Article Commentary: The Right Stuff

Pakistani physicist A. Q. Khan may have actually performed a valuable service when he sold nuclear technology to Iran, Libya, and North Korea, in that he vividly revealed just how ineffectual the multilateral nonproliferation export control system has become. Today's efforts to stem the spread of potentially dangerous technology represent the worst of all possible worlds. The system is both bureaucratically cumbersome and too diffuse to achieve positive results. While it's doubtful that sluggish export control arrangements will ever be able to keep pace with the freewheeling decision making of proliferators and terrorists, there are ways to make the system more nimble.

Enter famed military strategist John Boyd. After dueling with Soviet MiGs during the Korean War, U.S. Air Force Colonel Boyd derived a way of thinking about strategy that applied not only to dogfighting, but to all dimensions of conflict and competition. His theory was deceptively simple: The combatants best able to adapt to an environment that was perpetually in flux, while keeping their opponents off balance, would enjoy a nearly insuperable edge in battle.

Current export control strategies lack all of these advantageous abilities. Yes, nonproliferation is a realm of rules, regulations, and institutions, but it is also a theater of human conflict. We need to conceive of nonproliferation not as dispassionate government oversight but as an interactive clash of wills between parties with disparate interests and goals. To effectively meet shifting political, social, and economic conditions, some measure of flexibility, agility, and (most importantly) imagination must be built into the system. Otherwise, hazardous items will continue to elude international oversight, endangering national and international security.

After years of refinement, Boyd developed the “OODA Loop” to illustrate his findings. He argued that in the frenzied environment of combat, the victor would be the belligerent best able to:

Observe the surroundings;

orient to fluid circumstances;

decide on a course of action; and

act most swiftly and decisively.

Here's how that loop would apply to nonproliferation export controls:

Observe. We must view nonproliferation as a nonlinear war waged by nonviolent means with no definable fronts or battlefields. Without this mindset, proliferators and terrorists will continue to exploit commercial channels to acquire materials for weapons of mass destruction and their requisite delivery systems. Khan was the master of the dual-use component–the leader of not just a smuggling operation, but a gray-market network. Khan and his cronies excelled at misidentifying technology export orders, dissembling about the ultimate end users of their wares, and otherwise manipulating lawful means of commerce. Various governments have been reluctant to tighten obvious loopholes because dual-use components fetch big bucks in the global marketplace.

Orient. It is no surprise that the four multilateral export control regimes (the Wassenaar Arrangement, the Australia Group, the Missile Technology Control Regime, and the Nuclear Suppliers Group) have been slow to recognize the changes to their operating environment. They achieved a minor victory by managing to raise the transaction costs of proliferation, but new political and economic challenges multiply and morph at a rapid rate.

Then there's the matter of consensus. Consider terrorism. Every analyst agrees terrorism is a serious issue, but they disagree on how best to address it. Some focus on Al Qaeda's courtship of Pakistani scientists for insidious means, while others investigate the nexus between radical Islamists and weapons traffickers. Yet despite these genuine efforts, information and analysis relating to terrorist networks' procurement patterns still remain sparse.

If the export control regimes are to observe and orient to an environment in rapid flux, they must collect, share, and analyze intelligence better. Merging the four information networks is one option. At a minimum, the networks should be linked so that specialists from each regime can cross-reference each other's databases. Once the regimes have a common operational picture of what problems confront them, it will be easier to agree on common solutions.

Decide. Here, the requirement for consensus harms export controls. Each regime makes decisions based on unanimity, and members fulfill their obligations through “national discretion,” allowing them to interpret their obligations with an eye toward domestic interests. Implementing a system that requires every member of every regime to agree on every decision greatly curtails the speed with which regimes can act. Even a single naysayer, whether a major supplier or transit state, can torpedo efforts to tighten export controls or codify best practices.

In the past, this requirement mattered less because regime members were few in number and homogeneous in strategic outlook. In recent years, however, the regimes consciously decided to add governments–notably Russia and Ukraine–whose perspectives on security affairs differ from those of long-standing members. This problem will intensify if the regimes choose to admit emerging supplier countries such as China (whose candidacy for the Missile Technology Control Regime was rebuffed last fall over lingering concerns about proliferation). As one regime official put it, “How do you get to a regime that includes the targets?”

Ending the blanket requirement for unanimity is essential–as is instituting qualified majority voting. In a bow to political reality, unanimous consent might still be required in cases that engage the vital national interests of member states. Alternatively, a system patterned on NATO's “coalition of the willing” concept, under which individual governments agree not to block action by a group of NATO members while declining to join the action themselves, should be enacted. Another possibility would be to create tiered membership: Governments that accept all the responsibilities entailed in regime membership would enjoy the full benefits of membership, notably access to all information and analysis compiled by the regime, while governments reluctant to surrender their national prerogatives could accept second-tier status, garnering fewer benefits but preserving their liberty of action.

Act. It has become abundantly clear that the export controls of numerous governments are not consistent with their stated nonproliferation objectives. Aside from the United States and a few other major supplier states, few regime members levy civil or criminal penalties against export control offenders. Studies of national export control systems conducted by the Center for International Trade and Security at the University of Georgia routinely depict wide, persistent discrepancies among the states in the four regimes. Determined proliferators are no doubt doing the same, identifying the countries with the most lax export control systems and those that halfheartedly enforce them. Unless regime members can muster an equal measure of determination, they will remain at a disadvantage.

Ultimately, a grand multilateral export control regime incorporating the four current regimes should be constructed. The four regimes could also forge ties among themselves, perhaps by creating an executive committee that would meet regularly to set common policy, monitor the activities of individual regimes, and review how well governments are adhering to their obligations.

To assure uniform enforcement of national and international regulations, the regimes should consider creating a fund to help economically depressed states bring their enforcement apparatuses up to international standards. The Group of Eight Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction, under which the major industrial democracies pledged $20 billion to help Russia safeguard its stockpile of fissile material, serves as a precedent. Additionally, the executive committee (or whatever central decision-making authority is created) should take on the oversight function with regard to enforcement, filling a void in the current arrangement.

Of course, the four regimes could do nothing and hope for the best. But hope doesn't qualify as a winning strategy. As the regimes and their members debate the mix of measures necessary to help them achieve a more cohesive effort, they should remember John Boyd's strategy for fighter pilots. Otherwise, they will soon find themselves on the losing side of the nonproliferation dogfight.

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