FAIT Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE

COMITÉ PERMANENT DES AFFAIRES ÉTRANGÈRES ET DU COMMERCE INTERNATIONAL

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, June 4, 1998

• 0910

[English]

The Chairman (Mr. Bill Graham (Toronto Centre—Rosedale, Lib.)): I'd like to call this meeting of the foreign affairs and international trade committee of the House of Commons to order.

Members, you'll recall that we're continuing our study into nuclear disarmament. This is perhaps the second-last meeting we'll be having into this issue, and we're all agreed, so far, that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty has the ultimate goal of getting rid of nuclear weapons. So far, while we all agree on the goal, we're struggling with producing a report that will tell the Canadian government how we believe we should get to that important goal, and particularly in light of the recent events and the very unfortunate tests in India and in Pakistan.

We're very lucky to have with us today, from Oxford, England, from the Ditchley Foundation, Sir Michael Quinlan, who is the director of the foundation and a former very senior civil servant in the United Kingdom. At one time he was defence counsellor to the delegation in NATO and deputy undersecretary for policy and programs from 1977 to 1981.

We also have with us, in Frankfurt, Germany, with the Peace Research Institute of Frankfurt, Dr. Harald Müller, who is the director of the institute and has been active for over 20 years in peace activities in Germany and has been a visiting professor at Johns Hopkins University.

Sir Michael and Dr. Müller, good morning. Welcome before the committee.

I am going to advise the committee members as to how this will work, because this is an experiment for us. This is the first time we, as a committee, have actually had a satellite hook-up with overseas witnesses.

Members, my understanding of the system is that we must speak to one of our visitors at a time, otherwise the system will flip back and forth in a way that will be even less controlled than some of our meetings.

My understanding is that Sir Michael will go first, then Dr. Müller. We're asking our witnesses if they would keep their statements to about 10 minutes each, and then we can go to questions. We have until 11 o'clock, so we have one hour and 45 minutes.

Now, however, I see on the screen in front of me Dr. Müller. Am I going to get Sir Michael Quinlan?

We don't seem to get Sir Michael. Perhaps, Dr. Müller, since we have you on the screen, I'd ask you if you'd go first, sir.

Dr. Harald Müller (Director, Peace Research Institute of Frankfurt, Germany): Mr. Chairman, I'm greatly honoured to appear today before your committee. As well as for you, it is an experiment for me.

Let me start with the consequences of the events in South Asia. They have fundamentally changed the parameters of world politics, and nuclear disarmament in particular. These events are as significant as the fall of the Berlin Wall nine years ago. Unfortunately, they direct us in the opposite direction, away from cooperation, arms control, and disarmament, towards confrontation, arms racing, and eventually nuclear war. The world community must make its utmost efforts to stem this fateful tide.

I see the trigger to these events in the fundamentally changed character of the Indian government. These nuclear weapons are not meant for security, status, and prestige in the first place, as is so often assumed. They are instruments for political power, for dominating the subcontinent and getting equal with China. They are instruments for exacerbating the tensions with Pakistan, so that the more radical elements within the BJP can enhance their influence within India. To expand the electoral basis beyond the 26% of the last ballot, the BJP needs to increase hostility with Pakistan. For this reason, I fear a nuclear arms race is inevitable as long as this Indian government prevails.

Deterrence is not reliable in that context. It is pure idealism to believe that the very specific circumstances of the east-west context can be universalized independent of historical and political circumstances.

• 0915

I admire the inconsistency of those who tell us, in the darkest possible colours, that nuclear abolition will be impossible forever because the world is such a nasty place, but virtually in the same breath assure us that nuclear weapons are sufficient to keep peace forever among those who possess them. War has been an absurdity throughout our century, as conventional weapons are invested with immense destructive power. Wars have been fought nevertheless. Nuclear weapons have certainly inserted a grain of caution into the minds of policy-makers during the east-west confrontation. That war was avoided, though, depended as well on the particular circumstances of this conflict and—recall Cuba—on very good luck.

South Asia is a place where three bloody wars have been fought, where the protagonists share long borders and have a serious territorial dispute, where either feeds separatist movements in the other's backyard, where religious emotions loom large. In no other nuclear weapon state have we observed fanatic crowds in the streets celebrating nuclear weapon explosions with dances of triumph. Governments that first send nuclear mobs into the cities and then operate in their shadow cannot be trusted to conduct cool-headed deterrence policy. As long as present political circumstances prevail on the subcontinent, the world does well to prepare for the worst, to inquire into the medical, decontamination, and reconstruction requirements for the day after.

Non-proliferation and disarmament have suffered a serious blow. India will certainly wish to catch up with China, while Pakistan will try to remain as close to India as possible. A stable end-point in this race is not in sight. How will China react? Will she consider her most opaque modernization plans as she will face an immediate neighbour with an arsenal that will possibly rival her own in a few years? It is unlikely to me that China will ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, not until India's plans have become clearer. This means, presumably, that Russia and the United States will not ratify either. I cannot conceive of this U.S. Senate agreeing to ratification if the two supposed nuclear rivals hold back.

Of course, this reaction would be wrong. A clear and unambiguous signal from the nuclear weapon states that the incremental approach they have taken towards nuclear disarmament will continue unabatedly is badly needed in order to contain the negative consequences of Indian and Pakistani actions. Steps are required toward nuclear disarmament along each of four different front lines.

The first is sealing the end of the nuclear arms race. In this regard, apart from the cut-off that should be pursued on a bilateral basis pending an international agreement, a commitment not to develop and produce qualitatively new types of warheads would sensibly complement the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. It would lay to rest the deep distrust that alternative testing techniques, computer simulation, and subcritical experiments are conducted not only to preserve the reliability and safety of existing nuclear arsenals but also to continue with qualitative arms-racing.

The second is further reductions. START III negotiations should start immediately, not only after the Duma ratifies START II, which may never happen. In addition, agreed and verified upper limits for tactical nuclear weapons, if not their complete elimination, should be on the agenda. Moreover, the commitment by Britain, France, and China to a verified upper ceiling of their own arsenals would for the first time integrate the three minor nuclear weapon states into the START process, without necessarily forcing them, at this point, to conduct major reductions that would come later.

The third is measures for reassurance. A high priority is measures aimed at de-alterting existing nuclear forces, with the most straightforward step of separating warheads and carriers. In combination with the respective verification practices, this could greatly contribute to mutual trust among the nuclear weapon states, which is more needed than ever under the present circumstances. It would be very desirable to include the three smaller nuclear weapon states early on.

• 0920

The fourth is measures for transparency. The German proposal of a nuclear arms register, covering both weapons and fissile materials, disappeared from the agenda almost as quickly as it was made in December 1993. Nevertheless, it is a sensible proposal. Enhanced transparency is a prerequisite for closer cooperation among the P-5 and certainly a precondition for total nuclear disarmament.

Nothing in the present and foreseeable European security situation stands in the way of forceful steps towards nuclear disarmament. NATO holds a vast superiority in conventional weapons. That the alliance still keeps the option to use nuclear weapons first against a conventional challenge—and appears to continue with that doctrine even within the new strategic framework that is presently under consideration—is an unbelievable anachronism. It flies in the face of NATO's own non-proliferation goals. How can we ever explain to countries in much more difficult security environments that the mightiest military agglomeration the world has ever seen cannot renounce nuclear use under any circumstances, while they, in contrast, are supposed to stick to their non-nuclear status?

Under the present circumstances, new thinking is in order. At least a declaration that NATO will not use weapons of mass destruction first would be a small step forward. In addition, the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe is unnecessary. Those who believe this is the true blue for the alliance have much less faith than I do in the values that keep our democracies together and give each of us a keen interest in the security, survival, and well-being of each other. It is time to finish with the old-fashioned nuclear coupling theology.

