Disarmament Diplomacy

Opinion & Analysis

Managing Missiles: Blind Spot Or Blind Alley?

By W. Pal S. Sidhu and Christophe Carle

Introduction: Three Main Initiatives

Over the last few years, missile controls have become a subject for broader and more sustained discussion than at any time in the past. This is remarkable in an international context scarcely conducive to arms control and disarmament breakthroughs. But the results remain tentative and fragmentary. Three main political-diplomatic initiatives have recently tried to grapple with the issue of missiles, with varying degrees of success. They are the Hague Code of Conduct Against Ballistic Missile Proliferation (HCoC), the Global Control System for the Non-Proliferation of Missiles and Missile Technologies (GCS) proposed by the Russian Federation, and the United Nations Panel of Governmental Experts (UNPGE) on missiles, set up in accordance with UN General Assembly resolution 55/33A of November 20, 2000.

The GCS proposal contains several main elements: a multilateral transparency regime on missile launches (possibly based on the Russian-American Centre for the Exchange of Data from Early Warning Systems and Notification of Missile Launches in Moscow); security assurances, guarantees or other measures to ameliorate the security of states which renounce ballistic missile programmes; measures to promote access to space launch services to countries not possessing such capacities domestically; and multilateral consultations with the aim of negotiating a legally binding agreement on missile non-proliferation. The Russian Federation also proposes placing GCS activities under the auspices of the United Nations.

The initiative was discussed at two international meetings in Moscow in March 2000 and February 2001. Although 71 states, notably including North Korea, took part in the 2001 meeting, the GCS appears to have been shelved for now, and no follow-up has taken place or been announced.¹

The Hague Code of Conduct, hitherto known as the International Code of Conduct (ICoC), was conceived by the membership of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR)² following its 1999 plenary meeting in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. The plenary noted that, because various weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and missile programmes had become increasingly indigenous, measures were needed in addition to the MTCR's export controls, such as "confidence and security building measures in the field of responsible missile behaviour."³

Subsequent MTCR plenaries in Helsinki (2000) and Ottawa (2001) took the process further, both within and outside the ranks of the regime, and a draft code of conduct was distributed to non-MTCR states. Members of the European Union (EU) took the lead in promoting the draft, convening international meetings in Paris in February 2002 and Madrid in June of the same year. Following the Warsaw MTCR plenary in October 2002, the finalised code was launched in The Hague on 25-26 November.⁴

By July 2003, the HCoC had 106 subscribing states. Its main provisions concern transparency measures. These include the provision of information by states on their policies regarding ballistic missiles and space launch vehicles (SLVs), as well as the reporting and pre-notification of launches of ballistic missiles and SLVs alike. The Netherlands chairs the HCoC, while Austria serves as its Immediate Central Contact (ICC) with responsibility for collecting and disseminating subscribing states' submissions on confidence-building measures (CBMs), as well as receiving and announcing further subscriptions to the Code. Austria hosted the first HCoC intersessional meeting on 23-25 June 2003, dealing with the implementation of transparency measures.⁵

Rather more modestly, the UNPGE was not a forum for negotiating any international instrument, but rather for discussing existing concerns and potential remedies. In practice, however, the discussion of the text of the Panel's report could scarcely be described as anything but a negotiation. The UNPGE marked the first effort within the UN to address the specific issue of missiles, albeit "in all its aspects". Three meetings were held in 2001 and 2002 at UN headquarters in New York.

Though numerically the smallest of the three initiatives, the UNPGE was also the most deliberately balanced in its membership. Its 23 participants included governmental experts from 12 MTCR members and from 11 non-MTCR states, drawn from diverse regions and providing a representative cross-section of the current missile-club of countries possessing or capable of producing missiles of global or regional strategic significance. In its report, however - such proving the price for the required consensual adoption of the text - the UNPGE could not even agree on the exact nature of the problem, let alone recommend any particular course of action. Soon after the adoption of the report⁶ by the General Assembly in September 2002, a further resolution calling for the convening of a second Panel to examine the issue of missiles in (once again) all its aspects was passed by the Assembly in November 2002.⁷

Too Many Cooks? Tensions and Mutual Suspicions Between the Initiatives

The overlaps in their respective participants' lists tends to conceal the fact that, whether overtly or not, relations among the various missile-related initiatives have been fraught with a number of misgivings. Proponents of each have tended to be viewed by advocates of the others as competitors, if not adversaries, rather than as partners.

