Nukes on a Blog

Introductory remarks at Global Security Engagement Conference

2011-05-11T07:06:00.000-07:00

Good morning, my name is Doug Shaw and I am an associate dean here at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs.

It is an honor and a pleasure to welcome you to our campus for this important discussion of “Emerging Opportunities and Challenges in Global Security Engagement Programs. I’m grateful to all of you for participating in this important work, and particularly to the committee of conference organizers that has worked for several months to make this event possible. I am especially grateful to Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins, the State Department’s Coordinator for Cooperative Threat Reduction Programs for her vision to convene us here to explore a path forward toward Global Security Engagement.

The Elliott School is a great place for this discussion. Hopefully, our location will prove convenient for many of you. For those of you who haven’t been here before, the White House is that way, the State Department is over there, and the World Bank is around the corner and up the street.

Our location has been an important asset in the growth of the Elliott School. Originally founded in 1898 as the GW School of Comparative Jurisprudence and Diplomacy, we were renamed the Elliott School of International Affairs in 1988 and since then have grown into the largest school of international affairs in the country.

Our mission is a simple but important one: to create knowledge about important global issues, educate future leaders, and engage the public and policy communities to make our world a better place. In no topical area is this mission more urgent than the emerging field of Global Security Engagement and we are grateful that this conference and your presence will contribute to our ongoing efforts in knowledge creation, education, and policy engagement.

In terms of knowledge creation, GW’s Center for Nuclear Studies is home to one of the largest concentrations of nuclear physicists in higher education.

Nuclear physics has a distinguished history on this campus. In 1934, then GW President Cloyd Hecht Marvin decided to strengthen physics by hiring George Gamow who would become renowned for developing the big bang theory. The following year, they hired Edward Teller who would become the father of the American hydrogen bomb. And at GW on January 26, 1939 Nobel Laureate Niels Bohr reported the splitting of the uranium nucleus with a release of two hundred million electron volts of energy, heralding the beginning of the nuclear age. This important work in physics continues today, as the continued support of the Energy Department for our work and the International Atomic Energy Agency’s adoption of a description of neutron-proton interactions developed at GW’s Data Analysis Center as an international standard. Our science is top-shelf, and we are engaged in a University-wide discussion, led by Professor Chris Cahill in our Chemistry Department, to better understand and respond to the grand challenges of science that will emerge from the security challenges of the 21^st Century.

We are also grateful to have you here because this event will help engage young people in the important work of Global Security Engagement.

I am especially grateful to Ambassador Jenkins for making room for several Elliott School students at this conference. The Elliott School has a strong track record of educating leaders at the nexus of technology and security policy; our alumni include Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control Verification and Compliance Rose Gottemoeller, Adam Scheinman of the National Security Council, and Jedidiah Royal of the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Several of my students are here with us today, and I hope their participation will spark and inform their interest in taking up this important work.

Finally, we are grateful that this conference will help us better engage the policy community.

GW’s Institute for Security and Conflict Studies hosts one of the most active event series on proliferation prevention in the world. Just over two years ago, renowned nuclear strategist Sir Lawrence Freedman visited the Elliott School and remarked on a “missing generation” of nuclear policy specialists. In an effort to learn more about and respond to this problem, we initiated a series of Nuclear Policy Talks – NPT – to bring leading specialists on all aspects of nuclear and nonproliferation policy to campus. When we break tomorrow, the number of expert presentations we have had on these topics on campus in the last two years will number more than 170, including remarks by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Senator Richard Lugar, and Under Secretary of State for International Security and Arms Control Ellen Tauscher – twice. Video from a growing number of these talks is available at the Elliott School’s website, where you can also join the email listserve of more than 2,200 subscribers who receive regular updates about these events.

So, thank you all, again for participating and I look forward to a rich and productive discussion that will inform your work and our three part mission of research, teaching, and policy engagement.

arms control sweet spot

2011-01-13T07:56:00.000-08:00

Draft outline of my spring course on Nuclear Proliferation and Nonproliferation

2010-10-15T13:30:00.000-07:00

Substantive comments welcomed.

1: Technical requirements of nuclear proliferation

PART I: Nuclear Proliferation

2: Assessing nuclear proliferation

3. Explaining and predicting nuclear proliferation, part I

4: Explaining and predicting nuclear proliferation, part II

5. Security, alliance structure, and nuclear proliferation

6. Non-state actors, smuggling, and terrorism

7. Implications of a nuclear revival

PART II: Nuclear Nonproliferation

8: The global norm and the NPT bargain

7: Structuring international nuclear commerce

8: Safeguards and physical protection

10: Latency, Detection, and Warning

11: Enforcement and interdiction

12: Cooperative threat reduction

13: Counterproliferation by force

14: Security implications of the global nuclear system

A Dangerous Gap in Nuclear Education

2010-10-07T13:01:00.000-07:00

Neglect of the study of nuclear weapons in higher education has resulted in a gap in the specialized knowledge needed today. In 2009 remarks at the Elliott School, Sir Lawrence Freedman observed a “missing generation” of nuclear policy experts. A quarter of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration staff will reach retirement age by 2013.[i] Half the International Atomic Energy Agency’s leadership will retire within five years.[ii] General Kevin Chilton who leads the U.S. Strategic Command observes: "We've allowed an entire generation to skip class."[iii] Various efforts respond to elements of this challenge: the Stanton Foundation’s nuclear security fellows program is supporting faculty development, the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Next Generation Safeguards Initiative is focusing resources on filling specific technical gaps, and the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies is innovating in the delivery of boutique graduate education. However, the vast majority of young Americans aspiring to careers in the executive and legislative branches of government, the defense contracting and consulting community, and the Washington non-profit sector will not receive formal education on nuclear issues. We remain dangerously unprepared for a future in which an increasing share of nuclear destructive potential will be recessed away from weapons deployment into the vagaries of nuclear fuel cycle operations.

[i] Bryan Bender, “Alarm over shortage of nuclear experts,” Boston Globe, April 3, 2010, link: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2010/04/03/alarm_over_shortage_of_nuclear_experts/

[ii] James Doyle, Los Alamos National Laboratory, “Nuclear Security as a Multidisciplinary Field of Study,” link: http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/ndo/n4/documents/safe_ed_laur08-1896.pdf

[iii] General Kevin Chilton , “2009 Deterrence Symposium Opening Remarks,” July 29, 2009, link: http://www.stratcom.mil/speeches/24/2009_Deterrence_Symposium_Opening_Remarks

Teaching Nonproliferation: Hands on, Online, and Followed on

2010-08-06T10:06:00.001-07:00

Last month I attended a terrific meeting on the topic of “Nuclear Security Education: The Intersection of Policy, Science, and Technology” hosted by the University of Tennessee Howard H. Baker, Jr. Center for Public Policy and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, sponsored by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).

I learned a lot, and came away convinced of three specific elements that should be included to prepare the next generation of nuclear nonproliferation practitioners. Nuclear security education should be hands on, online, with follow on.

Nuclear security education should be hands on, with experiential learning opportunities, physical exhibits, and field trips. Simulations of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors meetings and State Evaluation Exercises have been pioneered at the Monterey Institute’s James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies and, with interdisciplinary teams of nuclear engineering and international affairs students at the Nuclear Security Science Policy Institute at Texas Agricultural and Mechanical University (TAMU). Listening to former IAEA safeguards inspectors discuss the tools of their trade, I became intensely curious about those tools – and my students have responded very well to radiochemistry Professor Christopher Cahill’s efforts to bring uranium and detection equipment into the classroom. Field trips to the National Laboratories or working nuclear facilities suggest great promise.

Nuclear security education should be online, with great videos of lectures, simulations, and virtual reality experiences are available now. TAMU’s Nuclear Safeguards Education Portal contains top-shelf lectures on the fuel cycle; GW’s Elliott School has a Web Video Initiative with several great talks featuring a series of Nuclear Policy Talks by Rose Gottemoeller, Ellen Tauscher, Jayantha Dhanapala and others, and, of course, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has a wealth of offerings in Nuclear Engineering, Physics, and Political Science. The Henry L. Stimson Center just introduced a great online game called “Cheater’s Risk” that allows students to explore proliferation pathways interactively in the context of a reacting international community trying to detect their efforts and Google Earth can help explore any location on the planet. Virtual reality (VR) is an exceptionally promising area – Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is working on VR safeguards inspections that could be tailored for generic facility types or for specific facilities to prepare inspectors for specific inspection activities (or be displayed on their handheld or through a monocle during the inspection itself) and a simulation of detection of nuclear material on a container ship may also be in the works. Security considerations may keep some of these tools offline, but TAMU’s Bill Charlton reports the University of Denver has a nuclear reactor available in Second Life open to all.

Nuclear security education should be followed on, with linkages to additional education, professional societies, and job opportunities. NNSA sponsored six summer courses through the Next Generation Safeguards Initiative this summer at the National Laboratories and universities and the Center for Strategic International Studies Project on Nuclear Issues (PONI) is one of a growing number of networking opportunities for young people interested in learning more about nonproliferation. The Institute of Nuclear Materials Management is an important vehicle of validating and extending nonproliferation education. NNSA’s Nonproliferation Graduate Fellowship Program is one great pathway to a career in the field.

Great food for thought as those teaching on these topics prepare our fall courses.

A Walk the Senate should take

2010-07-16T06:03:00.000-07:00

Last night's Washington opening of the American Ensemble Theater production of A Walk in the Woods could not be more timely.

Lee Blessing's Pulitzer-nominated play casts two people with the awesome responsibility to reduce the risk of nuclear war through negotiated arms reductions. This brilliant and well-acted play highlights the urgent necessity and daunting challenge of responding to the danger posed by nuclear weapons just in time, as the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is scheduled to take its most important vote on arms control in a generation by the end of the month. Statesmanship will be at a premium in consideration of this landmark agreement, as the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) between the United States and Russia moves to the Senate floor where a two-thirds majority -- and therefore bipartisan cooperation -- will be necessary to ratify it.

In the play, negotiators John Honeyman and Andrey Botvinnik represent the Cold War adversaries, the United States, and the Soviet Union respectively. They struggle to reach an agreement. Many wish them to fail, and their argument, and friendship, resonate with the issues under debate over the new START Treaty.

Some argue that nuclear weapons make war too horrible for any "rational" leader to risk. Blessing's Soviet presciently observes how globalization complicates this delicate logic: "Once we only had to be rational in English and Russian." Today we must do so in more languages and perhaps with terrorists who have no territory or population for us to threaten. And as the Gulf oil spill attests, accidents happen. Nuclear weapons endanger human civilization.

Blessing's heroes offer hope by rising from their seats and opening their imaginations to each other. History agrees. In the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union, arms negotiators moved their work from Geneva's gilded halls to the sauna, the target range, and the pool - and over countless vodka toasts, we made a lot of progress.

A generation later, over 22 thousand nuclear weapons remain. This spring, U.S. and Russian negotiators concluded a new arms reduction treaty, but now face domestic politics in both countries. In Washington, the Senate began hearings on ratification of the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty earlier this month and will receive a new National Intelligence Estimate on its effects in a matter of days. Earlier this year, the U.S. Government proposed $180 billion in new spending related to nuclear weapons. Some political leaders argue that this is not enough - that we should resume nuclear explosive testing and develop new nuclear weapons. As Blessing observes of our efforts to escape nuclear annihilation, "sometimes the hawks eat a few doves."

Still, survival requires that someone take up this work, and the brave few who do have each other. Why should arms negotiators become friends? Andrey Botvinnik argues "because someone has to."

The United States and the world would be more secure if every Senator and staffer involved in foreign affairs saw this production.

Not all of them will, but you still can. Three of the five performances of this important production are already sold out, a few tickets remain for the 11:30 a.m. show on Saturday (July 17) and the 3:00 p.m. show on the following Saturday (July 24). Get your tickets now.

The Bomb: A New History (first of three reactions)

2010-06-23T09:19:00.000-07:00

Reading Stephen M. Younger’s The Bomb: A New History over the weekend, I had three strong reactions, the first of which I summarize below. This is an interesting and important book and my students can expect to read (at least) chapters 4 and 8 this fall.

I found the argument thin for his conclusion that a “moderate” future U.S. nuclear weapons policy would include new nuclear weapons designs and probably new military capabilities for nuclear weapons to improve the American capacity to hold deeply buried targets at risk.

My principal objection is a modified version of the standard “dangling antecedent” objection to arguments about deterrent sufficiency.

Despite leaving me desperate for references throughout the text (owing to security considerations), Dr. Younger provides an unusually clear definition of U.S. deterrent sufficiency on page 216 as a force sufficient:

“to make it impossible for Moscow to eliminate our weapons and avoid devastating retaliation following a first strike.”

While he doesn’t treat with any detail how precisely this capability instrumentalizes fear to drive desired Russian behavior, this articulation is sound if we grant familiar assumptions often packaged as “rationality.” However, I find his appropriation of the time-proven budgeting technique of rounding up and doubling the required number of nuclear weapons (for potential system failures, refurbishment process, and – a little ominously – “special weapons for unique applications”) suggestive that he does not share my perspective that each nuclear weapon in the arsenal creates a marginal security risk and complicates negotiations on both disarmament and nonproliferation (that I argue offer security benefits).

My concern about a potential disconnect between ends and means in Dr. Younger’s argument becomes more problematic as he pivots to support his actual conclusion that we need new nuclear weapon designs for flexibility and reliability.

On flexibility, he argues that the absence of additional, lower-yield weapon designs – which he associates with the work of anti-nuclear groups (huge and maybe even excessive props to a very few smart and dedicated people) – force the United States

“to continue a policy of mutual assured destruction."

I see three problems here.

First, the mutuality of assured destruction is not a matter of U.S. policy; it is a condition imposed on the United States by others (principally Russia) and can only be relieved –if at all – in cooperation with them.

Second, our efforts to relieve ourselves of excessively large-yield nuclear weapons by designing and building smaller-yield nuclear weapons may be misinterpreted. Such misinterpretations could undermine international confidence in the already stressed Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) regime, and so, whatever we do in the service of global nuclear stability should be agreed to be in alignment with the NPT regime.

Finally, he far too easily dismisses the concern that lower-yield nuclear weapons would be destabilizing if misinterpreted by other governments as more usable, possibly lowering the perceived threshold of nuclear weapons use. On page 127 he asserts

“I believe that these arguments are seriously flawed and fail to appreciate the essential elements of strategic deterrence.”

Here the apparent necessity of offering 220 pages without a single footnote becomes a vice as I do not share his confidence in the absolute logical rigor of all the political processes that the

United States

hopes to frighten and/or reassure through our maintenance of a nuclear arsenal. Moreover, there is a notable disagreement about whether nuclear deterrence is absolute or delicate (expertly summarized by Dr. Jeffrey Lewis). Dr. Younger’s uniquely informed perspective on this topic would be very welcome. Without it, I remain unconvinced that additional flexibility in nuclear weapons capability is necessary for deterrent sufficiency.

On reliability, I find Dr. Younger’s argument more formidable. He argues that existing redundancy is eroding with underinvestment in U.S. nuclear weapons manufacturing capability and unavoidable drift away from the methods and materials of decades past (page 192).

His explicit openness to international inspection of a prospective future nuclear weapons replacement capability (page 219) may suggest a confidence-building step around which agreement could be built among key states. However, even the best technical ideas require political and diplomatic spadework to avoid potentially destabilizing misinterpretation. Furthermore, I am convinced that such negotiations are more likely to succeed when the United States is prepared to listen to our international partners and perhaps even adjust our plans to align with their perceived needs, when appropriate.

Dr. Younger’s thoughtful observation that

“improved transparency and inspection treaties with other countries would reduce the need to maintain nuclear forces larger than required and could conceivably enable us to eliminate them altogether”

(page 220) suggests a narrow point in the gulf between the technical and multilateral diplomatic communities focused on nonproliferation that might be bridged with the right sort of meetings and consultations. However, we are not starting from a blank slate but a position of deep suspicion and dissatisfaction among many non-nuclear weapons states parties to the NPT. I hesitate in criticizing Dr. Younger for focusing his important arguments on the future of nuclear weapons exclusively on Americans, but find I must do so remaining convinced that the bomb is everybody’s problem.

Higher Education and the Nuclear Summit

2010-04-15T07:28:00.001-07:00

Menachem Wecker recently interviewed me about the Nuclear Security Summit and how it relates to higher education; the interview is available at The George Washington University homepage at http://www.gwu.edu/explore/gwtoday/learningresearch/defusingthenuclearthreat

Faculty Goals and Resource Needs for Nuclear Nonproliferation and Safeguards Education

2010-03-17T11:42:00.001-07:00

Remarks Delivered by
Douglas B. Shaw
at the U.S. Department of Energy’s
Next Generation Safeguards Initiative Human Capital Development Conference
hosted by Los Alamos National Laboratory in cooperation with

Texas Agricultural and Mechanical University

Santa Fe, New Mexico
August 10, 2009

This spring, the celebrated deterrence theorist and historian of nuclear strategy Sir Lawrence Freedman visited the Elliott School and observed an imperative for higher education to respond to a “lost generation” of nuclear weapons specialists. Others have made similar observations.
In explaining his decision to host a July 2009 conference on “Waging Deterrence in the 21st Century,” General Kevin Chilton, commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, observed “I think we have allowed an entire generation to skip class, as it were, on the subject of strategic deterrence.”

In introducing the 2002 United Nations Study on Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Education, then Secretary-General Kofi Annan found it “striking for someone of my generation to think that an entire new generation of human beings is coming to maturity without an ever present terror of nuclear catastrophe. Yet it is so, and that is for the better. The downside, however, is ignorance of the real dangers that do exist, especially the legacy of nuclear weapons inherited from the last century. Moreover, the companion of ignorance is complacency: what we know little about, we care little to do anything about.”

