Cracking the code
Nonproliferation efforts in an age of nuclear black markets
Though nuclear proliferation was, until recently, thought of by most as being a unilateral, intra-state (or “vertical”) activity, events of recent years – especially since 9/11 – have brought to the public’s attention the presence not only of state-to-state transfers of nuclear technology, but also of non-state actors in international nuclear development. This brings up the question of how to deal with these two types of proliferation.
Nuclear proliferation through interstate transfer is largely self-explanatory. An example is that of North Korea and Pakistan, in which Pakistan provided “blueprints and components for gas centrifuges for uranium enrichment” to the DPRK in exchange for Nodong missile plans from Korea.
The involvement of non-state actors in international nuclear proliferation, though, creates a more widespread, tangled, and potentially more dangerous situation. The idea that rogue individuals could obtain nuclear technology, radioactive material, and technological know-how has long been on the radar screen of the public – again, especially since 9/11 – but estimates of how widespread a “nuclear black market” network could become before being penetrated (or even known about) proved, with the outing of the A.Q. Khan network, to be far more conservative than reality.
Abdul Qadeer Khan, the man “widely viewed as the father of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons,” was the director of Khan Research Laboratories in Pakistan, and was the leader of the Pakistani uranium centrifuge enrichment program. In 2003, though, while investigating Iran and Libya’s divergent proliferation intentions, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) stumbled onto Khan’s illegal proliferation network (three years after the US had learned of it and begun to penetrate its operations) and, like the sweater thread that keeps on coming out as its pulled, further and further revelations came to light regarding the nuclear black market as more light was shone upon it.
In October of 2003, a shipment of uranium-enrichment gas-centrifuge components bound for Libya via a German-owned ship named the China revealed the network’s ongoing activity, and led authorities to take a closer look at the potential complexity of the proliferation market. Further investigation revealed an “illegal nuclear trafficking network” the likes of which had not previously been imagined, and which IAEA director general Mohammed El-Baradei called “the Wal-Mart of private proliferation.”
Continued El-Baradei:
When you see things being designed in one country, manufactured in two or three others, shipped to a fourth, redirected to a fifth, that means there’s lots of offices all over the world. The sophistication of the process, frankly, has exceeded my expectations.That, of course, is quite an understatement. The Khan network was eventually revealed to have provided “blueprints, technical design data, specifications, components, machinery, enrichment equipment, models, and notes on…centrifuges” through transit points and middlemen in nearly thirty countries, including Dubai, Germany, Malaysia, South Africa, Turkey, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
Iran, North Korea, and Libya were among the states and organizations revealed to have received nuclear technology and equipment from Khan, and many still suspect that al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan obtained similar assistance before the fall of the Taliban in 2001. Further insight into the network will be difficult to obtain, as Khan, in 2004, was granted a full pardon by the government of Pakistan in exchange for taking sole responsibility for his illegal proliferation efforts – and for keeping his silence as to remaining details forever (a fact which causes many to suspect Pakistani governmental complicity in Khan’s actions).
What is to be done about these two types of proliferation? If Alexander Montgomery, a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, is correct, the non-state-actor model is not a threat, and A.Q. Khan – despite how breathtakingly widespread it was – was simply a flash in the pan, and, even if it wasn’t, posed relatively little threat to the rest of the world, as the nations and individuals who benefited from the network would eventually have come up with the technology on their own anyway. Further, Montgomery argues that diplomacy and carrots (with nothing but “symbolic” sticks as the alternative) are the solution to all proliferation, and maintains that there is not one nation on earth whose drive for nuclear weapons, or animus toward their enemies, is strong enough to cause them to resist active diplomacy and increasing promise of incentives in exchange for scrapping their nuclear ambitions. As a result, he argues, all talk of “regime change” (which he very irresponsibly claims is used as the sole strategy of proliferation prevention) must go, and be replaced with direct, conciliatory talks with those misunderstood states whom we, apparently incorrectly, think are pursuing nuclear weapons for less-than-pristine reasons.
Another, far more rational argument was put forth in the journal International Security by Chaim Braun and Chris Chyba, who chose to realistically address both proliferating states and non-state actors in terms of both supply-side and demand-side actions, rather than, like Montgomery, simply focusing on demand-side efforts and putting all of their eggs in the basket of carrot-based (or concession-based) diplomacy. As they correctly argued, both interstate proliferation and proliferation rings present broad challenges to the security of nations, as well as to the nuclear nonproliferation regime. The threats posed by the nuclearization of less developed countries, often through interstate technology and materiel transfer, are different – and potentially more dangerous – than those posed by larger nations which are more in the public eye. This stems from the opacity of their programs, which limits oversight by more knowledgeable, more experienced nations, from their lack of funding to ensure proper safety measures are taken, and from the combination of their geographic proximity to their rivals and the inherent instability in the regimes of so many smaller, poorer nations.