As the HCoC's sponsors were acutely aware, the initiative of a code of conduct was considered with suspicion by those who saw it as an offshoot of the MTCR. A Code conceived and sponsored by the membership of the MTCR, it was felt, could only bear the hallmark of selective membership and discriminatory non-proliferation through export controls.

The GCS was also considered with some distrust, partly because of its possible utility as a 'Trojan horse' to be deployed in Moscow's then-vehement campaign against the United States' plans for national missile defence. Later on, after the US withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, the GCS came to be viewed by some as a distracting impediment to prospects for a Code of Conduct.

As for the UNPGE, the misgivings it inspired were several. One was its origin in an Iranian-sponsored UN General Assembly resolution, at the very time when Iran's vigorous missile development programmes formed one of the motives for the Bush administration's inclusion of Tehran in the "axis of evil". Combined with the all-encompassing vagueness of the mandate entrusted to the Panel to consider "the issue of missiles in all its aspects", this prompted suspicions that the exercise was meant, ironically enough, as a smokescreen to obscure missile proliferation activities.

Divisions on the voting of the resolution (see endnote 7) were reflected in the membership of the Panel, which included experts from countries that had abstained in the vote. A further reason for distrust was the very nature of the Panel as a UN body, prompting forebodings that the outcome would be either a multilateral mish-mash, or (much as in the case of the GCS) an obstacle to states' own plans for missile defence as well as to prospects for the then-draft Code of Conduct.

Beyond the Turf Wars: Common Ground and Shared Objectives

Such pre-emptive turf battles, subdued though they may have appeared in public, were nonetheless clearly apparent in the discussions in and around various multilateral fora whether in Geneva or New York, and even more so in the course of their ever-crucial coffee breaks. To some extent, however, the worst was avoided. In rough waters for arms control, it would have been all-too easy for three missile-related initiatives of questionable buoyancy to all sink without much trace if too much of their limited energies had been spent fighting one another off rather than on staying afloat. In particular, intemperate obstructionism in the UNPGE could easily have sparked off retribution in the ICOC discussions, and of course, vice versa.

As it turns out, the ICoC/HCoC has begun to collect a significant number of subscribers, the UNPGE did (despite widespread pessimistic expectations) produce a consensus report, and the GCS, though not active at the moment, may yet be a venue for future activities.

The mutual opposition was largely futile, if only because all three initiatives shared the characteristic of being strictly voluntary. No state, however weak or strong, was in any danger of finding itself roped into commitments not freely consented to. The concerns elicited in some quarters by the UNPGE were the most misplaced, and needlessly alarmist, since the Panel - as is traditionally the case with such groups of experts - was never designed nor mandated to negotiate anything, but merely to hold discussions and produce a report. Likewise, any state's decision to subscribe to the HCoC is entirely its own, and the GCS in its present exploratory form does not put forward any specific commitments for states to adhere to.

Such rivalries appear all the more incongruous given that all three initiatives include language which, one way or another, disclaims any vocation to exclusivity and actually welcomes the prospect of other complementary efforts - whether regional or thematic - seeking to highlight and address security, arms control and non-proliferation issues relevant to missiles. Moreover, despite the difference of approaches evident in the above three initiatives, some important common traits are discernable:

A deliberate focus on missiles themselves. Missiles, their launchers or other components, have been addressed by a number of previous arms control arrangements. The 1987 US-USSR Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, to name but the most obvious example, abolished an entire class of nuclear delivery vehicles. But the underlying purpose of such past and existing agreements was the control of nuclear weapons and other WMD. Missiles were only a means to that end. Concurrently with INF, missiles were also addressed in a specific manner by the MTCR, although its original intent was clearly nuclear-related.