Our host, Dr. James Doyle, wrote in his paper “Nuclear Security as a Multidisciplinary Field of Study,” that “[o]ver the next five years, some 50 percent of the IAEA’s top inspectors are expected to retire, taking with them key institutional knowledge and technical skills.” The challenge before us is as immediate and global as it is important.

I am grateful to Jim and Los Alamos National Laboratories for hosting this meeting, the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Next Generation Safeguards Initiative for making it possible, and to all of you for constituting such an exciting program. I am humbled to be included, but assure you that my students this fall will benefit substantially from this discussion.
Jim has asked me to address faculty goals and resource needs for nonproliferation and safeguards education. I will approach this task by reflecting on the four basic goals Jim identified in his paper. First, the interdisciplinary character of nonproliferation; second, the need to confront real-world problems; third, empowering students to balance the costs and benefits of nuclear technology; and finally, the incorporation of experiential learning. These are just a few ideas and my only pride in suggesting them is that the audience assembled to receive them is so capable of improving upon them.

I. Interdisciplinary Foundations

The first basic goal of nonproliferation education that Jim identifies is that graduate and undergraduate programs in nuclear security should “provide the necessary fundamentals in nuclear security science from across the physical and social sciences.” This observation echoes the observation of the United Nations study I mentioned earlier that “new formal and informal curricula should…adopt a multidisciplinary approach.”[1]

This is a huge task. Jim identifies more than a dozen disciplines as immediately relevant to nuclear security. Most colleges and universities are organized by disciplinary departments effectively stove-piping faculty credentialed hired, socialized, promoted, tenured, and evaluated in these disciplinary departments away from interdisciplinary collaboration. While there are countervailing initiatives and even trends, interdisciplinary work can be hazardous to the career prospects of many young faculty members.

Some institutions will find the organization of interdisciplinary programs easier than others, but from a vantage point inside the Elliott School of International Affairs, an explicitly interdisciplinary institution organically focused on responding to global human problems with policy engagement built into its mission on an equal footing with research and teaching, I can say with confidence that this will always imply tensions.

Managing these tensions and creating a strong foundation for nonproliferation education in several disciplines will require incentives to draw more faculty into this area of teaching. There are many ways to do this, three stand out to me as particularly achievable. Funding research on nonproliferation-related topics that engages the current methodological and scholarly debates in each relevant discipline could attract faculty to greater practical nonproliferation expertise while advantaging those who engage in scholarship on these topics in their pursuit of tenure and recognition within their disciplines. Similarly, creating faculty sabbatical opportunities with careful attention to their professional growth requirements could make it easier for more scholars to focus more energy on these topics. Finally, higher education environments vary considerably. Creating institution-specific partnerships would have the benefit of engaging the leadership of these colleges and universities to encourage their faculty with the spectrum of specific tools at their disposal.

II. Real-world Problems

Jim’s second basic goal is to “provide an understanding of the unique challenges that arise when applying these fundamentals to real-world problems.”

We may benefit here from a parallel effort undertaken by the Director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute, Professor Jeffrey Sachs in teaching sustainable development. In a recent op-ed co-authored by Sachs and Millennium Promise CEO John McArthur in the Chronicle of Higher Education, the authors describe the problems of sustainable development as:

“complex and interconnected, spilling across academic disciplines and often across national borders. Solutions will require theoretical knowledge and practical problem-solving skills, including the capacity to build and lead teams drawn from a variety of disciplines. This will require leaders who can cross boundaries of science, policy, geography, theory, and practice.”[2]

Sound familiar?

Their response at the Earth Institute, modeled on the Flexner Report of 1910 that “revolutionized and standardized systematic training for medical doctors in North America” undertook to assess current sustainable development education and make recommendations for a transformation of professional education – specifically, a new form of degree program they call the “master’s in development practice” to provide a grounding in several disciplines but also substantial “clinical” training to educate students to build interdisciplinary teams indifferent to their geographic location or dispersion responding to undertake case studies and field work. This effort, underwritten by a $15 million grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation aims at nothing less than the global transformation of an emerging profession.
Needless to say, $15 million is important among my suggestions for resources needed to stimulate new teaching for nonproliferation, but I suspect this effort has more to teach us about the integrative work of connecting our disciplinary perspectives into the formation of future nuclear security professionals. The Next Generation Safeguards Initiative could convene a discussion to define the future professions necessary for nuclear security and seed the establishment of model professional degree programs to support them, support a network of schools offering these types of programs, and regularly convene meetings like this one to establish a network of faculty teaching on nonproliferation and alumni who have received this training, perhaps forming the core of new professional organizations. These efforts should leverage other networks already under development, such as the United Nations annual reporting on Nonproliferation and Disarmament Education, the efforts of the International Association of University Presidents, and the work of pioneers in this field, particularly including the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

III. Understanding the Need to Balance Risks and Benefits

Jim’s third basic goal is developing “understanding of the need to balance the risks posed by nuclear technologies with their benefits.”

Nuclear technology has complex societal effects. The human tendency toward war made nuclear weapons inevitable, but nuclear weapons are thought to control this tendency, assuming human beings can control these weapons in the context of our fallibility. We identify nuclear terrorism and proliferation as the greatest threats to our security but make only modest investments in response.

The question of peaceful uses of nuclear technology is interwoven with the question of nuclear proliferation and terrorism and adds its own additional complexity. At its beginning, nuclear energy promised power too cheap to meter. Decades later, we still don’t know what it costs. National governments necessarily have a role to play in anything that contains so much promise and danger, but what that role should be is intensely contested.

What I take from this goal is that there are immediate and significant moral implications for our work as educators. Our students will live with challenges we can’t imagine today. For example, Rose Gottemoeller, who now serves as the Assistant Secretary of State for Verification, Compliance and Implementation tasked by President Obama to negotiate a new nuclear arms reduction agreement with Russia; Adam Scheinman, who played a leadership role in the established of the Next Generation Safeguards Initiative and now serves as the director for nonproliferation at the National Security Council; and Thomas Troyano, who leads the Office of Treaty Compliance in the Pentagon all studied security policy at the Elliott School in the 1980s. No case studies or fieldwork designed at that time could be perfectly relevant to today’s challenges. We need to open our students’ imaginations beyond today’s challenges. This is hard, but as scholars committed to revealing truth, our work is not value neutral. As Georgetown University President Jack DeGioia observes, “the truth makes demands of us.”

He approaches this problem through the creation of flagship courses, one on human rights and another on ethics and global development designed to get students talking about these value-laden topics outside the classroom by making them more visible and widening student interest.
High-profile speakers – like the Secretary of Energy or the White House Science Advisor – touring campuses would raise student awareness considerably. Awards and essay competitions – like the one that got Hans Blix interested in the field – have impacts that extend through time and beyond their winners. These kind of efforts hold promise for shifting the curve of awareness up across entire student bodies and widening the conversation to include ethical and political considerations in the uncontrolled real world with information and theoretical frameworks reliably supplied in the classroom.

IV. Experiential Learning

Jim’s last basic goal, to “include the opportunity for hands-on training (internships, lab experiments, [and] simulation exercises)” also aligns with the UN Study’s call for participatory learning, in particular role-playing and simulations.[3]

One valuable step would be technology and travel support to help connect classes at different institutions in simulations – simulations require a lot of energy from both students and faculty, the structure and added momentum of participants from other departments or institutions can reinforce these efforts.

Exhibits, models, and mock-ups – when students touch unusual objects that relate to unfamiliar subjects, they can better visualize the settings and processes relevant to these subjects and they feel more connected and attracted to the topic area. Traveling exhibits and permanent collections in cities with several universities could make a lasting impression on students.

Guest speakers with real world experience – nonproliferation and safeguards are extraordinarily complex topics and many key documents are dry and difficult to teach – the Additional Protocol is one example of critical document that is difficult to teach because it is obtuse and boring to read. Sharing lived experiences can contribute to deeper student engagement.

Multimedia – different people learn differently; unfortunately individual faculty have limited capacity to develop diverse teaching resources themselves. I recall when I was at the Department of Energy I had the opportunity to use a CD-ROM training program called Nuclear Material Control and Accounting 101. This particular resource might not be appropriate for general distribution, but something similar could be produced and even made available online and would provide a multi-media learning opportunity for my students that I could not produce on my own.

These have been just a few examples: encouraging multidisciplinary teaching by creating career incentives for faculty, seeding transformational programs and seeking a vision of emerging professions and creating a global network to engage real-world problems, widening campus conversations about the risks and benefits of nuclear technology, and making tailored multimedia resources, guest speakers with vivid real-world experience, and networking technology to drive more exciting simulations available to faculty teaching on nonproliferation and safeguards. I look forward to learning from you what other resources would be useful and how we might work together to assemble them. Thank you.

[1] Page 13.
[2] John W. McArthur and Jeffrey Sachs, “Needed: A New Generation of Problem Solvers,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 26, 2009.
[3] Page 13-4.

Everybody's Bomb: Urgency, Inclusion, and Hope in Response to Nuclear Weapons

2010-03-17T05:45:00.000-07:00

Remarks as Prepared for Delivery byDouglas B. Shaw on March 16, 2010
At a Woodstock Theological Center Forum on "God and the Bomb: Deterrence, Disarmament and Human Security" at Georgetown University

In December, the fellows and leadership of the Woodstock Theological Center engaged in a discussion on the topic of “Nuclear Deterrence or Disarmament: A Global Human Choice.” With their help, I better understand that the weighty historical choices humanity faces today are not between deterrence and disarmament but between engagement and what Woodstock Senior Fellow Delores Leckey termed “a kind of great apathy that we are part of and complicit in.” In response to my greater awareness of my own complicity in this great apathy, I am grateful to Father Lo Biondo for organizing this forum and Archbishop Migliore, Father Langan, Professor Maryann Cusimano Love, and all of you for the opportunity tonight to offer my thoughts on urgency, inclusion, and hope in response to nuclear weapons. My hope is that everyone here tonight will leave carrying a little more responsibility for what I think of as everybody’s bomb.

I. Nuclear weapons require an urgent response

A little more than twenty years ago, the fall of the “iron curtain” revealed a “nuclear archipelago” of vulnerable fissile material – plutonium and highly enriched uranium that could be used by terrorists to make nuclear weapons – across the former Soviet Union. At the same time, glacially slow arms control negotiations between the United States and Russia finally began to result in actual agreements requiring on-site verification and implementation. The prospect of nuclear terrorism displaced the Cold War order; as President Barack Obama has observed, “[i]n a strange turn of history, the threat of global nuclear war has gone down, but the risk of a nuclear attack has gone up.”

In light of these developments, some of which are now two decades past, many people think that nuclear weapons are yesterday’s news; that the danger nuclear weapons pose went away with the end of the Cold War. The truth is that as long as nuclear weapons exist, they pose an extraordinary threat to human life and civilization and this danger requires urgent action.

Immediate danger

This danger is immediate and stems from a combination of factors: terrorists intent on using nuclear weapons, the potential availability of these weapons or materials that could be used to make nuclear weapons, and lapses of security. In the asymmetric struggle against terrorism, nuclear weapons are worse than useless – they are a liability: a potential source of incredible destructive power for terrorists, an obstacle to reductions in nuclear weapons and weapons-usable nuclear materials elsewhere, and used by some as evidence of the injustice and indiscriminate violence embedded in the contemporary world order.

Founding Dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government and former Assistant Secretary of Defense Graham Allison predicted in his 2004 book, Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe, that “if the United States and other governments keep doing what they are doing today, a nuclear terrorist attack on America is more likely than not in the decade ahead.”[1] Such an attack could kill hundreds of thousands of Americans.

Preserving our agency

In addition to the lives lost, our agency to respond to the danger may not outlast the first act of nuclear terrorism. In 1996, Senator Richard Lugar ran a campaign ad dramatizing a conversation in which a child asks her mother about the future possibility of nuclear terrorism; the ad closes on the little girl asking: “Mommy, won’t the bomb wake everybody up?”[2]

Johns Hopkins University Professor Daniel Deudney offers an alarming answer to this innocent question: “that a 9/11 to the fourth or fifth power could lead to a Patriot Act to the fourth or fifth power and the end of constitutionalism” – the next nuclear attack could undermine the American way of life and the basis for our free society.

For Americans, I believe this argues strongly that anything we might want to do the day after a nuclear attack, we would be better off to do the day before. This requires citizen engagement. Just like health care, the federal deficit, and every other issue important to our future, the responsibility for nuclear weapons policy cannot belong to the Government bureaucracy alone.
The day after the next nuclear detonation in a major city, I believe that many Americans – including some in this room – might feel called to respond personally. Unfortunately, this calling will come in the context of a global political environment of fear unprecedented in human history. The bomb will wake everybody up, but our options afterward may be constrained by this fear. Many may wish then that they had acted now.

Shaping our future capacity to respond

This challenge is not new, but it may be accelerating. Throughout the nuclear age humanity has made choices that have shaped our capacity to respond to nuclear weapons dangers today. We have come to many forks in the road, made several wrong turns, and been enormously lucky many times. But we also have a number of important choices immediately ahead of us that will shape our future capacity to respond to the dangers posed by nuclear weapons. I’ve listed eight of these in a hand-out tonight. Each of these represents an important opportunity for citizen engagement.

II. Nuclear weapons require greater inclusion

We are witnessing today an irreversible widening of responsibility for the problems nuclear weapons pose to human security across dimensions of geography and sovereign authority, legal rules and diplomatic fora, scientific disciplines and technical skill sets, as well as society and culture. The effect of the problem is the same – a species-level danger to humanity in its physical and moral aspects – but we are increasingly aware that its causes and our capacities for response are more diverse, complex, and multifaceted than we previously understood.

Our deepening understanding of this global human danger shares important attributes with our deepening understanding of climate change. The difficulty of fully parsing expert disagreement about climate change has not prevented a widening sense of public responsibility for the problem and appropriate responses. People around the world are making economic and political choices that reflect this priority. They don’t know for sure that they will save a polar bear, but they’re collective attention and action changes the political context for policy making by elevating the issue, attracting more resources and critical focus to the effort to find solutions, and raising the political price of neglecting the problem.

A similar increase in public engagement could also improve the context for nuclear weapons policy making, by supporting governments exhibiting more political commitment; more scholarly research across more disciplines; better education and more technical experts; and more public awareness. We need to act out of a heightened awareness that the bomb is the problem, and that it is everybody’s problem – everybody’s bomb.

Global inclusion

Inequality is the crack that threatens to shatter the future of nuclear proliferation restraint. In explaining his country’s 1998 nuclear tests, Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh used the term “nuclear apartheid” to describe the current international legal order in which most countries have forsworn nuclear weapons in exchange for the benefits of peaceful nuclear technology and a vague and largely unfulfilled pledge by the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and China to work toward the elimination of nuclear weapons. He’s wrong – the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons – the NPT – did not create two classes of states but merely recognized that this destructive technology had already spread to five states and that it was in the common interest of all to stop this spread and for those who already had these weapons to work toward their elimination. The problem is that Minister Singh’s logic is seductive. Some on the “have not” side of history seek a greater role in world affairs through nuclear weapons. More productive means of inclusion must be found.

Inclusion means listening to those with whom we disagree to specify and work to reduce areas of disagreement. Not every disagreement can be resolved and not every partner is willing to earnestly undertake this work – the governments of both Iran and North Korea are both clearly engaged in behavior that threatens global efforts to reduce and control nuclear weapons as well as every other milestone in the field of international law and organization. But diplomacy is about talking to – and about – the “bad guys.” It is about maintaining agreement across a wider global community so that when Iran or North Korea breaks the rules, their behavior is aberrant and unacceptable. Clear solutions for lawbreaking may not always exist, but long-term peace and stability demand that we maintain international agreement about standards for responsible global citizenship.

This is properly the work of diplomacy. Archbishop Migliore has observed that multilateralism is an important and superior alternative to violence as a means to security. But it is also the work of social organization and scholarship, to find ways to overcome disagreements by establishing new standards of responsible global citizenship.

Social inclusion

A tradition of social activism for inclusion in nuclear solutions has contributed to our ability to live with our bomb. In the 1940s, the Federation of Atomic Scientists coined the term “education for survival” to characterize their work to educate the public about the danger they had brought into the world in response to wartime necessity.[3] In the 1960s, His Holiness Pope John XXIII responded to the extraordinary danger of the Cuban Missile Crisis through his encyclical Pacem en Terris. In the 1980s, Randall Forsberg sparked a Nuclear Freeze movement and the U.S. Catholic Bishops issued a pastoral letter on war and peace in the nuclear age. Perhaps closer to home for this community, in the pages of America Magazine just five years ago, the late Father Robert F. Drinan asked “[w]ould it be possible to educate and arouse America’s 64 million Catholics to become a church that is a strong political force aimed at persuading the Congress and the White House to renounce and defuse nuclear weapons?”

Epistemic inclusion

Some who study the role of nuclear weapons in world politics believe that the elimination of nuclear weapons is impossible and dangerously destabilizing to attempt. Some research traditions have rigorously constructed elaborate theoretical responses for managing the problems of the nuclear age that depend on nuclear weapons – and in some cases quite a few nuclear weapons – for stability. We cannot turn our back on these but must translate them forward to new generations and map them to new political facts and technical developments.
Some disciplines – including medicine, public health, and theology – are often excluded from some important discussions about nuclear weapons. This exclusion should be considered critically, because some of these disciplines have a history of pushing their way into the discussion with important positive effects. In the 1960s, for example, members of Physicians for Social Responsibility raised public awareness about the dangers of nuclear testing by demonstrating that Strontium-90, a by-product of nuclear fission, could be found in the baby teeth of American children.

