Le armi nucleari dopo la Guerra Fredda

Soviet Union states.

Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan signed the Lisbon Protocol in 1992, all these States decided to

enter into the No-proliferation Treaty and don’t become a nuclear State by destroying their

nuclear weapons or transferred them to Russia. The situation was very insidious especially with

Ukraine which had the most part of the ex-soviet nuclear warheads. But the situation was not

easy, these States wanted assurance and in 1994 they signed the Budapest Memorandum, it

included security assurances against threats or use of force against their territorial integrity.

Clinton wanted that Ukraine give up to its nuclear arsenal because they know that was simpler to

deal with Russia more than with Ukraine. Instead, Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defence had different

plans, he wanted to bring Ukraine into NATO and if it would be a nuclear power is better for the

United States because Russia would become powerless.

The first nuclear country that dismantled its nuclear arsenal was South Africa during the 90’s, and

especially because they needed the “know-how” of Israel to make its weapons workable.

In 1995 a revision of the NPT was held as stated in the article 10 of the treaty. Countries and

leaders decided to renew the Treaty, which becomes permanent, till 1995 the treaty had a limited

duration in order to put more pressures to the States for the reduction of their nuclear weapons.

During the same summit, they approve also a declaration to promote a no nuclear zone in the

Middle-East.

In 1996 the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) made a step forward to abolish all the nuclear

tests; indeed, the last French test was held in 1996. But in order to become effective the test

should be ratified by at least 44 countries and only 26 countries ratified it. Clinton’s administration

and China failed to do it.

During 1995-1996 we were moving toward a more stable and safe nuclear order, but then, the

situation changed and new issues showed that a stable order is not simple to achieve.

We can distinguish two conceptions about nuclear deterrence: vertical, according to which,

nuclear agreement should move towards zero nuclear weapon, and horizontal, according to which

we should reduce the number of nuclear State near to zero. Scholars and experts developed

various theory about nuclear deterrence. According to William Walker a British political science,

we can hope only for a stable nuclear order, it’s a kind of utopia to eliminate all the weapons.

Instead, Kenneth Walls believes in the opposite idea, according to him more nuclear weapons and

nuclear States are necessary to create a stable nuclear order.

On February 1993, North Korea refused to permit the International Atomic Energy Agency to do

the inspections. There was a similar situation of today with tensions between United States and

North Korea. On October 1994, it seems that North Korea agreed to move toward nuclear

development and accepted the IAEA inspections, in exchange U.S. provides to North Korea four

energy under-water generator for civilian purpose, but the agreement was never put in practice.

In 1998, the governments of India and Pakistan tested nuclear devices, they made a united front

against the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, and new sanctions were directed

at New Delhi and Islamabad. In 1998, the new India’s prime minister Atal Bihari tried twice to test

nuclear power, he began the Pokhran II test, influenced by the nationalistic feelings that were

spread in South Asia. Pakistan replied with the announcement of a test of 5 nuclear missiles.

These events and tensions changed the Non-Proliferations regime because so far we had 5 nuclear

powers that had the special status of permanent member of the Security Council, but now we

have other states with nuclear power, like for example Israel.

Haku Kan was an important figure in the development of the Pakistani nuclear power. He worked

at the centre for Uranium enrichment development in Germany, UK and Netherlands. Couple of

years later he went back to Pakistan and offered his services to the government in order to

reconstruct the plan in which he worked in the Netherlands. United States tried repeatedly to stop

Pakistan, but Haku Kan developed a network in which he buys part of industrial products and sell

his knowledge to the proliferation States.

In 1998 Saddam repeatedly obstruct the inspections carried out by the United Nation.

Throughout this period Iraq was subjected to heavy economic sanctions which hurts the Iraqi

economy. Only for humanitarian reasons the operation “Food for oil” was installed by the UN so it

allowed to Iraq to sell a limited amount of oil for its population. Saddam never fully disclosed his

chemical activities and tried to hide them. Saddam was trying to appear as a victim of the UN

sanctions; he did not want to appear weak; he was playing a dangerous game for not admit that

he had nothing left.

Other issue was that the IAEA was more flexible and accommodating in the inspections;

traditionally it did not interfere so much. In the meantime, also the UN was leading its inspections,

hence we have two different teams responding to two different agencies and Saddam tried to put

them one against the other. Hence many questions arose in that time: Did the IAEA really work?

How effective was the non-proliferation regime?

According to the Clinton administration the nuclear containment was working.

In 2002 North Korea announced that it has nuclear weapons, and in the 2003 retired from the

NPT. During the 2000’s it led many tests that created tensions with the United States.