Modern nonproliferation efforts must adapt to the spread of interstate proliferation, as well as the possibility of larger and more widespread extra-state proliferation rings. The NPT must be strengthened, and the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), which now provides for the interdiction of materiel shipments when the vessel in question is flying the flag of a nation which has agreed to the Initiative, must be expanded to include more “willing participants.” UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1540, an unprecedented Section VII resolution (making it legally binding upon all UN member-nations), currently “obliges member states to take action to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction, particularly by nonstate actors, through strengthened border controls, better export controls, and other domestic laws.”
As Braun and Chyba point out, UNSCR 1540, though supposedly legally binding, is far from universally enforceable; likewise, though preemptive war against proliferating nations is an option, it would not be cost-effective, both in terms of money and of human life, to use as a primary option even in most cases – even if the preemptive war in Iraq had gone well.
Just as there is no single profile of a proliferating nation or organization, there is no single solution to the problem that is nuclear proliferation. Proliferation rings, like the A.Q. Khan network, have been able to thrive in the past due to the combination of loopholes in export control regimes and a wealth of clients who were willing to defy the NPT. In order to curb proliferation, at the very least, these loopholes must be closed, and demand-side issues must be addressed, with the ultimate goal not only of making nuclear materiel unavailable to potential proliferators, but also of convincing those nations and organizations which would be potential buyers in the nuclear weapons market that their best interests lie elsewhere – and that, should they proceed, the proverbial stick with which they are swatted would be of far greater consequence than the benefit they would gain from ignoring the international nonproliferation regime and proceeding along the path toward nuclear weapons acquisition.
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NOTES
Albright, David and Corey Hinderstein. “Unraveling the A. Q. Khan and Future Proliferation Networks.” Washington Quarterly. 2005, 28-2.
Braun, Chaim and Christopher Chyba. “Proliferation Rings New Challenges to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime.” International Security. 2004, 29-2.
Cirincione, Joseph, et al. Deadly Arsenals: Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Threats, 2nd Ed. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2005.
Montgomery, Alexander. “Ringing in Proliferation: How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb Network.” International Security. 2005, 30-2.
Sagan, Scott and Kenneth Waltz. The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed. New York: W.W. Norton and Company. 2002.
Labels: Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Security, National Security, Nonproliferation
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How to respond to a new nuclear neighbor (who wants what you have)? A brief look at Saudi Arabia.
The threat posed to the Western world by a nuclear Iran has been, and will continue to be, well documented. The purpose of this entry is not to rehash that topic, but to discuss the effect of a proliferating Iran another area.
The tenuous state of affairs which passes for “stability” in the turbulent region that is the modern Middle East has become even more so with the renewed pursuit of nuclear technology – and, likely, nuclear weapons – by Iran. While the area is no stranger to conventional warfare, the presence – and threat – of a nuclear power on their doorstep would be unsettling at least, and potentially deadly at worst, to each of the Middle Eastern nations (not simply to Israel, as erroneous conventional wisdom might suggest).
Let us use Saudi Arabia as our example, and pose this question for discussion: what nuclear strategy should Riyadh adopt to best ensure their nation’s security in the face of a resurgent Iranian nuclear threat?
The Kingdom’s geopolitical and geostrategic setting demonstrates the reason for its security concern. Saudi Arabia, the largest country in the Middle East in land area, has a smaller population than that of Iran and of Iraq (though its population doubled between 1980 and 2004); it also controls 25% of the world’s known oil reserves.
Absent of outside protective alliances, this situation makes Saudi inherently vulnerable to the desire of its more populous neighbors – at the moment, Iran, rather than a non-unified Iraq – for more resources and, thus, for more income. Of all of the nations in the region, Iran may be most in need of the additional oil which the enormous Saudi fields (led by their largest oil field, Gharwar), and superior drilling and refining technology, can provide, as their oil revenues are falling 10-12% annually, due both to outdated equipment for harvesting crude oil (making it more expensive to recover the oil from the ground), and to the drying up of foreign investments in the Iranian economy in response to the state’s rogue attitude toward nuclear proliferation.
Iran has more reason than just oil to be a threat to Saudi Arabia. In a division not fully understood by the West (save, perhaps, the Catholics and Protestants of turbulent Northern Ireland, or, increasingly, to those paying close attention to the current sectarian violence in Iran), the Sunni (85% of Muslims worldwide) and Shi’a (89% of Iran’s population) sects of Islam are irreconcilably – and violently – opposed to each other. A hotbed of institutionalized Wahabbist Islam, and the original homeland of the Sunni Al Qaeda terrorist network, Saudi Arabia is at odds with the Imami Shi'ites of Iran in some key doctrinal areas, such as the Imami belief that the lost “Twelfth Imam” will return only upon the descent of the world into war and crisis – a belief which has caused some to suggest that a nuclear Iran could use that technology to spark a regional conflagration in hopes of summoning the so-called “Twelfth Imam” (a form of messianic figure to Imami Shiites).