Georgetown University’s President, Jack DeGioia, suggests that while scholarship demands impartial methods to reveal truth, sometimes the truth makes demands of us – that the creation of knowledge will sometimes demand action. If we agree, then everyone who holds legitimate knowledge about the danger nuclear weapons pose should be part of the conversation about their future.

III. Everyone is a source of hope for living with the bomb

In arguing for the development of the hydrogen bomb, its designer Edward Teller argued that “[i]f the development is possible, it is out of our powers to prevent it.”[4] But while this technological determinism may be logically seductive, history has not borne it out. There are still only two handfuls of nuclear armed states and there are reasons to hope to reduce that number toward zero. The momentum to move toward the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons has been renewed by President Obama and by four renowned leaders of the Cold War era: Sam Nunn, Bill Perry, Henry Kissinger, and George Shultz.

Nuclear weapons are a familiarizing and globalizing technology

During the conversation about nuclear weapons at Woodstock in December, Father Haughey recalled the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, emphasizing that “[t]he use of nuclear weapons awakened me to our vulnerability and our common humanity.” The images of the atomic bombings may be lost to the popular imagination, but they can be recalled. Even some who take a more coldly rational view of nuclear weapons allow that they build a certain sort of global community by placing the cost of war so high that no rational person would risk it. As Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb observed, “[t]he true security of this nation, as of any other, will be found, if at all, only in the collective efforts of all.”[5] However horrible, nuclear weapons can serve to emphasize the unity of global humanity.
Powerful interests are engaged

In fact, among major global dangers to human security including poverty, pandemic disease, and environmental degradation, nuclear weapons are unusual because they command the immediate attention of the most powerful people on earth.

Nuclear weapons are the one issue that literally follows the President of the United States everywhere he goes in the person of a military aide carrying the “football” that could enable the use of American nuclear weapons. Moreover, the United States spends tens of billions of dollars of each year and has spent more than $5 trillion total on nuclear weapons.[6] Unlike some causes for citizen engagement, nuclear weapons already command the attention of our leaders. It is the public that remains complacent.

We know what we ought to do; the real problem is how

I am calling for radical change tonight. I am not asking you to support the abolition of nuclear weapons – I do happen to believe it to be necessary and find myself in good company from Henry Kissinger to Richard Branson in doing so – but our discussion at Woodstock suggests to me that this is not the argument I need to win. Brilliant people disagree for the most careful and thoughtful reasons on this topic – I only need to convince you to be one of them.

The human family has not concluded that nuclear weapons are a moral evil, the way we have about slavery – although important institutions including the Catholic Church have come close. Even in the act of committing the United States to the abolition of nuclear weapons last Palm Sunday, President Barack Obama allowed that it would probably not happen in his lifetime. But for all the complexity of and disagreement about nuclear weapons, there are some things we know about them. We ought not to live comfortably behind the threat of killing millions of other human beings in an afternoon – because it is morally dubious at best and because it is an unreliable means to guarantee our security. If it is our lot to carry this burden today, we ought to try to relieve it for future generations. We – all of us here tonight in this room and throughout the human family – ought to engage this challenge deeply.

In response, and as a political scientist, I find an insight offered by Archbishop Migliore particularly illuminating: “Here the recognition of the values of morality would play an instrumental role in effecting political will.”[7] Religious and social institutions can call people to learn and embrace their share of nuclear dangers. My hypothesis is that leaving each of you with a greater sensitivity to your potential control over the bomb – your own imaginary “nuclear football” over your shoulder and always present in your conscience – will lead to more and better ideas more carefully and reliably acted upon for living with everybody’s bomb and reducing the danger that you will use yours carelessly.

[1] Ibid., page 203.
[2] Graham Allison, Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe (New York: Henry Holt and Company) 2004, page 209.
[3] Ibid. page 220.
[4] As quoted by Joseph Cirincione, Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons (New York: Columbia University Press) 2007, page 71.
[5] J.R. Oppenheimer, “The New Weapon: The Turn of the Screw,” Chapter 5 in Dexter Masters and Katharine Way, eds. One World or None: A Report to the Public on the Full Meaning of the Atomic Bomb, (New York: The New Press) 2007 reprint, page 68.
[6] Stephen I. Schwartz, Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940 (Washington: Brookings) 1998 see press release at: http://www.brookings.edu/press/Books/1998/atomic.aspx
[7] Archbishop Celestino Migliore, “Nuclear Weapons Contravene Every Aspect of Humanitarian Law,” Official Documents of the Roman Catholic Church, January 29, 2009, pps. 2-3.

What Richard Perle and Andrew Marshall think you should know about nuclear weapons

2010-02-10T09:13:00.000-08:00

Stuck at home in a blizzard, I'm catching up with my DVR and found the following gem of an exchange that took place at the Hudson Institute on February 23, 2009 and was aired on C-Span 2's Book TV at 1:30 am on March 16, 2009.

The event celebrated the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center’s publication of Nuclear Heuristics: Selected Writings of Albert and Roberta Wohlstetter edited by Henry Sokolski and Robert Zarate (Strategic Studies Institute, January 2009) featuring discussion from Richard Perle and Andrew Marshall.

Henry Sokolski: do you have any thoughts, either of you, about what we should be encouraging in the way of education of young people who are interested in foreign affairs and military affairs or what we should be asking or demanding of the studies that are funded by the United States Government that deal with these topics? How shall I put it, let's leave Albert and Roberta out of it.

Richard Perle: My immediate reaction to that is that what we should be teaching is not the conclusions they arrived at or, for that matter, the substance of their research, but the tools, the methodology. I can't imagine a better way to bring a young student along than to give him the famous Base Study and invite him to reflect on the mode of analysis that is reflected in it. It was the rigor and discipline they brought to every issue they examined. Now, as it happens, many of those issues are still with us and I think they have a great deal to contribute in the way we think about those issues, but far more important is respect for their approach to the analysis of issues and there is much too little of that today in universities and government funded research programs.

Andrew Marshall: Well, I would certainly second that, I think in addition other things I've written suggest reading a lot of history. Clearly, one of the things you want people to understand is the uncertainty of things; how you really need to look at a variety of alternative futures. Any notion that you know what's going to happen is not going to work.

Ambassador Max Kampelman on Nuclear Disarmament

2009-11-20T05:22:00.000-08:00

Ambassador Max Kampelman, the Democrat who became President Ronald Reagan’s arms control negotiator and who is argued to have initiated the new political momentum behind nuclear disarmament, addressed faculty and students at the Elliott School of International Affairs on November 9, 2009. Ambassador Kampelman recommended research and policy engagement by institutions of higher education to respond to the dangers posed by nuclear weapons. Observing that “political scientists ought to know how to get things done,” he contended that academic research should include questions of how policy might shape political outcomes. He suggested additional research focused on how to build consensus domestically and globally around how the world “ought” to be and the steps necessary to move in that direction. He also suggested research into how the historic experience of arms control could inform policy to respond to today’s challenges. Noting an absence of institutional and coordinative mechanisms for resolving policy uncertainty related to nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament, Ambassador Kampelman emphasized the value convening and policy engagement to bridge different perspectives on the challenge of nuclear disarmament, as well as new research on how to advance toward this increasingly important policy objective. Watch the video of Ambassador Kampelman’s public remarks here.

T family values

2009-11-16T14:17:00.001-08:00

Undersecretary of State for International Security and Arms Control Ellen O. Tauscher shared her perspectives on her current tasks and her career with students and faculty of the Elliott School of International Affairs on November 10 as part of the Elliott School's Distinguished Women in International Affairs event series.

Observing that organizational units in the State Department have "code" letters -- "we even have an M, although he's not a secret agent" -- and that her bureau is known as "T," Undersecretary Tauscher related that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has asked her to "resurrect the T family."

“T” could do with some resurrection. Under the leadership of John Bolton, famously hostile not only to arms control but also to the United Nations to which he later represented the United States, the bureau was "reorganized." These reorganizations appear to this outside observer to have significantly degraded the U.S. Government's capacity to lead and sustain international cooperation to prevent the spread or use of nuclear weapons.

Secretary Clinton's direction to Undersecretary Tauscher is thus much needed and reflective of the deep engagement and effective leadership both have shown over time on the challenge of nuclear weapons proliferation.

"Resurrection" is an important and complicated word in this context. Then Undersecretary Bolton's "reorganization" was structural -- it continues to constrain the function of the Bureau after his departure. So Undersecretary Tauscher's resurrection should be structural as well, creating new enduring capacity. A very welcome project to those who believe international law can be used to protect national and global security.

There is, however, an asterisk to this formulation in the mind of longtime observers of the organization of the U.S. Government for proliferation prevention. As the head of the "T family,” Undersecretary Tauscher is one of six undersecretaries. In contrast to the Undersecretary for Political Affairs, she has no foreign government “clients” – she represents only the U.S. Government’s commitment to promote international security through diplomacy.

Sometimes the requirements of effective global nonproliferation align with the requirements of strong bilateral relations with U.S. friends and allies. Sometimes this alignment is more difficult to achieve. In this latter class of cases, it is crucial that the requirements of preventing the spread of nuclear weapons have a strong champion, like Undersecretary Tauscher, to ensure that they are not drowned out by a host of bilateral diplomatic concerns, sometimes with significant economic implications.

This is a major challenge, worthy of the talents of a proven leader like Undersecretary Tauscher. But it used to be a little easier.

From 1961 until 1997, the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) was legislatively established as independent of the State Department. This meant that whenever conflicts arose among the various Undersecretaries of State, the requirements of prevention of proliferation or use of weapons of mass destruction could be raised by the ACDA director one-on-one with the Secretary and, if necessary, the President. The ACDA director had his (sadly, the ACDA directorship no longer exist for Ellen Tauscher to break the male monopoly) own seat on the National Security Council reflecting the extraordinary danger weapons of mass destruction pose to U.S. national security. In observing that these dangers persist, we should think carefully about the future structure of the U.S. Government to effectively face them.

The Contribution of the Global South to Nuclear Nonproliferation

2009-11-06T13:24:00.001-08:00

A talk I gave at a FLACSO Conference on “The Nuclear Challenge” Santiago, Chile on September 4, 2008:

I would like to begin by thanking FLACSO and the organizers of this conference for the opportunity to address you here today; as I will discuss in some detail, I believe the inclusion of the global south and Latin America in particular is a vital step toward a more stable nuclear nonproliferation regime and the ultimate goal of the elimination of nuclear weapons. I am also grateful to Dr. Bonnie Jenkins and the Ford Foundation for her ongoing support of innovation and global inclusion in the field of nuclear nonproliferation. I would also like to thank my fellow panelists and conference participants for your effort in service of global human security. The views I express today are mine alone.

I am pleased to speak with you today about the contribution of the global south to nuclear nonproliferation. The history of this contribution is both long and characterized by innovation, but the recognition of this rich tradition is often undermined by the differences of context in which nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states consider security and stability as well as technological and commercial issues. Today I will briefly discuss the global south’s tradition of contribution, the challenge of today, and the future potential of a more inclusive global conversation on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament.

A Tradition of Contribution

The global south has contributed significantly and innovatively to the cause of nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament. An international legal commitment to a nuclear weapon-free zone was first incorporated into the Antarctica Treaty in 1959 and the Treaty of Tlatelolco established the first nuclear weapon-free zone in a densely populated region in 1967. The states of Latin America and the Caribbean established a model for subsequent nuclear weapon-free zones in the South Pacific, Africa, Southeast Asia, and Central Asia; created a unique regional implementing body in the Organization for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean; and in overcoming significant challenges to the full implementation of the Zone through the Quadripartite Agreement and unprecedented cooperation between potential nuclear rivals.

Four decades since its inception, the spirit of Tlatelolco has contributed significantly to global nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament. As United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Mun acknowledged in Mexico City last month:

Today, the regional or territorial approach to disarmament covers most of our planet. Virtually the entire southern hemisphere is now nuclear-weapons free…[and]…two thirds of the world’s States are signatories to nuclear weapon-free zone treaties… [1]

The Secretary-General went on to observe contrast with the global north, where “the majority of the world’s population still lives in countries that possess nuclear weapons.” What challenges stand in the way of translating the positive nuclear nonproliferation experience of the global south into the northern hemisphere?

The Challenge of Today

Many of the arguments that may alienate states of the global south from more active participation in the nuclear nonproliferation regime are focused on Articles IV and VI of the NPT – understood by many to constitute “half” of a “bargain” between the non-nuclear weapons states and the nuclear weapons states parties to the NPT. The idea is simple – the NPT includes an obligation undertaken by non-nuclear weapons states not to acquire nuclear weapons which can be understood to be “balanced” by obligations undertaken by the nuclear weapons states to share the peaceful benefits of nuclear technology consistent with Article IV and to work toward the ultimate goal of the elimination of nuclear weapons under Article VI. This way of understanding the NPT as a “balance of obligations” or a “bargain” is simple, but not stable.

Each side can view the absence of shared understanding of what constitutes compliance as an obstacle to cooperation imposed by the other – the examples of this phenomenon I am most prepared to describe come from my country, the United States. One expert observer has referred to the perennial clash over the meaning of nuclear weapons state compliance in the NPT Review Process as a “dialogue of the deaf.” Another has lamented the futility of communicating the substantial efforts undertaken by the U.S. Government to establish and communicate a strong record of compliance to the non-nuclear weapons states who, in that expert’s opinion, cannot be satisfied. A third expert has suggested that there are “two NPTs,” one that functions to identify clandestine efforts to acquire nuclear weapons and rally international opposition to stop these clear and present threats to international peace and security, and another, second NPT, that functions as a periodic and ineffectual international debating society about marginal and ephemeral issues. While I am less familiar with the state of political discourse about the future of the nuclear nonproliferation regime in the global south, I suspect that that similar arguments may surface here. Without assigning blame or attempting to adjudicate the validity of accusations on either side, I would argue that the past performance of the NPT as a mechanism to promote shared meaning and a stable, shared appreciation of what constitutes compliance and “good” nuclear nonproliferation behavior is constrained by these mutually exclusive perspectives.

The NPT is unequal in its obligations, but it did not create two classes of states, it recognized that two classes of states existed in an effort to slow the translation of scores of nuclear weapons “have nots” into “haves.” While this international legal rule has helped maintain this disparity, the diffusion of technology and political challenges including the dissolution of a nuclear weapon state and the emergence of “proliferation rings” and “second-tier” suppliers of nuclear or dual-use materiel have eroded the context that gave rise to this difference. Others have very ably observed that it is increasingly difficult to prevent a determined nuclear proliferator.

At the same time, globalization has widened the group of nuclear weapons stakeholders. Those who feel threatened or who believe they have been adversely affected by nuclear weapons testing, development, and production and more able to communicate with each other. Independent studies suggest the potential for global climate effects of the use of multiple nuclear weapons. Ease of transportation and communication make the suffering of people anywhere difficult to ignore for people everywhere as greater awareness of global poverty and challenges to health and sanitation underscore.

In this context, it is easy to understand the traditional role some governments of the global south have adopted – as an advocate for those who, having no nuclear weapons themselves, are merely potential victims. From this perspective, consistent pressure for greater nuclear weapon state compliance with Articles IV and VI may seem sufficient. This criticism of the nuclear weapons states may be argued to have a legal basis and has been offered consistently in demands for a Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, a fissile material control regime, strong negative security assurances, a time-bound framework for nuclear disarmament, and greater cooperation in peaceful uses of nuclear technology.

While it may not be possible for the nuclear weapons states to meet any of these demands at a given moment in time, it is possible at any time for the nuclear weapons states to respond to each of the concerns that underlie these demands working toward a more inclusive global conversation on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament. This was, to some degree, achieved during the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference. However, this possibility can be easily derailed and legitimate expressions of concern marginalized by strident rhetoric or reluctance to acknowledge progress and legitimate obstacles and constraints to earnest compliance efforts. The result can be measured not only in failure to achieve incremental progress toward the objectives identified by the non-nuclear weapons states but also in their greater alienation from the global nuclear nonproliferation regime. This is an unnecessary risk at a moment in which the nuclear nonproliferation regime faces grave challenges, not the least of which is the fact that the presumed “leverage” of the non-nuclear weapons states does not seem likely to generate compliance “concessions” from the nuclear weapons states. The “leverage” model is not working.

The Potential of the Future

While it is reasonable to ask what the non-nuclear weapons states parties to the NPT receive in exchange for giving up their sovereign “right” to nuclear weapons through the NPT “bargain,” it is also reasonable to recognize that international leadership is itself a significant benefit with significant attendant global prestige. Just as China benefits from hosting the Olympics and the World’s Fair, Japan benefits from Director General Koichiro Matsura’s leadership of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, and Canada derived prestige from its sponsorship of the “Ottawa Process” culminating in the ban on anti-personnel landmines, states in the global south aspiring to regional and international leadership can garner prestige by building on their tradition of introducing innovative and constructive ideas into global diplomatic discourse on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament, by testing these ideas and the processes and technologies they will require regionally to demonstrate their feasibility, and exploring the constraints and obstacles the nuclear weapon states will face in the application of these new ideas in ways that foster cooperation and sidestep the difficulties inherent in arms reductions negotiations among the nuclear weapon states. This is a future worthy of the spirit of Tlatelolco.