A multilateral character and a stated vocation to universality (or, in the case of the UNPGE, universal implications, at least through the UN General Assembly). This common characteristic stands in sharp and deliberate contrast to the MTCR's selective plurilateralism. With few exceptions, such as the reference in the Preamble to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) on delivery vehicles⁸, previous arrangements with a partial or incidental relevance to missiles were essentially of a bilateral US-Soviet/Russian variety.

Another form of convergence is omission. The scope of the missile issue is potentially immense, covering as it might every conceivable category of missiles from shoulder-fired Man-Portable Air-Defence Systems (MANPADS) to MIRVed ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles armed with multiple, independently-targetable re-entry vehicles), by way of cruise and ballistic variants, whether delivering conventional explosives or WMD warheads, of the ground, air, sea or submarine-launched varieties, and missiles of a purportedly offensive or defensive anti-missile nature.

The wording of its mandate to address the "issue of missiles in all its aspects" compelled the UNPGE to confront this bewildering mix head-on. As a predictable result, the Panel's report includes no statement of its interpretation of the scope of its own work. Thus, one of the most thornily instructive issues discussed by the Panel has remained unreflected in its formal written output - certainly an unsatisfactory outcome, however inevitable diplomatically, from the standpoint of the wider political and public debate.

The HCoC - as its full title, the "International Code of Conduct against Ballistic Missile Proliferation", indicates - sidesteps the question of scope by giving exclusive consideration to "ballistic missile systems capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction". As discussions in the UNPGE and elsewhere have clearly shown, however, there exists a fundamental divergence in the threat assessments of various governments. At the risk of oversimplification, one group of states takes the proliferation of ballistic missiles equipped with WMD warheads to be the single most dangerous security challenge related to missiles. Others take the view that the key threat is the possession and use of accurate long-range missiles (especially cruise missiles) armed with conventional ordnance.

Neither view, of course, precludes the other. Various Middle Eastern and Gulf states, for instance, while tending to emphasise the perception of a threat from cruise missiles, are not at all impervious to WMD-armed ballistic missiles, notably those possessed by Israel. The concerns about cruise missiles expressed by some states are clearly a reaction to the actual use (rather than potential threat) of such missiles in large quantities and with telling coercive effect - a phenomenon recurring with increasingly frequency since the early 1990s.

The fact that the United States is, for the time being, the main possessor and user of cruise missiles, lends the debate a distinctly political character. On the other hand, among the originators and most ardent supporters of the Code, there is a very categorical disinclination to dilute the primacy of the ballistic-WMD threat with any consideration of cruise missiles. This may seem curious when it is recalled that such states are also stalwart members of the MTCR, and that one of the MTCR's main developments since 1993 has been its broadening to cover cruise missiles in addition to ballistic ones. Cruise missiles are deemed an appropriate subject for export controls under the MTCR, but not, one surmises, for international norm-building, national restraint in their development, testing and deployment, or transparency measures such as reporting and pre-notification.

Another issue scrupulously avoided by the Code is the consideration of the range (or other distinguishing technical characteristics) of the ballistic missiles to be addressed. Preliminary Paragraph 3 refers to the "ongoing proliferation of Ballistic Missile systems capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction". The emphasis on WMD in the Code was such that the distinctive traits of attempting to deal specifically with delivery vehicles, rather than their ordnance, seemed to have escaped some commentators. A CNN dispatch of February 7, 2002, for example, referred to the Paris ICoC meeting under the headline "Nuclear Code Promoted in Paris".

Given that ballistic missiles are not weapons of choice for delivering chemical or biological weapons, the HCoC is presumably based on a selection criterion akin to the MTCR's range/payload trade-off, reckoned to be typical of a ballistic missile capable of delivering a first-generation (fission) nuclear weapon. But nowhere in the Code is this explicit. It is therefore rather uncertain to which classes of ballistic missiles the Code should be taken to apply. One consequence is ambiguity as to the applicability of transparency measures to be implemented. If they are to apply, say, to SS-21 ballistic missiles, would they also hold for multiple-launch rocket systems (MLRS) of equivalent ranges (100-150 kilometres)?

