The U.S.’ New Nuclear Strategy Sheds a Positive Light on NPT

Every ten years the American government publishes an important document about the principles — that is, the “doctrine” — on which its nuclear strategy rests. It is a generic document that establishes instructions to be followed by all the branches of government and the armed forces.

That last one, published ten years ago, still reflected a cold war atmosphere and a truculent posture, further aggravated during the eight years under President George W. Bush.

The document represented well the most conservative elements of the North American Senate, which had already blocked the approval of international treaties that led to political tension with Russia in the area of nuclear arms. An example of this attitude was demonstrated by the situation surrounding the Limited Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which was not ratified by the Senate. These senators, in general, defended the corporate interests of the private sectors involved in the production of nuclear arms, which generate thousands of jobs and are extremely powerful in some American states.

As part of this “doctrine,” even conventional attacks on the United States by countries not possessing nuclear arms would warrant nuclear retaliation.

For this reason, the only progress that occurred in the last 20 years in the area of nuclear disarmament was the gradual reduction of nuclear arsenals by world powers, which came to more than 30,000 in each and remain extensive.

The election of Barack Obama as president of the United States appears to have significantly changed the situation. In a famous speech in Prague in April 2009, Obama declared that it is “America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”

The new American nuclear strategy of April 2010 reflects this intention and abandons the outdated vision of maintaining, modernizing and even increasing nuclear arsenals and conducting tests. The strategy now concentrates on turning the attention of the government to two areas: banning the proliferation of nuclear weapons and avoiding nuclear terrorism.

In doing so, the United States adopts the position of the old “falcons of the cold war” like Kissinger and others, who were convinced that nuclear weapons — which in the past guaranteed against possible attacks from the Soviet Union — are not effective against nuclear terrorism, nor those who are not responsible to a government.

In addition, threats resulting from the possession of nuclear arms in the hands of problematic governments like Iran and North Korea tend to propagate, as others in various regions of the word aspire to possess nuclear arms to counterbalance the threats created by them.

In a sense, the United States government has “thrown in the towel” and finally convinced itself that the only way to guarantee its own security is to reduce the importance of nuclear arms and begin to comply with Article VI of the 1967 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which calls for the adoption of serious measures leading to nuclear disarmament.

At the time, this article was adopted to dissuade non-nuclear countries from developing nuclear arms and to restrict the use of nuclear energy for solely pacific ends.

Various countries, such as India, did not accept the treaty regarding it as discriminatory and developed nuclear weapons, thus encouraging Pakistan to do the same. This, in fact, is what will happen if Iran produces nuclear arms; Egypt and Syria will desire to do the same in order to counterbalance its influence.

This new American nuclear strategy opens the path to an adult discussion about the problem of nuclear disarmament, because, from now on, nuclear non-proliferation (of countries that do not have nuclear arms) and nuclear disarmament (of countries that possess nuclear arms) begin to march together.

The best indication of the seriousness of the United States in adopting this path is the decision to “not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states that are party to the NPT and in compliance with their nuclear non-proliferation obligations.”

It is vital that Itamaraty study with care this new American nuclear strategy and abandon the revisionist tendencies that still exist in the Brazilian government.

Brazil signed the NPT in 1994, when it was removed from the list of those “suspected” of trying to develop nuclear arms, which is the case of Iran today. The Brazilian decision reinforced worldwide efforts made to encourage nuclear countries to follow the path to nuclear disarmament, many of which Chancellor Celso Amorin participated in the past.

The views that are heard today — coming from Itamaraty as well — is that Brazil abdicated its sovereignty in adhering to the NPT, which represents a complete misunderstanding of the reality of a world with nuclear arsenals programmed to hit any city in the world, including those in Brazil.

The denuclearization of Latin America, turned into reality with the creation of the Brazilian-Argentine Agency for Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials (ABACC) in 1992, and the abandonment of semi-clandestine nuclear programs in Brazil and Argentina is now bearing fruit.

In this environment, a politics of nuclear approximation with Iran and cynicism in regards to the advantages of the NPT are adverse to national interests.