Moreover in 2006 Ahmadinejad announced that Iran is trying to achieve a nuclear arsenal…

The Bush administration and the 9/11

In order to understand the dynamics of the American intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq we

should analyse the components of the Bush administration. Bush Jr. derived from a traditional

republican family, he was tied with the radical wing of the Republican Party, whereas his father

belonged to the moderate one.

He won the election suspiciously with a few votes in Florida, where his brother was the Governor.

The Bush administration was strictly influenced by the Hawks and the neoconservatives, which

have a stronger ideological vision. The Hawks share the vision that the United States is the most

powerful country in the world and that this power was misused by the Clinton administration,

which focused on useless interventions like the humanitarian ones. Both Dick Cheney, as the Vice-

President, and Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defence under the Bush mandate, belonged to the Hawks

wing.

The neoconservatives were a minority part of the Democrats that during the 1970’s thought that

the Vietnam war was just and that it was fought according to the U.S foreign policy principles,

consequently they split from the Party. They supported the election of Ronald Reagan because he

criticized Nixon and Kissinger for separating the ideological vision from the foreign policy. They

criticised realists because they are too moderate, instead the neocons. followed an idealistic path.

Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defence, and Richard Perle Chairman of the Defence Policy

Board Advisory Committee, belonged to the neocons.

Colin Powell, the Secretary of State and Condoleezza Rice the National Security Advisor (2001-

2005) were supposed to be the moderate wing of the Bush administration. All these names

criticised Clinton’s policy of containment and demanding for a change in the Iraqi regime.

According to Condoleezza Rice power matters (great power and power balances), she was

committed to the decisive use of military force, she wanted to retire troops from the

peacekeeping missions that were considered useless. According the Bush administration Non-

State actors are not playing a major role, consequently they don’t matter. They will be less

internationalist minded and take more unilateral decisions rather than multilateral ones, and we

saw it both in Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

The War in Afghanistan

The shock provoked by the 9/11 attacks on the American public opinion motivated the followed

intervention in Afghanistan by the Bush Administration. Before the terrorist attack at the Twin

Towers, Al Qaeda was already acting with violence in Africa and in the Middle-East. Indeed, the

attack against the U.S embassy in Dar-as-Salem in 1998 was part of a larger strategy: Al Qaeda was

deeply influenced by the Soviet defeated in Afghanistan and now its hope is that they would be

able to repeat that victory against the United States. They thought that they could bring United

States in Afghanistan and fight on it, they were convinced that the defeat of United Stes would

stop its support to the Arab moderate wing like Saudi Arabia. With 9/11 Bin Laden wanted to

demonstrate that Unites States was weak and encourage aggression against it.

A key figure in the war against the Soviets was Ahmad Shah Massoud, commander of the

resistance against the Soviet occupation and leader of the Northern Alliance. He refused the

Taliban ideological extremist and was in favour of a non-Taleban Afghanistan, indeed he was

considered by the US as an important ally. But two days before 9/11 he was killed by Al Qaeda,

that deprived the Americans of an important moderate ally in the Region. The official motivations

of Bin Laden’s attack against United States were: its support for the attack against Muslims in

Somalia; its support of the authoritarian regimes in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan; its support

toward Israel, the sanctions against Iraq etc.

Bush had a long-term ambitious goal, he wanted to reshape the entire Middle-East and eradicate

terrorist mind-set.

The Afghanistan Civil War has been fought from 1996 to 2001 (VERIFICARE DATA) and ended with

the win of the Taleban. The territory was divided in three regions: Taliban (Mullah Omar);

Dostums (the former general of the Afghanistan Army); and Massoud territory.

In all these matter, Pakistan played an ambiguous role. During the Soviet occupation of

Afghanistan, the Country developed an incredible network with the rebels, and the Pakistani

government was used by United States to spread weapons and services to them. In addition, after

the terrorist attack, clearly the Taliban were supported by Pakistan, which at the same time was

an ally of the United States (AGGIUNGERE LIBRO).

Pakistan’s dilemma: Richard Armitage used very persuasive arguments with the President

Musharaf in order to convince him in which side he want to stay, against or with America. (They

basically put a lot of pressure on the President Musharaf).

NATO for the first time in history invoked article 5 in order to defend United States and sustain its

intentions. Nevertheless, UN and NATO were not the main framework that United States wanted

to adopt in order to attack Afghanistan. The Bush Administration wanted to fight in its own terms:

“It’s the mission that define the coalition and not vice versa”. Obviously, this is part of post Kosovo

debate, they wanted to avoid the Pristina accident, moreover is a