On 17 May the World Future Council released its latest report entitled Climate Change, Nuclear Risks and Nuclear Disarmament: From Security Threats to Sustainable Peace. It is the outcome of groundbreaking research by Prof. Dr. Jürgen Scheffran of the University of Hamburg.

The report examines the linkages between nuclear and climate risks, noting that these two clear threats may interfere with each other in a mutually re-enforcing way. It also acknowledges that finding solutions to one problem area could lead to solutions in the other: “Preventing the dangers of climate change and nuclear war requires an integrated set of strategies that address the causes as well as the impacts on the natural and social environment.” Prof. Dr. Scheffran offers an approach to move away from these security threats to building sustainable peace.

The study brings to light the multidimensional interplay between climate change, nuclear risks and nuclear disarmament, and its critical implications for the strategic security environment. In addition, it explores prospects and openings to tackle these key challenges, stressing the role played by institutions to “strengthen common ecological and human security, build and reinforce conflict-resolution mechanisms and low-carbon energy alternatives, and create sustainable lifecycles that respect the capabilities of the living world.”

Read the full report here.

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Why START is only a beginning on the long road to nuclear disarmament

Andrew Futter

The ‘New START’ Treaty signed by Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev in Prague on 8th April 2010 is an important first step in the renewed drive for nuclear disarmament, but its overall contribution towards the goal of a world free from nuclear weapons should not be overstated.  In many respects the treaty merely codifies the current status quo, and is arguably more about symbolism than it is about substance, and in this respect much of the hard work in reducing and potentially eliminating the vast stockpiles of nuclear weapons held by nations across the globe is still to be done.  Perhaps most importantly, before any meaningful multilateral talks and possible agreements on abolition can seriously begin, the US and Russia will need to go much further in reducing their nuclear ordinance.  Moreover, it will only be after US and Russian weapons stockpiles have been reduced to numbers in the low hundreds that the push for more widespread reductions, and possibly abolition, can seriously and credibly begin.  As such, and while many are aware of the problems of going from only a few nuclear weapons to zero, this article argues that many of the toughest problems are likely to come in the first phase of the disarmament process, a phase that will involve reducing US and Russian nuclear stockpiles down to numbers more in line with that of other nuclear weapons states.

The New START treaty is certainty important in a number of political, diplomatic and strategic ways.  First, it commits both the US and Russia to reduce their deployed strategic warheads to 1550 and deployed delivery vehicles to 700 within seven years – representing a 65% reduction from the numbers contained in the original 1991 START treaty negotiation signed by George HW Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev, and a 30% cut in numbers from the Moscow Treaty negotiated by former President’s George W Bush and Vladimir Putin in 2002.  Of equal importance is the fact that the treaty ensures the continued verification of both nations nuclear stockpiles (that had expired with the first START treaty in December 2009), which in turn allows for transparency in measuring both governments compliance with the new agreement as well as ensuring the security of each nation’s nuclear sites. This is particularly important in Russia.  On top of this and perhaps in many ways the most important part of the agreement is its political symbolism and significance, and more broadly its importance for US-Russian strategic dialogue, international cooperation and a predictable relationship.  Politically, the treaty cements previous work by the Obama administration to ‘reset relations’ with Russia and from the administration’s perspective, should help enlist Russian support with other US foreign policy objectives.  Diplomatically it establishes a link between the two sides from which to push on and attempt to negotiate further arms control agreements.  For Russia it is also an important chance to be involved in international policy at the highest levels as the country tries to mitigate its declining strategic world role.

Militarily however, the treaty really changes very little.  It is likely that regardless of the new agreement the US would have made further (possibly unilateral) reductions in its nuclear weapons stockpile – and indeed may continue to do so even if the Senate does not ratify the treaty in the coming months.  Moreover, it is likely that the US – through NATO – may choose to withdraw its tactical nuclear weapons from Europe, and possibly from other regions across the globe – especially in areas where ballistic missile defences are beginning to play a larger role in strategic deterrence.  On the Russian side the treaty essentially codifies the current state of the Russian nuclear arsenal, which after years of underfunding and neglect is now essentially in a state of disrepair.  It is therefore likely that despite the vast stockpiles of nuclear related material still in Russia, only a percentage of this nuclear ordinance is actually serviceable and usable.  When economic pressures in both countries – but particularly Russia – are added to this, much suggests that a renewed drive to service or embark on a large-scale plan to build new nuclear weapons by either nation is highly unlikely.

