Browne on Disarmament

Two weeks ago it was Brown (Gordon, the PM), this week it’s Browne (Des, the Secretary of State for Defence). It seems that senior British politicians can’t stop talking about disarmament. (I’ll refrain from making the obvious surname joke; not least because I can’t think of a remotely funny variant).

Anyway, as Andreas has already blogged, on Tuesday, Des Browne gave a speech at the Conference on Disarmament and wrote an article in the Guardian (public thanks to Hassan and Jenny for the tip-offs). Now that we have at least three speeches on the subject, it’s interesting to examine how British policy on disarmament is evolving. In particular, four parts of Des Browne’s speech struck me:

First, Des Browne spoke of the need for a disarmament plan:

The international community needs a transparent, sustainable and credible plan for multilateral nuclear disarmament.

This seems to me to be more concrete than the language used by then Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett last year at Carnegie:

What we need is both vision—a scenario for a world free of nuclear weapons. And action—progressive steps to reduce warhead numbers and to limit the role of nuclear weapons in security policy.
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By actions, I do not mean that the nuclear weapons states should be making immediate and unrealistic promises—committing to speedy abolition, setting a timetable to zero.

I’m certainly not claiming the two speeches are contradictory (a ‘plan’ isn’t a ‘timetable’) but, by calling for a plan, Des Browne does seem to be going further than Margaret Beckett did.

Second, Des Browne outlined the UK position on taking FMCT negotiations outside the CD:

Some commentators have raised the idea of taking the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty out of the Conference and negotiating a treaty amongst a smaller group of like-minded nations. Frankly this misses the very point of the Conference—it is the only body where all nuclear armed States and Non-Nuclear Weapon States sit together to discuss security issues of the highest sensitivity.

I do not believe (although I could be wrong and if I am I’m sure Wonk readers will correct me) that the UK has ever said this in public before.

Third, and most significantly, the Defence Secretary outlined a new initiative:

As a next step, and following on from the AWE research, the UK is willing to host a technical conference of P5 nuclear laboratories on the verification of nuclear disarmament before the next NPT Review Conference in 2010. We hope such a conference will enable the five recognised nuclear weapons states to reinforce a process of mutual confidence building: working together to solve some of these difficult technical issues.

Finally, his language about confidence building measures among the P5 has changed subtly. Browne said

As part of our global efforts, we also hope to engage with other P5 states in other confidence-building measures on nuclear disarmament throughout this NPT Review Cycle. The aim here is to promote greater trust and confidence as a catalyst for further reductions in warheads—but without undermining the credibility of our existing nuclear deterrents.

Compare this language to that used by Margaret Beckett:

At the same time, I believe that we will need to look again at how we manage global transparency and global verification. This will have to extend beyond the bilateral arrangements between Russia and the US. If we are serious about complete nuclear disarmament we should begin now to build deeper relationships on disarmament between nuclear weapon states.
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For our part, the UK is ready and willing to engage with other members of the P5 on transparency and confidence building measures.

Browne’s decision to drop the use of the word ‘transparency’ is presumably deliberate. My guess is that at least one of the P5 is much happier talking about ‘confidence building’ than ‘transparency’.

Finally, speaking of transparency, after my various postings on British disarmament policy, I should probably acknowledge my involvement: while at VERTIC I was involved with the UK-Norway dialogue and am now one of the authors of the IISS study into disarmament. So if sound excited by the disarmament agenda—it’s probably because I am!