In my view, it would also have made sense to explore the offer of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in central eastern Europe. Such a zone could have enhanced security for NATO if Belarus, Ukraine, the Oblast Kaliningrad, and a strip of territory in western Russian would have become part of it. Right now, NATO has bound itself politically not to deploy nuclear weapons in the new member states, while there is no reciprocal commitment from the Russian side. This cannot be called a triumph of enlightened allied diplomacy. That such a zone would have given the new members second-class status is another of these nonsensical myths that thrive so easily where nuclear weapons are concerned.

Article V of the Washington Treaty applies plainly to all parties, whatever the deployment mode and other legal obligations may be. The eastern part of my own country is nuclear-weapon-free by treaty, and my compatriots in Saxonia or Berlin are not any less secure than I am in Frankfurt.

Are nuclear weapons needed to deter and, if necessary, to retaliate against the use of biological weapons? This is no doubt a most important question and a difficult one. I personally tend to agree with those who, like former SAC commander General Butler, or the allied air force commander in the Gulf War, General Horner, explain that conventional options are sufficient to do the job. I find it also very hard to believe that any western leader would ever order nuclear use in such a contingency. But what is clear for me is that the answer cannot be left to national decision-making. It is up to the international community to deliberate how it would like to react to such a horrible crime. When nuclear weapons are to be used—that is, nuclear doctrine—is not the fiefdom of the nuclear weapon states alone. Nuclear weapons do exist only within a legal frame, namely the non-proliferation treaty, that obliges the possessors to move torwards abolition. The addition of new missions that are alleged to stand in the way of disarmament is thus a matter for international, not just national, consideration.

• 0925

As you might have already taken from my remarks, I am a supporter of the incremental strategy toward abolition. Set timetables contradict all experiences in nuclear arms control and disarmament, and I do not believe in the prompt negotiation today of a nuclear weapons convention. Nukes are too deeply integrated into the strategic and political thinking of the elites in the nuclear weapon states. It will therefore take time to convince their winning majorities that abolition is both desirable and feasible.

As nuclear disarmament progresses stepwise, however, the conditions under which the next steps are taken will improve considerably. The relations among the nuclear weapon states will change in the process. That means that security policy on the one hand and disarmament on the other are narrowly intertwined. It makes no sense to define one as the horse and the other as the cart. They change these roles permanently as the process goes on. The world in which nuclear abolition will then finally take place will not be our world of today. But to bring this changed world into being, determination to work toward nuclear disarmament is indispensable.

Canada is already playing a most constructive role in the international non-proliferation system, as well as in multilateral disarmament negotiations. It is a bridge builder between the dangerously different positions of north and south, and all the more credible in this world as it is a faithful and unwavering NATO ally. I hope Canada will pursue this political path with even enhanced determination under the present deteriorated international conditions, and I might wish that Canada will challenge the European countries more to emulate its own good example.

Thank you very much.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Dr. Müller.

We'll now go to Sir Michael Quinlan at Oxford. Sir Michael Quinlan, if you can hear me, I understand you have to push your mute button, or unmute, in order to get onto the screen.

Sir Michael Quinlan (Director, Ditchley Foundation of the United Kingdom): I hear you well.

The Chairman: Thank you. Good morning, sir. We not only hear you now, we see you as well. It's nice to have you with us.

Sir Michael Quinlan: Thank you. It's a great pleasure to be in Ottawa, even if only vicariously. I'm grateful for the privilege of taking part in the committee's discussions.

If I may, I would like to set my initial comments on nuclear policies in today's world against the background of four permanent realities, which I'll state very briefly.

The first is the familiar one that we have to live with nuclear knowledge and manage its consequences for the rest of human history.

Second, war between advanced states can't be guaranteed to be like a football match, played within the rules and overseen by the referee with authority to apply them. By the same token, neither can it be guaranteed to operate within tidy sealed compartments.

Third, nuclear weapons are in a class entirely of their own, overwhelming every other sort of weapon. They provide effectively infinite destructive force. They have therefore generated, in quite a strict sense in which no other weapons have, the reductio ad absurdum of major warfare between states that have produced them. Such warfare, as a contest of strength, has become nonsensical. In itself, that must be a welcome fact.

Mr. Chairman, am I still being heard?

The Chairman: There's quite a bit of static on the line, Sir Michael. We're following you through your text, but we are having some difficulty hearing you.

Sir Michael Quinlan: Yes, I hear the static too. I'm sticking fairly closely to the text.

The Chairman: Right. I think you're just going on to page 2 of your text. Is that correct?

Sir Michael Quinlan: Just about.

Fourth, and partly for that same reason, the basic and central aim has to be the prevention of war between advanced states. Whether or not particular weapons exist in peacetime is logically a subordinate issue.

It must be likely, though it is inherently unprovable, that nuclear weapons played a part in the remarkable absence of major war during the Cold War's 40 confrontational years. It would be better if we could ensure the continuation of that absence entirely by peaceful political means. But the world's political configuration has not dependably reached such a situation. Given that, it is far from clear that the purported abolition of nuclear weapons, even if it could be agreed, would necessarily be desirable.

Consider, just for example, a key question that the Canberra commission's long report nowhere addresses. Suppose that after abolition—perhaps therefore with weaker deterrence of war—major war does break out or loom between two technologically capable states. Will each trust the other not to undertake nuclear rearmament? Will they continue to accept inspection, monitoring, and peacetime rules? If not, are we comfortable with the possibility of a competitive rush to rearmament under the pressures of crisis or war?

It is no good saying that this sort of thing ought not to happen, or that we cannot at present precisely foresee a plausible scenario or focus upon one particular adversary. The world is an uncertain place, and long-term security policy cannot be built just on our hopes and on the limitations of our predictive ability.

• 0930

So I argue that in today's world, purported abolition is by no means necessarily desirable. But there is a prior reality that abolition is simply not feasible. There is no likelihood that all key states will truly agree to it—consider Russia, France, and Israel. And there is no likelihood either that a verification and sanctions system of the universality, rigour, and certainty required could be constructed.

Just consider the problems there have been with Iraq, a medium-sized developing state that could be treated, under full UN authority, as defeated and in disgrace. Consider how hard it has been both technically, to get disarmament verified, and politically, to get all Security Council members to support necessary coercion. Then consider how we could expect to cope if serious disquiet arose about the actions of say China. Note too, I suggest, that we have accepted imperfect verification in some past agreements, like the biological weapons convention, because we knew that we had the overwhelming power of nuclear weapons as a safeguard in reserve. Nuclear abolition, by definition, would have no similar underpinning.

I believe that a world without actual nuclear weapons is a proper long-term aspiration of which we should not lose sight, just as during the Cold War we continued to desire the removal of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Soviet communist empire. But what brought about those two splendid events was, in the end, not direct external demand. In the same way, nuclear armouries will dependably disappear only after fundamental change in the world's political systems and in its assured ability to manage disputes peacefully. Abolition has to be more consequence than cause.

But all that does not at all mean there is nothing by way of change for defence and arms control policy to do meanwhile in the nuclear field. I believe there is a large and valuable agenda available to add to the considerable amount that has already been done since the end of the Cold War.

First, the reduction of armouries could go a good deal further yet. The main action must, of course, lie with the United States and Russia, and I would hope in particular it might reach into the Russian non-strategic armoury, which is still very large.

The Chairman: Sir Michael, may I interrupt for one second? I'm informed by our technicians that our problem is perhaps in Frankfurt and perhaps Dr. Müller has not muted his button.

Dr. Müller, if you can hear me, would you make sure you have turned off your system? I think we're getting an override here. Sir Michael sounds like he's coming from the bottom of a deep well, and it may be that the well is located somewhere in Frankfurt.

Sir Michael, can you speak?

• 0935

Sir Michael Quinlan: Thank you.

My first agenda item would be the reduction of armouries. I think there's a lot more still to be done. I do agree that the three smaller nuclear powers might also consider what more they might do. Britain, for example, already has the fewest warheads, and moreover, only one delivery system. But even so, there may be scope for a little further pruning.

