TUESDAY 4 APRIL 2000

PROFESSOR PAUL ROGERS, PROFESSOR ROBERT O'NEILL AND PROFESSOR JOHN BAYLIS

  1. May I warmly welcome you to the Committee, Professor Paul Rogers, Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, Professor John Baylis, Dean of Social Sciences at the University of Wales in Aberystwyth, and Professor Robert O'Neill, All Souls College at Oxford. Gentlemen, you know the Committee is pursuing its inquiry into weapons of mass destruction. We have already visited Geneva to the Disarmament Conference. Two weeks ago we went to New York at the New York end of the Disarmament Conference, and we also visited Washington and met both State Department, CIA and several US experts. One impression that we left the United States with was that there is a danger of the United States in the current context moving away from international agreements and multilateral treaties towards a new unilateralism. Is this a tendency which you have noted yourselves? Is it a real danger and, if so, what if anything can the UK Government do to counter this tendency towards unilateralism on the part of the United States?
  (Professor Rogers) Within the broad political community in the United States one particular view has rather tended to come to the fore over the last five or six years. One would probably date the start of it to the Republicans gaining control on the Hill in 1994 but it has been progressive since then. It is a major view within the United Stated political circles; it is not the dominant one. I think it can be expressed in general terms in the phrase "aggressive isolationism" in the sense that the United States does see itself very much as the world's super power with many interests to protect. At the same time it has a concern that there are new potential threats to its security viewed in broad terms. It was put very well by James Wolsey, the CIA Director of seven or eight years ago, when he used the phrase, "We have slain the dragon"—the old Soviet threat—"but we now live in a jungle inhabited by poisonous snakes." Essentially there are a range of threats which are seen to the United States. These political circles are seeing a much greater premium on providing what they consider to be adequate defences. In that context they are concerned with the fact that arms control agreements can limit them.

  2. And are therefore more ready, if not to tear them up, at least to modify various agreements in what they perceive to be their interests?
  (Professor Rogers) Or indeed refuse to ratify them, as in the case of the CTBT. That was really quite a seminal event.

  3. Let me put to each of our distinguished witnesses, what do you think the British Government can do in response to this tendency.
  (Professor Rogers) There is one other feature which is going to come to a head very quickly and that is the probable decision to go for National Missile Defence in the United States and the inevitable involvement of Britain in such a process.

  4. We would like to come on to that and explore it with you. What should the UK do in response to this tendency?
  (Professor Rogers) Use every endeavour to persuade the United States that the arms control route is a much safer route in the long term and that if we go down the route to individual action then this is the worst possible signal to a range of other states around the world.
  (Professor Baylis) I agree with the diagnosis we have just had.

  5. And the prescription?
  (Professor Baylis) The prescription I would tend to agree with. There is a dilemma I think that we have, and that is that clearly we are highly dependent upon the United States in terms of support for our own nuclear programme, and we appear to have and should have some reservations about the NMD programme. It seems to me that we should be applying pressure to the United States. I think they are going to go ahead with the programme, almost certainly. We should be applying pressure to them to fulfil the demarcation agreements. It seems to me that there may well be a balance here between a limited NMD programme given that the United States is going ahead anyway with that programme, and some European countries are already supporting some of the research. It seems to me that we can apply influence to the United States so that they deploy only a limited NMD system in the longer term while preserving strategic stability.

  6. I would like to focus more specifically on that later.
  (Professor Baylis) On the general proposition we should be applying pressure as Professor Roger says for ratification of the CTBT, for greater support for the safeguards protocols, the IAEA, and also to try and seek support for a Start III arrangement in the United States. I would like to see across the board support for strengthening the norms of the institutions of the arms control agenda.

  7. What is limited NMD? Can I just clarify that?
  (Professor Baylis) The limited NMD programme, although it can be defined in different ways, is designed to provide theatre protection which would provide protection against small numbers of incoming missiles and would not be destabilising in terms of the relationship between the United States and Russia but could be destabilising in terms of the American/Chinese relationship.

  8. What leverage do we have in seeking to persuade the US?
  (Professor Baylis) We should try to persuade them that the ABM Treaty is a cornerstone treaty in terms of strategic stability. It is in the interests of the United States as well as in the interests of Britain to maintain strategic stability and not to create a situation in which the whole fabric of arms control begins to unravel. NMD potentially could be so serious as to unravel the whole basis of strategic arms control. It is a very important debate at the present time. If the Chinese move away from it, it will encourage the non-nuclear states to look again at the Non-Proliferation Treaty. There are all sorts of issues raised by what the United States plans to do within the NMD and we should be trying to apply pressure to the United States on this.

  9. Leaving aside limited NMD for the moment, on the general proposition in respect of the tendency in the US and leverage do we have and what can the UK Government be advised to do, Professor O'Neill?
  (Professor O'Neill) There is no doubt that the United States feels embattled now that it is the sole super power in the world. It is acutely aware that there is a lot of anti-American feeling amongst radical groups in the international community and this feeling has been communicated to voters at large, and therefore people are willing to pay for national missile defence. I do not think one can do much about that but in terms of where Britain stands on this issue, I think there are—

  10. I am not specifically on NMD at the moment but rather on adherence to multilateral obligations, international treaties, leaving aside ABM and CTBT.
  (Professor O'Neill) There is no doubt that the United States pays a lot of attention to what Britain says. It is not going to do something just because Britain says it. Britain is America's leading ally and I would think what the Government says to the Clinton administration will be carefully weighed and therefore it should not pull punches. Second, I think a body like this Committee has a very important role to play in communicating a fuller understanding of the debate in Britain on this issue into the American political debate. At least in the United States we do have a wide open and very vigorously joined debate between people who support unilateralism and people who support multilateralism. I think the output that comes from this country from academia and from expert groups like this really does carry more weight than a lot of people realise.