In addition, with their particular focus on strategic missiles - both conventional and non-conventional - the three initiative have not recognised, let alone addressed, the special challenge posed by very short-range, man-portable missiles in the hands of non-state actors at the sub-conventional level. There is, indeed, a strong case to be made for controls on MANPADS and similar systems to be dealt with separately, perhaps with specially-adapted tracing and marking mechanisms, and provisions prohibiting transfers to non-state actors, akin to those currently envisaged in the context of small arms and light weapons.⁹

All three initiatives take stock of the intrinsic dual-use connection between ballistic missiles and (expendable) SLVs. The GCS proposals are the most ambitious in this regard, including not only pre-notification measures, but also assistance with space launch services and other incentives for states with no capabilities of their own for launching space objects. The notion of positive incentives, present in earlier versions of the draft Code, vanished from the HCoC. But the merit of the reporting and pre-notification measures contained in the HCoC is not just that they cover both ballistic missiles and SLVs, but that they actually do stand a chance of being implemented, at least by those states that have adhered.

While explicitly stating that missiles (implicitly those in the hands of 'others') are a cause of concern, all three initiatives tacitly legitimise the possession of missiles, even WMD-capable missiles, at least in the hands of the select subset of states which already possess them. For instance, the Code provides for signatories to "make an annual declaration providing an outline of their Ballistic Missile policies" and provide "relevant information on Ballistic Missile systems", thereby providing acknowledgement and at least some measure of endorsement, in the name of greater transparency, of the possession of such missiles. Similarly, the UN Panel report explicitly lists the factors "behind the development, acquisition and use of missiles" and merely notes that "at present no universally accepted norms or instruments to deal with missile-related concerns...exist". The net result is that a cynic might well advise an aspiring missile proliferator to act upon the factors laid out by the UNPGE report, proceed to develop or otherwise acquire ballistic missiles, and subscribe to the HCoC, since it is so helpfully "open to all states" and does not explicitly require its subscribing states, for example, to be party to the NPT.

In a related 'grey' area, implementation of the HCoC's transparency and confidence-building measures "does not", the Code stipulates, "serve as justification for the programmes to which these...measures apply." States located, say, in the neighbourhood of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) might well be somewhat uneasy with the validity or unintended consequences of that clause - unless, of course, rather than providing any element of "justification" for missile programmes, implementation of the HCoC's CBMs can serve counter-proliferation purposes.

As a corollary, all three initiatives avoid the subject of disarmament, whether as an immediate, intermediate or ultimate objective; none of them expressly suggest the need to work towards the elimination of missiles, particularly those capable of delivering WMDs. Even the Code, which has the strongest non-proliferation language to deal with WMD-capable ballistic missiles, lamely pleads with states "where possible to reduce national holdings of such missiles" (emphasis added). The expression "responsible missile behaviour", or "justified missile behaviour", once a rallying argument in the preparatory phases of the ICoC, does not appear in the text of the Code of Conduct. But its implications remain: the Code is inherently relevant to behaviour rather than to hardware. As the background information posted by the Dutch Foreign Ministry website indicates, the Code "does not prohibit states from owning ballistic missiles".¹⁰

Two of the initiatives (the HCoC and the UNPGE) prudently evade the fourth option to tackle the issue: the military one of active missile defences. The US plan for building such defences remains the main techno-military attempt to counter the challenge posed by WMD-armed ballistic missiles. Other programmes are at various stages of development. Russia's is of longest-standing; Israel boasts arguably the most advanced deployed system in the world; and NATO countries are engaged in various missile defence studies and research efforts. In addition to the inherent complexities of attempting to control missiles, the resurgence of missile defence programmes, their global and regional strategic impact, as well as their possible implications for the weaponisation of outer space, further, and seriously, complicates the search for effective non-military responses.

