Are We on the Way to Nuclear Zero?
Some Preliminary Conclusions from the Current Debate

Since complete nuclear disarmament is intended to reform the world security architecture, it can hardly be achieved through a single international treaty. A series of measures would have to be negotiated and carried into effect in the course of what is bound to be a complex process of unpredictable length. The required negotiations need not be conducted in one forum. It would be more efficient to use several fora — open-ended or composed of states directly concerned — functioning simultaneously, without time constraints.

In order to start the disarmament process leading to the abolition of nuclear weapons, it would be necessary, in the first place, to render the nuclear non-proliferation regime universal and to ensure the enforcement of the non-proliferation norms. Nuclear weapon tests would have to be definitively and universally banned, the production of fissile materials for explosive devices stopped, further proliferation of nuclear delivery vehicles prevented, the establishment of new nuclear weapon free zones encouraged, and the use of nuclear weapons prohibited. Nuclear energy systems lending themselves readily to nuclear weapon production would have to be placed under international management. Tactical nuclear weapons would have to be eliminated prior to, or simultaneously with, drastic reductions of strategic nuclear weapons, and compliance with the prohibitions on other weapons of mass destruction — chemical and biological — ensured.

As a result of the series of incremental steps specified above, the existing nuclear forces could be brought down to low or even very low levels. Given the inequalities of states in conventional armaments, a problem would then arise as to how to proceed to the final elimination of nuclear weapons, for nuclear forces, even relatively small forces, are considered by some nations as a counterbalance to the superior conventional forces of their adversaries. A fully equitable solution to this dilemma might require the abolition of conventional weapons as well. Resuscitating the utopian idea of general and complete disarmament, however, would lead nowhere. A more realistic approach would be to bring about radical overall reductions of conventional armed forces and armaments, coupled with deep cuts in military production and spending, so as to achieve at least rough regional military balances. Such measures — to be based on generally agreed criteria — should result in force structures significantly minimizing the offensive capabilities of states.

Among the obstacles to nuclear disarmament most often cited are the difficulty to verify compliance with the obligation to eliminate all nuclear weapons and nuclear-weapon components, as well as the impossibility to "disinvent" these weapons. It is true that no verification can be absolutely foolproof, but full transparency and sophisticated technical means of supervision could render the probability of a nuclear disarmament treaty violation very small. In particular, strict international verification of all stocks of fissile material usable in nuclear weapons, and of all facilities producing these materials for peaceful uses, would make clandestine development of nuclear-weapon capabilities practically impossible. The effectiveness of a technical control system could be significantly enhanced by using so-called societal verification, as proposed by Professor Joseph Rotblat, a Nobel Laureate. This would mean that all citizens, not only experts, would be called upon to ensure the integrity of the treaty, and each member of the community would become its custodian. Signatory states would be required to pass national laws making it the right and duty of their citizens to notify an international verification authority of any preparation for a breakout from the treaty. Societal verification would, of course, be possible only in democracies tolerating transparency in military affairs, open discussion of security issues, and unhampered activities of the mass media. Democratization of the political systems of at least the most powerful states is an indispensable requirement for general and complete nuclear disarmament.

It is also true that nuclear weapons cannot be disinvented. Indeed, the know-how and the capability to rebuild them cannot be eliminated. This, however, is not a reason for them not to be outlawed. Chemical and biological weapons — much easier to manufacture than nuclear weapons — cannot be disinvented either, and yet they are banned under international conventions.

Nuclear disarmament could not take place in a political vacuum. The deep-rooted suspicions of bad faith among nations would have to be dissipated through confidence building. This is a condition for creating a co-operative relationship among the great powers, a relationship necessary for common action against emerging proliferators of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, and also against one of their own number that may secretly retain or reconstruct such weapons. This is also a condition for avoiding nuclear powers’ involvement in regional disputes which should be settled by regional security organizations. Given the inadequacy of the existing international security arrangements, the UN conflict-resolution and peace-keeping capabilities would have to be strengthened through an appropriate revision of the UN Charter. States must become persuaded that the possession of nuclear weapons is a liability rather than an asset and that a nuclear-weapon-free world will be safer than a world with nuclear weapons.

Support for elimination of nuclear weapons has expanded in the post-Cold-War period to far beyond the traditional abolitionist constituency; ... however, this wider support rests on an almost equally wide range of interpretations about what elimination means, implies, and requires.

These variations and ambiguities about the meaning of zero are perhaps an inevitable legacy of a half-century debate, involving a constantly changing cast of characters in a constantly changing world, about an issue that is at once subtle, complex, and complexly connected to the ways the world is changing....

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