I would mildly hope that the strategic defence review, the results of which are soon to be announced by Defence Secretary George Robertson, might have something to say in that line.

Second, I see no reason why—and here again, I'm with Harald—any nuclear delivery systems still need to be maintained at very high alert states. Thirdly, in agreement, again, there could be much more openness about nuclear armouries, about numbers and types and yields and delivery systems and deployments. Again, I think Britain may well have something to say about this. It does seem particularly desirable to persuade China, which is much the most secretive, to also engage in this endeavour.

Next, I think there could be better interchange about best practice in safe handling and storage of weapons. It may be that the real risks in that field are sometimes overstated, but it certainly makes sense to make assurance as complete as possible, and collective learning might strengthen it.

Next, there are clearly various steps that could be taken to help strengthen, whether technically or politically, the non-proliferation regime. The Indian and Pakistani events are, of course, a very grave political setback, but they shouldn't be, and they needn't be, a complete block. There's surely scope for further advance in respect of testing, of cut-off, of further extension of the regime for limiting the spread of missile technology, and perhaps of reinforcing the effectiveness of IAEA safeguards.

Finally, there may well be more yet to be done to help in the safe management of the former Soviet armoury. The British government recently gave further practical help in that regard.

Now, that's a diverse list, and I don't suggest that every item is of equal weight or equal promise, but in the round, it is a substantial agenda, and one worth pursuing, perhaps in a somehow more coordinated way than it has been so far. I would certainly hope that the U.K. will be active in carrying it forward. I venture to hope that Canada, from its rather different posture as a non-nuclear member of NATO, might do something of the same kind.

But the practical agenda—and once more, I think Harald and I are in agreement—might actually be hampered or delayed by attempts to subordinate it to some unreal master plan, or timetabled master plan, for abolition.

Gentlemen, I offer that as a brief general review of how I think on these matters. I'd be happy to develop any element of it further or to discuss things I haven't mentioned, like the grave developments subcontinentally, and like why I think, unlike Harald, that the “no first use” promises are a poor idea, and that a formal nuclear-weapon-free zone in central Europe would have little value.

I'm entirely at the committee's service. Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Sir Michael.

The procedure in our committee, gentlemen, is to pass to questions. I'm going to ask the various members of our committee if they have questions. We proceed from the opposition parties to the government parties.

I'll start with Mr. Mills of the Reform Party. I presume, Mr. Mills, you'll start with Sir Michael and then go to Dr. Müller.

Mr. Bob Mills (Red Deer, Ref.): That's fine, Mr. Chair.

The Chairman: Okay. You could split your time, maybe five minutes each, or something like that.

Mr. Bob Mills: Again, I would like to welcome our guests. Certainly the technology is working—sort of.

I read through this document, “Prospects for Further Nuclear Arms Control”, and the one thing that probably came through clearest to me was the huge difficulty in the length of time this might take. We often talk about setting a time limit on this type of thing. Do you see that as being a possibility, and if so, what type of time lines might you see?

The other thing I'd like to introduce here is the concern about Russia and who's really in control there. Is it really possible to deal with Russia at this point in its political history?

• 0940

Sir Michael Quinlan: Mr. Mills, thank you.

On time limits, I have to say that a lot of experience on the government side in negotiation makes me leery of time limits. Certainly one has to press on with these things as briskly as possible, but the setting of actual limits on the whole can't change reality. They carry at least a risk of putting uneven pressures on negotiation.

For example, those who are operating in democracies may find themselves under much sharper pressure than those who are less driven by democratic pressures. The experience, for example, of START II, which has been held up, not only on the United States side, for a long time, illustrates the problem. A time limit would have done absolutely nothing, I venture to suspect, to change the attitude of the Duma to that. I just don't believe these things can be timetabled. Artificial deadlines, I think, simply cannot work in this kind of international negotiation.

That in a sense brings me also to the second part of what Mr. Mills asked about. I can't claim to be an expert on Russia. The Russian government certainly can do deals, but the problem of START II illustrates that the deals don't automatically carry through the legislature. That of course is not a problem that exists solely on one side of the negotiation.

But I don't think we should despair of the Russian government's ability to deliver. Certainly we have no one else to negotiate with. I think we have to have faith in the ultimate ability of the Russian government to make deals and then to deliver.

Mr. Bob Mills: Thank you.

Maybe I could pass over to Dr. Müller. Is that technologically possible?

The Chairman: We hope so.

You're going to vanish, Sir Michael, but hopefully we'll get you back.

Dr. Müller.

Mr. Bob Mills: Dr. Müller, I guess most of us would agree with a great deal of what you propose, and the need for restriction and ultimately elimination of nuclear weapons. I wonder, however, because of the situation in India and Pakistan, if you don't see the possibility—

I mean, let's look at the neighbours. Let's look at Iran and Israel. Do you not see now that those countries will have pressure of the same type Pakistan would have been under now that India has pushed the button? Do you not see it going the other way? What's to keep those two countries— Once those two countries show their capabilities, the question would be, who would be next?

Could you address that, please?

The Chairman: Before you start, Dr. Müller, I think we're having the same problem with you that we had when Sir Michael was first speaking.

Sir Michael, I would ask you to press your mute button, or to do to Dr. Müller what he was doing to you, or we over on this side of the Atlantic will think there is no hope for European integration.

Dr. Mülller.

Dr. Harald Müller: I think the problem will be solved once Britain joins the European monetary union.

I share the view of Deputy Mills that the events in South Asia can have very devastating consequences in the neighbourhood. I'm thinking more of China and Iran than of Iran and Israel, because it does not appear to me that the Israeli situation has changed profoundly. Israel rests on a solid nuclear capability, and that situation is not challenged.

• 0945

The matter is very different for Iran. There was a call for non-nuclear cooperation between Iran and Pakistan, but for the last two years—that is, after the victory of the Taliban in Kabul—the relationship between the two countries has turned very sour. Iran and Pakistan find themselves at opposite ends of the Afghan quagmire. Three Iranian diplomats have been killed in Pakistan during the last year. That shows that these two Muslim states—one Shiite, one Sunnite—might have very serious problems. I expect that the pro-nuclear-weapons faction in Teheran has got a mighty shot in the arm after Pakistan has tested.

I think in order to keep that situation under control, or bring it back under control, it is rather urgent to enhance the strategy of dialogue toward Iran in which the United States, against its own present instincts, should share. I think it would be very important to talk to the Iranians about their own security situation and how the security of Iran can be guaranteed without Iran developing nuclear weapons. I think that talk should have taken place a long time ago. Iran is a country whose troops have been attacked by chemical weapons and the world didn't respond with a single outcry. So I think that should be done.

On the other side, it is absolutely essential that P-5 consultations, such as those going on today in Geneva, tackle properly the problem China is nowadays facing and reassure China about its situation, because, as I said before, the whole Chinese modernization program was geared against the background of a possible clash with the United States. Now there is a very new factor, in the form of Indian nuclear armament, that the Chinese have to take into account.

Therefore, I believe it's necessary to get a security dialogue going on either side in order to keep both the disarmament and the proliferation consequences under control.

Mr. Bob Mills: Can I ask one further question regarding that? Would you not agree that we missed a good opportunity in terms of guaranteeing security for Pakistan? If we could have guaranteed Pakistan security, would you agree that we could have possibly prevented this further escalation in the testing that Pakistan now is in?

Dr. Harald Müller: I think the approach would have been worth the candle. I'm skeptical as to whether at this late stage of the game it would have worked, because the Pakistanis have for long felt their security was not taken seriously enough by the western world and the United States in particular. But if the P-5 jointly and very quickly had deployed their foreign ministers to Islamabad in order to feel some sort of security guarantee, at least the Pakistani response might have been postponed and we could have gained some more time to work on the problem. That, of course, is a past opportunity that will not come back.