I have referred to this approach elsewhere as a “fusion of obligations” in which all states parties consider themselves equal partners in the fulfillment of shared obligations to prevent nuclear proliferation, share in peaceful benefits, and move toward the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons. This approach has a basis in the text of the NPT which clearly specifies that Articles IV and VI are not merely half a bargain but shared obligations among all states parties. Articles I, II, and III, while directed alternatively at nuclear weapon states parties and non-nuclear weapons states parties, are each increasingly relevant to the other type of states parties in ways hard to imagine in 1968 as the diffusion of technology makes the cooperation of non-nuclear weapons states more relevant in preventing the transfer of nuclear or dual-use materiel and as nuclear weapons states increasingly accept international safeguards over their non-weapons activities. In this way, the apparent structural flaw of inequality in the NPT can be mitigated, leveling this foundation document to allow for increasingly equal obligations to be built upon it. While the NPT is for all practical purposes formally unamendable, state practice can render it more equitable just as state practice has been understood to nullify the Article V endorsement of peaceful nuclear explosions.

What specific contributions could the global south make to leveling the NPT playing field in this way? From the other hemisphere, it is hard to imagine the specific potential of the experience of the global south to contribute to this “fusion of obligations.” It is easy, however, to imagine areas in which action by the global south would reinforce the compliance efforts of the nuclear weapon states and I will list a few of these as examples:

Taking careful note of what the nuclear weapons states are able to do and acknowledging when the nuclear weapons states change their behavior is crucial to promoting an effective and inclusive global dialogue about what constitutes compliance with the NPT. This need not mean being satisfied with less, but rather showing greater sensitivity to obstacles and helping to overcome them.

By identifying particularly difficult political obstacles that constrain cooperation among the nuclear weapon states, the governments of the global south could work to imagine the technologies and procedures that would be necessary to move forward once these obstacles are overcome. For example, while political circumstances have not yet allowed for warhead-level verification of nuclear arms reductions between the United States and Russia, this is likely to be an important step on any realistic path toward deeper reductions and the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons. Cooperation among the governments of the global south and perhaps in separate, parallel tracks with the nuclear weapons states could make this path easier to follow when political circumstances allow. In truth, this approach could be seen simply as an attempt to extend the model of preferred behavior offered by the Tlatelolco parties into new areas.

The post-Soviet transition created unimagined opportunities for cooperation in nuclear threat reduction. The work led by the United States in this area has been impressive, but has also encountered significant challenges. It might be constructive for the governments of the global south to pay explicit attention to this work to imagine what a future global standard for cooperative efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation might require in terms of domestic laws and bureaucratic structure. The ABACC experience of Argentina and Brazil may prove valuable in this regard.

In the wake of revelations regarding the AQ Khan network, it seems possible that future nuclear nonproliferation success will increasingly depend on a combination of traditional diplomatic tools with law enforcement tools such as criminal prosecutions and alternative legal instruments, possibly including civil lawsuits. These challenges overlap with other challenges faced in the global south including trafficking in drugs, arms, and human beings. Creating responsive laws and modes of international cooperation is another area of potential leadership for the global south.

International networking of legislators, prosecutors and judges to prepare them for their role in addressing emerging nuclear proliferation challenges might be accomplished, for example, through OPANAL with efficiencies impossible in regions that do not have their own nuclear weapons-free zone implementing body.

These are just a few examples of areas where the global south might choose to innovate in support of universal compliance with the NPT. These may not be the right suggestions and no one expects that these proactive compliance measures by non-nuclear weapons states will reduce the obligation for compliance by the nuclear weapon states. But the global south’s tradition of nuclear nonproliferation leadership suggests that innovative ideas and exemplary behavior can strengthen the global nuclear nonproliferation regime.
[1] Ban Ki Mun, http://presszoom.com/story_145611.html

Global Zero World Summit -- student opportunities

2009-10-29T13:20:00.000-07:00

The following is posted at the request of Claire Morelon from Global Zero. If you are a GW student, of course, I'm also interested in knowing if you're planning to apply.

Seeking Student Representatives at the Global Zero World Summit in Paris, February 2010Global Zero, a new international campaign to eliminate nuclear weapons, is looking for a handful of smart savvy, entrepreneurial university students to attend the Global Zero World Summit in Paris this coming February as representatives of a growing youth-led movement for the elimination of nuclear weapons worldwide.Applications are to be submitted online and are due by 11:59PM on Monday, 30 November 2009.

English-language application:
http://www.globalzero.org/en/world-summit-students

French-language application:
http://www.globalzero.org/fr/sommet-mondial-etudiants

Applications will not be considered complete until applicants submit a CV/resume and a short writing sample via email with the following subject line: "Paris Application - Writing Sample" to Claire Morelon (cmorelon@globalzero.org).

Global Zero is spearheaded by a group of over 200 world leaders – including President Jimmy Carter, Queen Noor, Sir Malcom Rifkind, Mikhail Gorbachev, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, among others, The campaign’s work includes a world summit in 2010, a comprehensive plan for zero authored by Global Zero Commissioners, a global online and grassroots campaign, and a major documentary from Academy-Award winning producers.Global Zero is looking for a handful of smart savvy, entrepreneurial university students to attend the Global Zero World Summit in Paris this coming February as representatives of a growing youth-led movement for the elimination of nuclear weapons worldwide. A small group of applicants who have demonstrated commitment to the mission of Global Zero as well as potential to be strategic movement organizers will be selected to attend the Global Zero World Summit in Paris in February 2010. At the Summit, these Global Zero Student Leaders will work alongside other students from around the world and Global Zero signatories to chart a course toward a world without nuclear weapons. Travel, room & board, and training will all be provided. Exact dates and a complete agenda are TBD - please check the website for updates.The application form can be found by clicking or pointing your web browser to the link below:http://www.globalzero.org/en/world-summit-students

There is also a french language application available here:http://www.globalzero.org/fr/sommet-mondial-etudiants

There is a growing consensus among world leaders that the only way to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and end the threat of nuclear terrorism is to eliminate all nuclear weapons. Recent efforts by Presidents Obama and Medvedev, as well as a summit-level United Nations Security Council resolution endorsing the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons, give us an unprecedented window of opportunity to act.We are looking forward to meeting the next generation of leaders for zero! Interested individuals should complete and submit the application by Monday, 30 November

LT in the FT

2009-09-11T08:47:00.000-07:00

Leonor is quoted in Wednesday’s Financial Times story “Split on the atom” by Ed Crooks and James Blitz:

"The world will be a much more dangerous place if more countries acquire enrichment and reprocessing facilities, because then we will have more potential nuclear weapons states."

This is a pedestrian post for such an important date of remembrance, but it is also true and reflective of a pressing problem for the Non-Proliferation Treaty regime.

Newsweek misrepresents nuclear weapons scholarship

2009-09-01T06:39:00.000-07:00

Jonathan Tepperman’s thesis in his September 7th Newsweek article “Why Obama should Learn to Love the Bomb” that “a growing and compelling body of research suggests that nuclear weapons may not, in fact, make the world more dangerous” badly misrepresents the state of scholarship on this crucial topic.

First, Tepperman references a handful of scholars to make his argument while dismissing the majority who disagree with him. George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger, and Sam Nunn opposed this view in two op-eds in the Wall Street Journal and other leading scholars and practitioners participated in a 2007 conference at Stanford University, now memorialized as a 500-page volume, Reykjavik Revisited. Scores of experts are summarily excluded from Tepperman’s article.

Second, Tepperman suggests a robust understanding of how deterrence relates to today’s challenges where none exists. Nuclear deterrence scholar Sir Lawrence Freedman observed a “lost generation” of nuclear weapons specialists in remarks at the Elliott School of International Affairs this spring and Commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, General Kevin Chilton, observed this summer “we have allowed an entire generation to skip class, as it were, on the subject of strategic deterrence.” More scholarship is needed to translate “nuclear optimism” and other Cold War concepts into the Twenty-first Century.

Third, in over 2,700 words on deterrence, not one of them is “accident.” This is a catastrophic flaw in characterizing scholarly debate on nuclear weapons. Kenneth Waltz, cited by Tepperman as “the leading nuclear optimist” underlines this point by co-authoring a book titled The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed with Stanford University’s Scott Sagan who has done decades of careful scholarship to demonstrate the relevance of accidents to nuclear deterrence.

Tepperman’s “iron logic” of deterrence is undermined by a more unstable plutonium logic that can only be understood by the combined lights of physics, engineering, political science, economics, and at least more than a dozen other disciplines that James Doyle of Los Alamos National Laboratory argues constitute “nuclear security science.” The nuclear future ahead of us is long, imperfect, and badly in need of more research and more informed public debate.

Nuclear Umbrella: Pick 40

2009-08-18T16:25:00.000-07:00

Defense News recently ran an editorial arguing that the United States should build new nuclear weapons or run the risk of losing the skills necessary to build these weapons, and:

“That's simply unacceptable for a nation whose nuclear protective umbrella covers some 40 nations.”

The number 40 captured my imagination. I thought immediately of the 28 members of NATO. Then it occurred to me that this includes the United States itself, which is a provider of the extended deterrent usually referred to as the “nuclear umbrella” and thus might not be counted toward the 40. And, of course, the United Kingdom and France have their own independent nuclear deterrents, so 25 in NATO properly under the U.S. “nuclear umbrella.” But then I decided that coming to agreement about this will require a more cooperative spirit, so 28.

Japan is an oft-cited (if increasingly complex) case, and South Korea leaps to mind, but I started running out of steam in my effort to count to 40.

Then it occurred to me I might have the whole thing the wrong way round. I began again: 192 members of the United Nations, now subtracting:

33 members of the Latin American Nuclear Weapon Free Zone,
13 parties to the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone,
10 parties to the Southeast Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone,
53 signatories to the African Nuclear Weapon Free Zone, and
5 parties to the Central Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone
And, of course,
28 NATO members previously mentioned

This should leave 50 UN members not in NATO or an explicit nuclear weapon free zone agreement, right?

Of course, the devil is in the details, with Taiwan probably relevant and Niue party to Pelindaba and Brunei party to Bangkok all without seats in Turtle Bay – but building on the collaborative spirit referenced above, let’s say this is all part of a round 30, leaving 10 states to be named later under the U.S. “nuclear umbrella” from among (more or less) the follwing 53: Afghanistan, Andorra, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bhutan, China, Cyprus, Egypt, Finland, Georgia, Iceland, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Liechtenstein, Macedonia, Maldives, Malta, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Myanmar, Nepal, New Zealand, North Korea, Oman, Pakistan, Palau, Qatar, Moldova, Russia, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Timor-Leste, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Plus, the Holy See.

This list certainly includes some of my favorites, but the point is that the who the United States has pledged to defend is potentially important at a moment when our negative security assurances (not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) will again be discussed critically at the 2010 Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The stakes may not seem what they once were in extending our deterrent largesse in this way, but exactly which states we have pledged to defend with nuclear weapons under what conditions remains a worthy topic of public debate because it has implications for the effectiveness of our nonproliferation policy.

Renew Article IV with Renewables

2009-08-07T10:06:00.000-07:00

Forty-two years since the conclusion of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), the world has changed substantially. Nuclear power generation has provided enormous quantities of electricity, fueling growth over decades and clarifying challenges that were dimly understood in the 1960s. Germany, for example, may be changing course away from indefinite reliance on nuclear power while even the United States may be as much as a generation away from a permanent solution for the disposal of high-level nuclear waste. In light of these changes, state practice in compliance with NPT Article IV commitments related to peaceful uses of nuclear energy has changed as well, and could change still further, potentially to the benefit of the NPT regime and international peace and security.

Clearly, the peaceful benefits -- and challenges -- of nuclear energy have become more diffuse and complex than they were in 1967. These peaceful benefits today include the advantage of historical perspective on varied international experiences with nuclear power generation and the more informed policy choices this perspective enables.

Nuclear power may not be suitable for every state, particularly in the context of increasing Non-Nuclear Weapon State sensitivity to each state’s own responsibility to comply with Article VI, as Professor Scott Sagan recently suggested at an event sponsored by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

In this context, Non-Nuclear Weapon States should have the option to embrace assistance in the research, development, and deployment of renewable energy resources, distributed generation capacity, and energy efficiency as constitutive of Nuclear Weapon State compliance with Article IV. In some cases, these technologies may be more appropriate to the needs of Non-Nuclear Weapon States than nuclear power generation; assessment of this possibility should specifically include plans for future global growth in these technologies.

A view of Article IV compliance inclusive of non-power generation cooperation has a substantial history in the NPT regime. In the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency’s January 1995 publication NPT Article IV: The Human Dimension, non-power cooperation is emphasized specifically as constitutive of U.S. compliance with Article IV (p.2):

“U.S. support for the technical assistance programs administered by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has enabled many nations to make great strides in the application of nuclear techniques to a wide range of non-nuclear power disciplines. These techniques are used for such purposes as diagnosing and treating human and animal disease, optimizing soil fertility and crop production, reducing industrial pollution and improving the efficiency of industrial operations, to name just some. Many of the Agency’s programs are tailored to the needs of individual countries. Others are undertaken on a region-wide, or international basis. A closer look at some of them reveals the enormous benefits that many nations have realized in terms of an improved quality of life for their citizens.”

and (p. 18):

“The United States’ wide-ranging bilateral and multilateral technical assistance activities underscore its firm commitment to the goal enshrined in Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of promoting ‘the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials, and scientific and technological information for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy…with due consideration for the needs of the developing areas of the world.’”

The arguments – and this specific document – were an organic part of the global discussion leading up to the successful indefinite extension of the Treaty in 1995.

One danger of moves in this direction is that they could be seen by some Non-Nuclear Weapon States as an attempt to buy out an “inalienable right.” This is a legitimate concern as a key objective of the process of strengthening the NPT is increasing the perception of universal equity among its states parties. However, careful alignment of efforts at “renewable” Article IV compliance with “the needs of the developing areas of the world;” efforts to strengthen global compliance with other Articles – particularly I, II, and III; and the responsibility of aid recipient states to comply with Article VI could mitigate and balance these concerns. This is not a one-size-fits-all solution – but neither are the other proposed solutions, including internationalization of the fuel cycle or the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. We may be years away from the right idea about the future of Article IV compliance, so we should definitely keep an open mind about the future of the benefits of peaceful uses of nuclear energy and potential linkages to renewable energy, distributed generation, and energy efficiency.

New video from the Two Futures Project

2009-07-24T14:47:00.000-07:00

We recoomend the following 2 minnutes video with gratitude to Joe Cirincione for passing it along:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgsL7L-2MKc&feature=channel

Imagining Iran

2009-07-22T09:04:00.001-07:00

Like millions around the world, we are moved by the reports and images of Iranian citizens demanding effective democracy and resisting violent oppression. We are reminded of earlier instances when heroic leadership led to dramatic political change.

This vital national drama plays out against a backdrop of global significance. The Iranian Government’s refusal to fully align its nuclear behavior with its international legal commitments and the directives of the United Nations Security Council threatens international peace and security.

Today, Iran is a singular problem in terms of compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and its actions threaten the global norm against the spread of nuclear weapons. New prospects for progress toward a nuclear weapon-free world are precariously balanced on a prudent and coordinated response among many states, each with its own security and political equities to service. The Iranian Government ‘s rejection of the emerging multilateral effort to move toward the global abolition of nuclear weapons and contrary national development of sensitive nuclear fuel cycle technologies are disproportionately shaping our common human future much for the worse.

But what if they weren’t? Witnessing the courage of ordinary Iranians, we recall the challenges faced by leaders including Washington, Gandhi, and Mandela and the transformational changes their heroism made possible. Today, the hope for such leadership sparks interesting possibilities for international security and world peace, as well as for the people of Iran.

Next spring, the NPT will be reviewed by its states parties. Many expect Iran to play a cynical and destructive role in the proceedings, but there is a precedent for another alternative. When the NPT was made permanent at the 1995 Review and Extension Conference, the revolutionary leaders of South Africa’s new multi-racial democracy played an important role in rallying the world behind the then-hotly contested option of indefinite extension. They had the authentic claim to leadership of a state that had renounced and destroyed its nuclear arsenal under international verification as well as President Nelson Mandela’s extraordinary moral authority and they played an important and positive global leadership role.

What sort of leadership could a transformed Iranian diplomacy offer the world at the 2010 NPT Review Conference? Full compliance and openness to verification is obviously a first step, but South Africa did not stop there and there is no reason Iran could not go further. Aligning its longtime assertiveness on Article IV and “peaceful uses” more closely with international law and global expectations through acceptance of some type of internationalization of its nuclear fuel cycle could be a second important step. A third step might be to explore how global confidence could be maximized in the compliance of NPT states parties with their Article VI disarmament obligations, for instance through cooperative efforts to develop non-nuclear energy alternatives in cooperation with other states parties, new technologies and practices for detecting nuclear materials and processes, and nonproliferation and disarmament education practices to align national pride with global leadership for peace and security rather than the development of nuclear technology. We are indebted to Professor Scott Sagan for his recent observation (in an exchange with Ambassador Lewis Dunn at an event sponsored by The Nonproliferation Review of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies) that non-nuclear weapon states parties to the NPT should all make explicit efforts to comply with the disarmament provisions of Article VI.

We realize that democratization alone will not solve the nuclear proliferation problem, as Ambassador Jack F. Matlock observes in his chapter “Regional Animosities and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation” in George P. Shultz, Steven P. Andreasen, Sidney D. Drell, and James E. Goodby’s pivotal Reykjavik Revisited: Steps Toward a World Free of Nuclear Weapons (Hoover/NTI, 2008):

“even a democratically elected government in Iran might well continue the Iranian program unless the external political environment is altered (p 406)…In Iranian eyes, since the other states seem to have accepted Pakistan’s nuclear status (even with its record of proliferation!), what valid motive could they have for denying Iran that capability other than a desire to make it vulnerable to military intervention, as the lack of nuclear weapons made both Serbia and Iraq vulnerable to military attacks even though they had not threatened the attackers? Such would be the rationale of the current Iranian leaders – and the likely rationale of any, more democratic, replacement regime faced with the same geopolitical configuration (p. 411).”

