31 Dec US Special Forces Ready to Seize Pakistani Nuclear Arsenal
According to the UK’s Herald:
US special forces snatch squads are on standby to seize or disable Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal in the event of a collapse of government authority or the outbreak of civil war following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
The troops, augmented by volunteer scientists from America’s Nuclear Emergency Search Team organisation, are under orders to take control of an estimated 60 warheads dispersed around six to 10 high-security Pakistani military bases.
This plan seems like a sensible precaution if it can be accomplished. But it is also almost certainly illegal under international law unless there is some U.N. Security Council Resolution out there that I am unaware of (or if Pakistan’s government has given U.S. forces permission in such an event). An interesting question to pose to our U.S. presidential candidates: Would you give such an order to violate Pakistan’s sovereignty? I have a feeling that every candidate except Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich would give the order, but perhaps I am wrong?
My PIL take-home final a few weeks ago asked us to write a memo on the legal justification for exactly this scenario. My argument was that it was anticipatory self-defense against an imminent attack as embodied in the Caroline approach and Article 51. A takeover in Pakistan would involve significant elements of Al Qaeda and Taliban, with whom we are currently belligerent. This is not a speculative situation like Iraq or Iran. Here, we are practically certain that a) they have nuclear capabilities, and b) they are in the hands of a regime that has elements that have already inflicted mass civilian casualties on us.
I have written a bit more on the topic here.
If government authority collapses, sovereignty ceases to be an issue, does it not? Sovereignty only exists where a government exerts effective control.
Bill: A few thoughts on this. First, effective control is not synonymous with sovereignty. Sources ranging from US foreign policy pronoucements to ICJ opinions (see the Advisory Opinion on Southwest Africa/ Namibia) agree on this. (Effective control is, of course, a crucial component of sovereingty and can lead to full sovereignty under the right conditions.) The argument you describe is similar to a claim made by John Yoo in his memo concluding that the Geneva Conventions should not have applied in Afghanistan in 2001. He argued that in as much as the recognized government of Afghanistan no longer existed, it was a “failed state” and thus no longer part of the Geneva Conventions. The problem with Yoo’s argument was that it confused recognizing the existence of a government (say, the Taliban) with recognizing the existence of a state (Afghanistan). Even when there is domestic fighting in State X, what is usually at issue is who can control the sovereign state of X, not whether such a state exists. Thus, even if one does not recognize a government (or for a time there is no governemnt to recognize) that does not mean that the sovereignty itself has evaporated. An exception to… Read more »
I would be quite surprised if Musharraf did not agree to this. It certainly does not hurt him, as we are on his side, and I can’t imagine he would want something to happen with the nukes.
>>This plan seems like a sensible precaution if it can be accomplished. But it is also almost certainly illegal under international law unless there is some U.N. Security Council Resolution out there that I am unaware of (or if Pakistan’s government has given U.S. forces permission in such an event)< <
Illegal, perhaps. Would we care such that we would pause to act? I certainly hope not, as the risk of nuclear fissile materials and potential nuclear ordinance falling into terrorist or extremist hands on its face far outweighs any rationale for conforming to international law in such circumstances.
It would be a material abdication of the federal govt’s proper and legitimate role to provide for the common defense if it did not, in the face of understood and known instability in Pakistan, plan for such an eventuality.