If I may, Mr. Mills, I would like to add one sentence to the issue of the timeframe. I agree, of course, in principle, as I said, with Sir Michael and his skepticism that the timeframes are really feasible. But there's one thing that could be done, which is what the 1995 NPT extension conference did—namely, to identify one or two priority measures that the nuclear weapons states are supposed to implement during the forthcoming five years. That was done in 1995, the CTBT was concluded, and a serious effort was made to get cut-off conventions rolling. All five observed the moratorium on fissile material production. I think it would make enormous sense if the NPT conference in the year 2000 would again identify one or two or at most three steps that the nuclear weapons states would be supposed to tackle during the coming five years. That is the only sort of timeframe that I deem sensible.

Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Dr. Müller.

I'll now pass to Mr. Turp.

• 0950

[Translation]

Mr. Daniel Turp (Beauharnois—Salaberry, BQ): I will address our witnesses in English in order not to aggravate the problems we already have.

My first question will go to Mr. Müller.

[English]

The Chairman: As we have Dr. Müller on the—

Mr. Daniel Turp: Dr. Müller, I wonder if you could tell us what role you think the Security Council of the United Nations should have in this matter. In light of what happened in India and Pakistan, could the Security Council play a role that it has not played before? And could a regime be imposed on states by the Security Council, states like India and Pakistan, that don't seem to want to become party to the non-proliferation treaty? Could you provide some views on the Security Council and its role in this area?

My second question is something you've brought up in your statement on the link between nuclear weapons and chemical and biological weapons. Could you tell us what governments or what actors are trying to link these two weapons and justify that nuclear weapons could continue or should continue to be produced and eventually threatened to be used because there are biological and chemical weapons?

Those are my two questions.

Dr. Harald Müller: Thank you.

The Security Council, in my view, is not in a position to impose on countries like Pakistan and India a particular regime. The Security Council can certainly be used to exert a certain pressure upon those countries. It can certainly employ itself to provide security guarantees in situations like that. It could basically call on those countries to try to solve their bitter problem in Kashmir, and the Security Council of course could decide to impose sanctions on those countries. But I believe that particularly India is too big and already too powerful to be, in a way, prevailed upon. I also believe that the attempt at imposing might backfire in India.

In my view, the best hope we have is that sooner or later the Indians get tired of this fanatical party in their government. But if we press too hard upon them—and I think the Security Council would be particularly viewed with great distrust by many Indians—we may just drive them into the arms of the BJP, and that would be a very, very unfortunate outcome.

What one could consider is whether the Security Council could offer for the subcontinent a guarantee similar to the one that was written into the Helsinki document in 1975—namely, that borders are not to be changed by violence, by means of force. That, of course, is in full agreement with international law, and it may help to in a way cool down nerves a little bit on the subcontinent. Whether it would be enough to prevent an arms race, I'm not sure, because I really believe this depends so much on the domestic situation in both countries, India in particular, that what the rest of the world can do is relatively limited.

As to your second question, we know that the United States nuclear doctrine, as confirmed in the last presidential directive, holds open the possibility to use every means available to the United States in response to chemical and in particular to a biological weapons attack. It is also implicit in the new nuclear doctrine pronounced by Russia that Russia keeps open this option. The other nuclear weapons states are more mute about this possibility, but we should also recognize that a nuclear response to a biological or chemical weapons attack is also implicit in present NATO doctrine. So in a way, our countries are implicated here.

Thank you.

• 0955

Mr. Daniel Turp: I have one more question.

Being a German scholar, knowing the German policy, what do you think the German government will do in terms of revising the strategic concept of NATO? Have any statements been made already, or what should we expect on the part of Germany when it comes time to revise the strategic concept of NATO?

Dr. Harald Müller: Please understand that I'm really speaking in a completely private capacity here, but in my view the German government is extremely cautious on all issues concerning change in NATO's doctrine. In a way, the effect on Germany of having nuclear weapons states as neighbours is very different from the effect the situation has on Canada.

While it appears to me that Canada prides itself in showing strong independence in its own position, particularly because it is a neighbour to the United States, for Germany it has always been very, very difficult to speak out loudly and determinedly when we know that that could bring us troubles with our friends, close by and farther away, who are nuclear-armed.

I sometimes wish my government would show a more outspoken posture in that regard, but I do not expect this present government to be very revolutionary, or even reformist, concerning the nuclear part of NATO's doctrine. Of course we have an election this year, as you know, and things might change then. But at the moment it is a bit early to predict that. So expect a rather conservative German position.

Mr. Daniel Turp: I have one question, maybe two, to Sir Michael Quinlan.

The Chairman: May I interrupt on a technological issue?

Dr. Müller, when Sir Michael comes on, if you'd be good enough to push your mute button, so we don't get the static, it will be helpful. Thank you.

We're now going to pass to Sir Michael Quinlan.

Mr. Turp.

Mr. Daniel Turp: Sir Michael, my name is Daniel Turp and I'm the critic for foreign affairs of the Bloc Québécois.

In your paper you make this very general statement that is quite interesting, but I'd like you to tell us what it really means, or what it should entail. It is that nuclear armouries will dependably disappear only after fundamental change in the world's political systems are made. What are those fundamental changes? I'd like you to add a bit to that.

My second question is, what do you think will happen to the NATO strategic concept? You mention that NATO might not change and should not probably change its doctrine of no first use, but is there something to be changed in that strategic concept?

My third and last question: Would you agree with Dr. Müller that there should be a register for nuclear armouries? It's something that I think you think would be desirable, that there be more openness about those armouries.

Sir Michael Quinlan: Thank you, Mr. Turp.

Might I just lodge something before I answer the question? I hope this is not breaking the rules, Mr. Chairman. It's on the India and Pakistan matter.

Harald seems to be painting a very pessimistic picture of what is now likely to happen. He may be right. He doesn't have to be, and I hope that our governments will not proceed on the assumption that all is now lost and it has to go right on through weaponization to large deployments to arms-racing with China as well as Pakistan. Perhaps I can just leave that point there.

To address the three questions, when I talk of fundamental change in the political system, I haven't got a precise agenda in mind. What I'm pointing to is this: that conflict has been a factor in world history for as long as we can remember, and we want to find ways of conducting it without going to war.

• 1000

Nuclear weapons have given us, if you like, precisely because of their appalling character, a breathing space, because war involving them or any steps that risk involving them is patent madness.

Now I think we shall get away from that to a more mature, if you like, more benign condition only when we have created in the world the conditions in which conflict is dependably managed without recourse to force, whether that's because all states become peaceful, rational, open democracies or because we have a United Nations with the power and the will to coerce even the powerful if they misbehave. Which of these will be the cause, or perhaps a combination of them, I can't forecast, but as with the Berlin Wall, to which I pointed, and the fall of the Soviet empire, it is that kind of change, not a direct demand, that has to bring about the kind of transformation I'm looking for.

Second, on the nature of the strategic concept, there is, I believe, a review of this going on. I'm not closely in touch nowadays, since I too am a private citizen, with the bureaucratic condition of this. The nuclear component of the existing concept is extremely broadly expressed, and the theme of it is “last resort”.

It isn't clear to me what it is that one would now be looking to change. On whether it should in some way be passed under the review of formal committees I have no particular opinion. I don't myself see what it is, short of a completely non-nuclear policy, which seems to be quite unreal, that one would be expecting to modify.

On the third point, which is about the register, I said that I am strongly in favour of greater transparency on the part of all the nuclear powers. As to whether that takes the precise form of a register, again, I have no particular opinion, but I could see no reason why we shouldn't be very extensively open. As I said, I would hope that Britain will certainly move that way really quite soon.

Mr. Daniel Turp: Thank you.

The Chairman: Is that it then, Mr. Turp?

Mr. Daniel Turp: Yes.

The Chairman: Ms. Assadourian, may I recommend that perhaps you start with Sir Michael and then go to Dr. Müller, since that seemed to be—

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian (Brampton Centre, Lib.): All right.

Good morning or good afternoon to you, sir.