The elements in the GCS proposals stressing the value of the ABM treaty have been overtaken by events. But there remains a clear tension between arms control and disarmament instruments on the one hand, and active missile defences on the other, however much some choose to invoke the complementarity between the two approaches. The justification for the considerable expense, effort and long-term political cost of developing and deploying missile defences requires an alarming (if not alarmist) missile-related threat assessment. Arms control and disarmament measures which purport to alleviate this threat work in precisely the opposite direction and any effectiveness on their part is an active political impediment to the justification of missile defence.

Falling Short of Modest Expectations: A Provisional Assessment of the Three Initiatives

One inescapable similarity between all three initiatives is how they fell short of what their promoters may have hoped for, if not actually expected. The UNPGE's report rings hollow. This is particularly clear to those in a position to contrast the watered-down consensual text with the extremely rich brew - unpalatable though it may have been to some participants - of the discussions held in Meeting Room 8 of UN headquarters. Although the inability to offer meaningful recommendations was lamentable, the process of discussing sensitive missile-related security issues under UN auspices among sharply divided participants provided a (depressingly) accurate reflection of the situation as it exists rather than as one might wish it to be.

It has been argued that "the Panel could have presented a good opportunity for considering how to establish a full-fledged, legally binding treaty on missiles".¹¹ No such grand objective was ever attained by any of the numerous prior UN expert panels on disarmament issues - even on topics a good deal less new, sensitive and controversial than "missiles in all their aspects". While the Panel's work surely does not deserve to be clobbered with such retrospectively inflated expectations, one cannot but notice that the recommendations section in its report is as succinct as it is shallow.

Likewise, neither can one fail to notice a number of flagrantly significant absentees from the Code's current list of subscribing states. While much is made of the fact that the list extends to no less than 106 states - an undeniably respectable tally in these tough times for arms control - the subscribers do not include Algeria, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, or Pakistan (all of which had governmental experts on the UN Panel, and among which Brazil stands out as a member of the MTCR). This understandably led one commentator to note that the Code was "high on quantity...but low on quality".¹²

The strengths of the HCoC and of the UNPGE are a mirror image of each other. The Code has succeeded in reaching some substantive agreement, which eluded the UNPGE, albeit at the expense of securing the participation or agreement of states whose current and future conduct on matters related to missiles will have a determining impact on the evolution of international security. As for the GCS, the most that can be said is that all its interesting potential remains just that: potential.

Perhaps the biggest failure of all three initiatives has been their inability not only to tackle effectively the immediate challenge posed by both the North Korean and the Iraqi missile programmes in the short term but also to effectively engage these two critical regimes in any meaningful dialogue at the multilateral level. Although North Korea has participated in the GCS process, the engagement has remained sporadic, and proven insignificant to the actual missile and WMD policy and practices of the DPRK regime.

Finally, confidence-building measures are present in all three initiatives, although the statements in the UNPGE report are the weakest by far. Suggesting CBMs has become so axiomatic of conventional wisdom in situations of perplexity that one hesitates to follow such a well-trodden path. And yet, some progress on CBMs is realistically the most that can be hoped for, whether on a regional or multilateral scale. This is of special significance to global and regional security alike since by virtue of their inherent characteristics of speed and penetration capability, missiles are especially suited to surprise use, irrespective of whether associated use-doctrines are couched in terms of defence, offence, deterrence or coercion. As such, they are confidence-busters par excellence.

For all the criticism levelled at the HCoC (including in this article), CBMs are its salient strength. The crucial challenge for the HCoC is to score demonstrable progress in the implementation of the CBMs it prescribes. For the future, considerable work remains to be done to conceive and fine-tune options for CBMs specifically tailor-made to alleviate the security concerns associated with missiles. The scope and content of such measures, as well as the particular stages in the life-cycle of missile systems to which they would be applicable, all require particular attention and discussion. There is a strong case for giving careful consideration to how the second UNPGE could focus its attention on the technically and politically complex facets of these issues.

Most troubling is the fundamental unanswered question to which recent debates over the merits of 'Track II' (voluntary and non-binding)¹³ initiatives have returned time and again: are the potential security gains worth the political expenditure? In this case, are missile controls a blind spot - a gap needing to be filled in the existing panoply of arms control - or are they a blind alley - an unpromising endeavour and a distraction from the purposes of WMD arms control, non-proliferation and disarmament? The future of the initiatives discussed in this article could be instructive in this regard.

