[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
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OTTAWA: Thursday, February 12, 1998
The Chairman (Mr. Bill Graham (Toronto Centre—Rosedale, Lib.)): I would like to call this meeting to order.
On behalf of the committee, I would like to welcome Mr. Jim Fergusson, Centre for Defence and Security Studies, University of Manitoba. I also welcome Mr. Rauf, who has come from California, from the International Organizations and Non-Proliferation Project. Thank you both very much for coming.
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The Chairman: Mr. Rauf.
Mr. Tariq Rauf (Director, International Organizations and Non-Proliferation Project (IONP), Centre for Non-Proliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies): Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, through you I would like to thank the committee for this opportunity to make a presentation on the broad theme of Canada, NATO, and nuclear arms control. I would like to apologize for not having a bilingual text available for the committee's use.
I would also like to avail of this opportunity to commend the efforts being made at the Geneva-based conference on disarmament and at other multilateral arms control fora by Canada's ambassador for disarmament to the United Nations and the two other members of the small delegation, as well as by the non-proliferation nuclear arms control and disarmament division at the Department of Foreign Affairs. These efforts could greatly benefit from visible, high-level support from our political leaders and from the Parliament of Canada, all speaking from a common platform.
On nuclear non-proliferation and arms control and disarmament matters, Canada's political leadership has to take on the responsibility of working to develop a multi-party consensus.
Given the time constraints, I wish to register five points or recommendations on nuclear non-proliferation and arms control and disarmament matters with this committee.
The first recommendation is for improved, closer coordination between the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of National Defence, leading to harmonized statements and policy guidance reflecting a balance between Canada's international, legally binding non-proliferation and arms control commitments and alliance obligations, with the Department of Foreign Affairs taking the lead.
Second is the reduction and elimination of non-strategic nuclear weapons from Europe, with the zone of application as defined under the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty, CFE, that is, from the Atlantic to the Urals.
Third is a re-examination of NATO's nuclear weapons employment policies, leading to a binding declaration, in conjunction with the Russian Federation, on no first use.
Fourth is a program funded by NATO members to facilitate a build-down of excess weapons plutonium in Russia, involving conversion into mixed-oxide, or MOX, fuel and its subsequent burn-up in Canadian CANDU power reactors.
And fifth is the creation of an independent think-tank and policy research institution in Ottawa to develop policy options and to train the next generation of Canadian and international security specialists, funded through a partnership between the federal government, industry, and charitable foundations.
Let me elaborate somewhat on the first recommendation, that is, coordination between DFAIT and DND. For some years now, Canada has visibly been taking the lead in promoting at a variety of international fora new initiatives on furthering progress in nuclear arms control. Unfortunately, Canada has been let down by its allies, its NATO allies in particular, who have tended to be more responsive to the views or constraints expressed by the alliance leader.
Diplomats and defence planners in many NATO countries, and, I would argue, even in Canada, tend to exist in two solitudes. For example, at Non-Proliferation Treaty and other non-proliferation and arms control fora, diplomats recognize the integral link between non-proliferation and disarmament embodied in the Non-Proliferation Treaty bargain and promote initiatives on reducing and devaluing the role of nuclear weapons in international security. On the other hand, while NATO communiqués refer to the reduced role of nuclear weapons in NATO strategy, NATO planners find it difficult to seriously discuss the role of nuclear weapons, or to consider, in a post-cold war environment, strategies that do not rely on such weapons.
The politics of nuclear weapons and their continuing role in international security, however, lead one to conclude at this time that at least in the short to medium term it is unlikely that regimes of prohibition of the type negotiated for biological and chemical weapons could be achieved for nuclear weapons. A constructive alternative might be to give weight to the legal commitment undertaken by the nuclear weapons states to pursue nuclear disarmament in the context of the Non-Proliferation Treaty as a serious policy goal, and as Canada has advocated, to urge the Conference on Disarmament to establish an ad hoc committee for the substantive discussion of nuclear disarmament issues.