Here is my question. Since 1945, many scholars and leaders of nations attribute peace between east and west because of the arms race we have between the Warsaw Pact and NATO. Do you think a similar situation can be argued between Pakistan and Iran in terms of a nuclear race? That's my first question.

My second question is for Dr. Müller.

The Chairman: You mean India and Pakistan.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: India and Pakistan. Yes. What did I say?

The Chairman: Iran.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: Oh, I'm sorry.

Sir Michael Quinlan: We can't prove, of course, what it was that achieved the remarkable absence of war in a confrontational 40 years. I would take the view—I think most people would—that nuclear weapons made a substantial contribution to that wonderful non-event. All of this is unproven, but I think that must be likely.

When we try to transpose that to the situation between India and Pakistan, I go at least some way with what Harald Müller has said. We can't assume that the very extensive understanding that was developed sometimes painfully and sometimes a little precariously over those 40 years will instantly come into being.

Nuclear weapons, precisely because they are now so horrifying, are, in their way, very sobering things to possess. I don't myself at all assume that we now face a greatly heightened risk of war with the focus on the very unpleasant political friction between India and Pakistan.

But one of the things that I would hope the international community might work on, in parallel with expressing its deep regret and disapproval of what has happened, is trying to communicate to the newly open nuclear powers some of what has been learned by the longstanding official nuclear powers over those 40 years. That seems to be one of the constructive things that could now be done.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: Yes.

Dr. Müller.

I guess he has to press the button now. We have to give him instructions.

The Chairman: He'll press his mute button off, then Dr. Müller will come on.

Dr. Harald Müller: Can you hear me?

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: Yes. Good morning to you.

First of all, I express my condolences and sympathies for the accident victims in Germany. I heard there was a big accident on a train yesterday. I'm sure my colleagues also join me in expressing their sympathy and condolences.

• 1005

My question to you, sir, is this. Many people argue that there was cooperation between Israel and India, and Pakistan and China. Can you address this cooperation issue first? Second, if this cooperation continues with other countries, do you think that four, five, or ten years down the road, rather than having eight nuclear countries, we're going to have eighteen? What can we do to stop this cooperation so we don't have the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the future?

Dr. Harald Müller: Thank you, first, for the considered expression of your feelings for the dead in Germany. It was indeed a terrible accident. It was the worst train accident since the Second World War.

As for cooperation between Israel and India, to my knowledge, that cooperation was largely confined to the conventional arms sector and also to the exchange of intelligence information. As far as contacts with Pakistan and Arab countries and Iran were concerned, to my knowledge there was no cooperation in the nuclear weapons sector.

Between Pakistan and China, there was undeniably very deep and strong cooperation that helped the Pakistanis considerably with the production of fissile materials. Right now, they are starting up a huge plutonium production reactor that will enhance their arsenal of fissile material quite considerably in the coming years.

There was also clear cooperation in terms of a clear transfer of technology from China to Pakistan of missile technology and parts, which of course play an important part in the Pakistani posture.

There have been allegations even that China some years ago had tested a nuclear device designed by Pakistan on its own testing grounds in Sinkiang, but of course the Chinese government has always very staunchly denied this allegation, and there is no way presently to get clear proof.

My conclusion would be that the cooperation between China and Pakistan was more serious and went deeper than the cooperation between India and Israel. I should say in brackets, however, that without considerable help, legal and illegal, from western countries, not the least of which was my own, Pakistan would not have come as far as it has come. The whole production line from natural uranium to uranium enrichment has a lot of input from German firms and individuals, I regret to say.

Do I foresee, following this example of cooperation, an explosion in the number of nuclear weapon states in a decade? No, I don't think so, first because the number of countries that are truly motivated to go along that line is rather limited and has remained rather so for a considerable time.

Look at the candidates. We have North Korea. We have Iran. We spoke about Iran earlier. We have, of course, Iraq, which is still under special treatment by the United Nations. As long as it will remain under the UN curatelle, I think the danger can be controlled. We have Libya, which tried to get the bomb early on, but then turned to chemical weapons. We have some last lingering doubts about Algeria, but that's about the present list of candidates.

If the security arrangements by the United States, for example, in east Asia remain what they are today, I would not even see a North Korean nuclear weapon triggering automatic responses in Japan and in South Korea.

So I believe we can really focus on a very few cases, fewer than the number of fingers on one hand, beyond the eight countries that are official and proven de facto nuclear weapon states. I think that the main instrument to keep it at that really continues to be the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, bolstered by rather convincing steps taken by the nuclear weapon states towards further arms reduction.

• 1010

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: May I ask one more short question?

Dr. Müller, how about the suitcase bombs, or what they call briefcase bombs? Can that be transferred easily to those countries you mentioned?

Dr. Harald Müller: We have to start with an assessment of the situation in the Russian federation to answer that question. The authorities in the Russian federation, nowadays in close cooperation with the United States government, try their very best to keep that danger under control, because it is in their very own interest. Many of the countries under suspicion are of course around the periphery of Russia herself, so the Russian government has no interest whatsoever to spread the stuff around.

What are called suitcase bombs, the smallest items in the Russian arsenal, are mines and artillery grenades. They are slotted for early decomposition, so that is a danger that over time will diminish as Russia dismantles those particular weapons that are of course especially subject to inadvertent or unauthorized use. As long as this is going on and as long as the ministry for atomic energy in Russia and the defence ministry get much less funds than they need to fulfil all their obligations, there is a residual risk that such a weapon might be stolen and transferred to another country. Whether this country would actually be in a position to use those weapons—that is, to crack the electronic codes that prevent them from firing it—is quite a different issue. I think they would have to import a few Russian weapons experts in addition to the hardware to do that.

In other words, the answer to the question is yes, there is a certain risk, but this risk is statistically possibly much smaller than those countries by themselves producing chemical or biological weapons.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: Thank you.

The Chairman: Is that it then, Mr. Assadourian?

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: Thank you, yes.

The Chairman: We'll pass then to Mr. Grewal.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal (Surrey Central, Ref.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My name is Gurmant Grewal. I'm the deputy foreign affairs critic for the official opposition. Earlier my colleague Mr. Mills asked questions. I will not be touching those issues.

Dr. Müller, I have been following your presentation carefully. You spent considerable time talking about changing dynamics in South Asia, and I have some experience, because I was born in India and I have been educated in India. So relating to my background, I have found out, as we all know, that mixing religion with politics is dangerous. But when we mix religion, politics, and nuclear weapons or a nuclear arsenal, I think it's more than an oil and water situation and a very dangerous situation.

We know there is uncertainty in politics in both countries. We know that both countries, or the fanatic crowd that we watch on TV and the situation we know— Both countries claim they are doing it for defence. Neither country is showing any intention of attack, but definitely there is a serious situation of threat from each, or to both, of these countries.

Even though there are some common characteristics between both countries—they share a common culture, there are common problems like poverty and other things, and constraints on their budgets—I think the international community should not underestimate the threat in both these countries. I believe, and it is my own opinion, that the international community should look at the root cause of the problem in South Asia, particularly talking about the Kashmir border dispute, which is one of the longest existing territorial disputes between both these countries. The international community or the Security Council have not adequately addressed it in the past, even though there have been some UN resolutions that have been ignored by both countries.

• 1015

I think there is an opportunity for an international community to play a significant role in resolving this situation. I give my old analogy of a pressure cooker. When there is heat under the pressure cooker and the steam is there we try to put pressure so that we can contain the steam. But if we remove the heat we don't need to put much pressure on it to contain the steam. Why don't we focus on removing the heat, which is resolving the issue of Kashmir and the border dispute? What role do you think the international community can play?

Dr. Harald Müller: That is possibly the most difficult question you can ask me. I have studied those countries and I've been in the region. There are so many emotions invested in that territorial issue on either side, and there is such enormous resentment on the part of India, not only the BJP but even the Congress Party, against the international community and particularly the P-5 for meddling in that issue, that as long as this resentment persists it is very hard to see what the international community as such can actively do on it. Pakistan of course is always very keen to get an international forum, because each international forum would tend to equalize the differences between Pakistan and its neighbour, but for that very reason India is extremely reticent to discuss Kashmir in any open forum.

