Click here for more information.
|
Lewis |
Milhollin |
TESTIMONY OF
JAMES
A. LEWIS
Center for Strategic and International Studies
CURRENT AND
FUTURE WEAPONS OF
MASS DESTRUCTION THREATS
Hearing
of the International Security, Proliferation and
Federal Services Subcommittee of the
Senate Governmental Affairs Committee
November 7, 2001
Mr.
Chairman, let me thank you and the other members of the Committee for
the opportunity to testify on the effectiveness of export controls in
curbing the proliferation of material and technology used for weapons
of mass destruction.
Through the 1980s and 1990s, the U.S. created an extensive export control
architecture. Export controls became an important tool to slow
the spread of sensitive technologies to states of concern. However,
over the last decade, two major developments have changed the significance
of export controls for national security. First, a far more complex
security environment has replaced the tidy Cold War alignment of friends
and foes. International security is now complex and unpredictable.
Second, the global economy has evolved in ways we did not foresee when
the U.S. established its export controls.
The result is that export controls grow less effective every year.
This is particularly true for dual-use export controls. The principle
reason for this is the continuing economic development and integration
of countries around the globe. Fewer obstacles and lower costs
for international trade mean that industries and production are increasingly
international. The volume of international trade has tripled in
the last fifteen years. Improvements in communications technologies
make it easy to transfer data and ideas around the world in a few seconds.
Container ships and jumbo jets have made transportation cheap and easy,
allowing millions of tons of cargo and millions of people to travel
around the world every year. These changes have significant implications
for U.S. security, particularly for counter-terrorism and for nonproliferation.
Business and science have become more international and more collaborative.
International research and development alliances among corporations
has increased eight-fold since the mid 1980s. Companies place
plants or development centers in different countries or even different
continents. They move their research and development ideas rapidly
among these facilities to gain competitive advantage in a global market
place. Scientific capabilities have also diffused around the world,
as more countries build scientific and research institutions and as
scientists find that they gain an advantage from research conducted
by multinational teams of specialists in different countries.
For nonproliferation, these changes make it harder to deny access to
technology, especially as much of the technology needed for weapons
of mass destruction does not need to be particularly advanced.
Proliferators can use industrial equipment from the 1970s or even 1950s
to build weapons of mass destruction. Determined nations, such
as Iraq, Iran or North Korea will be able to continue their WMD programs
despite export control efforts. Iraq exemplifies this best, for
despite the most restrictive sanctions regime in the world, it has been
rebuilding its WMD programs.
Multilateral Regimes and Nonproliferation
While export controls have become less useful, the Missile Technology
Control Regime, the Australia Group and the Nuclear Suppliers Group
continue to make positive contributions to security. The characteristics
that make the regimes more effective are:
-- They have strong multilateral support, so a denial by one country
will not be “undercut by another.”
-- There is broad consensus to prevent exports that contribute to WMD
proliferation.
-- They focus their efforts on specific chokepoint technologies.
-- They have good mechanisms for information sharing and consensus building
on projects of concern.
These characteristics are a good test for measuring the effectiveness
of national export controls. In an era of economic globalization,
a single country’s export controls will be ineffective unless it focuses
on key technologies and other nations follow similar practices.
Export controls can remain effective in an era of economic integration
and globalization only if they focus on technologies that are not widely
available in the world market and if they have a high degree of multilateral
support.
A fourth regime, the Wassenaar Arrangement, demonstrates the need for
focus and cooperation. Unlike the three nonproliferation regimes,
the Wassenaar Arrangement is ineffective. There is little consensus
among Wassenaar members on its mission or on what technologies are crucial
for control. As a result, we can no longer prevent countries from
acquiring many items on the Wassenaar control list.
However, Wassenaar has little to do with nonproliferation.
It focuses on controlling conventional dual-use technologies.
Many of these technologies are not key WMD technologies and not
controlled by other countries for proliferation purposes. Items
on the Wassenaar List that are useful for WMD are already controlled
by the three nonproliferation regimes. This is because when the
Wassenaar Arrangement was established, our allies insisted that any
item or technology for weapons of mass destruction be moved from Wassenaar
control lists to one of nonproliferation regimes. The result is
that for WMD, Wassenaar controls are redundant.
