ABSTRACT: This article analyses the existing international instruments to prevent the proliferation of nuclear, chemical and bacteriological weapons. It also advocates the creation of an international regime, or of a cartel of producers, to halt the export of major conventional weapon systems.

(Micromega, April 1991)

On 20 February 1991, the second section of the Penal Court of Brescia sentenced seven executives of the Valsella Meccanotecnica Company to penalties ranging from one year and six months and one year and ten months of imprisonment. The charge for the seven was illegal arms export: nine million antitank and antipersonnel mines had been shipped to Iraq between 1982 and 1986, passing through Singapore, in a typical case of so-called triangulation.

In those same hours, in Saudi Arabia, the command of the forces of the anti-Iraq coalition was settling the last details of the ground offensive aimed at liberating Kuwait. Much attention was devoted to minesweeping operations - operations which will presumably continue in the whole of the territory of the Emirates for a long time after the end of hostilities.

This was not the only paradox of the Gulf War: almost half of the Iraqi weapons were of Western make. The rest had been purchased from that same Soviet Union which, while not participating in the military operations, backed the aim of reinstating the legitimate government of Kuwait in all diplomatic meetings. Unlike the case of the Valsella Company, a consistent part of these exports had been carried out openly, in a perfectly legal way, over the past twenty years.

What's more, during the whole of Operation Desert Storm, the allies constantly feared that the Iraqis could make use of those chemical weapons which they surely possessed; while no one could exclude that the dozens of kilograms of fissile material in their hands had not made them capable of constructing a nuclear weapon, no matter how rudimentary. Both the chemical and the nuclear programs were based on Western technology.

Just about everything has been said about who built up Saddam Hussein's military arsenal, especially in the past months, how, when and for how much money; so I consider it useless to repeat it [for a synthetic survey Cf. M. Dassù, 1990; for Italian arms export in particular Cf. M. De Andreis, 1988; for transfers of chemical technology refer to K.R. Timmerman, 1990].

It is perhaps more useful to concentrate our attention on the available instruments - and those which it would be appropriate to create - to avoid similar phenomenons in the future.

The nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), in force since 1970, can be said to be the archetype of such instruments. It is based on an explicit exchange: those countries which renounce the acquisition of nuclear weapons acquire access to civilian nuclear technology, at the same time subjecting all their activities in this field to the control of the International Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.).

Criticism toward the NPT has been frequent. The Treaty allegedly codifies a situation of injustice: on the one side the nuclear powers (U.S., U.S.S.R. and Great Britain), free to possess nuclear weapons and not submitted to any control; on the other side the non-nuclear States. Another objection is that Article VI of the Treaty, which bound the nuclear powers to undertake negotiations "in good faith" to progressively reduce their arsenals, has been completely disregarded; the countries most interested in the military nuclear option have not signed the Treaty (Israel, South Africa, Pakistan, India, Argentina, Brazil); the controls carried out by I.A.E.A. have proved to be ineffective, in that they take account only of fissile material, without supervising all the other technologies associated to the manufacture of a nuclear weapon.

However, despite all these limits, the NPT has been signed by over 140 countries, and there have been no cases of violation or withdrawal among the adhering countries in twenty years. France and China, which are not part of it, have declared their intention to behave as if they had signed the treaty, and have joined the I.A.E.A.

There has been only one case of blatant double-dealing: that of Iraq, which signed and ratified the treaty and continued to exploit all the possible flaws of the treaty to pursue an autonomous military program. But Iraq is one case out of 141: this means that the NPT is effective, at least as a general signal of a country's intentions. This is proved by the fact that all the countries that had a specific interest in the nuclear option at least had the decency not to adhere.

Good perspectives have opened up recently to reinforce the non-proliferation regime: the government of Israel has repeatedly declared it is ready to discuss the creation of a denuclearized area in the Middle East. The abolition of apartheid and the passage to a full democracy in South Africa will no doubt have effects on that country's foreign and military policy. Brazil and Argentina have implemented bi-lateral measures of confidence and have also suspended their military nuclear programs. Lastly, the imminent signing of START, the U.S.-U.S.S.R. treaty for the reduction of strategic nuclear weapons, should at least start to implement the commitments contracted with art. VI of the NPT.

