UNITED STATES: Washington farts at NPT
The United Nations' Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference, to be held in New York from April 24 to May 19, will face — and probably fudge — the fact that about 5000 nuclear weapons are on hair-trigger alert, despite the end of the Cold War and despite decades of broken promises and empty rhetoric from the nuclear weapons states.
It will also have to get around such issues as the testing of nuclear weapons by India and Pakistan, the refusal by the United States Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the destabilising effect of US plans to deploy an anti-ballistic missile defence system and the ongoing programs of subcritical nuclear testing of the US and Russia.
The Australian government has said that the movement toward the abolition of nuclear weapons is not in trouble. However, UN secretary-general Kofi Annan recently referred to the "deplorable stagnation of the overall disarmament and non-proliferation agenda" and the "discouraging list of nuclear disarmament measures in suspense, negotiations not initiated, and opportunities not taken".
On December 1, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the speedy and total elimination of nuclear weapons and for the nuclear weapons states to engage without delay in an accelerated process of negotiation. The resolution was adopted by a vote of 111 in favour with 13 against, and 39 abstentions. Australia abstained, in deference to US imperialism.
The UN's resolution has had little if any effect. Moreover the UN has no more credibility than it does clout — it runs the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is charged with the contradictory and impossible tasks of encouraging the proliferation of "peaceful" nuclear technologies while at the same time preventing weapons proliferation.
Three hundred and seventy-four citizens' organisations and parliamentarians have signed a letter to all 187 NPT signatories asking for progress on nuclear disarmament. The letter was released on April 10 in Canberra, New York, Christchurch, Moscow, the Hague and London.
The letter emphasises that under the terms of the NPT, in force since 1970, the nuclear weapons states are legally obliged to eliminate their nuclear arsenals "at an early date".
The US government is gradually moving in the opposite direction, toward deployment of an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) defence system in violation of the 1972 international ABM treaty. Key decisions may be made by the Clinton administration in the coming months. The system is viewed as provocative by Russia and China, andmay result in further nuclear arms racing, if deployed.
Australian foreign affairs bureaucrats acknowledged at a Senate estimates hearing on February 10 that the proposed US missile defence system might cause China to expand the size of its own nuclear arsenal.
A panel of scientists, affiliated with the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, released a report on April 13 which argued that simple counter-measures could defeat the proposed US missile defence system.
The panel concluded that the anti-missile "shield" would be unable to cope with a warhead that sub-divides into hundreds of tiny bombs (a likely scenario in a chemical or biological attack), that an adversary could easily confuse the system's radar by concealing a nuclear warhead inside a mylar balloon and releasing dozens of decoy balloons, and that an adversary could cool the warhead's nose cone to foil the US system's heat sensors.
The missile defence system would cost at least $US12.7 billion ($A21.3 billion) over the next six years, according to Pentagon estimates. The Australian and British governments have already pledged practical and political support for the US missile defence system.
BY JIM GREEN