Nuclear proliferation by states has been a slower business than experts predicted. Herman Kahn in his 1961 "On Thermonuclear War" talked about the Nth state problem and expected what he called the diffusion of nuclear weapons so fast that there might be as many as 20 nuclear weapon states by 1973. In fact after 60 years, just 9 states have become nuclear powers, the big five, and then India Pakistan, Israel, and probably North Korea. A number have abandoned their developments after early attempts to go down the nuclear route. The web of arms control measures has not been 100% effective, but they have played a significant role in constraining proliferation by states. There is much more that we should do to put new life into the arms control process, but it is clear that some of the major players currently lack commitment.
We should not however abandon Arms control measures as the preferred way, and we should be realistic in our assessment of where and when proliferation may happen.
I am not sure that "rogue states" is necessarily the best term – but I assume in this context we are talking about potential proliferators. If we had been speaking five years ago, we would have had Iraq and Libya on our list, with Iran and North Korea. If we look at where else we might see proliferation, the list is fairly short. In the greater middle east, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Syria are often mentioned, but probably only Saudi would be capable of developing a nuclear capability in the medium term. Further afield, Taiwan and Japan are sometimes cited, but scarcely as rogue states. If you look at those states developing missile technologies that would be relevant, the list does not lengthen.
How do we handle potential and actual proliferators. I suppose we have a case study with Iraq and Libya of military intervention or diplomacy respectively. Although an oversimplification, the lesson that diplomacy gives a better outcome is clear. Again, North Korea is not suitable for military coercion, given its overwhelming conventional force capability holding South Korea at risk – so again diplomacy is the way forward, with nuclear deterrence as the safeguard. For Iran, the consequences of military action are clear in terms of what would happen in the region generally and in Iraq in particular. They would be much worse than managing the outcome if diplomacy failed and Iran became nuclear.
From my point of view, we can manage the problem of proliferating states if they occur, but our real problem is with non-state actors.
There is evidence that extreme terrorist organisations such as al Qaida or the Aum Shinrikyo have made serious attempts to acquire nuclear material. The dangers of nuclear acquisition by such organisations stem from the possibility of both fissile material and expertise being transferred illegally for either financial or ideological reasons. This has raised the small but finite possibility of non state actors gaining access to nuclear weapons. While so called dirty bombs are practical, few experts believe that it is likely for the foreseeable future that it will be possible for such groups to manufacture a fission bomb from scratch. The problems arise from access to ready made weapons – or highly enriched uranium - that have already been produced by states.
Russia has a resource problem in safeguarding old tactical weapons which may not have permissive action link locks. There is also a particular worry about Pakistan's weapons. Some extremist terror organisations operate illegally from Pakistan, and the country has suffered instability in the past. But no nuclear weapon state can be complacent, and we might expect terror attacks on any nuclear weapon storage area. We also have evidence of the ease with which nuclear assistance was transferred covertly to Libya through the AQ Khan network. Given this recent experience, there remains the possibility that the network could transfer capabilities to non state actors. We should therefore plan on the assumption that it may be possible for a terrorist organisation to gain control of a nuclear weapon at some stage in the future unless international control and co-operation is much improved.
While nuclear deterrence is feasible between two nuclear weapon states, it is more difficult to formulate the intellectual basis for deterrence when one or more of the parties in a potential conflict is a non-state actor. France is the first nuclear power to attempt a doctrine of deterrence against a nuclear terror threat. President Chirac, speaking at L'Ile Longue on 19 January 2006 described the new French approach. His message was somewhat mixed. On the one hand he said that France's nuclear weapons might be used against a state, which used terrorist means to attack France, but on the other he said that nuclear deterrence was not aimed at dissuading fanatic terrorists. US doctrine tends to assume that certain rogue states can be held responsible for the action of terror organisations.
It is possible to construct realistic scenarios in which a nuclear armed terrorist movement would welcome a counter attack on its host state. Most terrorist movements seek to generate disproportionate response against the general population by their enemies. This engenders greater support for the movement in the long term. It is therefore unlikely that nuclear weapons can be used to dissuade terrorist from using weapons of mass destruction.
The WMD Commission Report rightly says that we require "many parallel and reinforcing approaches in the fields of arms control, disarmament, non-proliferation and anti-terrorism, at all levels – unilateral, bilateral, regional, plurilateral and global".
For the UK government this means trying to help bring the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty into force, and to negotiate a fissile-materials cut-off treaty. We should also push for a global treaty to assure non-nuclear weapon states against threats of attacks by nuclear weapons. These negative security assurances can reduce the incentive for proliferation.