NUCLEAR AND WMD

NATO and Nuclear Weapons:
On the Road to Budapest

Over the next several weeks, BASIC will examine issues confronting NATO member states. The May 29-30 foreign ministers’ meeting in Budapest, and the June 7-8 defense ministers’ meeting in Brussels, are the first formal opportunities for the new U.S. administration to confer with NATO states on nuclear weapons concerns. Since the Bush administration is concluding a review of the U.S. nuclear posture and studying the need for further research into new nuclear weapons development, dialogue with U.S. allies is more necessary than ever.

Nuclear weapons issues are especially pressing in light of U.S. intentions to move forward with national missile defense plans, despite emphatic objections by Russia, China, and allies over strategic stability and proliferation concerns. Friction between the United States and its allies has been highly publicized over this issue, particularly after the United States rejected the Kyoto global warming agreement and cut off North Korean missile talks.

For more information on this e-mail series, please contact Christine Kucia in Washington at 1-202-347-8340 ext. 103, or Mark Bromley in London at 44-20-7407-2977.

1. European Missile Defence: New Emphasis, New Roles, 26 April 2001

2. NATO Enlargement: Embedding Nuclear Reliance, 3 May 2001

3. Belgian, Dutch Parliamentarians Confront NATO Tactical Nuclear Weapons,10 May 2001

4. Is the U.S. Meeting Its Disarmament Commitments?, 18 May 2001

5. Questions on NATO Nuclear Policy, 25 May 2001

6. The European Missile Defense Debate, Timeline of Key Events

7. ABM Treaty Dropped By NATO Amid ‘Changing Circumstances’, 31 May 2001

8. US Concerns Drive NATO Debate on Arms Control, 8 June 2001

NATO NUCLEAR SERIES, No. 1

European Missile Defence:
New Emphasis, New Roles

By Mark Bromley, BASIC, 26 April 2001

Read the text

NATO NUCLEAR SERIES, No. 2

NATO Enlargement:
Embedding Nuclear Reliance

By Thomas Sköld and Sharon Riggle, Centre for European Security and Disarmament, Brussels (CESD), 3 May 2001

In March of this year, NATO commenced a series of high-level meetings between its 19 ambassadors and the nine aspirant countries anxiously hoping to be invited to join the military alliance at the next Summit in Prague in late 2002. (1) As in the run-up to the last NATO enlargement round in 1999, the arms control community is currently grappling with the international security implications of the extension of NATO conventional and nuclear security guarantees further to the east. With more countries eager to step under the nuclear umbrella and an expanding NATO ready to cross the ‘red line’ to include former Soviet republics, opportunities for a diminished NATO reliance on nuclear weapons are looking increasingly dimmer.

NATO Nuclear Policy and Arms Control
In 1999, the new NATO Strategic Concept re-confirmed that the US ‘nuclear forces in Europe remain vital to the security of Europe’. By joining the Alliance states must be ready to embrace nuclear weapons as ‘the cornerstone of security’. In addition, all NATO members actively take part in the planning and the decision-making concerning deployment and strategy for use of nuclear weapons in time of war (except France, who withdrew from NATO’s integrated military structure in 1966).

However, NATO nuclear policy is severely out of step with international commitments to nuclear arms control. At the 2000 Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), all 19 NATO states agreed to the final document calling for the ‘unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear weapons states to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals’ and ‘a diminishing role for nuclear weapons in security policies’. Thus, any inclusion of non-nuclear weapon states into a military alliance that relies on nuclear weapons constitutes a breach of their NPT commitment to take steps toward nuclear disarmament.

The First Wave
In 1994, NATO committed itself to a gradual enlargement of its membership, with the first three members – the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland – brought onboard in 1999. To prevent deterioration in NATO-Russia relations, the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security was signed in 1997 declaring that NATO had ‘no intention, no plan, and no need’ to station nuclear weapons on the territory of any new members.