But heroic actions inspire us to imagine a future different than today, and a transformed Iran would have the capacity to exercise an important leadership role toward a world free of nuclear weapons.

Is the bomb boring you?

2009-07-15T05:44:00.000-07:00

James MacPherson of the AP reported yesterday that:

"The Air Force discharged three North Dakota ballistic missile crew members who fell asleep while holding classified launch code devices, the military announced Tuesday. Officials said the codes were outdated and remained secure at all times."

This story reminded me of an observation made by Bruce Blair in his chapter “Alerting in Crisis and Nuclear War” in Ashton Carter, John Steinbruner, and Charles Zraket’s iconic 1987 tome Managing Nuclear Operations (p. 85):

“The normal peacetime level of alert permits crew members to sleep while on duty. Depending on the time of day, a DEFCON 3 message literally might awaken the Minuteman launch crews, an obvious precondition for the rapid firing of forces."

The editors of Managing Nuclear Operations remind us that (p. 3):

"In its forty years of existence the command system has had direct experience of only one operational state -- peacetime."

We should all be grateful that since that writing, this period has been extended more than half again. We should also be respectfully critical and vigilant about the challenges of the next sixty years of nuclear operations.

Nukes on a Blog would like to thank Joseph Grieboski for passing on the AP story.

Global Zero Seeks Young Leaders

2009-07-08T15:48:00.000-07:00

Parsa Bastani at Global Zero forwards the following opportunity for undergrads:

On July 22, we're launching the Global Zero Student Summer - a 3-week program for students in Washington, DC to meet Global Zero commissioners and participate in organizing and media trainings with top practitioners in their fields.

We're looking for some smart, savvy, and entrepreneurial young people - current college students, incoming freshmen, or students on a gap year - who will embrace the once in a lifetime opportunity to sit down with Global Zero Commissioners Dr. Tony Lake, Ambassador Thomas Pickering, and Ambassador Richard Burt to hear why they believe we can achieve global zero. In the fall, participants in the Global Zero Student Summer will deploy back to their campuses to start local Global Zero chapters, leading our growing grassroots movement for global zero.
Apply Now http://www.globalzero.org/en/student-summer> for the Global Zero Student Summer (July 22-August 7, 2009 in Washington, DC)

Global Zero roles forward

2009-06-29T14:39:00.000-07:00

The Global Zero Commission announced an “Action Plan,” a “step-by-step process to achieve total elimination of nuclear weapons,” today in press conference at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, D.C. ahead of the scheduled Moscow Summit between President Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev.

The Commission is comprised of experts from seven states that maintain nuclear arsenals, as well as Japan and Germany.

Global Zero Commission member and former U.S. Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty negotiator Ambassador Richard Burt explained that the Global Zero Commission does not have all the answers or the only possible solution and looks to be collaborative with others engaged in the work of nuclear disarmament, but that today’s plan adds something different to this discussion because it is focused on the long-term development of a multilateral process for getting to zero nuclear weapons. Ambassador Burt and other Commission members emphasized that their effort was realistic, practical and pragmatic and that the:

“risks of nuclear weapons outweigh any stabilizing effect of nuclear weapons…We’re at a point where nuclear weapons will no longer be a weapon of the strong, they will increasingly be a weapon of the weak.”

Ambassador Burt carefully observed that testimony provided to the Commission suggests that governments and intelligence agencies have in every case been able to provide clear indication when and in what countries nuclear weapons development was underway. Former Ambassador of the United States to the United Nations, Russia, and India Thomas Pickering explained that the Global Zero Commission’s plan extends over fourteen years for the negotiation of the various constituent agreements and another seven years to complete dismantlement of existing nuclear arsenals.

Former Pakistani Foreign Secretary Ambassador Shahryar Khan affirmed that “Pakistan has absolutely no reservations” about going forward on the Global Zero path, and that with Pakistan’s leadership, most other Islamic countries would follow suit.

Former Permanent Representative of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations, Ambassador Jianmin Wu, observed that:

“the threat is felt not only by developed countries, but also by developing countries."

The Commission will convene again in the fall (probably in Moscow) to more thoroughly flesh out the plan, while continuing to consult with governments and reach out the public. A “Global Zero Summit” is planned for January of next year in Paris.

We applaud this effort and agree that the prompt creation of an inclusive global dialogue about the future of nuclear weapons that engages governments not yet involved in the nuclear arms reduction process as well as international civil society and the global public is extremely important.

Planning a generation of research on abolition

2009-05-26T14:06:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend I finished the late Sir Michael Quinlan’s ultimate contribution to public discourse on nuclear weapons, Thinking About Nuclear Weapons: Principles, Problems, Prospects (Oxford, 2009). I will be wrestling with the breadth of his important insights for some time, but one observation stood out to me immediately: the specific scale of time over which those who support (and those who contest) the nuclear disarmament enterprise need to be thinking:

“Neat prediction is plainly impossible, but few informed commentators would be likely to rate at better than fifty-fifty the changes of [existing nuclear armouries] being entirely dissolved before, say, the centenary in 2045 of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki catastrophes.” (page 166)

The figure of 36 years isn’t shocking, but the act of suggesting a specific date brings the need to plan, institutionalize, and establish a sustainable tempo for the project of nuclear disarmament into clearer focus – perhaps comparable to the specific challenge established by the Millennium Development Goals in creating a fifteen-year timeframe for reducing poverty. Quinlan identifies new research as am important early step:

“The aim of study would be in the first instance not to establish or advocate a program of action or to inaugurate a negotiation, but simply to lay a better foundation of understanding upon which debate about prospects, options, and possible path-clearing work might be advanced.” (page 164)

He also observes that this research:

“needs to be tackled whether or not one believes in the realism of [nuclear weapons abolition] – optimists and sceptics can find common ground.” (page 166).

Aligned with these important insights, I offer a piece in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists today:

“The trade-offs between uncertain paths forward should be explicitly debated both by today's experts and tomorrow's nascent explorers. These tensions of zero--institutional transformation, universality, peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and deterrence--will never be cleanly resolved. But if we're lucky, we will be managing them long after the legal abolition of nuclear weapons. Learning to do so effectively is the work of a generation, and we are a generation behind in preparing our best and brightest for this work.”

Post-event attribution of nuclear explosions

2009-05-22T14:06:00.000-07:00

On April 22, 2009, the Program on Nonproliferation Policy and Law hosted a workshop on the "attribution" of nuclear explosions after the fact -- referring to efforts to identify the source of the nuclear explosive design and/or material used to create a nuclear explosion -- after the fact. This important event brought diverse perspectives to bear on this important question.

Dear friend and mentor of the Nukes on a Blog team, Professor Anthony Clark Arend, posts video from this important event here: http://anthonyclarkarend.com/humanrights/video-what-happens-after-a-nuclear-event/

The Program on Nonproliferation Policy and Law is a collaborative effort of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies and the Institute of International Law and Politics at Georgetown University supported by the Advanced Systems and Concepts Office of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

The President and the Four Statesmen

2009-05-19T14:21:00.000-07:00

The President of the United States met today with former Secratary of State George Shultz, former Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Sam Nunn, and Former Secretary of Defense William Perry to talk about movement toward a world free of nuclear weapons. Watch C-Span's video here:
http://cspan.org/Watch/Media/2009/05/19/HP/A/18805/Pres+Obama+Oval+Office+Meeting+on+Nonproliferation+Policy.aspx

The importance of being Frank with Japan

2009-05-08T08:47:00.000-07:00

Vice President of the Cohen Group and longtime senior U.S. official with responsibility for nuclear weapons policy, serving in the U.S. National Security Council and Office of the Secretary of Defense, Frank Miller spoke this morning to the Congressional Breakfast Series sponsored by the National Defense University Foundation and the National Defense Industrial Association.

Mr. Miller made many interesting, important, and thoughtful comments on the future direction of U.S. nuclear weapons policy. One of his more predictable comments was that:

“our friends and our allies will continue to look to us to provide a nuclear umbrella, and if we don’t some if not many of them will build their own nuclear weapons.”

This argument has long struck the Nukes on a Blog team as too open-ended. Never having heard clarity about the specific circumstances or U.S. actions that might lead U.S. allies to reconsider their nonproliferation commitments, we are unable to imagine productive debate about how such dangerous circumstances might be avoided or mitigated in the context of prudent efforts toward nuclear disarmament in compliance with our shared obligations to Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the political requirements of stable nuclear nonproliferation more broadly. Nukes on a Blog recidivists will recall that Leonor questioned the requirements of extended deterrence and their relationship to allied nuclear proliferation with Mr. Miller in October 2007, with less than fully satisfying results.

The Japanese case is one of a small number at the center of this topic. Professor Michael Mochizuki sheds interesting light on the Japanese nonproliferation commitment in a July 2007 article for The Nonproliferation Review. Ploughshares Fund President Joseph Cirincione recently shared his concern with a capacity audience at the Elliott School of International Affairs that this argument could be used to block movement toward further deep cuts in U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals:

“you should watch this debate…this is one of the new arguments for doing nothing…I think it’s nonsense; I think there are some Japanese officials using this for their own purposes and I don’t think it’s true.”

These arguments suggest to us that there are multiple important and interrelated factors that bear on the nonproliferation commitments of U.S. allies, particularly including Japan; that a careful understanding of the conditions necessary for the stability of these commitments must be part of any effective strategy to prevent nuclear proliferation globally; and that the emerging historic opportunity to make prudent and effective progress toward the abolition of nuclear weapons suggest that greater and more inclusive consideration of these topics is urgently needed in dialog with our allies -- again particularly including Japan.

We are pleased to discover seeming agreement with Mr. Miller on needed next steps in this regard, as he explained today:

“We need to work with the Japanese Government and open up a very rich dialogue with the Japanese Government…”

like that we have had with our European allies about the requirements of extended deterrence;

“that is a dialogue that is desperately needed.”

2053 is Enough

2009-05-06T13:56:00.001-07:00

The Preparatory Committee of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) has posted a fascinating new piece of artwork by Isao Hashimoto to their website that helps viewers understand nuclear explosive testing as a global pattern. We encourage you to view it here: http://www.ctbto.org/specials/1945-1998-by-isao-hashimoto/

The Role of Higher Education in Transforming Nuclear Weapons Policy

2009-03-26T09:10:00.000-07:00

“The one thing we know about policy windows is that, as sure as they open, they close. If you think change is permanent, you don’t understand change…If we miss this moment, we fail.” -- Joseph Cirincione, President, The Ploughshares Fund

Ploughshares Fund President Joseph Cirincione gave a rousing and incisive presentation to an audience of fifty at the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs last night on the topic of “Barack Obama’s New Nuclear Policy.”

Highlighting the importance of what the New York Times editorial page had earlier in the day called a “Watershed Moment on Nuclear Arms,” Mr. Cirincione described the extraordinary political momentum in the United States and internationally, the activity of new and important validators (including George Shultz, Sam Nunn, Henry Kissinger, and Bill Perry) of moving toward the abolition of nuclear weapons, the agenda and team that the Obama Administration has put in place to lead a transformation of U.S. nuclear weapons policy, and the challenges this transformation will face in the window of a year or two in which the conditions remain right to make it happen. On nuclear weapons policy, he observed, “this Administration is going to be characterized as a struggle between the transformationalists and the incrementalists.”

Mr. Cirincione offered specific thoughts about the role that universities can and should play in the debate over the future of nuclear weapons policy, nonproliferation, and disarmament. First, he observed the extraordinary contribution of Stanford University, where faculty members George Shultz and Bill Perry have convened an ongoing discussion among scholars and practitioners about “Steps Toward a World Free of Nuclear Weapons” under the heading of “Reykjavik Revisited,” recalling the summit meeting between then U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev in October 1986. Mr. Cirincione pointed out that “this whole movement was hatched at a university.”

Universities “change the paradigm; you change the way people are thinking about this,” argued Mr. Cirincione, who also encouraged universities to support scholars with breakthrough ideas and to do serious research in the area of nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament. He emphasized that universities should provide fora for public debate on nuclear weapons policy, including opposing viewpoints, and also provide venues for U.S. Government officials to connect with the public.

Finally, Mr. Cirincione included students specifically in his call to “get involved” and make political leaders care about nuclear weapons policy. He encouraged students to use the newer media – including blogs, Facebook, and twitter – to tell others what they’re thinking and “demand that your professors organize more meetings….join Global Zero…there are a hundred things that you can do about this.”

In closing, Mr. Cirincione reflected on the late President John F. Kennedy’s observation upon banning explosive testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere: “if I’d known it was so popular, I would have done it a long time ago.”

Joseph Cirincione to Speak at GW

2009-03-20T02:09:00.000-07:00

Joseph Cirincione, President of the Ploughshares Fund, author of Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons, and a leading expert on nuclear weapons policy and nonproliferation will discuss the Obama Administration’s new nuclear policy.

“Barack Obama’s New Nuclear Policy”
Wednesday, March 25th at 6:10 p.m.
Elliott School of International Affairs
The George Washington University
1957 E Street., NW room 505
rsvp to dbs@gwu.edu

CTBT: Chu's mouth to open?

2009-03-19T12:19:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the inimitable John Isaacs, Executive Director of the Council for a Livable World, and Ben Smith at the Politico for reporting that Damien LaVera, Deputy Communications Director at the Democratic National Committee will soon become Director of Public Affairs at the National Nuclear Security Administration.

The Nukes on a Blog team congratulates Mr. LaVera, who worked tirelessly and effectively with us a decade ago at the Lawyers Alliance for World Security, before earning a M.A. in Security Policy Studies from GW’s Elliott School of International Affairs and joining the staff of General John M. Shalikashvili (USA, ret.), who was then serving as Special Advisor to the President and the Secretary of State for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

In transmitting his final report on the CTBT to President Bush in January 2001, General Shalikashvili wrote that:

“The nation's nuclear arsenal is safe, reliable, and able to meet all stated military requirements. For as far into the future as we can see, the U.S. nuclear deterrent can remain effective under the Test Ban Treaty, assuming prudent stockpile stewardship -- including the ability to remanufacture aging components. While there are steps that should be taken to better manage the long-term risks associated with stockpile stewardship, I believe that there is no good reason to delay ratification of the Treaty pending further advances in the Stockpile Stewardship Program as long as we have a credible mechanism to leave the Treaty should a serious problem with the deterrent make that necessary. I fear that the longer entry into force is delayed, the more likely it is that other countries will move irrevocably to acquire nuclear weapons or significantly improve their current nuclear arsenal, and the less likely it is that we could mobilize a strong international coalition against such activities.”

One may wonder if some of this carefully developed expert perspective may have rubbed off on Mr. LaVera, and we find in his 2004 retrospective for Arms Control Today on the U.S. Senate’s rejection of the CTBT that he views this vote as:

“one of the most self-defeating moments in the U.S. Senate’s history of involvement in international arms control”

and in response to those who argue we need to keep the option of resumed nuclear explosive testing open:

“the only realistic reason the United States would need to resume nuclear testing would be to confirm a new design."

Mr. LaVera concludes:

"The Senate’s vote against ratification of the CTBT was one of the lowest moments in the history of international arms control. Although the principal arguments presented by critics of the treaty have been shown to be incorrect, entry into force remains out of reach. Nonetheless, considerable progress has been made in implementing and universalizing the treaty. If the international community continues and expands on these efforts, it will be well prepared to bring this crucial treaty into force when the prevailing climate changes."

Perhaps his arrival is a sign of this sort of change in the political climate.

Nuclear allies should talk more

2009-03-17T11:39:00.000-07:00

The United States sees its nuclear arsenal as playing a vital role in constraining further nuclear proliferation among its allies through robust extended deterrence. General Kevin P. Chilton, Commander of the U.S. Strategic Command testified today before the Armed Services Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, explaining this point:

“In my opinion, a stockpile modernization strategy and nonproliferation efforts should be considered complementary, not mutually exclusive, means to the same safer world. Modernization could provide a unique opportunity to introduce enhanced safety and security features that would render our weapons undesirable terrorist targets. It can be argued that the effort also strengthens the confidence numerous allies derive from our extended nuclear deterrent umbrella, allowing them to forgo indigenous nuclear programs. Should these allies (many of whom have the resources and technical ability to develop their own nuclear weapons) come to believe the United States is unwilling or unable to protect their interests through the full use of our assets, I believe global nuclear proliferation could increase, a clearly unacceptable prospect for U.S. or global security interests.”

A recurring argument on the American side against verified and legally-binding agreement to bilateral deep cuts in U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons has been that – regardless of matching Russian reductions – U.S. reductions would erode the credibility of the U.S. extended deterrent, leading key allies (often Germany and Japan) to question the reliability of the U.S. “nuclear umbrella” and seek their own nuclear weapons. General Chilton extends this familiar numerical argument as a rationale for modernization.

My concern about this argument is that it is both extremely important and completely resistant to contrary or mitigating information (as Franklin Miller clarified for Leonor in October 2007 when she questioned it at an event sponsored by the Center for a New American Security, explaining to her “that’s just not the way the world works”). Its correctness assumed, this argument can be extended to embrace any specific numerical force requirement, deployment pattern, use doctrine, modernization program, etc.

The Lawyers Alliance for World Security made a stab at illuminating allied perspectives on this argument in the late 1990s, featuring visits to numerous capitals by former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, the late Senator Alan Cranston, Major General William Burns (USA-ret.), former Ambassador Thomas Graham, Jr. and other (including the Nukes on a Blog team). We found wide diversity of opinion, including some strong support for more circumspect extended deterrence policy from the United States (particularly including “no first use”) and no clear evidence that nuclear weapons reductions discussions with Russia were approaching any sort of “trigger” or “threshold” of allied nuclear proliferation. This experience left us skeptical of the “one size fits all” assertion that anything from failure to modernize U.S. nuclear weapons, to cuts below 1,000, to declaration of a “no first use” policy, to ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty would undermine the commitments of U.S. allies to nuclear nonproliferation.

