THE JUSTIFICATION FOR ESTABLISHING IN RUSSIA A COMMISSION ON NON-PROLIFERATION OF POTENTIALLY STRATEGICALLY DANGEROUS TECHNOLOGIES
General Oleg K. Rogozin (retired)
Principal Research Scientist, RAS Elorma Program
Former Deputy Chief of Procurement, Soviet Ministry of Defense
There are very few specialists involved with problems of international security who doubt that strategic nuclear forces are the main culprit of an almost half-century lull in military conflict on the global level. This is an objective truth, most deeply realized during the Caribbean crisis of 1962, since this "genie released from the bottle" can bring a world catastrophe in an hour without victors and vanquished. After they came to believe in the security that nuclear weapons provide in their own arsenals, the superpowers (the United States and USSR) made not only each other a nuclear hostage, but even life on Earth itself. However, the dialectics of universal development are such that more and more countries are joining or trying to join the "nuclear club." Great Britain, France, and China have been members of this club for a long time; later India, Israel, South Africa, and Pakistan also developed nuclear weapons. This proliferation of nuclear weapons became one of the main motivations for the superpowers to pursue the process of gradually limiting and reducing them. Nuclear weapons are presently considered not only as a strategic means of aggression and retaliation, but also as a means to trigger possible war7s and military conflicts through their unpremeditated (because of technical reasons) or provocative use.
Theoretically (since it is not included in any official military doctrine), nuclear weapons also present a terrible ecological threat if, for example, some nuclear state suddenly decides to blast all its nuclear explosive devices. In essence, any sufficiently powerful nuclear explosion automatically and inevitably strikes at all of mankind, including those who initiated the nuclear strike. It is therefore very important to transform the current "model" ban on the use of nuclear weapons into an absolute political, moral, and military imperative.
Such critical opinions about the dangers of nuclear weapons are mentioned here only to dispel the illusions of imaginary safety resulting from strict compliance with provisions of signed treaties on limiting and reducing nuclear weapons. The world community, if it is really concerned about its future, should decisively move from a multitude of declarations on universal disarmament and endless steps of cuts of nuclear weapons to strict legal measures, maybe even forceful measures of self-defense against the nuclear Apocalypse.
Recent military-political developments and trends in the proliferation of nuclear weapons suggest a growing nuclear threat to the world community from several Islamic countries in the Middle East and in South-East Asia. One has to consider the possibility of the formation of new military blocs in these world regions that could be integrated with the Islamic states of the former USSR. Moved not only by their geostrategic interests, but also by their religious-fanatical motives, these blocks may become extremely dangerous to the southern regions of Russia. The commonality of their social-historical, national, and religious characteristics, and the one-dimensional socio-political structure of the states in the Middle East and the Islamic states of the former USSR, are worrisome to the West European countries and United States. This creates favorable conditions for cooperation with Russia and other Slavic countries in military-political, strategic and scientific areas. It is pertinent to note that United States and its NATO partners are worried not so much about the possibility of proliferation of strategic weapons to potentially dangerous countries (which can be controlled by national technical measures and covert intelligence), but by "brain drain" from the former USSR. These apprehensions further increase the necessity of a radical review of previous agreements on nuclear issues. From these circumstances quite naturally grows the number of UN members who support strict adherence to the provisions of the treaty on non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and who suppose that it should resolve the following problems:
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to establish a barrier to proliferation of nuclear weapons in other countries;
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to promote a reduction of nuclear and conventional weapons;
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to safeguard peace-loving countries from international nuclear terrorism and blackmail;
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to widen peaceful nuclear cooperation between states.
The Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons was approved by the UN General Assembly in June 1968 and entered into force March 5, 1970. It was signed by the United States, USSR, Great Britain, France, and 49 other states. By the end of 1988 the number of such states reached 186. Certain states, however, declined to sign it and covertly or overtly are trying to develop nuclear weapons. This means that the treaty is not specific enough; it is too declarative and liberal, although it contains political, legal, economic, logistical-technical and other assurances on the global, regional and national levels. Specifically, these assurances include monitoring based on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) agreements on the principles of nuclear exports, on rendering mutual technical assistance, and consultations on problems of peaceful nuclear use. At the same time, the physical commonness of peaceful and military nuclear technologies harbors obvious dangers and requires a more precise definition of scientific, design, trade and military aspects of implementation of this treaty. This will allow the most advanced nuclear states (primarily the United States and Russia) to conduct a common purposeful policy of controlling the non-proliferation of nuclear technologies in potentially dangerous states, including states that did not sign the non-proliferation treaty. Without these measures the international policy to limit and reduce nuclear weapons
becomes more and more meaningless, since some states with nuclear weapons reduce them, while others develop nuclear weapons or increase their nuclear arsenals.