However, and whilst the provisions contained in START are important, and indeed mark a notable diplomatic achievement, far deeper cuts in US and Russian nuclear stockpiles will need to be made before any serious multilateral nuclear reductions can be contemplated.  However, because both strategic and political pressures will make further significant reductions in US and Russian stockpiles far harder to agree, it is arguably in this pre-nuclear abolition stage that most of the short-term problems with the disarmament agenda reside.  Fundamentally, without significant further US and Russian reductions – perhaps reducing warhead numbers to the low hundreds – it will be very difficult to multilateralise the push for disarmament and consequently begin making meaningful strides towards possible nuclear abolition.  Making things more completed is the fact that nothing in the recent START agreement prevents the modernization and testing of US or Russian warheads or delivery vehicles, or provides any official constraints on ballistic missiles defences.  Additionally the treaty does not include any reductions of the several thousand tactical nuclear weapons still deployed by both the US and Russia.  Moreover, and although President Obama has suggested that negotiating a tactical nuclear weapons treaty with Russia is a key priority, and despite rumours that US tactical weapons may be removed from Europe, continued and indeed increasing Russian reliance on these types of weapons will make the pursuit of such an agreement an arduous task.  What is more, because dismantling and destroying nuclear weapons takes a long time, and because both countries already have huge stocks of weapons awaiting destruction, the number of operationally inactive US and Russian stockpiled warheads will remain in the high thousands for many years to come.

The first big hurdle to further reductions is going to be the increasing political and strategic reliance by Russia its nuclear weapons complex.  Politically Russian leaders feel that the countries substantial nuclear weapons ordinance is one of the few things that allows it to retain ‘great power status’ and thus enables it to pursue a role at the forefront of global politics, whilst militarily, Russian nuclear weapons are gaining increased importance because of the declining size, capability and professionalism of Russian conventional forces.  As such, nuclear weapons are becoming more, not less, important components of Russian security thinking, and this suggests that further Russian agreements on nuclear reductions will be far harder than has been the case with START.  The second big hurdle will be overcoming the political and bureaucratic pressures in the US, where one of the biggest problems facing any administration will be how to gain acquiescence from hawkish members of Congress and the Joint Chiefs of Staff about where the cuts should be made, and how low stockpiles can go before the concept of a three part nuclear deterrence posture becomes unfeasible.  What is more, the continued spread of nuclear weapons and their proliferation and acquisition by so-called ‘rogue states’, added to Russian intransigence and general disinclination to disarm beyond a certain point, is also likely to make it far harder politically for any US President to push ahead with unilateral nuclear disarmament measures.  Strong criticism from many conservatives in Congress concerned about America’s ability to protect itself are equally likely to make reductions in nuclear weapons capabilities politically challenging, especially if – as in the current case – they are pursued by a Democrat President.  More broadly the rising price of energy is likely to see both nations expand their domestic civilian nuclear infrastructures, further entrenching a reliance on nuclear power, and providing both with a substantial ‘virtual’ weaponization capability.

Lastly, there is the issue of the offense-defence balance that has surrounded the nuclear arms race almost from its inception, and which since George W Bush’s abrogation of the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002, has become an even more important component of international stability.  Under the Bush administration, and now under Obama, the US ballistic missile defence programme has grown substantially and seems well on its way to becoming a ‘normalised’ component of security policy.  Moreover, and although questions remain over the technology being deployed, and regardless of the fact that the stated goal of the system is protection against a limited rogue state attack or accidental missile launch from an established nuclear power, and not in defeating a strategic strike by Russia, the expansion of the system has caused concern in Moscow.  Indeed, missile defence – particularly in Europe – was one of the main stumbling blocks that prevented the START agreement from being concluded far sooner.  Consequently, strategic logic suggests that the more the US and Russia reduce their nuclear arsenals the more important, and potentially destabilising, missile defences may become, thus creating something of a ‘disarmament paradox’.  Both nations, but particularly Russia (and subsequently China) will want to ensure they maintain a credible nuclear deterrent that can overcome any US (or NATO) missile defence system.  Moreover, the opposition to US missile defence plans remains a key way to garner domestic support and score rhetorical points for Russian leaders.