Also today, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown gives us one more reason to be skeptical in a London speech on nuclear energy and proliferation today arguing, in part:

“We must begin by reducing the number of nuclear weapons still out there in the world, and between them the US and Russia retains around 95%. The START Treaty, the mainstay of their bilateral arms control effort, will expire later this year and I welcome their commitment to find and work for a legally binding successor which I hope will pave the way for greater reductions to come. For our part, as soon as it becomes useful for our arsenal to be included in a broader negotiation, Britain stands ready to participate and to act.”

If Britain sees itself playing a strong supporting role in creating the context for and leading the participation of the other nuclear weapons states in successful multilateral negotiations on nuclear weapons reductions, does this mean that U.S. reductions and allied reductions are complementary? If so, what does this mean for allies who rely more exclusively on extended deterrence? Does the German commitment not to build nuclear weapons grow weaker as the British nonproliferation commitment grows so strong as to allow dismantlement of nuclear weapons already deployed? The answer is at least as far from affirmative as it is from clear.

It is possible to imagine a synthesis of today’s remarks by Prime Minister Brown and General Chilton, but doing so takes enough energy and care to suggest that this should be a matter of active negotiation amongst the allies complementing the U.S.-Russian talks about nuclear weapons reductions.

Oh, Canada (I wish thee stood on guard for us)

2009-01-23T11:09:00.000-08:00

The Canadian Press reports that Canadian Minister of International Trade and Minister of the Asia-Pacific Gateway Stockwell Day announced in Mumbai that Atomic Energy of Canada, Ltd. has already signed a Memorandum of Understanding to sell nuclear technology to India as the Indian and Canadian Governments close in on an agreement on peaceful nuclear cooperation.

When Nik Cavell originally proposed the idea of transferring Canadian nuclear technology to India in March 1955, then Minister of External Affairs (later to be Nobel Peace Laureate and Prime Minister) Lester Pearson thought is would be:

“a most important gesture, the effects of which might be very great indeed.” (as referenced by Duane Bratt in The Politics of Candu Exports, page 89).

Of course, he was right. While Article III of the agreement that transferred the Canadian-Indian Research U.S. (CIRUS) reactor to India the following year specified that:

“The Government of India will ensure that the reactor and any products resulting from its use will be employed for peaceful purposes only.” (Ibid., page 95)

The Indians were left entirely to their own devices with regard to verifying compliance with this provision. While Canadian negotiators pressed for safeguards, the Indians resisted effectively, as Bratt recalls the Canadian side concluded:

“India was going to acquire nuclear technology without safeguards, so Canada might as well be the supplier.”

In the wake of India’s “peaceful nuclear explosion” in 1974, Bratt observes that Canada may have had second thoughts about being the first to supply a reactor to India:

“Canada’s own domestic view of itself, as well as its international prestige, had taken a severe beating with the 1974 Indian explosion.” (Bratt, page 157)

And that:

“By the end of 1976, the threat of nuclear proliferation had become the dominant foreign policy goal related to CANDU exports, overriding any commercial interests.” (Bratt, page 150)

Unfortunately, this hard lesson and Canada’s history of leadership in taking prudent action to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons seems forgotten three decades later in a race to the bottom begun by the U.S.-India agreement on peaceful nuclear cooperation. This is a dangerous development at a time when new leadership is desperately needed to mend a broken bargain in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, manage a presumed nuclear renaissance, and respond to the Cold War’s legacy of nuclear dangers. We can hope that the Obama Administration will set a better global example on these important issues, but Canada did not serve the cause of a peaceful world in following the U.S. lead in this case.

Canada, India, and the United States each have important emerging responsibilities in the prevention of the spread or use of nuclear weapons. Leadership in defining and meeting these nonproliferation responsibilities should precede and form a necessary foundation for any further commercial steps related to the global expansion of nuclear power.

The Proliferation Security Initiative: Neither fish nor fowl (but perhaps a vehicle)

2009-01-06T11:29:00.000-08:00

Proponents of the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) are fond of explaining that it is “an activity, not an organization.” The presumption seems to be that international organizations are cumbersome and prone to bureaucratic pathologies, while activities are, by definition, outcome-oriented. A slippery distinction that might be supposed to undermine important efforts to codify verifiable and legally-binding rules related to nonproliferation.

On the other hand, PSI’s emphasis on “voluntary” cooperative activities recalls David Mittrany’s “functionalism,” in which a peaceful world society is:

“more likely to grow through doing things together in workshop and market place than by signing pacts in chancelleries” (as quoted by Professor Inis Claude, Jr., Swords into Plowshares, 4th edition, 1970, page 380).

Over time, such voluntary patterns of cooperation among states may become more familiar, reducing the risks and costs of cooperative transactions, perhaps leading to more transformational effects, as Professor Claude suggests:

“Internationalism will well up from the collaborative international contacts of officials in labor, health, agriculture, commerce, and related departments, eventually endangering the citadels in which diplomatic and military officials sit peering competitively and combatively at the world outside the state.”
(Swords into Plowshares, 383-4)

How do these obscure theoretical points relate to the PSI experience? On October 3, 2008, former Undersecretary of State for International Security and Arms Control Bob Joseph provided an interesting gloss on this question at a Security Policy Forum event at the Elliott School of International Affairs, recalling the response of two European states to an opportunity for cooperation to intercept the BBC China carrying proliferation-sensitive materials to Libya:

“the German response was ‘we are a member of the PSI, we will do this.’ The Italian response a day later was exactly the same.”

Wade Boese correctly observes that this interception cannot be so easily credited as a PSI achievement and that both Germany and Italy:

“had stopped proliferation in transit prior to PSI’s launch. The initiative does not legally empower or obligate countries to do anything that they previously could not do.”

The PSI is certainly open to criticism that it is intangible and has few specific successes concretely attributable to it. Certainly the German assertion of “membership” signals the elusive character of this phenomenon which is adamantly “not an organization” in the minds of its framers. But if Mr. Joseph is right and this understanding has been relaxed in the minds of key PSI partners, the PSI could become a means to more systematic and identifiable cooperation through the existing PSI mechanisms of communication and coordination. Ultimately, it might not even be the United States that takes the next step and, for example, proposes a charter. But John Bolton and friends have built the world a decidedly internationalist resource and it behooves the international community to think creatively about how it might be adapted to greater effectiveness.

When the NAS had balls

2008-12-19T06:48:00.000-08:00

AAAS’s blog ScienceInsider reported yesterday that Dr. John Holdren is about to be named as President Obama’s Science Advisor.

Prof. Holdren is a leading expert on nuclear non-proliferation and arms control.

In 1997, he chaired the National Academy of Sciences report “The Future of Nuclear Weapons Policy” which made recommendations that are as relevant today as they were then. This NAS report recommended:

· the adoption of a policy of minimum deterrence
· adoption of a no-first use policy
· taking nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert
· reducing U.S. and Russian nuclear forces to 1,000 total warheads
· and explored the issues related to reducing to a few hundred warheads.

Dr. Holdren summarized the findings and recommendations of the report in a 2005 Arms Control Today op-ed in which he noted the need to implement these important recommendations:

“The committee's advice has largely been ignored, however, first by the Clinton administration, which had no appetite for the internal battles that embracing the recommendations would have entailed, and then by the Bush administration, which appears untroubled by the logical disconnect between its expansive view of the role of U.S. nuclear forces and its expectation of nuclear restraint from everyone else … Notwithstanding the unfortunate fate of the 1997 recommendations to date, they continue to constitute a sensible blueprint for reducing the role of and dangers from nuclear weapons in the early 21st century”

and

“The status quo is not stable. If nuclear weapons roles and dangers are not deliberately and relentlessly made smaller, they will get bigger. The largest nuclear-weapon states must lead the way, not drag their feet. The United States and Russia have managed to dismantle thousands of nuclear warheads and delivery systems made obsolete by the end of the Cold War. Now it is time to get on with dismantling our equally obsolete nuclear weapons policies.”

Three cheers for Dr. Holdren’s appointment!

So-called "Nuclear Powers" Aren’t

2008-12-09T11:07:00.000-08:00

The Korea Times reports today that the recently released annual report by U.S. Joint Forces Command, “Joint Operating Environment 2008: Challenges and Implications for the Future Joint Force,” lists North Korea as a “nuclear power.” Perversely, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which shapes the environment for joint operations significantly by limiting the number of nuclear arsenals globally, is not mentioned in the document.

The section entitled “The Contextual World” begins its discussion of “The Pacific and Indian Oceans” as follows:

“The rim of the great Asian continent is already home to five nuclear powers: China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Russia. Furthermore, there are three threshold nuclear states, South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan, which have the capacity to become nuclear powers quickly.”

Such colorful writing may enliven the read, but it dangerously distorts the picture of Asian and global security presented in the report. While North Korea, appears to have tested a nuclear explosive device and maintains a conventional military of unusual size, it has by no means earned the status of “power” somehow analogous to Russia, China, and India.

Nuclear weapons may confer political status, but this is as much a dysfunction of contemporary global politics as it is a reflection of some real utility of nuclear weapons in meeting the needs of states. Nuclear weapons are exceedingly dangerous to U.S. and global security and North Korea’s acquisition of nuclear weapons is clearly destabilizing to the region. But nuclear weapons do not transform North Korea’s role in the world; they are a symptom and contributing cause of North Korea’s national tragedy.

Kim Jong Il styles himself an alchemist, hoping nuclear weapons will transform his comparative advantage in ignoring global norms and violating international law into security and foreign investment. It is unclear that he has achieved security or even broken even economically. He has impoverished his people and alienated them from the world community. A small nuclear arsenal may provide him a fig leaf of deterrence sufficient for human rights atrocities and petty criminality, but it has not transformed him into a globally relevant leader.

The U.S. Government should make this clear by consistently and assertively rejecting Kim’s mystical belief that nuclear weapons make him powerful; this includes consistently rejecting the use of the term “nuclear power” to describe any state.

France out front in a brace of moves toward nuclear disarmament

2008-12-08T13:14:00.000-08:00

The Associated Press reports that a letter from French President Nicholas Sarkozy to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Mun outlines a European Union plan to advance global progress toward nuclear disarmament:

"Europe has already done a lot for disarmament…[and]…Europe is ready to do more."

French newspaper Le Figaro reports that the December 5 letter supports further (post-START) nuclear arms control negotiations between the United States and Russia, universal ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and dismantlement of all nuclear installations as soon as possible in a transparent and open way (the article notes that this issue refers particularly to Russia and China which maintain operational testing sites), a moratorium on fissile material production, and short- and medium-range surface-to-surface ballistic missiles.

With regard to a fissile material production cutoff, The Times of India reports:

"The opening without delay and without preconditions of negotiations on a treaty forbidding the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons, as well as the implementation of an immediate moratorium on the production of these materials."

Le Figaro notes the intent of the letter is to “raise the debate to the level of heads of state.”

The letter carries added multilateral weight as France currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, a post it will relinquish this month.

President Sarkozy’s letter foreshadows tomorrow’s official launch in Paris of the “Global Zero” citizens campaign for a world without nuclear weapons. Featured leaders of this effort include former United Kingdom Foreign Secretary Margaret Becket who proposed last year that her country become a “disarmament laboratory” to develop the verification procedures and technology necessary to move toward the abolition of nuclear weapons. Entrepreneur and adventurer extraordinaire Sir Richard Branson is another campaign leader – having built the Virgin brand into a global phenomenon, he is perhaps uniquely qualified to again popularize the “unnatural act” of arms control.

More on McCain's speech

2008-06-04T13:39:00.000-07:00

In his speech about nuclear weapons issues delivered on May 27, 2008, Senator John McCain raised important issues for the next Administration. His remarks signaled a welcome shift from the Bush Administration's repudiation of important tools that can effectively reduce the dangers posed by nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, tools which served us well during the Cold War and which remain important for the continued viability of the non-proliferation framework.

Senator McCain's remarks signal a significant change from the Bush Administration in certain important areas, including a renewed commitment to pursuing further legally-binding and verifiable reductions in the number of U.S. and Russia nuclear weapons; opening a discussion on the ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT); strengthening efforts to secure vulnerable bomb-grade material; pursuing negotiations for a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty (FMCT); and increasing funding for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Questions remain about specific policies, including whether Senator McCain will continue the successful engagement with North Korea to achieve a verifiable dismantlement of its nuclear weapons program, and whether he will be willing to negotiate directly with Iran. Another concern is his support of an ineffective and provocative missile defense which rankles the Russians and does nothing to reduce the more likely risk of a hostile country or terrorist group detonating a nuclear weapon in the United States or from a U.S. harbor.

For a more detailed analysis that I prepared for the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, click here.

Senator McCain’s Vision for a World of Fewer Nuclear Weapons

2008-05-28T14:13:00.000-07:00

In a speech at the University of Denver, presumptive Republican presidential nominee and Senator John McCain argued yesterday for a new legally binding and mutually verified arms reduction agreement with Russia:

“While we have serious differences, with the end of the Cold War, Russia and the
United States are no longer mortal enemies. As our two countries possess
the overwhelming majority of the world's nuclear weapons, we have a special
responsibility to reduce their number. I believe we should reduce our
nuclear forces to the lowest level we judge necessary, and we should be prepared
to enter into a new arms control agreement with Russia reflecting the nuclear
reductions I will seek. Further, we should be able to agree with Russia on
binding verification measures based on those currently in effect under the START
Agreement, to enhance confidence and transparency. In close consultation
with our allies, I would also like to explore ways we and Russia can reduce –
and hopefully eliminate – deployments of tactical nuclear weapons in
Europe.”

Nukes on a Blog’s own Leonor Tomero commented on Senator McCain’s speech on the Brian Lehrer Show this morning.

A little more lost plutonium gets accounted for

2008-04-15T07:21:00.000-07:00

After the “unacceptable mistake” of having unintentionally flown six-nuclear tipped weapons across the country, and the mix-up that resulted in nuclear missile fuses, rather than helicopter batteries, being sent to in Taiwan, bad news about nuclear weapon mistakes may come in threes:

Most recently, a story from the Spanish newspaper El País (a summary of which appeared on the website http://www.typicallyspanish.com/) reported last week that Teresa Mendizábal, the Director of the Environment Department of the Energy, Environment, and Technology Research Centre, CIEMAT (part of the Ministry of Education), stated that 1,000 square meters of radioactively contaminated material, containing plutonium and americium, have been found near Palomares, Spain.

The contaminated material has been discovered 42 years after the Palomares accident where four U.S. hydrogen bombs fell over the village of Palomares (in the Almeria region in Southeastern Spain) following a 1966 mid-air collision between a U.S. B-52G bomber and tanker aircraft during in-flight refueling (which killed all crew members). Three nuclear weapons were recovered in Palomares and a fourth was recovered from the Mediterranean Sea. While the nuclear weapons did not detonate, two of them contaminated part of the area (releasing more than 20 kg of plutonium according to a PressTV article). In 1966, the US military airlifted contaminated soil from the site of the crash. Cietmat has been conducting monitoring studies of the area for over 40 years, because of concerns about the above-ground and wind-blown soil, and started decontamination in 2004. Now underground contamination from buried soil has been found as well. The article reports that the US military stated at the time of the accident that it air-lifted all the plutonium-contaminated soil (1.6 million tons), but hid the fact that it had buried some remaining soil in two ditches in 1966.

The article notes that until 2004, lettuce was being grown above the buried waste, and there were plans to develop the area. The article indicates that a formal agreement on clean up of the contamination at Palomares (the extent of which was yet unknown) was reached with the United States in 2006, when the United States provided $2 million for the soil studies. The article notes that it is expected that the United States will remove the contaminated underground soil (further negotiations are expected in June with the US Department of Energy when a US delegation will travel to Spain), as Spain has argued that it cannot store plutonium.

The legacy of this incident underscores the unintended dangers necessarily associated with nuclear weapons operations.

Doctors gather in global opposition to nuclear weapons

2008-03-10T06:36:00.001-07:00

This week in New Delhi, India about 400 doctors and 300 medical students from over fifty countries met to discuss and plan action responsive to their shared commitment to the abolition of nuclear weapons. The 18th World Congress of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) was inaugurated with a speech by the Vice President of India, Shri M. Hamid Ansari, who recalled India's tradition of advocacy for nuclear disarmament, including its role in proposing a nuclear test ban in 1954 and a non-proliferation treaty in 1965 (unfortunately, India would refuse to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty concluded three years later). The Vice President surfaced a three-point plan for Indian leadership on nuclear disarmament, calling for universal reaffirmation of the goal of the elimination of nuclear weapons, negotiation of a convention prohibiting the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons, and a Nuclear Weapons Convention that would ban production, stockpiling, or use of nuclear weapons in a global, nondescriminatory, and verifiable plan for the elimination of these weapons in a specified time frame.

The World Congress featured detailed discussions on a variety of related topics, including the signature effort of IPPNW, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) initiated last year under the leadership of Dr. Tilman Ruff of Australia. Other topics inlcuded opposition to the U.S.-India agreement on peaceful nuclear cooperation, the danger of global "nuclear famine" resulting from even a limited regional nuclear war, globalization and militarization, torture, and religious intolerance.

ICAN physician diplomats held meetings with the President and the Prime Minister of India on the margins of the World Congress to encourage India to assert a more active leadership role in moving toward a world free of nuclear weapons. This work builds on the model of physician diplomacy for which IPPNW was awarded the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize and holds substantial promise for widening and deepening the commitment of governments worldwide to work toward the abolition of nuclear weapons on the basis of facts and expert medical testimony physicians are able to provide on the dangers nuclear weapons pose to human life and health.