It was quite remarkable that under the Gowda and Gujral government there was a rapprochement between India and all of its neighbours, including Pakistan, after the SAARC summit on the Maldives in May. There was a general impression that the region would basically be ushered into an era of new cooperation, and of course India and Pakistan by then agreed to open talks about all issues dividing those two countries, including among others Kashmir. The present Indian government has first finished with that practice, and then of course immediately after the tests pronounced in rather strong language—it was Mr. Advani, the home minister, who did it—that now the situation was different and Pakistan had better give in to Indian requests concerning Kashmir.

I think that when the P-5 sit together they should say very clearly that concerning Kashmir only peaceful resolutions of the issue are acceptable, that no pressures by either side on the other side are acceptable, and if such pressures are exerted under a nuclear umbrella they will trigger sanctions to which all of the P-5 will agree. The P-5 can also offer to provide a forum in which the two can negotiate over the issue. But I'm afraid there is not much more that they can do.

I agree with you completely on the internal dynamics in either country. I must say that I'm skeptical as to whether under the present Indian government the issue can be disentangled, because in my view having high tensions with Pakistan is a basic condition for the BJP to enhance its own influence within the Indian electorate. If things go smoothly the BJP ideology does not sail well; if things get very harsh and you have a hostile relationship, you can possibly fanaticize, persuade people from the middle class, settled people, to support the BJP, because then they can posture as the defenders of the Indian nation against the big threat.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: I appreciate that.

Dr. Harald Müller: My sense is that international mediation will have a much bigger chance if the present coalition in India falls apart and we see a new government. And that is basically where I personally bet all my hope.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: Mr. Chairman, may I ask Sir Michael if he would like to comment on the situation.

The Chairman: Yes, sure. Sir Michael.

• 1020

Sir Michael Quinlan: Mr. Chairman, I know a great deal less than Dr. Müller does about the subcontinent. He said nothing with which I would disagree. And I certainly wouldn't venture to launch into a judgment upon the internal political situation in India, save to observe, wringing my hands, if you like, that we have to deal with the government the Indian people have put there, for the present.

To build courses on a hope that events will bring it down is not the way the international community, international partners, can do business. We might wish it were otherwise, but it seems to me that is reality.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: While you're online, I'll ask you another question.

Re-examining the basis of NATO's nuclear policy, as a part of revisiting the strategic concept, and talking about the nuclear dangers that are currently posed by Russia and South Asia, I think there is a need for focus on looking at the implications of accidents, smuggling, terrorism, and issues like that. How can NATO states best address those? Would you like to comment? You've already talked about that question in the presentation.

Sir Michael Quinlan: I think NATO states should certainly do whatever they can to help in these matters, though the question what to do with the Russian nuclear armoury must be primarily for Russia itself, to tackle its own insecurities. Russia, which is still a proud country, must do that itself. And I don't believe that NATO adjustments, the scope of which, I must say, I cannot realistically foresee, would play any part whatever in that.

That said, my list of things that could be done, that should be looked at, could indeed include the possibility of external help, wherever it was acceptable, in the management of the Russian nuclear configuration. I mentioned my own country, which has already made a large contribution of money—I think it was $30 million—a few years ago in that direction, has recently made a further step. We undertook to take some let's say highly disagreeable material from a former component circuitry from Georgia and have it transported to Britain and stored there. If other countries could find it possible to offer help in that kind of way or any other way the Russians would find helpful, that does seem to me a constructive contribution to the situation.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: Would you like to comment on the first-use pledges? How can we make first-use pledges stronger and stronger, and what role can NATO play?

Sir Michael Quinlan: I haven't had the chance to address that, because I disagree with Dr. Müller and with the premise of the question that has just been put.

Let me make clear, firstly, that I have no difficulty with very powerful statements about preferences against making first use, about expectations of never having to make first use. But I do not believe in no-first-use pledges if by that is meant a promise that never, under any conceivable circumstances, whatever may happen, will first use be made of nuclear weapons.

I want to comment at three levels. The first and most basic is this: that a first-use pledge of this absolutist kind would be an attempt to modify by words the reality of what would be, by definition, colossally stressful situations. Reality simply cannot be changed like that. If a state ever seriously considers nuclear weapons, it will be because the circumstances are profoundly desperate and it's facing a calamity of the first order. Otherwise it wouldn't be considering this option at all.

If that is so, and if a state—consider Israel, for example, if it were about to be overwhelmed—believes the use of nuclear weapons is the least-bad option available, it seems to me simply unreal to imagine it will be deflected to some even worse option by the terms of some promise made in peacetime, in isolation from the ghastly circumstances that, by definition, have arisen, and in isolation also from the iniquities that would have created that situation.

I think, therefore, that formal pledges are simply trying to modify realities in ways in which reality cannot be modified.

At a more specific level, firstly I note that Russia has recently changed her position, which was always a propaganda position, on no first use. If one is looking for a no-first-use pledge that is to be universal, a matter of arms control agreement, it seems to me that we will collide at once with a Russian unwillingness, an unwillingness resting on Russia's new perception of her security situation, and in particular, the weakness of her conventional forces.

• 1025

There was a third point of a more general kind, and it is this. The existence of nuclear weapons casts a very general shadow, of a kind I believe to be salutary, over the whole business of the use of force in intolerable ways. I don't want to see that shadow removed. It seems to me, on what is, as these things go, pretty good evidence, that that shadow played some part in the Gulf War, in the decision of Saddam Hussein not to make any use of his very considerable and very unpleasant chemical armoury. Whatever the instrumentality, that result seems to me a result worth having.

For that mix of reasons, while I think we want to put ourselves, by every means we have, in the situation where, as a practical matter, we don't have to consider first use, to make a formal, unconditional, absolute, come-what-may pledge is both unreal and, on the whole, rather unhelpful.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: Thank you.

The Chairman: Ms. Augustine.

Ms. Jean Augustine (Etobicoke—Lakeshore, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you for your interventions with us here today. I have two questions. I'll address them both, and the respondents can answer in whatever order.

My first question is, should Canada continue to press for the establishment of an ad hoc committee at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva for the substantive discussion of nuclear disarmament initiatives? There is a bit of difficulty in this area, so can you address that question?

Secondly, if you were sitting in our places right now, getting ready to make some recommendations to the Canadian government on how it should move forward in this area, what are two recommendations you would most certainly make?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: It's understood of course that Ms. Augustine is not giving a no-first-use pledge to use exactly your recommendations, but this is a start.

Maybe, Sir Michael, we could start with you and then we'll pass to Dr. Müller.

Sir Michael Quinlan: Thank you, Mr. Graham.

On the first matter, whether we need a new committee in Geneva, I have to say I'm not closely enough au fait, au courant, with the bureaucratic detail in Geneva to have a confident bureaucrat's answer to that. But as I said, I do believe there is a case for looking at the constructive agenda—which Harald and I both agree is available—in some coordinated way and selecting from that the things to drive forward first.

I think this converges with what Harald was saying about finding things to prioritize. Collectively you need a pattern of coherence, rather than going ahead purely with bits and pieces—I put it unfairly, I know—in an agenda. If a new committee in Geneva or a new remake of an existing committee in Geneva is the best way of doing that, fine. I don't have a precise view of the mechanism. But I do believe it would help the pursuit of this useful agenda if it were seen as a whole and if some attempt were made to relate the bits one to another.

On the two recommendations, I wish I were in Harald's situation of having had the time to think, but certainly one of them would be that I would hope Canada would put its weight behind the kind of thing we've just been saying, i.e. the pursuit, in a sensible, realistic way, of this agenda—of doing the doable, and not of high aspiration after what is currently the undoable.