 
The New START agreement is an important first step on the road to nuclear disarmament but its actual relevance and importance in the larger quest for nuclear abolition should not be overstated.  This is because the US and Russia will need to go far further than the agreements reached in the current treaty before they can credibly begin calling on other smaller nuclear powers to eliminate their own nuclear stockpiles.  Although there will be pressures making further disarmament difficult in the United States, particularly for a Democrat President, it will be in Russia that the greatest stumbling blocks to this process will be found.  Growing Russian reliance on nuclear weapons, not just for security but also for political and diplomatic reasons, will make further substantial reductions in the Russia nuclear arsenal very difficult to achieve.  Moreover, such Russian intransigence, coupled with a potential growth in the number of states – many of them unstable or hostile – seeking to acquire nuclear weapons will make any unilateral disarmament moves by the US equally difficult to achieve.  Consequently, and while much attention is paid to the latter stages of the problem of how nuclear weapons can finally be abolished or how to deal with securing fissile material, we may in fact need to concentrate far more on the significant problems of US-Russian nuclear reductions that must necessarily precede this.

Andrew Futter is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Birmingham.

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The approach to the United Nations climate-change summit in Copenhagen on 7-18 December 2009 is mired in controversy as blocs of states vie with each other to determine the real agenda.  The multiple interests involved range from elite trading-networks and powerful oil-producers to small-island states in the global south. The underlying reality is a deep-seated inequality in bargaining-power in which the United States and leading European Union member-states can assemble delegations of a hundred or more specialist advisers, whereas the poorest states may have two or three diplomats with no special help. The stark injustice is reinforced by the fact that the climate dynamics of the world’s environment put the majority world most at risk.

The beginning of progress in redressing current dangers and unfairness is accurate information and sound analysis. There have great advances here since the significance of atmospheric carbon- accumulation was registered in the mid-1970s, around the time of the original study of The Limits to Growth. At that time, most analyses predicted that climate change would have its dominant impact on the temperate latitudes of north and south. In part this was because very long-term natural changes in climate (across millions of years) appeared to have had little impact on the tropics and sub-tropics. When the British land-mass was covered in ice and snow around 11,000 years ago, for example, the climate of sub-Saharan Africa was not greatly different to what it is today. The conclusion reached was that the regions likely to experience the largest climate- change impacts were also among the world’s richest – and thus would be best able to adjust.

The next generation saw improvements in climate-change modelling that by the early 1990s had overturned this thinking. There was now a recognition that the tropical and sub-tropical land- masses would indeed be greatly affected, though less by a process of warming than by major changes in world rainfall-distribution; the expectation being that more of the world’s rain would fall over the oceans and the northern and southern polar regions, and far less over the tropics and sub-tropics (see David Rind, “Drying out the tropics”, New Scientist, 6 May 1995). This “drying-out” of the tropics would – if not prevented by radical cuts in carbon-emissions – drastically reduce crop-yields. With two-thirds of the world’s people dependent on local food- production, the consequences could be disastrous.  

The sinking road

Some current analysis on climate change also predicts increasing variations in rainfall distribution, part of a damaging global asymmetry in temperature-related trends. A study by Britain’s Met Office made public on 28 September 2009 assesses several recent climate-change models in terms of the consequences of a 4ºC overall rise in temperature (using 1980 as the baseline of comparison). This may seem alarmist; but since average temperatures in 1980-2009 have already risen around 0.7ºC, and since there is a very long time-delay between cutting carbon-emissions and containing climate change, the approach is actually realistic. The projection is quite properly indicative of the world as it could look in 2055, unless there are radical cuts in carbon-emissions that go a very long way beyond current plans (see Shanta Barley, “A World 4ºC Warmer”, New Scientist, 3 October 2009).

The asymmetry of impact predicted by this recent modelling is very significant. Many parts of the world will warm relatively slowly; much of the southern ocean will become only marginally warmer; most other oceans (the Arctic excepted) will warm by 2-3ºC compared with 2009 levels. Some continental land-masses will experience a slightly below-average rise; in this category will be the southern part of south America, parts of southern India, and southeast Asia and Australia. Even so, these regions still face temperature increases of 3ºC or more, leading to dangerous shifts in climate, while the ocean-warming will intensify tropical storms and lift sea-levels.

This is serious enough, but the modelling should cause even greater concern in relation to the projected impact on other land-masses and the Arctic. Much of Amazonia, and central and north America, is expected to warm by around 10ºC on average on current trends; as will southern Africa, central and eastern Europe, much of the middle east, and central and north Asia right through to the Pacific.  The temperature increases across the Arctic could even exceed 12ºC, leading to wholesale melting of the Greenland and Canadian Arctic island icecaps and major increases in sea-levels across the world.  These are potentially catastrophic changes.

It is possible that further modelling will lead to some modification of these results, and there is no pretence that climate-change predictions made at a single point in time are immutable. But the work that has been done suggests with reasonable certainty that the continuation of present trends will carry two major consequences.