Notes and References

1. See 'Memorandum of Intent in the Field of Non-Proliferation of Missiles', unofficial GCS document; GCS-2 document, 'Global Control System for Non-Proliferation of Missiles and Missile Technologies: Concept, Discussion Review and Follow-up Steps', February 15, 2001. See also Viacheslav Abrosimov, 'Preventing Missile Proliferation: Incentives and Security Guarantees', Disarmament Diplomacy No. 57, May 2001, pp. 4-8.

2. The MTCR currently has 34 'partner' states: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, UK, US.

3. The MTCR's press releases can be found at http://www.mtcr.info.

4. For the full text of the Code, a list of the initial subscriber states, and statements and documents from the launching conference in The Hague, see the website of the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy, http://www.acronym.org.uk/docs/0211/doc13.htm. See also 'Stuck on the Launch Pad? The Ballistic Missile Code of Conduct Opens for Business', Disarmament Diplomacy No. 68, December 2002/January 2003, pp. 2-6.

5. See Conference on Disarmament (CD) document CD/1699, February 7, 2003: 'Letter Dated 4 February 2003 from the Permanent Representative of the Netherlands addressed to the Secretary-General of the Conference on Disarmament transmitting the text of the International Code of Conduct Against Ballistic Missiles (ICoC), adopted in the Hague, the Netherlands, November 25, 2002'.

6. See UN General Assembly document A/57/229, July 23, 2002 'The issue of missiles in all its aspects: Report of the Secretary-General'.

7. UN General Assembly Resolution 57/71, November 22, 2002. The resolution was adopted by 104 votes to 3 with 60 abstentions. The three votes against were registered by Israel, the Federated States of Micronesia and one MTCT member, the United States. Of the other 33 MTCR states, 31 abstained, with Brazil and the Russian Federation voting in favour.

8. Preambular Paragraph 11 of the NPT notes the desire of states parties to "further the easing of international tension and the strengthening of trust between states in order to facilitate the cessation of the manufacture of nuclear weapons, the liquidation of all their existing stockpiles, and the elimination from national arsenals of nuclear weapons and the means of their delivery pursuant to a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control".

9. In recent years, the MANPADS issues has emerged as a major concern of the Wassenaar Agreement (WA) on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods and Technologies. A Public Statement issued after the 8th WA Plenary (Vienna, December 11-12, 2002) noted: "A number of additional proposals aimed at strengthening export controls as part of the fight against terrorism and against illicit transfers were made. In this context, Participating States also agreed to review existing WA guidelines regarding Man-Portable Air-Defence Systems (MANPADS) to assess the adequacy of these guidelines in preventing terrorist use of such systems." The Arrangement's membership overlaps markedly with that of the MTCR. The 33 Participating States are: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States. For further background and documentation, see the website of the Wassenaar Arrangement, http://www.wassenaar.org.

10. See the Netherlands' Ministry of Foreign Affairs, http://www.minbuza.nl.

11. Lee Ho Jin, "Observations and Lessons from the Work of the Panel of Governmental Experts on Missiles", Disarmament Forum, Two, 2003, p. 67.

12. Mark Smith, 'Stuck on the Launch Pad? The Ballistic Missile Code of Conduct Opens for Business', Disarmament Diplomacy No. 68, December 2002/January 2003, pp. 2-6.

13. 'Track II' initiatives can also refer to informal and unofficial discussions, often including non-governmental participation, aimed either at preparing the ground for 'Track I' formal negotiations on legally-binding measures, or exploring options for voluntary, non-binding confidence-building measures (codes of conduct, transparency arrangements, etc).

Dr. W. Pal S. Sidhu is Senior Associate at the International Peace Academy (IPA) in New York. Dr. Dr. Christophe Carle is Deputy Director of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) in Geneva. Both authors served as consultants to the United Nations Panel of Governmental Experts on Missiles.

© 2003 The Acronym Institute.