontation, neither dared cross the line in view of the other's overkill capability. Although this policy of deterrence proved effective in holding the nuclear threat at bay, it created an uneasy situation that was fraught with danger. The collapse of one of the two poles brought an end to the Cold War, raising hopes that agreement could be reached at the global level to ban the stockpiling of nuclear weapons. But things did not work out as expected, and today there are many indications that the nuclear threat is still very much with us.
In only a few days, a series of separate incidents served to drive this point home. There was first of all the decision of the US Congress not to ratify the Non-Proliferation Treaty under the pretext that it does not ensure US security satisfactorily. Equally disquieting was the recent military coup in Pakistan, which comes at a time when tensions are still running high between Pakistan and India over Islamic infiltrators in Kashmir, where further escalation and the threat of nuclear showdown cannot be totally discounted. Then there is the spectre of a repeat performance of the Chernobyl disaster. The recent leak of radioactive material from a Japanese nuclear plant served as a grim reminder that human error can trigger off a major nuclear catastrophe.
In fact, the assumption that an era of nuclear safety would be ushered in following the end of the Cold War was more wishful thinking than anything else, as there was already concrete evidence to suggest just the opposite. To begin with, there was the lopsided international set-up in which only the five permanent members of the Security Council were allowed to maintain nuclear arsenals, while all other states were barred from membership in this exclusive club. This resulted in a form of 'nuclear apartheid' and raised a number of disturbing questions, such as, for example, why China should be allowed to have a nuclear capability while India should not, and, if India is accepted as a nuclear power, then why not Pakistan, etc.
This untenable situation was rendered still more precarious by the tacit admission into the nuclear club of a number of undeclared nuclear powers, notably Israel. Another country which had secretly built up a nuclear arsenal was South Africa. In 1993, before Nelson Mandela came to power, the apartheid regime issued an official statement announcing that South Africa possessed six nuclear bombs and that it had decided to dismantle them. Pretoria admitted that these devices had not been produced thanks to South African expertise alone, but with the help of Israel. The reasons it was dismantling the bombs was to prevent them falling into the hands of the Black-majority government that was likely to be elected after apartheid was lifted; in other words, the bombs had not been produced for purposes of national security in the recognised sense of the term, but for the security of White South Africans and the apartheid regime. The statement was the first official confirmation of the nuclear capability of Israel and South Africa.
Then there is the case of Iraq and of a number of other countries, described by the US as 'rogue' states, which also tried to become nuclear after the technology required to build nuclear weapons became readily available. In the Middle East, Israel's nuclear monopoly allows other regional parties to invoke national security to justify their attempts to establish nuclear projects. The secret race to acquire nuclear weapons is a direct result of the nuclear apartheid system imposed by the five permanent members of the Security Council, a system that could be sustained as long as only a handful of advanced states were privy to the secrets of nuclear technology. That is clearly no longer the case. Indeed, even at the height of the Cold War, scientific espionage proved highly effective in penetrating the secret world of nuclear technology.
One country that has always spoken out against the inequity of the nuclear apartheid system is India. It has also expressed its opposition more concretely by refusing to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty, not because it supported proliferation but on the grounds that the ban should apply to all states without exception. Opinions differ as to the reasons behind India's uncompromising stand. Delhi has always maintained that it is a question of principle, but others suspect that the regional rationale is the key factor. For India cannot afford to play by the rules of a game which allows China to maintain a nuclear arsenal while depriving it of this prerogative, especially in the light of China's close ties with Pakistan.
Whatever the real motivations behind a country's stand on the issue of , the fact remains that any state which believes its security to be threatened will actively strive to develop its nuclear capability, and that, moreover, it will feel perfectly justified to do so in view of the 'legitimacy' which Israel's undeclared nuclear arsenal enjoys in the eyes of the self-appointed guardians of the present world order.
It is no secret that one state which felt justified in developing a nuclear programme was Iraq, seeing this as legitimate self-defence in the face of Israel's nuclear arsenal. But following its abortive attempt to invade Kuwait and its subsequent defeat in the second Gulf War, Iraq was forced to sign a humiliating agreement under the terms of which it was required to dismantle all weapons of mass destruction in its possession and to succumb to regular inspections by UNSCOM, a special UN commission created for this purpose. The repeated clashes between the Iraqi regime and the UNSCOM teams reflect the ongoing game of hide and seek between them.
However, the most serious challenge to the nuclear apartheid system did not come from any of the usual suspects -- Iraq, Iran and sundry Arab and Middle Eastern states -- but from India and Pakistan, who turned the subcontinent into a potential flashpoint with the nuclear blasts they set off earlier this year. The five Indian and six Pakistani underground explosions established that the issue was not that of a single -- or a given number of -- 'rogue states', but of a deficiency in the very structure of the world security system.
The system received another devastating blow when Congress refused to ratify the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Republican majority in Congress took its revenge against the US president who got away with the Lewinsky scandal and escaped impeachment. The world security system is thus exposed to a breakdown because of a scandal inside America's top institutions.
It can now be said that the advocates of a non-proliferation treaty based on the perpetuation of the nuclear apartheid system have suffered a severe political setback, at a time when the danger of proliferation has never been greater and at a time when the older generation of nuclear plants are becoming obsolete and more vulnerable to mishaps and Chernobyl-style meltdowns capable of provoking devastating environmental disasters. For example, Russia does not have the financial resources required for the proper maintenance of its nuclear plants, while even rich countries like Japan are not immune to accidents. Time magazine reports that in the last few years, the number of nuclear accidents was roughly equivalent to the number of reactors in operation worldwide, that is, an average of one accident per reactor! Today, nuclear energy accounts for 16 per cent of the total energy produced worldwide, while France relies for 75 per cent of its energy needs on nuclear power.
These sobering statistics raise the question of whether nuclear power can be a viable source of energy in future or whether states will have to abandon it in view of the growing threats it represents. But even assuming that states do renounce the use of nuclear power, there will still be the terrorist gangs with access to nuclear weapons to contend with. The dilemma is very real, but that is not to say that it is without technological and legal solutions. In any case, it is less of a challenge than maintaining the status quo in the field of nuclear production, which is getting more and more out of control.