Norway builds momentum for nuclear weapons abolition

2008-02-26T10:01:00.001-08:00

An historic two-day conference titled Achieving the Vision of a World Free of Nuclear Weapons: International Conference on Nuclear Disarmament convened today in Oslo, Norway focused on “identifying strategies that promote sustainable solutions for disarmament and non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.” The conference is hosted by the Norwegian Foreign Ministry in cooperation with the Nuclear Threat Initiative, the Hoover Institution and the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority. New papers on the prospects for and process toward nuclear disarmament by global thought leaders are available online. A broadcast email from the Nuclear Threat Initiative points out that:

“The meeting builds on a recent Hoover/NTI conference “Reykjavik Revisited: Steps Toward a World Free of Nuclear Weapons” and two articles — “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons” and “Toward a Nuclear Free World” — written by George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger and Sam Nunn that were published in The Wall Street Journal. It also builds on activities undertaken by the Norwegian government, which leads the Seven-Nation Initiative on nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation, including Australia, Chile, Indonesia, Romania, South Africa and the U.K.”

Dr. Jeffrey Lewis is surfacing early news from the conference at http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/.

Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs Jonas Gahr Støre opened the conference (quotes taken from his remarks as prepared for delivery) with a keynote address offering clear direction:

“I hope this gathering will add momentum to a new global effort towards fulfilling the vision of a world without nuclear weapons”

a spirit of inclusion:

“our vision must be a joint enterprise – among states, among scholars, among civil society actors, and among peoples…Achieving our vision will require a powerful coalition, and today we see its outlines. Coming together are realists who comprehend the power of idealism and idealists who understand the force of facts and realities.”

the perspective of history:

“A world free of nuclear weapons has been a longstanding aspiration of my country’s foreign policy, even during the Cold War. Indeed, it has been a core foreign policy priority for many nations for decades.”

awareness of the growing danger of recent years:

“The grim subtext has been a creeping abandonment of our vision of a world free of nuclear weapons. Combined with the short-sighted assumption that, because we have been spared nuclear war to date, because no acts of nuclear terrorism have yet been perpetrated, the status quo is somehow secure. That, my friends, is our Achilles heel: the false assumption that status quo is less risky than change.”

and a sober eye to the difficult path forward:

“Let us be clear. Very few, if any, non-nuclear weapon states believe that full nuclear disarmament is possible, or even desirable, overnight. Realists and idealists can agree that nuclear weapon technology cannot be disinvented. International security as we know it is dependent on deterrence postures in which nuclear weapons maintain a pivotal role. But these postures are neither inevitable nor immutable.”

“We cannot consolidate and maintain the non-proliferation regime while neglecting the bold vision of a world free of nuclear weapons. We will delay and undermine nuclear disarmament unless we demand robust and credible non-proliferation. Abolitionists can be realists, and realists, abolitionists.”

So, the Spirit of Oslo emerges over the next two days, we hope that this fusion of perspectives will coalesce into a tangible, ongoing path forward that will include prompt achievement of prudent and verifiable steps toward a world free of nuclear weapons.

Ivanov on Globalizing Nuclear Arms Control Law

2008-02-11T06:57:00.000-08:00

David Rising of the Associated Press reports that Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said on February 10, 2008 that Russia and the United States should replace the bilateral arms control agreements of the Cold War and that the time has come

"to open this framework for all leading states interested in cooperation in order to ensure overall security."

Ivanov’s remarks align with recent British statements about the widening of the nuclear arms control process made by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Secretary of State for Defense Des Browne, and former Foreign Secretary Margaret Becket.

Widening the process of negotiated and effectively verified reduction in nuclear weapons to additional states supports compliance with the shared Article VI obligation of all states parties to the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) to:

“pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

While some non-nuclear weapons states parties to the NPT have a tradition of taking this obligation seriously, greater engagement and political capital is needed from many states to respond effectively to the increasingly diffuse danger of proliferation of nuclear weapons and related technologies. The new dangers of an increasingly confusing multipolar balance of nuclear weapons capabilities and transnational proliferation rings argue strongly for more international legal constraints agreed among more players. Clear international legal rules are needed in response to these contemporary challenges, Ivanov emphasizes:

"It is imperative to ensure that the provisions of such a regime should be legally binding so that, in due course, it would really become possible to shift to the control over nuclear weapons and the process of their gradual reduction on a multilateral basis.”

While the Bush Administration has preferred its disarmament policy to be unilateral and informal, the fact that both the United Kingdom and Russia have explicitly opened the door to multilateralization of nuclear disarmament negotiations suggests that next steps might be contemplated even while the United States remains disengaged from the process. United States should be preparing now to play a leadership role toward a future regime for the control of nuclear weapons that is legally binding, effectively verified, and multilateral. Watching from the sidelines, we endanger both national and global security by not reflecting our specific perspective, capabilities, and requirements into a process that shows clear signs of both widening and moving forward.

The United Kingdom acts to globalize nuclear disarmament progress

2008-02-06T06:53:00.000-08:00

On February 5, 2008, the British Secretary of Defence Des Browne addressed the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva on “Laying the Foundations for Multilateral Disarmament.” He made a bold statement of the United Kingdom’s commitment to its nuclear disarmament obligations:

“The UK has a vision of a world free of nuclear weapons and, in partnership with everyone who shares that ambition, we intend to make further progress towards this vision in the coming years.”

Browne continues, emphasizing the need for progress nuclear disarmament to be verifiable, not only to the nuclear weapons “haves,” but also to the non-nuclear weapons states:

“Our chances of eliminating nuclear weapons will be enhanced immeasurably if the Non-Nuclear Weapon States can see forward planning, commitment and action toward multilateral nuclear disarmament by Nuclear Weapon States. Without this, we risk generating the perception that the Nuclear Weapon States are failing to fulfil their disarmament obligations and this will be used by some states as an excuse for their nuclear intransigence.”

Browne reminds us that nuclear armament and disarmament are global issues, just as the obligation in Article VI of the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) apply to all states parties to the Treaty. The Government of the United Kingdom has again made clear that it will not abdicate its responsibility for nuclear disarmament nor will it exclude its NPT partners, particularly with regard to its new initiative to develop new technologies for verifying nuclear disarmament.

“Developing such techniques will take time but it is very important it is not undertaken in ‘splendid isolation’. It must be built on the requirements of Nuclear and Non-Nuclear Weapon States alike. We need to consider not only what information we are willing to divulge but also what information a Non-Nuclear Weapon State will want to receive.”

Finally, Browne made a strong new proposal to host a conference to actively involve technical specialists from the national laboratories of the United Kingdom, United States, Russia, France, and China:

“the UK is willing to host a technical conference of P5 nuclear laboratories on
the verification of nuclear disarmament before the next NPT Review Conference in
2010. We hope such a conference will enable the five recognised nuclear
weapons states to reinforce a process of mutual confidence building: working
together to solve some of these difficult technical issues."

If you want disarmament, globalize ACDA

2008-02-01T09:01:00.000-08:00

AFP reports that the new Australian Foreign Minister is promising a more assertive role in support of nuclear disarmament. Foreign Minister Stephen Smith told a Tokyo news conference that:

"The current Australian Government came to office with a new commitment to seek
to be much more active... as a nation on nuclear non-proliferation and
disarmament matters."

We welcome this important step forward. But as former Prime Minister John Howard’s August 2007 deal to sell uranium to India – which has since been reversed by the new Australian Government – makes clear, nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament are not always Australia’s top foreign policy priorities. This is easy to understand, of course, bilateral relationships always loom large in comparison to global imperatives in international politics.

One way to strengthen efforts to promote nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament and to insulate them from political vaguaries may be to strengthen their institutional advocate. The Australian Safeguards and Nonproliferation Office (ASNO), consolidated under a single Director General in 2003 legislation, supports an impressive tradition of Australian arms control and disarmament leadership. ASNO is also subordinate to Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT):

“The Director General reports directly to the responsible Minister. Since 1994
this has been the Minister for Foreign Affairs. ASNO is staffed through DFAT on
the basis that it is a division within the Department. The Director General is a
statutory officer, while all other staff were employed under the Public Service
Act 1999, on a full-time basis.”

By pulling ASNO out from under DFAT, and giving arms control and disarmament an independent voice, Australian Members of Parliament could ensure that these concerns always reach their Head of Government unfiltered by “clientitis” – the tendency of officials responsible for bilateral relationships to sacrifice other priorities for the sake of those relationships – or by officials who are not daily steeped in the technical, legal, and strategic complexities of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.

Until the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) was ploughed under ten years ago and the earth below it twice salted by John Bolton, it may have been the most institutionally successful advocate for arms control in any government, ever. In how many countries does a dedicated advocate of nuclear disarmament with authority and staff report directly to the Head of Government? Establishing an independent ASNO may not be a sufficient or even prudent step toward effective Australian nuclear disarmament advocacy, but since nothing else has worked, it may be time to consider giving nuclear disarmament the bureaucratic priority that trade and development assistance enjoy in many goverments through a greater measure of institutional independence and persistance. If nothing else, it would surely get more serious people talking more seriously about the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons and give lie to the faulty assumption that nuclear weapons are not the common business of humanity.

Colombia ratifies the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

2008-01-30T07:42:00.000-08:00

Earthtimes reports this morning that Colombia has ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). The Preparatory Commission for the Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) indicates Colombia’s date of ratification as January 29, 2008. Colombia’s ratification brings the total number of ratifications of the Treaty to 144 of 178 that have signed the CTBT.

Following a number of ratifications by smaller states this year, Colombia’s action significantly advances the CTBT toward entry into force as Colombia is one of 44 “Annex 2” states whose ratification is a prerequisite for entry into force.

CTBTO Executive Secretary Tibor Tóth remarked that:

“This is an extremely important event…Colombia's ratification creates a tipping
point and brings the Treaty one step closer to taking effect. We welcome
Colombia's move and expect other ratifications from Annex 2 countries to follow
suit.”

This bold action by Colombia demonstrates the capacity of all states to contribute to prudent, effective, and verified progress toward a world free of nuclear weapons. Ambassador Rosso Jose Serrano Cadena, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Colombia to the CTBTO said that:

Of the 44 “Annex 2” states only North Korea, India, and Pakistan have not yet signed the CTBT and China, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, and the United States have not yet ratified.

“All peace loving countries must ratify the CTBT…We are sure that this will
happen. Also the Latin American and Caribbean region are now close to becoming a
complete CTBT continent.”

The ratification of Colombia leaves only Cuba, Dominica, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago not having signed the CTBT and Guatemala not having ratified Treaty among the states parties to the Treaty of Tlatelolco, establishing the Nuclear Weapon Free Zone in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Test ban advances toward universality

2008-01-28T16:00:00.000-08:00

Malaysia ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) on January 17, 2008, bringing the total number of ratifications to 143. Ambassador Tibor Tóth, Executive Secretary of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Organization (CTBTO) reacted, releasing a statement which read, in part:

“This is very important internationally, but also regionally: Malaysia’s
ratification tips the balance in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN) where 6 out of 10 countries now have ratified the Treaty.”
The CTBTO points out that, among ASEAN states:
“Cambodia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malaysia, the Philippines,
Singapore and Vietnam have now ratified the CTBT, whereas Brunei Darussalam,
Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand have yet to ratify it.”

In other CTBT news, loyal readers will recall that on November 27, 2007, in a post on the occasion of the ratification of the CTBT by the Bahamas, we wrote “Barbados, the eyes of the world are now upon you!” We are pleased to report that Barbados signed the CTBT on January 14, 2008.

In our emerging tradition of blind luck in picking states about to sign or ratify the CTBT, we turn to Trinidad and Tobago to play its historic role in globalizing this important instrument for nuclear disarmament.

Diverse Coalition Launches Campaign to Stop U.S. Nuclear Deal with India

2008-01-16T13:28:00.000-08:00

Twenty-three organizations yesterday launched a coalition to stop the Bush Administration’s proposed nuclear trade agreement with India. The proposed agreement would exempt that nuclear-armed nation from longstanding U.S. and international restrictions on states that do not meet global standards to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.

The Campaign for Responsibility in Nuclear Trade believes the agreement would: dangerously weaken nonproliferation efforts and embolden countries like Iran and North Korea to pursue the development of nuclear weapons; further destabilize South Asia and Pakistan in particular; and violate or weaken international and U.S. laws, including the Hyde Act, which Congress passed in 2006 to provide a framework for the bilateral U.S.-Indian nuclear cooperation agreement.

“When Congress takes a close look at the Bush Administration’s proposed agreement, it will find a dangerous, unprecedented deal,” said John Isaacs of the Council for a Livable World. “The proposal undermines over 30 years of nonproliferation policy, will increase India’s capability to produce nuclear weapons and its stockpile of nuclear weapons-material, and sends the wrong message to Pakistan during a time of crisis in that country. We feel confident that, under the Congressional microscope, the many flaws of this deal will be exposed, and it will ultimately be rejected for the sake of preserving national security and global stability.”

The U.S.-Indian bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement would allow the transfer of U.S. nuclear technology and material to India. However, it fails to hold India to the same responsible nonproliferation and disarmament rules that are required of advanced nuclear states. The deal will increase India’s nuclear weapons production capability, exacerbate a nuclear arms race in the region, undermine international non-proliferation norms, and encourage the creation of large nuclear material stockpiles. Its contribution to meeting India’s growing energy needs has been greatly exaggerated and it would create economic opportunities for foreign nuclear industries without any guarantees for U.S. businesses.

The pact must win approval from the U.S. Congress, which changed U.S. law in December 2006 to allow negotiation of the agreement, under several conditions that have not been met in the final language of the agreement. Those conditions include a new agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency for safeguarding Indian power reactors and changes to the international guidelines of the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group, which currently restrict trade with India.

Members of the Campaign are working to educate the U.S. Congress and public about the dangers of the deal, and are working with experts and organizations in two-dozen countries to inform deliberation over the deal within Nuclear Suppliers Group and its member state governments.

The new coalition’s partners include: Council for a Livable World, Arms Control Association, Federation of American Scientists, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Washington office, United Methodist Church - General Board of Church and Society, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Institute for Religion and Public Policy, Union of Concerned Scientists, Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, All Souls Nuclear Disarmament Task Force, British American Security Information Council, Women’s Action for New Directions, Americans for Democratic Action, Peace Action, Peace Action West, Arms Control Advocacy Collaborative, Beyond Nuclear, Bipartisan Security Group, Citizens for Global Solutions, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and Nuclear Information Resource Information Service.

Advisors to the coalition include Ambassador Robert Grey (Ret.), former U.S. Representative to the Conference on Disarmament and Director of the Bipartisan Security Group; Dr. Leonard Weiss, former staff director of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Energy and Nuclear Proliferation and the Committee on Governmental Affairs; Dr. Robert G. Gard, Jr., Lt. Gen., U.S. Army (Ret.), Senior Military Fellow, Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation; Subrata Ghoshroy, Director, Promoting Nuclear Stability in South Asia Project, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Dr. Christopher Paine, Nuclear Program Director, Natural Resources Defense Council.

The Campaign’s website is www.responsiblenucleartrade.com.

About the Campaign for Responsibility in Nuclear Trade
The Campaign for Responsibility in Nuclear Trade, a partnership project of 23 nuclear arms control, non-proliferation, environmental and consumer protection organizations, opposes the July 2005 proposal for civil nuclear cooperation with India and the additional U.S. concessions made to India as a result of subsequent negotiations because they pose far-reaching and adverse implications for U.S. and international security, global nuclear non-proliferation efforts, human life and health, and the environment. More information about the campaign can be found at www.responsiblenucleartrade.com.

Another reason for a toast on Dec. 31

2007-12-25T21:48:00.000-08:00

Before leaving town last week, Congress passed a big appropriations bill which President Bush is expected to sign this week.

The appropriations bill provides funding through Sept. 30, 2008. It contains much good news for nuclear arms control and nuclear non-proliferation, due in large part to Reps. Visclosky (D-IN) and Hobson (R-OH), as well as Sen. Dorgan (D-ND), who lead the Energy & Water Appropriations Subcommittees.

The FY 2008 Omnibus Appropriations Bill made significant contributions to the goals of effective nuclear non-proliferation by increasing funding for almost all nuclear non-proliferation programs, while cutting funding for controversial programs that undermine and jeopardize those goals.

Here are the best parts:

-Funding for the Reliable Replacement Warhead (that proposes to design and develop a new type of nuclear weapon) was zeroed out ($0 for RRW!).

-Funding for nuclear spent fuel reprocessing (which separates out weapons-usable material, or material that can be easily processed to make it nuclear weapon-usable, from nuclear waste) was cut by more than $200 million.

-Funding for many of the important threat reduction programs that secure nuclear weapon-usable material in the former Soviet Union states and other countries, and for nuclear non-proliferation organizations, were increased by $340 million dollars.

-Funding for other nuclear non-proliferation programs were increased by almost $270 million (including non-proliferation and international security program, non-proliferation and verification, research and development program, U.S. contribution to create an international fuel bank, and CTBTO and IAEA funding).

-The bill requires a Nuclear Weapons Strategy for the 21st Century to be done in consultation with federal agencies and independent, non-government organizations.

-The bill requires the President to submit to Congress in 2008 a Comprehensive Nuclear Threat Reduction and Security Plan to secure nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons-usable material by 2012.

For many more details, see the analysis and summary of the appropriations bill I prepared for the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.

Cheers and happy holidays!

