Up In Arms

 

Michael Flynn is a writer based in Geneva, Switzerland, and a former associate editor of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

The treaty-phobic Bush administration seems to have come to the startling conclusion that"in some cases, at least"it is in the nation’s interests to act collectively with other countries on arms control measures.

After single-handedly undermining a mind-boggling array of weapons-related agreements during its first three years, the administration two weeks ago introduced in the UN Security Council a draft resolution aimed at thwarting terrorist efforts to acquire chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. The resolution would require UN member states to adopt legislation that would prevent any "non-state actor" from acquiring weapons of mass destruction or the materials needed to manufacture them, transporting these weapons, or developing delivery systems.

Of course, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that terrorists should never be allowed to even set their eyes on such weapons. And after the shocking revelations in the past year about Pakistani malfeasance regarding nuclear weapons proliferation, even the Bush administration must have realized that cooperative action on this front was sorely needed.

Still, the specter of John Bolton, the administration’s undersecretary of state for arms control and wildly anti-treaty ideologue, plugging to The Washington Post on March 25 an agreement that calls for "cooperative action to prevent illicit trafficking" of deadly weapons must have caused international security wonks the world over to utter a collective gasp.

After all, this is the same John Bolton who once remarked that "there is no such thing as the United Nations" and that "if the UN Secretariat building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference;" who said that the "happiest moment of my government service" was signing a letter rejecting the Rome Treaty on the International Criminal Court; and who gleefully told reporters after rejecting a verification protocol aimed at shoring up the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) that it was "dead, and is not going to be resurrected."

Now that Mr. Bolton has seen the light and acknowledged the need for "cooperative action" on WMD, it is fair to ask"has he also changed his mind about the bioweapons protocol? Probably not. But if the Bush administration is serious about keeping deadly germs and microbes out of terrorists' hands, the protocol should be revisited.

Bioweapons, more than any of the other mass-casualty weapons (except perhaps guns), represent arguably the greatest challenge regarding arms proliferation and terrorism. Easier to acquire and transport than nuclear weapons, and deadlier than their chemical-weapon cousins, toxins and germs are the terrorist’s dream weapons.

In December 2001, after nearly seven years of negotiations aimed at developing a protocol for the BWC that would give the treaty enforcement and verification mechanisms, a UN review conference on the treaty broke up in bitter dispute in the face of strident U.S. opposition to the protocol. Bolton went so far as to call for the termination of the Ad Hoc Group overseeing the negotiations, proposing that the conference’s final document declare: "The Conference takes note of the work of the AD Hoc Group and decides that the AD Hoc Group and its mandate are hereby terminated."

The administration argued that the protocol would do nothing to prevent the bad guys from developing clandestine capabilities but would interfere with legitimate businesses dealing in potential dual-use items and the country’s own biodefense activities. Some have argued that the administration’s opposition had a more nefarious motive"that a protocol would lead to discovery of U.S. efforts to pursue a new generation of bioweapons that have little or nothing to do with defense.

In any case, the reality is that without verification measures, the BWC does not give the international community the tools necessary to divine or prevent national efforts to develop bioweapons that could be wittingly or unwittingly transferred to terrorists. Although the decision to propose a new resolution aimed directly at non-state actors is a step forward, it does not account for the gaping hole in the BWC, a hole that can only be filled with a protocol that would enable international inspections of suspicious facilities.

The Bush administration can act to remedy this situation this year, when a series of meetings around the BWC are set to take place in Geneva, Switzerland. The administration should use these meetings to take yet another step toward limiting proliferation of biological weapons by promoting international action"in the form of clearly defined verification measures"instead of relying solely on the willingness of nations to police themselves, which is essentially what the administration’s new proposal is limited to.

Discussions of WMD tend to leave out the one mass killing weapon that in fact is used daily to terrorize and wipe out civilians across the globe: guns. Describing Charles Taylor’s reign of terror in Liberia, Michael Klare writes: "Taylor... unleashed the most deadly combat system of the current epoch: the adolescent human male equipped with a Kalashnikov." With up to 500 million guns in circulation around the globe, there is pressing need for collective action on this issue.

However, the Bush administration’s newly discovered cooperative attitude toward deadly weapons completely ignores small arms proliferation, and its record to date on this issue is appalling.

As with bioweapons, the international community has tried to arrive at agreement on ways to limit the proliferation of guns. And it is the Bush administration"with Mr. Bolton again as its point man"that has taken the lead in undermining these efforts.

In July 2001, the UN Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons met in New York to draft a non-binding declaration that states could adopt to prevent gun proliferation. But before the meeting could even get off the ground, Bolton delivered a knockout blow with his opening remarks. After briefly noting that the "abstract goals and objectives of the Conference" were "laudable," Bolton issued a series of "we do not support" statements aimed at killing a number of proposals raised by conference participants.

Said Bolton: "We do not support measures that would constrain legal trade and legal manufacturing of small arms and light weapons" (this despite the widespread recognition that much of the illicit trade in guns begins precisely where the poorly regulated legal trade ends); "We do not support the promotion of international advocacy activity by international or non-governmental organizations" (accompanying Mr. Bolton to the conference were representatives of one of America’s esteemed NGOs, the National Rifle Association); "We do not support measures that prohibit civilian possession of small arms" (the conference sought to restrict"not completely prohibit"civilian possession); and "We do not support measures limiting trade in [small arms/light weapons] solely to governments" (the United States wanted to protect its ability to arm insurgents of its choosing).

Although the United States was not alone in opposing many of these measures"other conference critics included China and Russia"its strident, no-holds-bared stance during the negotiations forced conference participants to adopt a program of action that caters, as one analyst put it, to "the lowest common denominator."

It is way past time that the United States stopped placating the powerful gun lobby and began taking a constructive approach to small arms proliferation. Across the globe, U.S. soldiers are confronting armed groups bent on terrorizing civilians for political goals. Fueling these conflict situations are guns that have been gotten through both legal and illicit transfers. Recognizing this situation, the United States should follow up on its recent proposal on keeping WMD from non-state actors by softening its hardline stance on small arms and agreeing to compromise with the international community. There is a sliver of hope in this regard"the next time a UN small arms conference is scheduled to take place is 2006, by which time Mr. Bolton and company may no longer be around.

In a recent article for Arms Control Today about the gradual erosion of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), Amy Smithson of the Center for Strategic and International Studies made an impassioned plea for U.S. leadership in promoting that agreement. The same plea could apply to biological weapons and guns.

Wrote Smithson:

Since the United States has become the preeminent global power, Washington has tended to alternate between embracing international conventions when it suits current U.S. policy objectives and trampling them when it does not. Some say such are the privileges of power. But, shortsighted is the leader who undermines the very things that safeguard that power, international peace and security, and humanity over the long term. . . . Actions that undercut efforts to stem the proliferation of poison gas and other weapons of mass destruction surely do not serve the interests of this nation. Hence, Americans expect and deserve to have the international effort to reverse the erosion of the CWC begin at home.

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Published: Apr 07 2004