“Catch-All” Controls
Wassenaar controls are also redundant for nonproliferation if a country
has effective “catch-all” controls. “Catch-all” controls apply
to any export when the intended recipient is a proliferation-related
entity. The U.S. created its “catch-all” control, known as EPCI
(Enhanced Proliferation Control Initiative), in response to Iraqi efforts
in 1990 to acquire U.S. equipment for WMD production. EPCI allows
the U.S. to stop shipments of any item going to questionable end-users
for proliferation related purposes. It allows the U.S. to impose
licensing requirements on exports and reexports of any good and technology
where there is a risk of diversion to WMD or missile proliferation.
This remains an important part of U.S. export controls.
EPCI also gives the U.S. the authority to “inform” an exporter that
a foreign entity is ineligible to receive U.S. goods without prior approval.
The informing process can occur through a letter to the U.S. exporter
or through publication of an entity or list of entities in the Federal
Register Notice. Once listed, exporters must obtain a license
before selling to these entities. This authority also remains
essential.
Finally, EPCI requires exporters to screen potential sales to avoid
transfers to WMD programs. Exporters must apply for a license
whenever they ‘know or have reason to know’ the export could be associated
with WMD-related activities. Screening is the least effective
part of EPCI because of changes in business practices and because of
problems in sharing information with exporters. Finding ways to
increase information sharing and refine EPCI screening would make U.S.
export controls more effective, and continuing the U.S. effort to encourage
more countries to adopt strong catch-all controls would make multilateral
nonproliferation efforts more effective.
Problems for Nonproliferation Export Controls
The distinction between Wassenaar and the WMD regimes has important
implications for U.S. export controls. Many recent debates on
export controls have been over items that fall under the Wassenaar regime,
such as satellites, machine tools and computers. Other countries
would not regard these as proliferation-related. Our difficulties
in moving from Cold War technology controls to a nonproliferation export
control system have hampered efforts to make export controls more effective
and have drawn attention away from the larger problems that confronts
nonproliferation export controls.
These larger problems result from the evolution of the international
security environment. WMD-related export controls are part of
a larger nonproliferation strategy that uses diplomatic pressure and
sanctions to persuade potential WMD producers to end their programs.
Export controls, by slowing these programs and making them more costly,
give time for diplomacy to work. This approach was developed in
the early 1990s and it has met with considerable success. A number
of countries abandoned their WMD programs in light of the combination
of diplomatic pressure and export controls. However, a small core
of determined nations continued with their weapons programs irrespective
of diplomatic pressure, export controls or sanctions.
We now need to reconsider the original diplomatic rationale for WMD
export controls in dealing with these nations. Export controls
still slow WMD programs and make them more costly, but they will not
stop them. In one case, North Korea, a new approach that used
economic incentives and a broader effort to address fundamental security
issues seems to have paid off. However, India and Pakistan have
been able to develop nuclear weapons (and in India’s case, long-range
missiles), and Iran and Iraq continue to pursue the acquisition of WMD.
We cannot rely on export controls and sanctions to stop these programs,
and one of the challenges for the U.S. will be to find a new approach
to nonproliferation.
In addition to facing these very difficult problems in the old nonproliferation
paradigm, we face new problems with “non-state actors” who seek to acquire
WMD. These are principally terrorist groups and they pose a serious
challenge to current nonproliferation controls, which were aimed at
countries and large government programs.
Nonproliferation is now more than an arms control problem to be approached
in the traditional diplomatic and military context. This means
less emphasis on traditional nonproliferation activities, where foreign
ministries agree on licensing policies and demarches and more emphasis
cooperation in law enforcement and intelligence. Export licensing
will be less important for dealing with efforts by terrorist organizations
to acquire WMD. Most WMD export controls focus on exports of production
equipment and capital goods. Terrorists are unlikely to acquire
these items. Terrorists will not be applying for licenses and
they may not even try to export material. A more plausible scenario
is that terrorists will attempt to acquire WMD-related materials in
the country where they intend to use them, bypassing all of the current
export control mechanisms.
For example, while most countries have strong export controls in place
for the export of spent nuclear fuel, it is not clear that all of them
have taken the necessary steps to safeguard this fuel from theft.