Of course, there remain the problems connected to the control of technology: in addition to supervising fissile material, it is necessary to prevent the diffusion of techniques for the re-processing of plutonium and enrichment of uranium, as well as the panoply of devices (for gauging, priming, etc.) which are necessary to prepare a weapon. As far as this is concerned, much is left to the initiative of the single exporters, and precisely the concern created by the Iraqi case makes us foresee that controls will become stricter. In Germany, for example, a major reform of such controls has been carried out after the scandals following the transfers of chemical technology to Libya and Iraq. Some first steps have been taken in Italy too: in September 1990, Piccoli and Zamberletti presented a draft bill which is at least a basis for a discussion. The United States are already suggesting the allies to convert the Coordination Committee for Multilateral Controls on Export (better known as COCOM), from its East-West

dimension to a North-South one [Cf. J. Markoff, 1991].

The main problem connected to such initiatives is that almost all the technologies under control have clear civilian applications: there is the risk of strangling the economic development of a country in order to prevent nuclear proliferation - as in the case of COCOM. However, solutions can be found to this problem. One solution could be, for example, to transfer certain technologies under safeguard - as I.A.E.A. for fissile material. Also, sound common sense is always useful in such cases: the intentions of a country can be understood through a series of indicators, which go from the respect of human rights to military expenditure, to the presence or not of regional hegemonic ambitions.

In 1995 the NPT will need to be renewed, or it will expire. It seems that there are all the premises for it to be not only renewed, but even reinforced; especially if that sense of urgency and watchfulness triggered by the Gulf War persists until then.

As far as chemical weapons are concerned, the positive conclusion of negotiations which have been dragging on for decades is imminent, as for START: in this case too, it seems logical to predict an acceleration after the events in the Gulf. The predominant part in the talks - formally multilateral at the Geneva Conference on Disarmament - was held by the U.S. and U.S.S.R., and it cannot be ruled out that the solution of the remaining differences in the respective positions will be announced in the coming Bush-Gorbachev summit.

The predictable agreement will be shaped in many respects on the regime of the NPT: the adhering countries renounce the development, production and stockpiling of chemical agents, at the same time accepting to submit their industrial activities in the field to the control of an international agency charged with controlling any diversion toward military uses. The improvement compared to the NPT lies in the fact that all the parts of the Convention will be considered at the same level, in the sense that all countries will renounce the acquisition of nuclear weapons, while the countries that possess them will commit themselves to destroy the existing stocks.

As you can see, it is a major progress compared to the Geneva Protocol of 1925, which bound the adhering countries to the non-use of chemical agents, but let them free to equip themselves with such agents; it should be remarked upon that Iraq had signed the Protocol.

Not unlike the nuclear Non-Proliferation regime, the Convention will absolutely not be impermeable, especially since there are quite a number of grey areas between civilian and military technologies in the chemical field. A series of additional safeguards will be needed on the part of the main exporters - individual and collective safeguards: exactly as in the case of nuclear proliferation.

Another of the spectres evoked by Saddam Hussein are biological weapons: during the war, the U.S. command at a certain point maintained it had bombed a research centre for such weapons in the outskirts of Baghdad; a centre which the Iraqis maintained was a plant for the production of powdered milk.

The best guarantee against the development for military uses of infective agents and toxins lies in the fact that it requires major and costly efforts, poses serious problems of storage and dissemination means, and has extremely dubious military effects - for example, epidemics cannot tell the difference between friends and foes, and the risk of being infected is a deterrent that should not be underestimated. To this we should add that any country that wants to equip itself with mass-extermination weapons has better alternatives on which to concentrate its energies: nuclear and chemical weapons. The latter argument, however, could be reversed if the NPT and the Convention on chemical weapons were truly efficient.

Luckily however, some steps have already been taken: a Convention on biological weapons and toxins is in force since 1975, which bans the development, production and stockpiling of such agents. 112 countries have adhered to it. Two successive revision conferences have improved the mechanisms of control, which were initially rather inefficient. The third revision conference is scheduled for this year. Among the urgent measures necessary for the reinforcement of such regime are: the extension of the number of adherents; the adoption of procedures for the control of the laboratories and facilities on the spot; an agreement for the transparence of the activities carried out in laboratories and an improved exchange of data and information among the parts.

As far as the proliferation of convention weapons is concerned, there is absolutely nothing: neither treaties, negotiations nor talks. As I mentioned at the beginning, even if there are cases of shipments that are not authorized by the authorities of the country of origin and there is a small clandestine market, the bulk of the arms exports takes place in a perfectly legal context. So legal that several countries take measures to sponsor and promote the product of their war industries abroad - a bit like vacuum cleaners in "Our man in Havana" or refrigerators and cars.

This is a patent absurdity: it doesn't take a genius to understand that, stocked in large quantities, conventional weapons can become as dangerous as those mass-extermination weapons which the international community has long since deemed appropriate to restrict or eliminate. For all those who hadn't understood this before, it is to hope that the Gulf War has opened their eyes once and for all.