The main attributes of nuclear weapons are their means of delivery (ballistic and aeroballistic missiles, cruise missiles, artillery shells, et al.). The rapid development of means of delivery is noticeable in many developing countries. In 1989 about 20 countries had ballistic missile carriers—the carrier that is the least vulnerable in flight as compared to all types of delivery vehicles. In recent years Egypt, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia developed such missiles. Twelve countries currently developing them. This process is aided by the ill-advised policy of developed countries, including the former USSR, of increasing the number of types and sizes of carrier rockets, granting licenses for their production, providing scientific-technical consultations and support. Such cooperation not only caused dangerous strategic shifts in many regions of the world but also nudged several peace-loving countries to develop these kinds of weapons. A chain reaction took place in the world and things went so far that several countries (including Argentina and Brazil) themselves became exporters of ballistic missiles. The fact that some of the countries that export ballistic missiles ignore the signing of the nonproliferation treaty causes concern.
An attempt to slow down this process was made during a conference in Washington from September 22-23, 1988 (with the participation of Schultz and Shevardnadze), and was continued December 1-2 of the same year.
The decision of the G-7 countries (the United States, Great Britain, France, Japan, Canada, Germany and Italy) on non-proliferation and the reduction of missiles was accepted. A range of flight of not more than 300 kilometers with a payload weight not more than 500 kg was accepted as the main criterion of export limitations (guidance accuracy was not specified). These kinds of limitations, however, are not very effective for the security of the European countries which have evenly distributed, highly integrated economies that contain many highly vulnerable installations (nuclear power stations, chemical plants, water-engineering systems, dams, etc.), although they are quite adequate for the United States, considering its remoteness from possible ''hot spots'' of the world. It would also be incorrect to consider such missiles as carriers of only nuclear weapons, since, in the hands of an aggressor, these missiles armed with conventional weapons may become a formidable factor of war or international terrorism. Such conventionally armed missiles present a strategically dangerous measure of political-psychological influence between countries. Therefore, strategically dangerous weapons cannot be limited to just nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction (chemical and bacteriological warfare, radio frequency weaponry), since, in view of the high vulnerability of modem industrial installations, any high-precision long-range conventional weapon can be rightfully considered extremely dangerous.
Because of this, it would be beneficial for Russia to present to the Western countries an initiative to develop more precise definitions of the types, characteristics and features of strategically dangerous armaments, as well as a list of "key" technologies used
in their production, including "dual-use" technologies, which should not be exported to the third-world countries. It would be advisable to entrust the development of such lists and the verification of accepted agreements among the Western countries to the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Control (COCOM) and to an analogous Commission in Russia. The collective activities of these two entities should be extremely open and trusting, which would not affect the defensive capabilities of Russia, since it has a similar or slightly lower scientific and technical potential in the area of developing strategic weapons.
The Commission on Non-Proliferation of Potentially Strategically Dangerous Technologies (to use one possible names of this Commission) would synthesize military-political, strategic, military-technical, and legal information related to this issue. Its scientific nature, importance, and complexity of its activity, as well as its legal status, make it advisable and possible to establish such a commission in the Russian Academy of Sciences under the aegis of the Russian government. This Commission should include specialists of other existing commissions on related or similar problems
REQUIREMENTS FOR LEADING EXPERTS OF THE COMMISSIONS OF THE RUSSIAN CABINET OF MINISTERS ON CONTAINMENT OF POTENTIAL STRATEGICALLY DANGEROUS TECHNOLOGIES AND WEAPONS.
Physics |
Nuclear physics, solid-state physics, radiophysics, optics, electronics. |
Chemistry |
Organic synthetic chemistry, technology materiology, technology of conversion. |
Biology |
Genetic engineering, toxicology, bacteriology, higher nervous activity, psychiatry. |
Mathematics |
Mathematical analysis, mathematical physics, game theory, cybernetics, informatics |
Strategic armaments |
Strategic nuclear weapons, strategic defense weapons. |
Operatively-tactical armaments |
High precision weapons, diversion equipment, weapons and personnel delivery systems. |
Non-conventional armaments |
high energy radiation and radiotoxins, geophysical and meteorological influences. |
Information reception and countermeasures. |
Intelligence, communications, management, informational counteraction. |
All-system analysis of technologies and organization of expert examinations. |
Classification of knowledge and technologies, automated bases of data and knowledge, classification of armaments and military technologies. |
All-system analysis of results of expert examinations and preparation of publications. |
Military doctrine and security, economics of armaments and conversion, legal aspects of problems in Russia and the CIS, international law, ecology and protection of the environment |
Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor, Russian-American University V.I. Tsymbal