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Nuclear Disarmament

My Lords, I, too, wish to express my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Hannay of Chiswick, whose expertise in these matters is known well beyond this House. He has provided us with another welcome opportunity to debate these important issues. After the disappointment of the 2005 review conference, the backdrop to the current conference is much more hopeful, not least because the United States has adopted a more multilateralist posture. However welcome those US moves are, there is still ambiguity for the rest of the world in our not knowing to what extent the US would initiate a retaliatory nuclear strike if attacked by biological, radiological or chemical weapons. How welcome it would be if we could get clarity from the United States before the review conference. Closer to home, I welcome the Government’s paper, Lifting the Nuclear Shadow, and the suggestions it contains. However, in my view the Government fall into the trap of overstating the case in terms of threats. The paper asserts that, ""foremost amongst the new security threats are the risks of nuclear weapons spreading to more states or falling into the hands of terrorists"." Unfortunately, the paper does not provide much evidence for these claims. I say that because I am secure in our belief that moves towards zero must remain our ultimate objective. However, a desire to do away with nuclear weapons should not cloud our judgment in terms of realistic assessments of where we are today and the threats that we face. A sober assessment of nuclear proliferation requires that we jettison some popular fears and exaggerations, one of which is that terrorists are about to acquire nuclear weapons. The uncovering of the Abdul Qadeer Khan network should indeed lead us to more coherent policies to reduce the risk of non-state actors using nuclear weapons, and much is being done in this area. To suggest, however, as some do, that rogue states such as Iran would have an interest in providing weapons and delivery systems to terrorist groups does not stand up. A greater danger may well be that of unstable states that have nuclear weapons and allow them to fall into the wrong hands. If we take Pakistan, its own internal crisis with Islamists might result in their gaining power and then having access to nuclear weapons which, according to our logic, are better held in the hands of the military than the mullahs. Our efforts should therefore be to work with both the Pakistani and Indian Governments better to secure their weapons, and to bring peace to the region overall so that the countries find that they ultimately do not need their nuclear weapons. A further element of the Government’s paper is its attempt to advance the view that the Middle East should be a WMD-free zone—a laudable aim, which I endorse wholeheartedly. But to achieve that aim there would have to be an acknowledgement that the Middle East also comprises Israel, so the achievement of a WMD-free zone would require that all states in the region give up their nuclear weapons programmes. In the interests of clarity, the Government would do well to say so. In both the Middle East and India-Pakistan, success in disarmament will come through the hard slog of conventional moves towards confidence and peace-building among neighbours. The five permanent members of the Security Council bear special responsibility to advance negotiations towards that end. I turn to the supposed new threat of nuclear proliferation. While I would argue that we must do all we can to curb proliferation, we should equally be committed to reducing the existing arsenals and stockpiles among old nuclear weapons states. It rings hollow for us to berate those with nuclear ambitions while the US and Russia still hold arsenals big enough to destroy all of us, several times over. It is also disingenuous to suggest that the greater danger comes from rogue states. If rogue states are those whose leaders are not rational, which flout international norms, violate the human rights of their own populations and pose a threat to their neighbours, it can be argued that several of the current members of the nuclear arms club were themselves rogue states. One can take the case of China, which tested in 1964. At the time, Mao’s domestic policies had killed tens of millions of its own citizens, there was an aggressive foreign policy with attacks on India, fighting the US in North Korea, and supporting what would now qualify as a terrorist organisation, the Vietcong, who were a non-state actor. Yet within five years of the People’s Republic’s nuclear test, the US and China initiated a covert dialogue and they were in alliance against the Soviet Union within a decade. I say this to illustrate that nuclear weapons did not make China more hostile—its foreign policies became more restrained and responsible, although in these areas there is still some way to go, as the noble Lord, Lord Patten, pointed out. I give the China example because there are often lessons in history. We might reflect on these lessons when contemplating our stance towards Iran. Iran, and indeed South Korea’s covert programmes, began during the Cold War itself—a little acknowledged fact. Iran’s desire for a programme comes from being attacked by its neighbours with chemical weapons, the existence of hostile neighbours and nuclear armed states on its borders. We hear increasingly belligerent voices speculating whether air strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities will work. I think we can safely assume they will not. So we will be left with the option of ratcheting up sanctions and raising the cost of non-compliance. That is all very well, but in my view we need to work harder through the P5 and the US might also reflect on its 1960s China experience and consider direct talks. Both share overlapping interests in defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan and seeing a secure and stable Iraq. The many different steps contemplated in the lead-up to the review conference—diplomacy, negotiations and sanctions—may well restart the moves towards zero this year. We wish it well.