NATO refuses to exclude the possibility of stationing nuclear weapons on any new NATO territory to avoid treating newcomers as second-class members. NATO’s three newest members are among the most pro-nuclear in the Alliance, which has strengthened arguments in favour of keeping these weapons of mass destruction as part of NATO’s defences. States to be included in the next wave of enlargement will most likely share these views and embolden those who wish to maintain a nuclear posture for the Alliance.

The Next Wave…
… of NATO enlargement potentially includes one or more of the former Soviet republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. This raises the stakes considerably with Russia, which considers Baltic membership a strong provocation and a threat to national security. While the US and its allies say they will listen to Russia’s concerns, they will not let Russia have a veto in the enlargement debate. In a recent speech on the issue, US Ambassador to NATO Alexander Vershbow indicated that NATO is prepared for Russia to break off ties with NATO, as it did in 1999 to protest NATO’s bombings in Kosovo. (2)

Since the last round of expansion, Russia has responded with increased military activity in Kaliningrad, and some Duma members are threatening to turn the Russian enclave into a nuclear equipped ‘unsinkable air-craft carrier’. Another threat from Moscow suggests revision of the nuclear weapons targeting plan to include the Baltic states if they join NATO. While these statements must be seen as political rhetoric to gain concessions in the enlargement process, they also show that a high price will have to be paid for moving the borders of the Alliance closer to Russia. This price is likely to manifest itself in future bilateral US-Russia arms control talks, as well as impact the implementation of the recent list of confidence- and security-building measures proposed by NATO regarding Russia’s nuclear arsenal and possible joint NATO-Russia joint projects.

With NATO expansion, the link between nuclear dependence and security grows, counteracting many international arms control efforts. All current aspirant countries are signatories of the NPT as non-nuclear weapons states, as are 16 of the current Alliance members. Very soon, many of them will sit together around the table in the NATO Nuclear Planning Committee deciding nuclear policy.

The newcomers will also increase the opposition within NATO to opening a debate on the nuclear question. The new eastern European members are even more vehemently set against the idea of losing the nuclear posture. They have fought hard for this ‘ultimate guarantee’ and are not prepared to give it up. The enlargement of the Alliance will only make the sentiment stronger that European security requires nuclear weapons.

The Way Forward
Both current and future NATO members have legally committed themselves to the eradication of nuclear weapons, most recently through pledges made just one year go at the NPT conference. The next step should be for these states to outline concrete steps to take in order to meet these commitments. This could take place in the ongoing internal arms control review (the so-called ‘paragraph 32 process’) or be delineated in the Budapest Ministerial Communiqué later this month. Present and future member states should reassess their own dependence on NATO’s nuclear shield in the name of European security.

(1) Current aspirant nations are: Albania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

(2) A. Vershbow’s remarks at the NATO Enlargement Conference, Fort McNair, 6 April 2001.

For further information:

1999 NATO Strategic Concept text

Final Document of the 2000 Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)

Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between NATO and the Russian Federation

For further information on this article, please contact Thomas Sköld or Sharon Riggle on +32-2-230-0732, or at cesd@cesd.org

NATO NUCLEAR SERIES, No. 3

Belgian, Dutch Parliamentarians Confront NATO Tactical Nuclear Weapons

By Karel Koster, Project on European Nuclear Non-Proliferation (PENN) – Netherlands, 10 May 2001

In Belgium and the Netherlands, both NATO nuclear ‘sharing’ states with a number of F-16 aircraft in the nuclear strike role, parliamentary debate has taken place recently on the future of US tactical nuclear weapons stationed there as part of those countries’ participation in the nuclear strategy of the Atlantic Alliance.

Discussions began earlier this year as a result of NATO’s completed arms control review. The ‘Paragraph 32 report’ presented at the December 2000 NATO Foreign Ministers meeting contains a basic contradiction, and played a crucial role in starting parliamentary debate. (1) The document supports the continued reliance of the Alliance on the nuclear deterrent, and at the same time quotes a key part of the Final Document of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference held in April-May 2000. The treaty not only explicitly forbids the transfer of nuclear weapons to non-nuclear weapons states, but the Final Document included an unequivocal commitment to nuclear disarmament that was agreed by all states in attendance, including all NATO member states.

