Disarmament in Times of War: Interview with Angela Kane

The very first resolution adopted by the United Nations in 1946 was the adoption of a mandate to pursue the elimination of nuclear weapons and all other weapons “adaptable to mass destruction”.  Measures and treaties adopted before the Second World War focused on restrictions on the use of weapons but not their total elimination.  So we need to distinguish between “disarmament” – meaning the total elimination of weapons of mass destruction – and the “regulation” of conventional armaments. The UN membership at the time envisaged that these two mandates were complementary and were to be pursued simultaneously.  They made it equally clear that nuclear weapons were to be eliminated; it did not see them as subject to regulation or limitation.  This view was encapsulated in the term “general and complete disarmament”, which was seen as the ultimate objective of the UN.

The key disarmament achievements are undoubtedly the elimination of two weapons of mass destruction: biological and chemical weapons. Other types of weapons were also eliminated by treaty: land mines and booby traps, non–detectable fragments, incendiary weapons, blinding laser weapons, and cluster munitions.  The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty outlaws nuclear weapons testing, and several treaties deal with the denuclearization of geographical regions, for example the Antarctic Treaty, the Outer Space Treaty, the Seabed Treaty and the adoption of nuclear–weapon free zones covering large areas of the world.

The world is now more violent, confronted with numerous wars and conflicts, and this has increased military expenditures worldwide to unprecedented heights. Global spending grew by 19% over the 2013–2022 decade and reached a record high of $2,240 billion in 2022. The Russian invasion of Ukraine, now the Hamas–Israel war, together with other conflicts and geopolitical tensions, have given a further push to increase military hardware or to replace what was used in the battlefield.

Another issue is the use of advanced technology in the military domain.  Take the deployment of AI in nuclear weapons: the cyber threat that could undermine the security of nuclear materials and facility operations, or the cyber threat that could invade and compromise nuclear command and control systems.  Other issues include lethal autonomous weapons systems which have – or have not – a human in the loop; the rapidly increasing use of drones, armed or not (the UN uses the unwieldy term of “Unmanned Aerial Vehicles or UAVs); the use of advanced missiles which could be – or might not be –equipped with nuclear weapons.  We have a treaty for the peaceful uses of outer space (the 1967 Outer Space Treaty) that was concluded fifty–six years ago, but new technology and the growing industrial exploitation of space means that we need to focus on the possibility that space could be weaponized.  All these issues need discussion, agreement, and cooperation.  Outer space and other concerns transcend borders, so can only be dealt with in a multilateral setting.   Technology has outpaced our ability to update treaties that were concluded decades ago.

I already mentioned the crucial role of the founding members of the UN and the very first resolution of 1946 to eliminate weapons of mass destruction. Another milestone was the manifesto published in 1955 by Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell and eight other prominent intellectuals who warned of the “perils that have arisen as a result of the development of weapons of mass destruction” and urged the governments of the world to renounce nuclear weapons.  I wish we had such powerful advocates these days.  The recent screening of the movie “Oppenheimer” brought us a sobering reminder of the catastrophic effects of an atomic explosion, but it did not lead to mass demonstrations and popular revolt such as we saw in the 1970s and during the 1982 World Disarmament Conference when over one million people demonstrated against nuclear weapons in New York.

We have no choice but to pursue disarmament. In the future the UN will continue to provide a platform for advocacy to the Secretary–General, to speak out as the moral conscience of the world, and to give a forum and a voice to those countries that are in strong favor of eliminating or reducing armaments.  Look at the achievement of concluding the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons which was adopted in 2017 and now has 93 signatories and 69 states parties.  The Treaty has not eliminated a single nuclear weapon (and has been dismissed as such by the nuclear weapon possessors), but it is a powerful signal by half of the membership of the United Nations that their voice must be heard and that they have agency.

Yes and no. Political space has narrowed, and the use of mediation and negotiation is now more focused on advancing a humanitarian and development agenda rather than a political one. Take the example of the Ukraine grain deal which was negotiated by the UN.  The Secretary–General was not very visible in Moscow and Kiev and the stalemate in the Security Council did not encourage independent efforts by him.  Look, however, at the endeavors by the UN to draw attention to climate change, to advance the Sustainable Development Goals, to focus attention on the all–important issue of water scarcity through a global conference in 2023, to set up a high–level board on Artificial Intelligence, to prepare a Summit for the Future in 2024 – all these efforts add up to a forward–looking agenda that not only deals with present–day crises but is also future–oriented, and thinks ahead to pave the way for the next generation.  Those efforts often get overlooked or dismissed when political dialogue fails or does not even occur. 

Regional actors are already visible, especially in the conclusion of nuclear weapon–free zones, the first being the Treaty of Tlatelolco of 1967, nearly half a century ago.  There are now five such zones, covering large swaths of the globe, and Mongolia, a landlocked country bordering the nuclear–weapon possessors of the Russian Federation and China, declared itself nuclear–weapon free in 1992, a unilateral decision that was welcomed by both nuclear–weapon states and non–nuclear–weapon states.  While considered a bit unorthodox in the disarmament sphere, other countries could well have followed that example, but it was superseded by the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons that was concluded in 2017.

In hindsight, my tenure was much less turbulent than the situation of today.  The outcome of the 2010 NPT Review Conferencehad raised expectations of progress on nuclear issues, the humanitarian consequences of nuclear war were acknowledged, anda 64–point Action Plan was adopted by consensus across all three pillars of the Treaty.  Additionally, a time–bound commitment was made for the holding of a conference on the establishment ofa WMD–free zone in the Middle East, so hopes for progress were high overall.

Subsequent years, however, showed mixed trends. The implementation of the 2010 Action Plan was not pursued by the nuclear states in the NPT, the discussions on the WMD–free zone in the Middle East got stuck in disagreements and collapsed before the 2015 NPT Review Conference, and the widening divisions between the nuclear states and the non–nuclear–states became ever more apparent.  The stagnation of the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva continued, though one sign of progress was the investigation of chemical weapons use in Syria, which led Syria to join the Chemical Weapons Convention. Another important development was the successful completion of the negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program and the adoption of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

The most significant changes that occurred are:

• First, the disastrous withdrawal by the US from the JCPOA, which collapsed the agreement and led to the renewal of Iran’s uranium enrichment program.
• Second, the total breakdown in bilateral consultations and arms control negotiations between the United States and the Russian Federation, coupled with the withdrawal by Russia from important, stability–providing arms control treaties that were concluded in previous years and decades.  No follow–on strategic stability dialogues between the two major powers or even consideration of extending the New START Treaty are on the drawing board.
• Third, the increasing geopolitical instability due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Hamas–Israel war that have led to expanding the importance of the military and rising military expenditures world–wide, now reaching a record high of US$2,240 billion in 2022. There is a strong expectation that these trends and the wars and conflicts in the world will continue in the near future.