Not unlike the other cases examined above, the export of conventional weapons and the transfer of the technologies necessary for their manufacture can be regulated on a unilateral basis, through the respect of the competent regional laws, or on a multilateral basis, through treaties and agreements.

All that is currently available for conventional weapons is unilateral: the norms for arms exports differ from one country to the other. Clearly, some are extremely strict and some are very loose, while several countries (France and Great Britain, for example) openly support their military products on the international "market" as much and how they want to.

Italy has just passed a new bill (July 9 1990, No. 185), which introduces, for the first time, some important principles: the arms export must "comply with the policy of security and defence"; therefore, the administration of the relative controls is the task of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and not that of Foreign Trade; it is prohibited to export toward countries at war, countries against which there is an embargo of the United Nations, countries that violate the conventions on human rights, countries that destine to their military budgets "resources exceeding defence needs". This represents a major progress compared to the past, even if the interpretation of the above limitations is necessarily entrusted to the subjective judgement of the government. Moreover, it is a bit like locking the stable-door when the horse has bolted: in the past years, the sales of Italian weapons abroad have greatly dropped and have almost stopped, both due to the financial crisis of its regular customers (the countries of t

he Third World), and to the scarce competitiveness of the "products".

As far as multilateral initiatives are concerned, there are two precedents only: a fiasco and a partial success. The fiasco is represented by an attempt made in 1977 by the Carter Administration. After having announced a unilateral restrictive policy in the field of conventional arms exports, the last democratic President started bi-lateral talks with the Soviet Union, called Conventional Arms Transfer Talks (CATT). Three sessions were held, until July 1978. The head of the U.S. delegation, Leslie Gelb (who is a journalist for the New York Times) testified in October at Congress, maintaining that the harmonization of the national criteria seemed already feasible. However, a few months later, the revolution in Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan swept away all negotiations for arms controls, including the CATT.

A partial success instead was the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), an agreement signed in April 1987 by the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Japan and Italy, aimed at halting the export of ballistic missiles with a range greater than 300 kilometres and a payload of more than 500 kilograms. It is only a partial success because: it arrived late, when several countries of the Third World (Brazil, Argentina, Israel, Egypt, Iraq, etc.) had already started ambitious missile programs; in spite of its denomination, this regime does not provide controls on the export of components of technology useful for the development of carriers; China and the Soviet Union are not part of the regime. On the other hand, other considerations must be taken into account. Owing also to financial difficulties, several programs have been slowed down or stopped altogether: it is the case of the Iraqi-Argentinian-Egyptian Condor 2 project, of the Brazilian and Indian programs. Moreover, in 1989 Spain joined the MTCR,

whereas Sweden declared to implement its measures even if not adhering formally, and the same did the Soviet Union in 1990.

Missile Technology Control Regime: an acronym which is extremely misleading. Not only because, as we said, it controls that technology very little; but also because it is not a regime. At least, it is not a regime in the sense in which the NPT or the coming Convention on chemical weapons are; the latter put all the adhering countries at the same level: exporters and importers, producers and consumers. In other words, the MTCR is a cartel of producers which, as in all cartels, have agreed not to cheat one another, and to avoid short-term individual interests to jeopardize collective interests in the long run.

The cartels always generate resentment in those that are excluded: in this case too, several developing countries have accused the North of wanting to block their attempts in the direction of a peaceful exploitation of space (in addition to military uses, ballistic missiles are used to launch satellites).

Such criticism has some grounds, and it would be a good thing if the countries adhering to the MTCR offered the poorer countries favourable conditions to launch their civilian satellites. As we all know, the diffusion of ballistic missiles is too dangerous a phenomenon (once again: the example of Saddam Hussein is eloquent), and any effort to limit it is positive.

There remains the fact that there is nothing multilateral - regime, cartel or anything else - existing today to halt the proliferation of conventional weapons. So it's time to try to promote something.

I am the draftsman of a motion presented at the Chamber by the Radical Party (first signer: Emma Bonino), which binds the government to "act in all the appropriate fora...for the creation of an international regime, or, secondarily, of a cartel of producers to stop the transfer to developing countries of major conventional weapon systems...as well as the technology and the components necessary for their manufacture" ["major weapon systems" refers to: aircraft, helicopters, warships, armoured vehicles, missiles, artillery with a calibre greater than 100mm, guidance and radar systems]. The text continues thus: "Within the sphere of such regime or cartel, and analogous to the provisions of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, there should be guarantees and incentives for the transfer of civilian technology (at the same time as the creation of safeguards to block the diversion of civilian technology to military uses) to those countries that renounce the acquisition of sophisticated conventional weapons and the

ir relative technologies, that reduce their military expenditures and make their domestic policies conform to democratic principles and the rigorous respect of human rights".

