I’ve spent a lot of time over the past month or so on planes to disarmament conferences and planes to non-proliferation conferences, and on one of those journeys (to Geneva, in fact!) I (re)read something that made a very deep impression on me. It was from the debate in International Affairs last year about the future of the NPT. In his July rejoinder to the series of articles in the May 2007 issue, William Walker (who can hardly be described as a Bomb-lover) says this:

…the more profound difficulty is that, precisely because the NPT is a disarmament treaty, the Treaty and its Conferences can neither ascribe value to nuclear deterrence nor countenance discussion of it, irrespective of the importance that leading powers and their allies attach to it, and irrespective of the role that it might play in paving the way for deep arms reductions or disarmament. To pay open homage to nuclear deterrence is to jeopardize the non-proliferation norm and regime. Nuclear deterrence is always the ghost at the table whose presence is understood but whose contribution to regional and global security cannot openly be acknowledged or weighed. A reluctant acceptance of this presence by most states, if seldom by Israel’s neighbours, has been part of the NPT’s essential pragmatism.

This argument strikes me as being very true and deeply problematic. Here’s a recent practical illustration of this from my own experience…

One important step toward disarmament is the removal of US nuclear weapons from Europe and Turkey. Might Turkey, however, not interpret this move as a signal that NATO is no longer committed to its defence and, as a result, develop its own Bomb?

Many of you have heard this question before. My aim here is not answer it (I don’t claim to be able to). What I want to say is that this argument, and ones like it, need to be taken seriously. After all, if the removal of nuclear weapons from Turkey did result in it acquiring some of its own, it would be a catastrophe for disarmament. I pick this example because on a number of recent occasions I have heard this argument simply dismissed by disarmament advocates (of which I consider myself one). It worries me as I don’t see how we can prevent proliferation and advance disarmament if we can’t even discuss this issue. Yet, as Walker points out, the discussion of deterrence is seemingly impossible within the NPT context.

Enough naval gazing… For an interesting recent take on US-Turkish relations see this recent report for the Senate on possible proliferation in the Middle East.

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