In debates in the Belgian and Dutch parliaments held in January and February respectively, the responsible ministers denied that such a contradiction existed. Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Jozias van Aartsen stated: “We are part of an alliance which possesses nuclear weapons, this is part of NATO’s strategic concept and this therefore means that Holland must play a role in this.....You will see that the NPT final document is referred to in the paragraph 32 report and this means that in all the negotiating fora which we have on this in the coming years, that the aim remains the abolition of nuclear weapons.” (2)

Parties May Shift to Remove ‘Tacnukes’
Although a number of Dutch parties support the unilateral removal of tactical nuclear weapons from Dutch soil, they do not as yet form a majority in parliament. Two of the three governing parties agree that there should be a negotiated removal, and a slight majority in the Lower Chamber supports more transparency to replace the ‘no denial, no confirmation’ policy on the stationing of nuclear weapons still exercised by NATO. Minister van Aartsen did, however, for the first time confirm that the Dutch F-16’s at Volkel air base in the south of Holland do have a nuclear role. (3)

In Belgium, the Green-Purple coalition cabinet is under considerably greater pressure to act. Not only have the Greens and Social Democrats declared themselves against the presence of the warheads on Belgian soil, but they have begun negotiations with the Flemish (Dutch-speaking) liberals to achieve a parliamentary majority. An extra-parliamentary anti-nuclear weapons movement gradually growing in strength is also beginning to influence this process.

Weapons Storage Modernization Reported
These developments accelerated in mid-April, when the Dutch-language daily ‘De Morgen’ reported on a Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists article about upgrades to WS3 vaults, the storage bunkers of the nuclear weapons on the NATO nuclear bases in Europe. According to the Bulletin, a US Air Force document suggested that the upgrades would assure the continued use of the vaults through to 2018.

In the Netherlands, the WS3 report prompted parliamentary questions on the need to review the Host Nation Agreements and NATO infrastructure funding. These changes to the weapons bunkers would have had to go through the Ministries of Defence and Foreign Affairs of all the NATO member states where the changes were initiated, and Dutch parliamentarians wanted to know if such procedures had indeed taken place and Parliament had not been informed. (6)

Belgian Parliamentarians stated that they would redouble their efforts to achieve a parliamentary majority for removing the bombs. At the time of writing, negotiations on the wording of a resolution supporting removal of the nuclear weapons were still continuing.

The combination of NATO ‘Paragraph 32 report’ contradictions and the report of the WS3 upgrade has given a new impetus to the forces questioning the continued involvement of NATO member states in the implementation of a nuclear policy which is widely regarded outside the Alliance as being a violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Whether and how these questions are raised at the upcoming NATO ministerial meetings in the next several weeks remains to be seen.

(1) M-NAC-2(2000)121, “Report on Options for Confidence and Security Building Measures (CSBMs), Verification, Non-Proliferation, Arms Control and Disarmament,” December 2000

(2) Statement by Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Van Aartsen in Response to Comments and Questions Put to Him by Parliamentarians on NATO Nuclear Policy, Special Meeting of Permanent Committee on Foreign Affairs, 21 February 2001 (unofficial transcription and translation by PENN-Netherlands).

(3) 26348 Ministerial North Atlantic Council ; nr. 4 Letter from the Minister of Foreign Affairs to the Chairman of the Lower Chamber of the States-General, 17 January 2001.

(4) The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March-April 2001, p 79; De Morgen, 12 April 2001 “VS wil tot 2018 kernwapens in Kleine Brogel” and 13 April “Meerderheid dringt aan op afbouw kernwapens”.

(5) Material received under the Freedom of Information Act by Joshua Handler: WS3 Sustainment Program, Program Management Review, 3 March 2000.

(6) Written questions put to Minister van Aartsen by Bert Koenders and Jan Hoekema, 25 April 2001; and Ab Harrewijn, 23 April 2001. No response had been received as of 10 May 2001.

For further information:

Background on the Weapons Storage & Security (WS3) Program

Document on the WS3 Sustainment Program

For further information on this article, please contact Karel Koster on +31-30-271-4376, or at k.koster@inter.nl.net

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