On the second point, I would hope that Canada too would play its part, whether through the UN or as a member of the Commonwealth, in the kind of dialogue that I'd hope now might be engaged in with India and Pakistan, without recoiling from the expression of dismay and disapproval, to try to persuade them to go as little further as is politically possible.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Could we then pass to Dr. Müller to answer those questions?

Dr. Harald Müller: As for the first question, I would strongly encourage you—that is, Canada—to continue in Geneva with that particular proposal. The fact that there is no forum in which the non-nuclear-weapon states and the non-aligned in particular can address the issue of nuclear disarmament, the fact that at least four of the nuclear weapon states refuse to give this tiny concession, is poisoning the relationship between the non-aligned and the northern world considerably.

• 1030

It is absolutely essential that some of the countries within NATO, within the western group, show they are not in every aspect caught by the positions of the nuclear weapon states.

An ad hoc committee in Geneva can be established in two ways: it can be an ad hoc committee with a negotiation mandate or it can be an ad hoc committee that addresses issues, but without a mandate for negotiations. Realistically speaking, in the nuclear disarmament sector, only the second alternative will be feasible, because that is something the nuclear weapon states can concede without really giving up their own very basic decisions.

I think that is precisely what the Canadian government, if I read the proposal correctly, had in mind: to create a forum where those issues can be addressed, where the nuclear weapon states can explain in detail what they are doing in terms of nuclear arms reductions, and where the non-nuclear weapon states can propose or request what the nuclear weapon states should do, but without, at this point, a real negotiation.

It is a very sensible proposal, and it has garnered support beyond Canada. Other countries from the non-aligned group and also from the western group are behind it. Please press on with that.

The second question is much more difficult, because you call upon us to choose from a rather rich menu, and that's always very painful, because when you choose, you cannot eat all the other things. But I will try to do it.

In order to disentangle the present stalemate in nuclear disarmament, the boldest step would be to go to START III negotiations without waiting for START II ratification by the Duma. The recommendation to the Canadian government would be to do its best to persuade the United States to take that step.

The second would be to pursue stubbornly the efforts towards negotiations for a cutoff in Geneva, but if that continues to fail, to ask the five nuclear weapon states to start talks about a nuclear arms register, which can at least help with some of the transparency gains that we would otherwise gain from cutoff.

Ms. Jean Augustine: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

Perhaps I should have warned you both that Ms. Augustine always asks these difficult questions.

I'd like to ask a couple of questions. To give Sir Michael the chance to reflect, maybe I'll start with Dr. Müller, but then I'd like to ask Sir Michael the same questions.

As a preface, Dr. Müller, it seems to us that the India-Pakistan situation has totally changed the dynamic of our discussion. We commenced this study in the light of the Canberra declaration, in the light of the World Court ruling, and in the light of the National Academy of Sciences report in the United States, all of which framed our discussion. But the discussion was— I don't say academic, but one that was not facing the immediacy that we've now had imposed upon us by the India-Pakistan situation.

I was pleased to notice a headline in this morning's paper saying that Ms. Albright has now said the United States is going to urge for a faster form of denuclearization by the P-5, because they recognize that is something— And we have heard that from many people before this committee, who virtually predicted that what has happened would happen, because the nuclear states themselves have not been willing to progress at a faster rate of de-nuclearization. So first, could you comment on the likelihood of that being successful?

• 1035

Second, moving from that to NATO, again, we heard from both of you this morning that both of your governments are probably reluctant to open up the nuclear issue in the strategic review. We know that is the position of the United States government as well. I will frankly tell you that I don't understand why this would not be discussed.

I can understand why one might decide to retain the status quo, but I have difficulty in dealing with the issue of not discussing it, particularly in relation to NATO's position on Russia and tactical weapons—and tactical weapons in Europe generally—and going back to the no-first-use doctrine that we've already discussed this morning. It seems to me that all of these issues should at least be discussed if NATO is to conduct a strategic review.

So in light of the India-Pakistan situation, I would be interested in knowing whether either of you, as experts, believe that NATO should perhaps rethink whether it should discuss this.

I would also be interested in knowing your view of public opinion in your countries. It's one thing to say what the governments would say, but what is the public opinion in Germany and what is the public opinion in the U.K.? What does the public think about a perhaps more activist role in discussing nuclear disarmament in the NATO context?

Finally, I would like to ask if either of you have any comments on the report of the National Academy of Sciences, which we discussed with the authors when we were in Washington. We were quite impressed by some of their conclusions.

So there are really three questions, if I understood myself correctly.

Dr. Harald Müller: Shall I go first, Mr. Chairman?

The Chairman: Yes, if you would, please, Dr. Müller, and then we'll go back to Sir Michael.

Dr. Harald Müller: I counted four questions, rather than three—

The Chairman: Fine.

Dr. Harald Müller: —and I will try to answer them all.

The Chairman: This is a political problem.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

Dr. Harald Müller: First, as to Mrs. Albright's bold statement that now it is time to press forward with more determined steps for nuclear arms reduction, I think that's exactly the right point. It is very encouraging that it is coming from the U.S. Secretary of State, who would presumably not make such a statement without proper consultation with the Secretary of Defense. If the United States really is behind that policy, I think it has a rather good chance of success.

I take it that the two European nuclear weapons states would possibly be in the mood to cooperate here, particularly since not so much can be requested from them in the present situation, given the huge differences between their arsenals and those of the United States and Russia.

I think that for Russia the main problem is one of funding rather than the need to stick to every nuclear warhead they have. Even with the changed doctrine, they still have a lot of leeway, and they have a long way to go, really, until they reach the limits of what they would need for that doctrine.

With respect to China, I would assume that the interest in nuclear arms control and disarmament has disproportionately risen over the past two weeks because of the new situation in which China finds itself.

It is quite astonishing what efforts the Chinese have made in the last two or three years to understand what arms control and disarmament is all about, efforts such as the number of new experts they have trained and the new institutes they have created. I think it's a very propitious moment for them to be approached by that particular U.S. policy, and I think this is really one of the few things that can be done to at least influence the mood in South Asia, particularly in India.

• 1040

I fully share the lack of understanding you have expressed with respect to the great reluctance at NATO headquarters to review nuclear policy. I fully share that. I cannot understand it either, and that includes the question of first use, where I see one of my more serious disagreements with Sir Michael.

First of all, with respect to the argument about the shadow of nuclear weapons, that shadow will be there, whatever the doctrine is, as long as nuclear weapons exist. Existential deterrence will always be there, but secondly, and much more importantly, let me underline what I have said in my statement. It is really the contrary of non-proliferation propaganda that NATO gives to the world by saying that we have to reserve that option, that while we are completely superior to any enemy whom we will face over the foreseeable future, we cannot give up the first-use option.

How does this impress and impact upon the strategic thinking in other parts of the world, where countries are much weaker conventionally and face much more serious security threats?

I believe that NATO just does not tackle the issue of how its own posture can influence the thinking elsewhere, and that, I believe, is a very serious mistake.

Public opinion in my country is presently caught up by quite different subjects—unemployment, immigration, the train crash, the forthcoming elections. It is very hard to get sufficient attention from the public and from the media for this very important problem. Today I was kicked off television because of the train crash, and that shows a little of what priorities prevail here.

Public opinion, however, would not be opposed to our government showing a stronger posture. Whenever you talk to people they are extremely surprised that there are still nuclear weapons in Germany. They cannot believe this is the case. So if our government would take steps, there would be no opposition. But frankly, there is no great pressure coming from the public in that direction.

And finally, I share completely your assessment of the high quality of the NAS report. I think our colleagues there have worked marvellously. They have their priorities right and they have shown the way—for quite a long time into the future. I think that you can pick from the menu they are proposing and you will never be wrong in doing that.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Dr. Müller.

Sir Michael.

Sir Michael Quinlan: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

On the impact of the situation in the subcontinent, I think Harald and I are pretty much at one. Clearly, the whole subject, the whole agenda, has become more highly charged because of what has happened. An urgency has been imparted, which I certainly don't regret, though I regret its causation, the way in which it has come about.