  11. I would like to ask Professor O'Neill and Professor Paul Rogers: it is the case, is it not, that NMD will actually lead to destabilisation?
  (Professor O'Neill) I certainly do not favour it. What it will do will be to completely scupper any prospect of a long term reduction in nuclear weapons between the United States and Russia and that is going to impede the whole arms control process, and while we have relatively large numbers of nuclear weapons in the arsenals of those two powers and the Chinese increasing theirs, the scene is set for continuing proliferation, so it has a bad effect in that way as well and the more weapons proliferate the harder it is ever going to be to get effective disarmament under way.

  12. So it will prompt a further arms race?
  (Professor O'Neill) I believe so.
  (Professor Rogers) I would certainly agree. Much of this is a problem of perception. The United States view is that a limited national missile defence programme will provide some kind of protection against what are called rogue states against limited nuclear strikes. Frankly, in Moscow and Beijing they do not believe a word of it. They see a limited NMD as the start of a much bigger programme, and when you look at the details already coming up from the Ballistic Missile Defence Offices it is clear that there are a number of stages and one would end up with an NMD system which is really quite comprehensive. From the Chinese perception in particular they really are now at the point where they could choose to increase their strategic missile forces 10-fold, up to about 200 from the current 20 or so. They do not want to do so but they are not going to see a situation in which the United States has a fairly large-scale missile defence programme, a huge range of offensive missiles, and China is left with something really quite limited, so you get a direct stimulation.

  13. I heard Professor John Baylis talking about the concept of limited NMD but I have to say a limited NMD, a limited star wars, does not sound to me like a stable position.
  (Professor Baylis) The demarcation agreements attempt to define a limited NMD programme. The problem, as Professor Rogers has just said, is a question of perceptions. If it is perceived as being the thin end of the wedge, which I think it certainly is in Beijing, then states will then respond accordingly. The interesting question is how the Russians would view it. There is a possibility that the Americans and the Russians can come to some agreement over that and I think will attempt to come to agreement to amend the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. The question however is how other states then perceive it. As Professor Rogers says, if you look at the proposals for the NMD possible deployments, they do look quite comprehensive, both lower tier and high tier defence systems. When states with the lead times involved become involved in trying to provide counters to that system, then the consequences in terms of the arms race become quite serious.

  14. The Prime Minister was quoted at the weekend—I do not know if any of you saw it—as saying that Britain might get involved in NMD in some preliminary research. I would be interested in your comments on how you interpret what the Prime Minister was saying.
  (Professor Baylis) This is the work which is being done in Britain on the threat and risk assessment programme which is being undertaken by DERA. We are looking at the threat and we are looking at possible options. There has been a suggestion as I understand it that we might be involved—this was the rumour in The Sunday Times I think anyway—in providing some support through some sort of base for interceptors.

  15. At Fylingdales.
  (Professor Baylis) Fylingdales in terms of early warning, but there was also a suggestion that there might be some sort of base for interceptors as well hinted at in that article in The Sunday Times. I think that is extending what the Prime Minister is probably thinking about but my own interpretation is that there was some quite considerable hostility towards the whole idea of NMD as there was with SDI. Of course, as you remember, with SDI Sir Geoffrey Howe spoke out publicly and Mrs Thatcher was also concerned because of the implications for strategic deterrence. There is now a view increasingly that we probably cannot do anything about NMD. The Americans are now set on a course. The question then is, how should we try to influence the United States? Can we influence them more effectively by standing outside criticising or should we try to get on the inside and then in a sense try to limit the process as much as we can from the inside?

  16. But your colleagues indicated earlier that the process will have a momentum of its own.
  (Professor Baylis) Yes, I think it will have a momentum of its own. As Professor O'Neill has just said, the amount of influence that Britain can exert is limited. It would appear—I am not necessarily putting this forward as my point of view—that the Government is concerned to try and influence the process from the inside. The Germans are involved, the Italians are involved, the Dutch Government is involved, Spain is involved. The French are beginning to think about some sort of system themselves. The question is, should Britain be left out of this process or can it influence the process from the inside? That seems to me to be the reasoning.

  17. Is that a judgment that you favour?
  (Professor Baylis) I am not in favour of an NMD system because I think there are all sorts of destabilising consequences but, given that this has a momentum of its own, that it is going ahead, it seems to me to be better to try and influence the process from the inside rather than from the outside.
  (Professor Rogers) One of the real problems for Britain though is that the NMD programme cannot actually go ahead without direct British support because there are two centres in Britain that are integral to NMD. One is the ground receiving station now being built at Menwith Hill near Harrogate, which was a receiving station for the new early warning satellite systems that give warning of missile launches, the space based infra-red system, and that is located at Menwith Hill; the ground station is now being built. For technical reasons the United States needs ground stations in Europe and in Australasia and Britain is the site of the ground station in Europe. The second one is Fylingdales where you have the upgrading of the radar system there which will be required with the installation of an X-band radar system to provide tracking of missiles actually in transit. Without those two systems NMD would not be impossible but it would be massively limited.

  18. So contrary to what Professor Baylis said, we can stop it?
  (Professor Rogers) We could be a very considerable fly in the ointment; put it that way.

  19. Do you think there is the political will to do that?
  (Professor Rogers) No.
  (Professor O'Neill) I agree with Professor Rogers on this. I think Britain is in a powerful position but from what I have seen of the Government's policy statements, it is not minded to take a stand in the direction that we would favour.