In a few days only, this document was backed by over 100 signatures, and, what's more, from members of all parliamentary groups. Among the signers there are the foreign affairs spokesmen of several parties - Margherita Boniver for the PSI, Giorgio Napolitano for the PDS - and the President of the Foreign Affairs Commission at the Chamber, Flaminio Piccoli. A similar motion was presented to the European Parliament by the Green Group.

The relative success of this initiative should be considered carefully. Firstly, because it benefited of the atmosphere created by the Gulf War, whereby everyone was forced to acknowledge the results of an indiscriminate arms export. Also, because we must see how it is received abroad, in the optimistic hypothesis that the Italian government promotes it in good faith.

But in any case, it is worth trying to verify if the idea of blocking the flow of conventional weapons from North to South is really feasible. Following are some of the possible objections to the motion, among the countless ones that are imaginable. They will be divided in those dictated by Realpolitik and objections of principle. We shall start by examining the first sort.

One of the possible objections, for example, could be that arms exports are an instrument of diplomacy, that they create allies and clients. This is no doubt true. Nonetheless, it can easily clash with other priorities, such as that of avoiding allies and clients from leading the game: by changing protector, pursuing totally autonomous goals, turning the weapons against their suppliers. There have been a number of abrupt changes of alliances in the recent past - so much as to create the expression 'buyers market', that is, an arms market dominated by buyers. Moreover, the policy of the sphere of influence seems to be experiencing a major recession: also because the Soviet Union no longer has the energies and the will to continue this challenge. The Warsaw Pact has just been dissolved, Moscow has abandoned all its former clients, including Iraq. The absence of one of the two poles greatly reduces the buyers' space of action. Unless the Soviets take great steps backward, it seems that the possibility is finall

y opening up to acquire influence regardless of arms transfers.

Another objection based on Realpolitik concerns the interests. In other words: to export weapons is a profitable economic activity. From the point of view of the single manufacturing companies, this is true. But it must be verified if this trade does not hide far more consistent external diseconomies, and how much these exports really account for in the income of the exporting countries.

Diagram 1 shows some data relative to the arms exports of thirteen countries: together they represent approximately 95 percent of all world exports. As we can see, in no case do they reach 1 percent of the total wealth annually generated in the country considered. Their incidence on the global export is also very modest, with two relevant exceptions: the United States (5 percent) and the Soviet Union (almost 20 percent). However, in the first case it should be said that many of the transfers target not developing countries, but rather countries of the OCSE area. For its part, the Soviet Union is penalized by its closed attitude to commercial exchanges with foreign countries and its scarce competitiveness: in addition to weapons, this country almost exclusively exports energy and raw materials. The evidence of this lies in the fact that the incidence of the arms export on the domestic product is only marginally superior to the other countries analysed in the diagram.

Clearly, these data do not take account of the financing means. Several indicators point to the fact that arms imports have a particular propensity toward the creation of debts. In 1989, the President of the World Bank, Conable, estimated that a full one-third of the debt of some major Third World countries could be attributed to arms imports [Sipri, 1990, p.210]. Some thirty percent of the U.S. arms exports to Egypt and Israel is subsidized by the American taxpayer [Sipri, 1990, p.223], mainly through credits that are periodically forgiven: the last case concerns $7 billion to Egypt, canceled following the embargo to Iraq in Autumn 1990. In September 1989, France had accepted to reduce the Iraqi debt, amounting to $3.7 billion, half of which to be attributed to arms transfers. Predictably enough, France will never see that money again. For its part, the Soviet Union is a net creditor on paper: if only it could recover non-repayable credits; credits that can be attributed for the most part to arms exports to

Africa and Latin America. As for Italy, not only will we have to keep the fleet (four frigates, six corvettes, one tender) commissioned by Iraq in 1980, but it remains a mystery how we will recover the L.3500 billion granted to Iraq by the Atlanta branch of the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, they too destined for the purchase of weapons.

Even without considering all these implicit benefits, there remains the fact that the arms trade represents a negligible share - a few decimal percentage points - of the gross national product of the countries that produce them. This situation is completely reversed if we look at it from the importers' point of view: the military expenditure of countries such as Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya and Israel has never dropped, in the past ten years, below 10 percent of their respective GNPs, with peaks of almost 30 percent. In other words, for the industrialized countries these traffics are an economic trifle, whereas for the importing countries they are a tragedy, in that they subtract resources from the satisfaction of primary needs and the development of the same countries.