Furthermore, ancient history must be taken into account – specifically, the quest for empire which has been a characteristic of the Persian population since nearly one thousand years before Christ. Though empires, and classical imperialism, appear to be a feature solely reserved for the past, history can, and generally will, serve not as an exact guide, but as a precedent for present and future actions – and, in the case of Iran, there has been repeated precedent set of a quest for Empire (most detailed for us in the writings of Herodotus, whose history of the Greeks’ Persian Wars is a preeminent work of Classical literature.
Given these reasons for worry about Iran, it seems natural that Saudi Arabia would seek to counter the current Persian nuclear proliferation policy – which not only threatens their security directly, but also could prompt a nuclear arms race in the region – by establishing a nuclear program of their own. However, except for possibly deterring an invasion by conventional forces, the possession of a nuclear arsenal – or even a latent nuclear capability, like Japan’s in the Far East – would do little to increase the actual security of the Saudi kingdom. The leaders of Saudi Arabia appear to recognize this, and have denied any interest in developing their own reciprocal nuclear program.
There are two major reasons why the use of nuclear weapons on Saudi Arabia by Iran is an unlikely prospect. The first, and far less compelling of the two, is the long-term damage to the area which would result from the use of radioactive weaponry. The second, a geopolitical reason (or “georeligious,” to unofficially coin a term), is that Saudi Arabia is home to both Mecca and Medina, two of the Holy Cities of Islam. While capturing these locations from the Sunni Arabs, and placing them under Shiite Persian control, could be an appealing idea to the leaders of Iran, the best means of achieving this would not be through the use of nuclear weapons, but by means of conventional invasion and occupation.
The slim reality of the Iranian nuclear threat to the security of Saudi Arabia, combined with the time necessary to successfully construct a nuclear weapons program (though, with reciprocal aid from Pakistan, that time might be far briefer than it would be for a nation beginning from scratch), means that the Kingdom can benefit as much – if not more – from relying on its existing alliances, and perhaps from forging new ones – as well as from using the economic weapons at its disposal – than it can from violating the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), to which it is a signatory (as are Iran, Iraq, and every other state in the Middle East save Israel, but that is a different matter).
Economically, the Kingdom is even now flexing its muscles a bit, unilaterally increasing production (and thereby driving down oil prices to the tune of a 17% decrease in "the past few months") while steadfastly refusing to acquiesce to calls for a special meeting of OPEC. Riyadh is able to do this without damaging its own economy (while simultaneously crippling that of Iran) because, due to advantages in availability and technology, the Saudis can recover, refine, and distribute oil for under 20% of what it costs Iran to do so. (Iran, in fact, is a net importer of gasoline.) As NBC news has reported:
[Saudi Arabia,] other Sunni-dominated oil producing countries and the U.S. are working together, believing it will hurt majority-Shiite Iran economically and create a domestic crisis for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose popularity at home is on the wane. The traders also believe (with good reason) that the U.S. is trying to tighten the screws on Iran financially at the same time the Saudis are reducing the Islamic Republic’s oil revenues.
For the Saudis, who fear Iran’s religious, geopolitical and nuclear aspirations, the decision to lower the price of oil has a number of benefits, the biggest being to deprive Iran of hard currency. It also may create unrest in a country that is its rival on a number of levels and permits the Saudis to show the U.S. that military action may not be necessary.
Strategically, the best ally that Saudi Arabia has in its quest for nuclear deterrence against Iran is the United States. As the source of 13.1% of America’s annual oil imports, and a strategic ally in the region, the Kingdom’s survival, and relative stability, is of great value to the world’s superpower. With a relationship which has been said to be “like a marriage from which there is no divorce,” America’s promise of security, and of potential nuclear reprisal should there be a strike carried out, can provide Riyadh with a sufficient indirect defense apparatus that the decision to continue on the course of nonproliferation can be sensibly, and comfortably, made.
To echo the conclusion drawn by Bahgat, “US commitments to defend Saudi Arabia against external threats are solid and are not likely to weaken in the foreseeable future. The American-Saudi unofficial alliance is built on shared interests, not common values. Saudi oil is crucial to the prosperity of the American and world economies, and oil is projected to remain the main source of energy in the next few decades.”
Due to the aforementioned external and internal factors, Saudi Arabia would be best served responding to the potentially increased threat from a nuclear Iran not by implementing a nuclear program of its own, but by continuing to rely on the reciprocity offered by existing alliances with external powers which can better serve to protect the Kingdom from attack, and to deter enemies from considering such action.
NOTES
Bahgat, Gawdat. “Nuclear Proliferation: The Case of Saudi Arabia.” Middle East Journal. Vol. 60: Issue 3. 2006: 421-443.
Bozorgmehr, Najmeh and Roula Khalaf. “Iran admits oil projects suffering.” Financial Times. December 2006.
Energy Information Administration. “U.S. Imports by Country of Origin.” 2006. http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_ep00_im0_mbbl_a.htm
Meyer, Stephen M. The Dynamics of Nuclear Proliferation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1983: 1-43.
Von Heyking, John. “Iran’s President and the Politics of the Twelfth Imam.” Ashland, Ohio: Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs. November 2005.
Labels: International Trade and Security, National Security, Nonproliferation
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