Just to qualify this, not to disagree, I think it is important that we shouldn't let it derail the agenda or suggest that the practical agenda needs to be redirected. The message is that the non-proliferation regime still holds and still matters. And if I may say so, I think Harald gave us a very realistic and wise review of what the further possibilities are.

I think, frankly, that if you talk in alarmist ways as if the whole dam is down now and we're going to be talking of 10, 20, 30 or more, it is unwise. And it will not be helpful to the non-proliferation regime. But in the main, I think this has simply given higher significance and perhaps higher priority to the agenda which had already been developed.

I would venture to comment on one small point in passing. I don't accept the view that the Indian action is in any material degree motivated by complaints about what the P-5 have or have not done. It's a very handy debating point, but I think what the BJP government has done is driven essentially by other factors.

• 1045

On the question of NATO nuclear doctrine, I haven't consulted my ex-colleagues on this, but I can see frankly a good deal of sense in not loading the agenda with a revisiting of matters that were sorted out pretty carefully, unless there is reason to suppose that some of it needs changing. There's an onus of proof, as it were, on those who would wish to change it.

I don't myself see that that onus has yet been discharged, certainly not in respect of no first use. I can't resist entirely the temptation to comment that what Harald says in his reference to existential deterrence still being there precisely makes my major point. What he is saying, in effect, is that everybody knows the possibility of their being used is there, and that's precisely what I am seeking to convey.

Declarations of that kind don't change ultimate reality. In a sense, I'm arguing for an honest recognition of that. To draw an example from the past, there was in effect through the qualifications attached to the 1925 chemical warfare convention, a no-first-use declaration in force, not least by the Soviet Union, about chemical weapons. NATO has practically never assumed that is dependable, and I don't think any no-first-use declaration laid down would be any more dependable. It doesn't change reality.

Let's by all means make clear that we think it very unlikely we'd want to make first use. Let's make every effort we can to organize ourselves so that we don't have to face that option. But it can't formally be abolished.

As to public opinion, I think the situation in the United Kingdom is very much as Harald has described it as being in the federal republic. This is not a salience that question. Our government, through a pretty painful transition over the previous years during fierce opposition, had moved away from anti-nuclear absolutism and has a posture that is not easy to distinguish from that of its predecessor. These are simply not matters of high debate.

Whether the absorption of what's happened in the subcontinent will bring these things more to the fore, I don't know. There's been much comment on that situation. I don't see it moving yet into any upsurge in public opinion to do anything different from what the government appears to be doing now.

Finally, on the national association of academy of sciences report, it would be foolish of me to try to comment, as it's no longer fresh in my mind. I do remember, I think, that they were “no first users”, to use that shorthand. I disagree with them. I think they have however many wise things to say, not least on the need to press for further reductions in the big armouries. Whether their particular figure, which I seem to remember was 1,000 warheads, is right, I can't be sure. I think one would have to have a much more detailed operational evaluation in order to reach a serious figure. The thrust of that I'm entirely in sympathy with, but I think I'd better not risk exposing my ignorance or my forgetfulness of the details by going any further than that.

The Chairman: Thank you very much, Sir Michael.

I have one quick follow-up question. We have heard from several witnesses that their view is that the stationing of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in Europe is really more of a political statement than one of strategic value, and the military value of weapons can be perfectly serviced by submarines or other forms of delivery systems. Do you have any comment on that? Would at least a discussion of the role of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe itself, with the Russians, be some way of breaking a bit of a logjam in this area?

Sir Michael Quinlan: I'm not clear myself if there is in fact a logjam to be broken. The presence of those systems in Europe doesn't raise any great strategic question. They are in some degree, as you've expressed, political statements, but political statements genuinely have their value. They underline again the unity of the alliance, the fact that NATO's territory is a single security space and the fact that the systems are located in one part rather than another isn't reflective of any fundamental difference in purpose.

• 1050

The Russians, I am pretty sure, are no longer hugely neuralgic about the greatly reduced number of systems and weapons that are still held in the European parts of the alliance. The countries that accept the stationing and share—indeed, I think six countries still do—in the operation systems are not deeply uneasy.

At a purely technical level, I think it is indeed open to debate, if there were pressures on other grounds to change, whether it is wholly essential to have these systems there rather than back in the continental United States. But while these other purposes are served, and while no one objects deeply, I really don't see merit in elevating this high up in the agenda.

The Chairman: Thank you, Sir Michael.

Mr. Mills has one last question and then we're going to adjourn, because there's a vote bell. I'll just inform the members that the vote will take place at 11.04, so we'll have to make sure that we leave promptly at 11 o'colock.

Mr. Mills.

Mr. Bob Mills: Very briefly, to go back to the meeting of the G-5 that is occurring, and if we go back to the G-8 meeting of a couple of weeks back, it was fairly disappointing for most of us looking on that the G-8 came to absolutely no statements, no conclusions, and certainly that the U.S. and Canada went on one line of sanctions while particularly France and Germany seemed to go on a totally different line and did not put on sanctions, in fact maybe went in reverse of that.

I wonder if you think the meetings going on now will be any different from that G-8 session, and why they would be.

The Chairman: Sir Michael.

Sir Michael Quinlan: If that's addressed to me, Mr. Chairman, I would say that this is not a story I've followed very closely. Certainly the British government has made clear that it deeply deplores what's been done. I think our levers in terms of options for sanctions are pretty limited, but Mr. Cook, whom by chance I saw earlier this week on nuclear-related matters, will certainly be keen, I have no doubt whatever, although I don't speak for him, to do whatever he can to influence the India and Pakistan governments in the direction to which I pointed earlier, and that is, stop now; don't go further to weaponization and the like.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Perhaps we could go to Dr. Müller. Do you have any comment on that question by Mr. Mills?

Dr. Harald Müller: Yes. If I may, let me first just make a small correction. Germany has cancelled for the time being government-to-government development aid to India. That's about 300 million Deutschmarks. Beyond that, you are right, the government has not agreed to any sanctions.

I personally believe that it is absolutely indispensible that no public money from any western country should flow to the Indian government, including money that comes through international grant and lending organizations, including the International Monetary Fund. That is, I think, in the long run, a rather serious sanction that will have its repercussions on the currencies of the countries of concern.

I understand the French position as viewing the Indian policy mainly as defensive and reactive to what New Delhi sees as a mounting Chinese threat. And the French position is therefore that now is the time to embrace India to try to integrate them to work on their worries, to understand their security situation, and that is, of course, a request for policy that is contrary to sanctions. However, as I said before, I respectfully disagree with the analysis of the problem and therefore I don't think that this remedy is now in order. It smells very much of nuclear appeasement, I must say, and I don't think this does us any good with this Indian government.

The Chairman: Thank you, Dr. Müller.

Given the exigencies of the parliamentary schedule here, which require us to go for a vote, I'm going to have to bring this session to a close.

I want to thank you both very much.

Our committee went to Washington. We had the opportunity of conferring with our political colleagues and various representatives of the American government and the National Academy of Sciences and others when we were there. It's been excellent to have a European input. We appreciate your taking the time to be with us this morning. Next week we are going to meet in a similar way with Monsieur Camille Grand from France. We want to thank you.

• 1055

Sir Michael, just in saying goodbye to you, your monograph, Thinking About Nuclear Weapons, was quite often cited to the committee when witnesses came before us. It's nice to see face to face what was just a footnote up until now in the committee deliberations.

Thank you both very much. We appreciate your attendance this morning. This has been an interesting experiment for us. This is the first time we've managed actually a three-country hook-up like this, and we're pleased we had such quality witnesses to give a start to this new phase of our technologically driven committee. Thank you very much.

Members, I just want to suggest to you that we'll have the vote and then we'll go straight to Room 209 West Block for the Chiapas hearing. Thank you.

We're adjourned.