In my view, what Canada needs is for both the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of National Defence to put forward our views on nuclear weapons in a coordinated and forceful manner, reflecting both our own and our NATO allies' international commitments. In practice this may have to involve making difficult choices between our international legally binding non-proliferation arms control and disarmament commitments and our alliance obligations.
In this context, the committee might consider recommending that an interdepartmental consultation and coordination process be established between the Department of Foreign Affairs and DND to coordinate and harmonize our policies on multilateral non-proliferation and arms control with our NATO positions, under the guidance and lead of Foreign Affairs. It would be useful if a DND representative could join Canadian delegations at multilateral non-proliferation fora, at DND's expense, in order to report back assessments of the positions of the international community, which could then be factored into our NATO interventions.
The second point is on non-strategic nuclear weapons. Over the past five years, attention has focused on reductions in and safety and security of strategic nuclear weapons in the context of Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties I and II.
Non-strategic or tactical nuclear weapons have largely been ignored following the successful conclusion and implementation of the 1987 intermediate nuclear forces treaty and the fall 1991 Bush-Gorbachev unilateral initiatives.
Non-strategic nuclear weapons are those with ranges of up to 500 kilometres. Reportedly Russia now holds the entire stockpile of some 19,000 non-strategic nuclear warheads produced by the former Soviet Union. The United States active tactical stockpile currently numbers approximately 1,500 warheads, with apparently several thousand in storage, together with some 150 B-61 variant air-delivered warheads still deployed in Europe. Non-strategic nuclear weapons traditionally have been deemed the most dangerous and the most destabilizing due to their proximity to zones of conflict, lack of strong permissive action links, the danger of pre-delegation, and the risk of early pre-emptive or accidental use.
Given the deterioration in Russian armed forces and the nuclear complex, the safety and security of non-strategic nuclear weapons remains an important concern. These concerns are further exacerbated following Russian threats to either redeploy non-strategic nuclear weapons in Belarus and some of the new independent states or along Russia's western and southern borders. With the advent of smart advanced conventional munitions, non-strategic nuclear weapons are no longer as crucial for military planners as they once were during the height of the cold war. Even the United States air force would prefer to remove its remaining B-61 bombs from Europe.
NATO security would be enhanced if steps were taken to codify the 1991 Bush-Gorbachev declarations and to agree on a data exchange framework on numbers and locations of non-strategic nuclear warheads, monitored central storage, deactivation, and dismantlement.
This committee could consider recommending to the Minister of Foreign Affairs that as part of the re-examinations of NATO's strategic concept there should be a general discussion of issues or concepts designed to find practical ways to consider treaty limits on or total elimination of non-strategic nuclear weapons at least in the part of Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals.
On nuclear deterrence and no first use, in today's post-cold war world, defining national security primarily in military terms conveys a false sense of reality. Nearly a half a century of cold war fashioned the issue of security into powerful conventional simplifications that are no longer valid. Unfortunately, many of these traditional and outmoded concepts retain great currency among certain security analysts and defence planners. The dominance of military and strategic considerations in the conduct of international relations endures as a pathetic legacy of the cold war.
Deterrence, in particular nuclear deterrence, overwhelmingly dominated the cold war equation of international security. One of the resulting effects was to confuse diplomacy with strategy. This confusion continues to permeate the thinking of many even today. Deterrence rendered international relations into a basic process of bargaining with threats of force. Coercion and submission of the adversary became the overriding substance and purpose of foreign policy.
A resultant hair-trigger mentality suffused diplomacy and militarized international relations. Even though the leaders of the United States and the U.S.S.R. had agreed that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought, nuclear weapons continued to be maintained on hair-trigger alert.
Despite their best efforts, the supporters of the concept of nuclear deterrence cannot prove that nuclear weapons have preserved the peace in Europe. What one can claim, though, is that they played a supporting role in preserving the peace. Nor can supporters of deterrence prove that the many crises during the cold war were resolved or contained primarily by the threat of nuclear war.
