The Russo-American draft of the proposed non-proliferation treaty is highly discriminatory and it is intended to be so. There is no other way of achieving the essential purpose of the two powers which is to establish a Russo-American duopoly in the nuclear field.
This objective is sought to be achieved in two ways. First, non-nuclear weapon powers are to be prohibited from joining the club. Secondly, small nuclear weapon powers like China, France and Britain are to be priced out of the race through continuous improvements in delivery and defence systems. That is why the draft treaty sanctions vertical proliferation while it prohibits tests for even peaceful purposes by have-not nations.
Advantage
The desire to establish a duopoly has never been absent in the calculations of the two superpowers throughout the prolonged negotiations which first produced the partial tests ban treaty in 1963 and have now culminated in the non-proliferation draft treaty. The right to conduct underground tests was retained under the Moscow treaty in 1963 not only because an agreement could not be worked out on the question of on-the-site inspections but also because the two nuclear giants needed more of such tests for the development of the anti-missile missile system and the improvement of existing weapons and delivery systems. Whether by design or accident even the disagreements between them have worked to their mutual advantage.
It is significant that even at the height of the cold war neither the United States nor the Soviet Union ever agreed to hand over control on nuclear weapons to their most trusted allies. The United States made an exception in the case of Britain in that Washington provided London with a certain amount of technical know-how and Polaris missiles. But this has been done in continuation of the close collaboration that existed between the two countries in the nuclear field during World War II when the British contribution to the manufacture of the atom bomb was clearly decisive.
It has been a different story in the case of France. The United States has been reluctant to sell to France sophisticated computers and tankers that are required to refuel Mirages in the air because these would contribute to the development of a force de frappe. The Soviet Union has chosen to wreck its alliance with China rather than assist it in its programme for the manufacture of nuclear weapons. Thus the desire of the two superpowers to preserve their near monopoly of nuclear weapons is not a new development. Only it has now found a different expression in the non-proliferation draft treaty. Whether this policy has contributed to the cause of peace is a different question.
Britain and France do not threaten the Russo-American nuclear duopoly. Apart from lack of resources the two European countries lack the impetus to go in for truly effective nuclear forces. Unlike China they are neither aggrieved nor desirous of building empires. They have instead liquidated their empires. But the proposed treaty is significant for them also because it rules out the possibility of their pooling their nuclear resources at some future date to provide the nucleus for an independent West European deterrent. This knocks out the very concept of Western Europe emerging as a third power centre in course of time.
This leaves China as the only country which may challenge the Russo-American duopoly. Whether Peking will in fact be able to do so in the foreseeable future is doubtful in view of the staggering advances which the two superpowers continue to make. But even if China does succeed in making good its claim to be a super-power, this need not threaten the stability of the international system which the United States and the Soviet Union are trying to establish.
Adjustment
The calculation in Washington and Moscow is that China will have become a “sober and responsible” power in the process of building up its nuclear deterrent and that the disappearance of Mao Tse-tung from the political scene in the next few years will enable the more conservative elements to assert themselves. In any case from the Russo-American viewpoint it will be far easier to accommodate China’s ambitions in Asia if there is no other local nuclear power to challenge its claims. In the case of the United States the process of adjustment with China can be expected to begin in right earnest once the war in Viet Nam is terminated and in the case of the Soviet Union Mao Tse-tung represents the principal if not the only obstacle to a rapprochement.
The Russo-American search for duopoly is not limited to the nuclear field alone. The two countries possess a near monopoly of sophisticated conventional weapons which they dole out to others only in furtherance of their own national interests.
The impression survives that the area of agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union is limited primarily to the avoidance of a direct military confrontation. This has not been the case for some years. Washington and Moscow worked closely together to end the Indo-Pakistan war in 1965. They did so in the case of the Arab-Israeli war last June though the fact of great power co-operation was hidden from public view because of their intense rivalries. It is also commonly assumed that Washington and Moscow would have long ago negotiated a settlement of the Viet Nam conflict if the Chinese did not have the kind of whip hand they have on account of geographical proximity and if the North Vietnamese were not impervious to external influence as they have been in recent years.
Key Role
It is in this context of extensive co-operation that the Russo-American joint guarantee to non-nuclear weapon countries should be viewed. The guarantee has been phrased to conform to the UN Charter which assigns a key role to the Security Council for dealing with threats to security. But there can be no question that what is being proclaimed is a return to the principle of super-power unanimity for dealing with issues of peace and war.
Both Washington and Moscow are impatient with those who have the temerity to suggest that the threat of nuclear blackmail can arise from one of them and not necessarily from China alone and that they may fall out again. The answer invariably is that they have learnt from past mistakes and can therefore be depended upon to work together in the cause of peace. This may not be convincing but it does indicate that something in the nature of Pax Sovietica Americana is sought to be established.
It should also be noted that the United States and the Soviet Union are now showing far greater respect to the concept of “legitimate spheres of influence” than before. The Soviet Union, for instance, actively discourages Castro from stoking up trouble in Latin America. The United States, on its part, has not tried to encourage the Czechs to defy Moscow and opt out of the Warsaw pact as it did in the case of Hungary in 1956.
This co-operation and mutual restraint have been made possible by the decline in the importance of the ideological factor in the Russo-American competition. By its very nature, an ideological struggle tends to be total even though the contenders cannot ignore mundane factors like national interests and the limitations of physical power.
The movement away from ideology has been dramatic in the case of the Soviet Union. It has taken the form of de-Stalinisation, economic reform and greater personal freedom at home, a break with China and Albania, a weakening of the ties with Rumania and other communist parties, and the abandonment of the claim to the leadership of the international movement abroad. Moscow has from time to time tried to justify its support to non-communist and even anti-communist regimes at the cost of local communist parties in “ideological” terms. But of late it appears to have recognised the futility of this exercise.
The shift away from ideology has been less dramatic but not less painful in the case of the United States. Americans still talk in terms of “loss of China”, “saving the people of South Viet Nam” and so on. But this is a hangover of the past. The dominant trend in the United States is against engaging in an anti-communist ideological crusade. Viet Nam has driven home the lesson that the cost can be unacceptable.
This is not to suggest that Russia and America will carve up the world, that they will cease to compete and that ideology will not play any role at all in their competition. The United States and the Soviet Union cannot cease to compete against each other either for influence or military superiority by virtue of being global powers.
Global powers cannot be content with regional hegemony. The world cannot be divided into American and Russian spheres of influence for the additional reason that the centres of the would-be universal empires are beset with grave troubles at home and in the alliances they lead. Witness Czechoslovakia and Rumania on the one hand and France, the negro revolt, the run on the dollar and Viet Nam on the other. There are also old hatreds like that of the Arabs for Israel which cannot easily be kept in check by the great powers. But there can be no question that Washington and Moscow will do their best to tame them.
It may be somewhat of an oversimplification to say that the non-proliferation treaty marks the end of the ideological cold war and the beginning of a new era in which the two super-powers will tend to operate as great empires have always done. But the trend in that direction is unmistakable.
The Times of India, 8 May 1968