Criticism on the grounds of principle raise completely different matters. A regime, and even more a cartel, would engender a situation of inequality: on the one side the North, free to produce conventional weapons and to trade them within the North; on the other side the South, which is denied access to advanced technologies and even the right to its own security.

It should immediately be said that the South of the world is not an indiscriminate body, but a mosaic of State-nations, ruled by governments that do not always base their choices on pure considerations of security and defence. There are hegemonic policies in the South too, often implemented by authoritarian and dictatorial regimes. It is difficult to understand why such policies should be backed offering them the best of world military technology. Likewise, the single States are free to discriminate among the potential recipients of their arms production, and so can groups of States. The cartel is a necessary step to tackle the supply, to avoid the producers from being crushed by the pattern according to which "even if I don't export, my neighbour will".

Clearly, other measures are needed to act on the demand side. First of all, it is necessary to find political measures capable of removing the causes for local conflicts. In this sense, it is necessary to activate regional conferences shaped on the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe, capable, in other words, of solving the problems of security, disarmament and cooperation among the States, and of democracy and human rights in the domestic policies of the States.

In addition to this, the North can offer a system of incentives: economic aid and transfers of civilian technology (with a series of safeguards) to countries with a lower military profile and a higher profile in domestic policy. The question is to extend the aspects of conditionality of the aid from the economic to the political sphere. Negative safeguards of security (non-use of weapons against the countries that renounce their acquisition) and positive safeguards (protection to the countries without weapons against attacks or threats of attacks from those who possess them) could be envisaged.

Lastly, the question of inequality. The pattern above illustrated would no doubt engender a division of the world between "conventional powers" and non-military or almost non-military States. But apart from the fact that such division already exists, the important thing is to accept it only on a transitory basis. The example to follow is precisely that of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, whereby 138 non-nuclear countries coexist with three countries that are granted a different status, that of nuclear powers. The basis for such cohabitation is that the division be transitory: the above mentioned Art. VI requests the nuclear powers to act in such a way as to favour disarmament.

Therefore, we can say that a sort of Art. VI is already in force in the conventional field: we need only think of the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe, signed in Paris on 19 November 1990. In conclusion, the dismantlement of the huge military facilities of NATO and Warsaw Pact - the true engine of the arms race in this post-war period - has begun.

The question now is to continue and extend this process to the rest of the planet.

Bibliography

- M. Dassù, "Le armi di Saddam", Politica ed Economia, December 1990.

- M. De Andreis, "Le esportazioni italiane di armi all'Iraq e all'Iran", CESPI Note & Ricerche No.18, March 1988.

- J. Markoff, "U.S. seeks Restrictions on Third World Arms", International Herald Tribune, 22 January 1991.

- SIPRI Yearbook 1990, World Armaments and Disarmament, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1990.

- K.R. Timmerman, "The Poison Gas Connection", report commissioned by the Simon Wiesenthal Center to the Middle East defence News, Los Angeles and Paris 1990.

***

Value of the arms exports of 13 industrialized countries. Year 1987 (1986 in brackets). Expressed in millions of dollars.

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export export export

arms arms as % arms as % of

the total of the GNP

export

Major Producers

The term refers to countries capable of producing most of the major weapon systems (aircraft, helicopters, warships, armoured vehicles, missiles, artillery with a calibre greater than 100mm, guidance and radar systems) without the assistance of foreign countries (production on licence, import of key-components, etc).

U.S. 12600 5,0 0,3

(9100) (4,2) (0,2)

U.S.S.R. 21200 19,7 0,9

(19100) (19,7) (0,8)

France 2600 1,8 0,3

(4000) (3,2) (0,5)

Great Britain 2100 1,6 0,3

(1400) (1,3) (0,2)

Federal Rep. of Germany 1800 0,6 0,1

(625) (0,3) (-)

China 1000 2,5 0,2

(1200) (3,8) (0,3)

Average producers

This term refers to those countries that, while producing major weapon systems, depend greatly on foreign countries (production on licence, imports of key-components, etc).

Italy 210 0,2 -

(550) (0,6) (-)

Canada 120 0,1 -

(130) (0,1) (-)

Japan 80 - -

(130) (0,1) (-)

Sweden 160 0,4 0,1

(290) (0,8) (0,2)

Switzerland 180 0,4 0,1

(190) (0,5) (0,1)

Spain 100 0,3 -

(140) (0,5) (-)

The Netherlands 180 0,2 -

(20) (-) (-)

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NOTICE: The character "-" indicates a value below 0,1. The 13 countries listed generate 95% circa of the world arms exports. Approximately two thirds of the latter are directed to developing countries and one third to industrialized countries.

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SOURCE: Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers 1988 (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1989).