Despite the changed political climate and the window of opportunity to restructure international relations away from reliance on nuclear weapons, influential thinkers and defence planners in the United States, NATO, and Canada still believe in the integrity of nuclear deterrence; that is, stability and security would be jeopardized without nuclear weapons. Such deeply embedded beliefs are extraordinarily resistant to new thinking or to change. The myth of nuclear deterrence leads only to a fool's paradise.
This committee could recommend that, as part of NATO's strategic concept review, Canada encourage a full debate on the utility of nuclear weapons in Europe, in particular regarding NATO's policy of not ruling out first use. What is needed is a fundamental blank sheet review and revision of NATO's nuclear policy. The issue of no first use could be engaged in partnership with Russia.
The disposition of excess weapons fissile materials is the fourth point. As a result of sweeping arms reduction agreements, the Russian federation will be releasing about 89 tonnes of plutonium and nearly 500 tonnes of highly enriched uranium from dismantled nuclear warheads. As I mentioned earlier, given the collapse of the former Soviet nuclear infrastructure, the safety and security of the direct weapons usable fissile material is very much in doubt.
There are a number of proposals on how to deal with it. The United States is buying the entire 500 tonnes of uranium coming out of dismantled warheads. The problem that still remains to be resolved is what to do with excess weapons plutonium. Canada, Japan, and France have all expressed interest in burning up such plutonium once it has been converted into mixed oxide fuel. While the French proposal calls for MOX burn-up in Russia with French technical assistance, there are certain doubts about this given the lack of proper controls in Russia. Therefore, building a new plutonium-burning reactor in Russia would not be recommended.
Similarly, Japan does not have the reactors to burn such plutonium. Canada does. Without any major engineering modifications, our CANDU reactors could burn up this mixed oxide fuel and the spent fuel could then be kept under international safeguards.
However, the responsibility should not be Canada's alone. This committee could consider a recommendation that the government approach the NATO allies and Japan to put in place a multilateral program to provide the technical expertise and the funding to facilitate the safe interim storage of excess weapons fissile materials, to assist the Russian federation in converting excess weapons plutonium to MOX, and to underwrite the subsequent burn-up of this material in Canadian CANDU reactors, followed by permanent storage under IAEA safeguards.
Coming to my last point, I believe this committee would be somewhat shocked and concerned to learn that Canada is the only G7 country that does not have an independent think-tank or research institution dealing with national and international security issues. While the Department of National Defence still funds ten or more university-based centres under its military and strategic studies program, the Parliament of Canada and DFAIT have both terminated their respective funding programs for institutions other than this committee.
The newly established Centre for Foreign Policy Development is a part of DFAIT. It is responsive to the government's policy agenda and to my knowledge has not as yet engaged in substantive work on hard security issues.
I would argue that properly managed independent think-tanks and research institutions constitute an integral part of civil society and contribute to good governance. They can help strengthen democratic processes and encourage open debate. Public scrutiny, openness, and transparency, while sometimes being inconvenient, nevertheless can result in better government policies and can also contribute to enhancing private sector competitiveness. This committee could consider a recommendation that the government establish an Ottawa-based independent think-tank or research institution that would rely on this committee's expertise and that would be funded by a partnership of government, industry, and charitable foundations.
Finally, with respect, might I state for the record that it would have benefited the committee to have heard the two officials from DFAIT and DND, who will follow the two of us, in an open hearing, thus facilitating dialogue between the witnesses, between officials and NGO viewpoints.
There is very little on nuclear and NATO issues that is not out in the open.
To conclude, let me quote from the recent report of the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, whose findings reportedly have been welcomed by Minister Axworthy: “The world would be a safer place and the risks of deadly conflict would be reduced if nuclear weapons were not actively deployed.”
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman: Thank you very much.
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