A terrorist organization could steal spent nuclear fuel and use it to
build radiological weapons. These weapons do not require the extensive
infrastructure and investment needed for nuclear arms. Similarly,
security measures at many U.S. and foreign laboratories are not adequate
to prevent the theft of dangerous biological samples. In the U.S.,
samples of some pathogens like smallpox are kept under very tight security,
but samples of others, like anthrax, are housed in research laboratories
across the country with minimal safeguards. International cooperation,
and domestic security measures may be as important today for nonproliferation
as export controls.
As part of the reorientation of U.S. security policy since September
11, nonproliferation must become a part of the larger, integrated system
of homeland security and the response to terrorism. The nonproliferation
regimes can still make important contributions by identifying WMD-related
items that need additional safeguards and by coordinating the development
of effective and mutually reinforcing security measures. They
can also provide a forum for the exchange of information on common threats,
between law enforcement and internal security agencies as well as diplomatic
and intelligence agencies. WMD-related technology transfer should
form a part of a larger homeland defense policy. Effort to ensure
that WMD does not fall into the hands of terrorists must become part
of a multilateral defense against terrorism, and the support we have
received from our allies since September 11 could be channeled into
reinvigorating cooperative efforts to deal with WMD proliferation.
“Deemed Exports”
The larger counterterrorism and homeland defense effort also has implications
for “deemed exports.” A “deemed export” occurs when a person comes
to the United States and learns something. Students coming to
the U.S or other countries to study and do research at universities
and labs have been a problem for nonproliferation for many years.
The automatic response is to ban foreign students or require that they
all be licensed. This would be a fiasco. Hundreds of thousands
of students enter the U.S. every year. In almost all cases, our
intelligence agencies have no information about them, not because of
any failure in collection but because these people have never been anything
other than legitimate students and there is no information to collect.
A license review based on no information is open to question as a protective
measure.
Expanding “deemed export” controls can also have a hidden cost for the
U.S. One of the sources of U.S. technological strength is that
many of the best minds in the world are attracted here to learn and
to work. The benefits we receive from having these people here
outweighs the potential cost of technology leaks. This was the
conclusion that the Reagan Administration came to in National Security
Decision Directive 189, and this decision should remain the core of
our policy.
Most “deemed export” licenses are for information technologies, not
proliferation-related technologies. The challenge is not to try
to find some way to keep using export control techniques developed for
the Cold War, but to think in terms of a larger approach to homeland
security. Immigration control is among the most serious vulnerabilities
revealed by September 11. Greater international cooperation
in immigration control and improved screening and tracking processes
for foreign visitors is one of the imperatives for Homeland Defense.
As the U.S. improves immigration screening, it may want to rely less
on export licensing to govern technology transfer in the U.S.
Export licenses should only be required when positive information is
developed regarding proliferation-related risk. Our current practice,
which is to let people in with a visa or license and then ignore them,
is no longer supportable.
Building Strong Nonproliferation Controls
Export controls can still play a role in nonproliferation and national
security, but this role is shrinking. Building an export control
system that will serve nonproliferation and national security in the
21st century will not be easy. The consequences, however,
of failing to reform could be costly. In looking at how to move
ahead in export controls and nonproliferation, we may want to consider
the following:
--The U.S. needs to reexamine the fundamental approach to nonproliferation
export controls (buy time for diplomacy”) that we have taken for the
last ten years.
--We would benefit from strengthening nonproliferation regimes by expanding
their role to include not just diplomatic and arms control functions,
but additional law enforcement and counterterrorism functions as well.
--The U.S. should seek to find ways to use the strengths of the three
nonproliferation regimes to support efforts in homeland defense and
counterterrorism.
--Trying to control access to items that are widely available on the
global market wastes time and resources without slowing WMD programs.
U.S. export controls will be more effective if they focus on the items
listed by the three nonproliferation regimes.
--Work on deemed exports should focus less on licensing and more on
a broader solution to foreign visitor screening system that includes
nonproliferation information as part of the process.
-- Effective nonproliferation export controls can be built with the
lists and procedures of the three nonproliferation regimes, the use
of catch-all controls and improved immigration procedures.
Finally, in considering how to adjust export controls to better support
nonproliferation after September 11, we must be careful in assessing
whether new measures cost more, in both civil liberties and long term
economic and technological strength, than the benefits they provide.
Thank you.