Proliferating Thoughts

Why is he is Washington I hear you ask. Well this should explain, though alas my name is spelt wrong.

In the 1980s and 1990s CW proliferation was a major international concern. There was some hope for change associated with the signing of the CWC in 1993 but as the decade progressed this seemed less justified. CWC related optimism was undermined by a constant parade of claims that Iraq was reestablishing its CW and other WMD arsenals, and that other countries, such as Libya, Syria or even Yugoslavia, possessed or were actively seeking to develop secret offensive CW programs, all of which represented a major menace to the security of the West.

As if this was not enough of a concern a religious cult in Japan, Aum Shinrikyo was able to develop a fairly sophisticated CW, and a much less successful BW capability. At once there was a firestorm of concern about the new danger of CW terrorism. Adding to the concerns raised by the Aum case were the increasing official awareness of the threat posed by Islamic terrorist and insurgent groups; all of which were violently opposed to the West, whether it be Christian or secular.

It did not take long for a new concern to surface; the fear that states engaged in CW proliferation might sell or gift their weapons or at least the necessary technology to terrorists that they were in ideological or strategic sympathy with. The thought did not seem so unreasonable at first glance, after all proliferators were already operating outside the norms of international behaviour.

Now, in 2009, the situation is seemly completely different and CW proliferation gets very little attention. There are a number of reasons for this.

One is simply that concern over Iran’s efforts to master the Uranium fuel cycle is sucking all of the air out of the room.

Another is that several of the CW proliferation bogeymen of the past have abandoned their programs. Although Libya is the main example that comes to mind in this regard it is important to remember that in 1999 Yugoslavia (as it then was) and Iraq were also considered to be active proliferators. Having said that the use of the term “proliferator” in this context was a bit of a stretch and I will return to that point shortly. But to return  to my point,  all three of these countries have abandoned, or been shown to have not had an active CW program in the mid to late 90s. As if this is not enough the US Govt has retracted the most assertive of its public assessments of Iran’s CW program. Indeed the retreat is so extensive that US intelligence agencies now only claim that Iran has a chemical industry with capabilities that could be turned to the production of weapons if the decision were made. (There is one thing that I will mention at the end regarding Iran that might be problematic.)

So who are we left with as CW proliferators. The list is actually quite short, Egypt, North Korea, and Syria. However, this is where we come back to the point I alluded to earlier. None of these are proliferators in the sense that they are engaged in a program to secretly develop a CW program in contravention of international norms and treaties. The simple fact is that all of them undertook the necessary developments many years ago, indeed several decades ago. They are not proliferating, in the sense of attempting to develop something, they have proliferated. Nevertheless their programs are described as a nonproliferation problem. This is the same fallacious thinking that saw the nonproliferation (and related policies) community massacre countless forests setting down their views on how to undertake the futile task of countering nuclear proliferation in India, Israel and Pakistan in the 1990s and 2000s. Why was this effort futile? Simply put, all three countries had already developed nuclear weapons capabilities in the 1970s and 1980s. The debate was a false one, despite all the nuanced terms used to get around the reality that the deed was done. Once these countries had mastered the production of fissile material, acquired the capability to produce the various components needed for a bomb, and secured a delivery system the issue became one of disarmament rather than nonproliferation.

This is also the case with Egypt, North Korea and Syria and CW. The issue is not preventing the spread of CW; rather it is a question of finding a way to extend the existing system of CW disarmament to those countries in addition to those that have already accepted it.

The list of those countries that have been disarmed of their CW or are actively engaged in so-doing is actually quite impressive.

Albania, China, France, Germany, India, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Russia, South Korea, UK, USA, Yugoslavia.

So there we are. Has CW proliferation ended? I think a case can be made.

Now what was it I was going to say about Iran? Well several years ago now (October 2005) Jane’s contended that Iran had contracted to supply Syria with several chemical plants and associated equipment to better enable Syria to produce CW. Then in September 2007 Jane’s reported that a number of Iranian technicians had been killed in the premature detonation of a CW warhead (or warheads, or stockpiled CW agents, or all three) in the course of their efforts to assist Syria with the development of a CW warhead for its Scud missiles. Either one of these events would be pretty egregious cases of CW proliferation if they were true. But that is just the problem, if they were true, or more precisely, if the public reports accurately reflected the details of the actual events. And this is not guaranteed. The CW explosion story never really made sense which I covered in an article for WMD insights back in November 2007 (“Explosion at Syrian Military Facility: A Chemical Weapons Accident?”). As for the other “event” the sourcing of the interpretation was dubious at best (”diplomatic sources”). I accept that Iran might have been selling a variety of chemical production related equipment to Syria. But the basic reality is that Syria engages in all sorts of chemical production that is not in the service of producing CW. I actually would have found the story more convincing if it had contended that Iran was assisting Syria in the production of fuel for its missile program.

So in sum, I don’t think that either of these Iranian “issues” undermine the contention that CW proliferation, at least that involving the classic agents of the 20th Century, is over.

As to the threat of terrorists with CW, well, for that you will have to buy the book which is now available. (”Jihadists and Weapons of Mass Destruction: A Growing Threat.”)