Time for Nuclear Rethink
Praful Bidwai
The News International (Pakistan), 12 February 2004
How the mighty have fallen! Some months ago, nobody could have accused Dr A Q Khan of any impropriety, leave alone corruption, without being branded "anti-Pakistan". "The Father of the Islamic Bomb" was above reproach. No honour was too high for him.
Today, the metallurgist and former head of Khan Research Laboratories stands disgraced. He has been accused of, and confessed, to serious nuclear proliferation-related offences, in particular, selling Pakistan’s best-kept military secrets to North Korea, Iran and Libya. Investigators interrogating KRL personnel, especially since high US officials met and briefed President Pervez Musharraf in October, have found evidence of large-sale corruption in KRL. Dr Khan had to seek pardon and was granted it —- conditionally.
Going by what has been reported in the international and Pakistani media, especially the contents of official briefings to journalists published in the press, Dr Khan ran a secret network ramified across three continents to covertly transfer nuclear technologies and components. This involved manufacturing precision components for uranium centrifuges in a factory in Malaysia. Crucial to it were middlemen from Germany, Holland and Sri Lanka, and shipments of forbidden materials through Dubai. Lubricating it were enormous sums of money.
These disclosures mark a breakthrough in investigations into the global clandestine commerce in nuclear technology. They point to an elaborate, complex and purposive effort — perhaps the most successful in the world since the collaboration between Israel and apartheid South Africa in the 1970s — to defy national and international controls on nuclear transfers.
They also raise serious questions about the international black-market (or "Wal-Mart") in materials to make mass-destruction weapons, whose potential International Atomic Energy Agency director-general Mohamed ElBaradel acknowledges: "It’s obvious that the international export controls have completely failed in recent years. A nuclear black-market has emerged, driven by fantastic cleverness. Designs are drawn in one country, centrifuges are produced in another, they are then shipped via a third country and there is no clarity about the end-user ..".
As seen from India, these disclosures have polarised opinion in Pakistan. Right-wing religious hardliners see them as an attempt to "humiliate" a "national hero", who "saved" Pakistan from India. Liberal opinion has a more sober view. It recognises that the world cannot condone KRL’s activities.
Both currents of opinion are uncomfortable with the line that the Pakistani government was wholly innocent of any involvement with the illicit transfers; these were the work of "individual scientists" driven by "personal greed".
The army-controlled security apparatus has always exercised close surveillance upon nuclear facilities and personnel. As Pervez Hoodbhoy, a Quaid-i-Azam University physicist and nuclear analyst, says: "Since its inception, Pakistan’s nuclear programme has been squarely under army supervision [with a] multi-tiered security system ... Diplomatic immunity was insufficient to prevent a physical roughing up of the French ambassador to Pakistan some years ago when he journeyed to a point several miles from the enrichment facility".
Opinions diverge. MMA sympathisers and conservative nationalists would want all the rogue scientists and army officers to be brought to book. Others would like to put a lid on the whole thing and "close the file" quickly — "in the national interest". (Many in India, including the government, are similarly disposed. New Delhi does not want to rock the "peace process" boat. Until last week, it maintained an uncharacteristic silence on the whole issue. This was broken by a low-key statement.)
Yet, the conservatives, and many liberals, share one common assumption. They believe that nuclear weapons are instruments of national self-defence and provide security. This is the criterion around which to judge how far Islamabad should go towards accommodating to US pressure — without compromising its nuclear "self-esteem".
A strong case exists for full disclosure and accountability — especially if nuclear controls are to be durable in South Asia and the world is to learn lessons from the past. But it is equally important to question the equation between nuclear weapons and security. Nuclear weapons are not rational instruments of war. These mass-annihilation weapons are meant to be used against non-combatant civilians — in violation of all rules of warfare. Nuclear weapons have no strategic "positive" value of their own. They can at best play a negative role — via deterrence.
Deterrence is a gravely flawed doctrine. It assumes a symmetrical understanding of what constitutes "unacceptable damage", and complete mutual transparency about two adversaries’ capabilities and doctrines. It requires that there be no accident, strategic miscalculation, or panic response, no unauthorised use, no leaks. These assumptions are clearly unrealistic. In practice, deterrence has never provided lasting security.
Nuclear weapons possession does not necessarily improve a nation’s military power or ability to compel an adversary to behave in a certain way. Thus, the mightiest nuclear state failed to prevent China from entering the Korean War. The US also had to beat an ignominious retreat from Vietnam. The USSR did the same from Afghanistan. British and French nukes did not affect the Suez war. Nor did Britain’s nuclear armaments prevent Argentina from crossing swords with it over the Falklands.
In fact, not having nuclear weapons might give one greater protection vis-a-vis the nuclear powers. Whether or not nuclear weapons will be used is determined by politics. World opinion wouldn’t support their use against a non-nuclear state.
The time has come to face the plain truth. The nuclear proliferation danger is real — everywhere. Huge quantities of enriched uranium and weapons-grade plutonium routinely pass through civilian nuclear facilities the world over. Plutonium, only 5 to 8 kilos of which is enough to make a Nagasaki-type bomb, is traded in amounts such as tonnes between Japan and Europe alone. There are large quantities of MUF ("material unaccounted-for") in the world’s reprocessing facilities. The IAEA admits this. There are willing proliferators too in the former Soviet Union in the shape of hundreds of unemployed nuclear scientists.
IAEA inspections cannot take care of all of these sources of leaks. Yet they are the sole physical controls on global movements of nuclear materials. The proliferation danger will remain so long as nuclear weapons and power-generation programmes exist. There is no method of eliminating the danger — short of total nuclear disarmament and shift to non-hazardous power technologies.
Pakistan’s and India’s ultimate interest lies in global nuclear disarmament. In the short run, it lies in tighter controls and nuclear weapons reduction. US experts like Michael Krepon recently told the US Senate foreign relations committee that material to make "dirty bombs" could be easily procured from poorly guarded labs in India and Pakistan; both countries are "very vulnerable" to leaks. The Bomb and its makers have brought disgrace to South Asia. The Bomb is no asset for Pakistan or India. It’s a liability. The sooner we rid ourselves of it, the better.
Copyright 2004 The News International
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