The first is that the impact of climate change will be highly variable across the world. Its effect on land-masses will be massive, on the oceans (apart from the Arctic) slightly less so. The most worrying in ecological terms among all the expected outcomes would be the  destruction of the Amazonian rainforest, a process that would accelerate the existing impacts of human activity. 

The second is that many of the poorest regions of the world, those least able to cope with climate change, will suffer the most (see Camilla Toulmin, Climate Change in Africa [Zed Books, 2009]). The severity of the effects can be gauged if it is recalled that the world’s tropical and sub-tropical land-masses are home to a majority of the world’s people and produce almost all of their food.

The saving pressure

What are the implications of this analysis for the Copenhagen summit? It is important to emphasise the context of the meeting, namely that it is part of a process rather than an isolated event. This in turn means that not everything depends on its outcome alone – but the larger picture is such that the process does need to be accelerated in 2010-12 in order to prevent catastrophic impacts by 2040-50. The radical action required includes a reduction in carbon- emissions by industrialised and industrialising states amounting to 40% by 2020 and 80% by 2030.

This may seem from the perspective of the present – including the widespread low expectations of the Copenhagen meeting – impossibly idealistic. But there are also many hopeful indicators, both at grassroots and government levels. The emergence of a new generation of determined and organised climate-change activists in a number of western countries, prepared to take non-violent direct action is one such; the embrace by some politicians of the need for bold action, after the “lost decade” of George W Bush, is another. The developments in China are especially interesting; the official Chinese stance may foreground demands that western states curb their emissions while allowing China’s economy to catch up, but on the ground there are signs of an embrace of wind-power, photovoltaics and solar-thermal systems, as well as efforts at least to curb the increase in carbon-emissions.

But for large-scale and comprehensive progress to occur, nothing less than a reworking of the structures of the global economy that addresses the issues of socio-economic divisions and environmental constraints is needed.  Here too there are positive signals, such as the support by British prime minister Gordon Brown (at the G20 finance ministers’ meeting in Scotland on 7 November 2009) for a Tobin-like tax on financial transactions. This, from the leader of one of the world’s larger economies, represents a near-astonishing breakthrough whose impact among financial analysts is just beginning to be felt (see Saskia Sassen, “A global financial detox”, 3 September 2009).

Beyond this, the economic shift of the coming generation must be grounded in a serious analysis of the essentials of the new green economy. The work being done by the London-based New Economics Foundation (NEF) – for example, in its new “great transition” project – is just one welcome indicator. Much more research is needed, but even the initial analysis by the NEF is enough to show that “blue-sky” thinking can also be deeply practical.

Copenhagen may not achieve much, but this itself may not be fatal; for in terms of preventing the extremes of climate change, what happens elsewhere may well turn out to be more vital. The work of independent think-tanks (such as Sustainablesecurity.org) and dedicated activists could, in combination, become a singularly powerful force; the response of enlightened political leaderships could prove invaluable. But these agencies will  need an infusion of more energy and broad-based support to enable the pressure for fundamental change to reach a tipping-point.

The Nigerian militant group Boko Haram has become one of the most potent examples of the ways in which underlying structural inequalities can drive political violence. The brutal attacks on 25 December last year are only the latest in a number of violent events linked to the group and fighting has continued over the last two months. Writing for Consultancy Africa Intelligence, Ronan Farrell discusses the emergence of Boko Haram against a backdrop of economic growth in Nigeria (on the back of high oil and gas prices) but extreme inequality.

Farrell focuses particularly on the concentration of profits in the south of the country at the expense of the north and the effect of an overly militarised response to the popular protests against inequality and corruption. This he says gave rise to a set of conditions, characterised by repression and marginalisation, out of which Boko Haram have emerged and grown.

The analysis notes that “Although religious identity and extremist beliefs are often cited as the main factors contributing to inter-communal violence in Nigeria, many of these clashes are in reality more rooted in political and economic tensions. Longstanding battles for control over political power, as well as economic rivalries between various ethnic groups often underline this violence.”

Importantly, there is increasing pressure in the United States to add the organisation to the US list of foreign terrorist organisations. Yet as Farrell argues, “Whilst doing so would give the Nigerian Government access to significant resources and funding, the military actions which might follow are unlikely to deal with the underlying reasons for the growth of the movement, including the high level of support it undoubtedly has amongst northern Nigerians given the economic disparities and perceived social injustices in the north.”

The full article can be accessed here.

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