Pope Benedict XVI supports a world free of nuclear weapons

2007-12-11T09:21:00.000-08:00

The AP reports that Renato Cardinal Martino presented the Message of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI for the celebration of the World Day of Peace on January 1, 2008. On the topic of nuclear weapons, the Holy Father advises:

“At a time when the process of nuclear non-proliferation is at a stand-still, I feel bound to entreat those in authority to resume with greater determination negotiations for a progressive and mutually agreed dismantling of existing nuclear weapons. In renewing this appeal, I know that I am echoing the desire of all those concerned for the future of humanity.”

Click here to read the full message.

Remembering George Kuzmycz

2007-12-06T16:48:00.000-08:00

Nukes on a Blog remembers the contribution of the late George Kuzmycz to the prevention of the proliferation of nuclear weapons on the tenth anniversary of his untimely passing.

During the last few years of his life, George led U.S. Department of Energy efforts to secure weapons usable nuclear materials in Ukraine from theft or diversion.

George’s commitment to his native Ukraine and to nonproliferation are memorialized in the ongoing work of the George Kuzmycz Training Center for Physical Protection, Control and Accounting of Nuclear Material (English translation).

George’s life reminds us that the dangers posed by nuclear weapons and nuclear proliferation result from human choices and that it is possible, as George did, for each of us to take on more than our share of responsibility for responding to these dangers.

A General, a group of visionary students, the Quakers, and 30 national organizations oppose new nuclear weapons

2007-12-03T15:24:00.000-08:00

Lieutenant General Robert Gard (USA-ret.), Nukes on a Blog’s own Leonor Tomero, and the redoubtable researcher Achraf Farraj published an article in Friday’s Daily Californian encouraging University of California students and faculty to question the University’s involvement in the development of the so-called Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW):

“The University of California manages Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a facility leading the development of the so-called Reliable Replacement Warhead, the first new hydrogen bomb designed by the United States in 20 years. Students and faculty at the University of California have a unique role to play in actively questioning this misguided U.S. nuclear weapons policy and UC’s involvement in its implementation.”

The authors conclude that:

“There are many problems facing the United States today, but the viability of its nuclear deterrent is not one of them. Building new nuclear weapons will not make us safer. It will do nothing to deter terrorists, it will not protect our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan and it will not improve our relationships with other countries. It will only undermine efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, extend outdated Cold War-era thinking, shirk our international commitments, waste a lot of money and threaten our long-term security.”

University of California students have already taken up this work, most notably through the formation of the UC Student DOE Laboratory Oversight Committee. Loyal readers will recall a few more ideas about how universities can respond to the danger posed by nuclear weapons. For regular updates on the RRW program and how it related to the University of California, check out the facebook group (at www.facebook.com) "Why is the University of California building a new H bomb?"

Also last week, the Friends Committee on National Legislation organized a letter submitted to Senator Byron Dorgan who chairs the Energy and Water Development Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee urging him to

“delete all funding for the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) from the upcoming omnibus appropriations bill.”

The letter, signed by leaders of thirty national organizations (including the Council for a Livable World and Physicians for Social Responsibility), argued that:

“If Congress approves funding for the Energy Department to proceed with research and possible development of RRW, many in the international community will interpret this as another sign that the U.S. is walking away from its nonproliferation obligations, including Article VI of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The 118 countries of the Non-Aligned Movement have already cited development of RRW as contradictory to nuclear disarmament agreements signed by the United States. RRW will complicate efforts to win international support to bolster the beleaguered NPT system.”

The future of the U.S. nuclear arsenal is an issue of great importance to all Americans and the success or failure of the emerging movement for a world free of nuclear weapons bears directly on the long-term viability of human civilization. We applaud these and other attempts by concerned citizens to precipitate a national debate worthy of this deadly serious policy choice.

It’s better in the Bahamas!

2007-11-27T12:07:00.000-08:00

Acting Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of the Bahamas T. Brent Symonette made welcoming remarks yesterday to the openning session of a Workshop on Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) International Cooperation for States from the Caribbean Region hosted in Nassau where he announced that:

“As you are aware The Bahamas, signed the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty on 4th February, 2005, and I trust that I will be able to deposit the Instrument of Ratification with the Secretary-General of the United Nations before the conclusion of this Work-shop.”

Today the International Herald Tribune reports that Prime Minister Symonette has:

“signed the instrument of ratification and sent it to United Nations headquarters, the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization said.”

This action makes the Bahamas the 141st state to have ratified the CTBT, following the examples of the Dominican Republic in September (loyal readers will recall our specific encouragement to the Bahamas at that time) and Palau in August. These important steps taken in rapid succession show that even small island states – a category of states that have historically born the brunt of nuclear explosive testing – can assert their sovereignty and exercise international leadership toward a world free of nuclear weapons.

The ratification of the Bahamas leaves only the Barbados, Cuba, Dominica, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago not having signed the CTBT and Colombia and Guatemala not having ratified Treaty among the states parties to the Treaty of Tlatelolco, establishing the Nuclear Weapon Free Zone in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Barbados, the eyes of the world are now upon you!

Thanks from Nukes on a Blog

2007-11-22T08:41:00.000-08:00

This Thanksgiving, the Nukes on a Blog team is grateful for important steps forward toward effective nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament over the last year, including – but not limited to – the following:

Nonproliferation Progress in the Hard Cases

· The efforts of the International Atomic Energy Agency to resolve ongoing concerns related to nuclear activities in Iran. Skilled diplomacy backed up by careful technical verification work is urgently necessary in response to this ongoing crisis.

· The achievement of agreement with North Korea that allowed for the return of International Atomic Energy Inspectors and holds promise for the effectively verified termination of the DPRK's nuclear weapons program.

New Momentum toward a World Free of Nuclear Weapons

· The January Wall Street Journal op-ed by George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, William Perry, and Sam Nunn encouraging renewed commitment toward the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons. This clear statement by confirmed cold warriors provides significant political cover and credibility in the American political arena to the only viable long-term solution to a daunting global challenge.

· The initiative of the Government of the United Kingdom toward more effective verification and wider participation in the nuclear disarmament process articulated by then Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Margaret Beckett at the Carnegie International Nonproliferation Conference in June. The United Kingdom’s imaginative engagement is an important first step toward multilateralizing the nuclear disarmament process.

· The leadership shown by the Government of Norway in the seven nation initiative for nuclear disarmament and, particularly, in offering to host a conference planned for January 2008 to internationalize discussions begun by the Hoover Institution about how to move toward a world free of nuclear weapons. Norway’s clear assertion of relevance to the challenge of nuclear disarmament is a model for global engagement by all non-nuclear weapon states and nuclear weapon free states.

Greater Sensitivity to Nuclear Nonproliferation in Congress and Higher Education

· The introduction of the Nuclear Policy and Posture Review Act (S. 1914) by Senators Diane Feinstein (D-CA) and Susan Collins (R-ME) offers an important opportunity for national debate about the number, timing and purpose of the Reliable Replacement Warhead and the future of the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

· The Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterrey Institute of International Affairs achieved the endowment of the world’s first professorship in nonproliferation studies. This timely assertion of the importance of nuclear nonproliferation lends support both to efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and to the evolution of higher education toward ever greater relevance to contemporary global problems.

Enlarged Commitment to International Legal Rules for Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament

· The action by several states to move the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and the African Nuclear Weapon Free Zone toward entry-into-force and the 40th anniversary of the signature of the Nuclear Weapon Free Zone in Latin America and the Caribbean demonstrated international confidence in international legal rules: 1) Moldova and Palau ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. While several larger states have not yet ratified the Treaty, the ratifications of even small states build momentum toward entry into force; 2) Gabon and Rwanda signed and ratified the Treaty of Pelindaba establishing the African Nuclear Weapon Free Zone. Five more ratifications will bring this historic agreement into force; and 3) The Treaty of Tlatelolco establishing the first nuclear weapon free zone in a densely populated area is in force across its area of application following the 40th anniversary of its signature (February 14, 1967). This important milestone demonstrates the enduring viability of nuclear weapon free state status as a means to greater security.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Indian disarmament policy: don’t just do something, sit there!

2007-11-15T05:42:00.000-08:00

In anticipation of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s upcoming visit to New Delhi, the Hindustan Times reports that Indian Special Envoy and former Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran was recently told by German officials:

"We want India to contribute to strengthening international non proliferation system."

The German Government reportedly expressed concern about the impact of the proposed U.S.-India nuclear deal on worldwide efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and has asked India to sign the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and support a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT).

We predict this will not be the last expression of concern from a Nuclear Supplier Group government over the proposed deal and suggest that signing the CTBT and support of an FMCT are just the beginning of what the Government of India must do to demonstrate a credible commitment to nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament.

The U.S.-India nuclear deal keeps getting worse for everybody

2007-11-10T09:20:00.000-08:00

Last year, Congress passed the Hyde Act, changing thirty-year old U.S. non-proliferation law to make a special exception for India to receive sensitive nuclear technology and material from the United States even though India has repeatedly rejected meaningful nuclear non-proliferation commitments (such as signing the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, or ceasing the production of fissile material for weapons purposes in anticipation, as the five nuclear weapon states parties to the NPT have done). The Hyde Act substantially weakened U.S. non-proliferation law, undermined the NPT, and weakened the global norm against nuclear weapons proliferation.

However, the Hyde Act at least ensured that certain minimal non-proliferation conditions, including providing in section 106 that nuclear trade with India must cease if India conducts a nuclear weapon test. India balked at this condition, making sure that it was not included in the “123 agreement” it negotiated with the United States. Under the 123 agreement, it is unclear what the repercussion of an Indian nuclear test would be and subject to interpretation (which the Indians have been quick to use in their favor), and the requirement to cut off nuclear trade is gone.

Recently, NPR’s Steve Inskeep asked Undersecretary Burns about this blatant concession:

STEVE INSKEEP: Let’s talk about skeptics in the United States. You mentioned that Congress voted in support of this deal, but with a lot of conditions. And I wonder whether the negotiations are meeting those conditions. Here’s one. As I understand it, Congress said they want a deal that states that if India ever conducts another nuclear test, this civilian nuclear cooperation ends. Does your current deal do that?

UNDERSECRETARY NICHOLAS BURNS: Yes it does. We have a clear obligation under the Atomic Energy Act to react if a country like India conducts a nuclear test and the President, and any future President will always have that right under our law.

INSKEEP: Just so that I understand, you’ll have the right you say to end nuclear cooperation. Will the United States be required to end nuclear cooperation if there were another test under the agreement that you’ve negotiated so far?

BURNS: Steve, I believe that under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, the President has the opportunity, the right, that’s how the law is written, and we have protected that right.

INSKEEP: Which means you wouldn’t necessarily end nuclear cooperation and the Indians seem to think that perhaps you wouldn’t.

BURNS: Oh I think it would be up to the American President at the time. But we have been very clear with the Indians that we do not want them to conduct another nuclear test and there is no indication that they have plans to do that any time soon. But protected the right and Congress was absolutely correct in asking us to do this.

INSKEEP: It sounds like you are right at the edge of what you might be able to get through Congress at some point and still you don’t have quite enough to bring Indians on-board.

BURNS: There are a lot of critics of this agreement but there are more people who support it.

Luckily, not in India, where the opposition parties – including the BJP and the Indian Communist party – have delayed the deal threatening to withdraw from Prime Minister Singh’s coalition if Singh goes forward with negotiations for the US-India deal.

However, despite these concessions, less distasteful to the Indian Communists may be a deal with Russia or France or Canada. Russia is already seeking to build four additional reactors at Kudankulam in India.

By making yet additional and dangerous concessions, the Bush Administration has not only further undermined U.S. law and international nuclear non-proliferation efforts, it has even failed to protect opportunities for American business.

Luckily for nuclear non-proliferation, the deal is still delayed in India.

A tough week for GNEP

2007-11-02T22:36:00.000-07:00

The National Academy of Sciences released a report this week that dealt a significant blow to the Department of Energy’s current plant for GNEP which Ivan Oelrich of the Federation of American Scientists blogged about here.

In addition, 48 national and local organizations and experts sent a letter this week to Senators Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Pete Domenici (R-NM), who lead the Energy & Water Appropriations Subcommittee, urging them to eliminate funding for the program.

The letter stated that:

The DOE’s plan “undermines U.S. nonproliferation policy, would cost taxpayers $100 billion or more, and, as many in the nuclear industry point out, does not solve the nuclear waste problem."

The letter also noted that:

“Although DOE is promoting GNEP internationally on nonproliferation grounds as a way to slow the spread of technologies used to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons, the program has had the opposite effect. Since GNEP’s inception, eight countries have notified the International Atomic Energy Agency that they reserve the right to pursue enrichment and reprocessing technologies, including South Africa and Argentina, which are considering reviving their enrichment programs.”

We’re not done with bad news for reprocessing.

The reprocessing facility at Mayak in Russia had a radioactive waste leak. Reprocessing accidents are nothing new -- In fact the reprocessing plant at Sellafield in the United Kingdom has been shut down since 2005 due to a radioactive waste leak from a broken pipe; and after decades of operation, 100 metric tons of stockpiled plutonium, and no solution to the nuclear waste problem, the UK is preparing to decommission its reprocessing plant in 2011.

These set-backs for GNEP come at as the Senate and House prepare to decide on a funding level for GNEP and reprocessing in the FY 2008 Energy & Water Appropriations.

Can universities respond to nuclear dangers?

2007-10-29T10:48:00.000-07:00

eGov monitor posts a letter from David Willets, the United Kingdom’s Conservative Shadow Universities Secretary, to John Denham who sits on Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Cabinet as Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities, and Skills concerned about Iranian students studying proliferation-sensitive subjects at British universities. A particularly important observation emerges from among Mr. Denham’s several specific concerns:

“We have a clear obligation to ensure that our own universities, even inadvertently, do not contribute to nuclear proliferation.”

This obligation is particularly relevant as humanity faces an imminent future that George P. Schultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger, and Sam Nunn have called:

“a new nuclear era that will be more precarious, psychologically disorienting, and economically even more costly than was Cold War deterrence.”

These notable authors gathered last week at Stanford University to further explore these new dangers and possible solutions at Stanford University. This work is to be applauded, but as institutions engaged in seeking knowledge and truth, universities can and perhaps must do more to respond to the emerging truth of new global dangers posed by nuclear weapons. The voice of universities may be especially relevant now as the production of nuclear warheads of new designs is reportedly being considered in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia.

It is not immediately obvious what sort of response would be appropriate, but three ideas emerge easily that seem appropriate points of departure for how universities might best respond to this global danger:

First, universities could make a statement of policy supporting compliance with the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and related agreements, particularly including the 1995 Statement of Principles and Objectives for Non-Proliferation and Disarmament which is an integral element of the indefinite extension of the NPT. Not only would such a statement be consistent with the educational mission of these institutions, it would also be consistent with emerging university practices such as Tufts University’s April 24, 1999 commitment to “meet or beat the Kyoto [Protocol] goal of a seven percent reduction below 1990 in our carbon dioxide emissions by the year 2012.”

Second, universities could convene institutional review boards, faculty governance groups, or other deliberative bodies composed of experts from relevant disciplines to consider how the work of their institutions might be prevented from inadvertently contributing to the dangers of nuclear proliferation.

Third, universities could form a network to explore the conditions under which the NPT Article VI obligation to work toward a world free of nuclear weapons could be achieved and how they might contribute to the necessary technical and knowledge basis for meeting these conditions.

The danger nuclear weapons pose to humanity is immediate, global, and complicated, and it may be that much work remains to be done to provide uncover new knowledge and prepare today’s graduates to live with the evolving danger of nuclear weapons. Restricting access to education may prove necessary in some unfortunate cases, but it is certainly not the limit of higher education’s obligation to meet this challenge.

Step away from the plutonium

2007-10-25T09:07:00.000-07:00

Los Alamos Reporter staff report that Chairman A.J. Eggenberger of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board sent an October 23, 2007 letter to the Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, observing:

"The National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) current plan for sustained manufacturing of plutonium pits, essential to national security, relies on continued operation of the 55-year-old Chemistry and Metallurgy Research (CMR) facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board believes that continued operation of the CMR facility in its current condition poses significant risks to workers and the public.”

The letter goes on to observe “serious vulnerabilities” at the CMR including “the lack of robust building confinement to prevent a release of radioactivity during an accident” and “the identification of a seismic fault under two wings and the susceptibility of all the wings to structural collapse due to ground motion from a 500-year return period earthquake.”

Loyal readers will recall from July the Los Alamos National Laboratory “celebration” of the production of the first plutonium “pit” certified for use in the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile since 1989 and our curiosity at the time about why new pit production is necessary now. Tuesday’s letter from the Defense Nuclear Safety Board underscores the need for critical thinking about the future of the U.S. nuclear arsenal and the importance of including potential dangers to human life and health in public consideration of this important policy issue.

Scotland the Brave! (and someday nuclear weapon free?)

2007-10-22T11:43:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Martin Butcher for surfacing that BBC News reports that Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond has “written representatives of 189 countries signed up to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)…asking them to back his bid for Scotland to have observer status at future treaty talks.” In the letter, Salmond requests support for Scotland to have observer status in future NPT Review Conference talks and articulates his government’s opposition to the planned replacement of the British Trident subamarine-launched ballistic missile capability:

"The majority of Scottish people and their elected representatives oppose these deployments."

Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon explains:

“It is not about trying to make common cause with any particular country…Given that Trident is based in Scotland, I think it is right that we make sure all of these countries know Scotland's view.”

Deputy First Minister Sturgeon hosted a conference today titled A National Conversation: Scotland's Future Without Nuclear Weapons opposing Trident replacement. At this event she said:

"There are few more important issues in the world than nuclear weapons. And the position of the Scottish Government is clear - we are opposed to the replacement of the Trident system and the deployment of weapons of mass destruction on Scottish soil."
"That position is shared by a majority of MSPs, a majority of Scottish MPs, and a majority of the Scottish public. The fact that defence issues are currently reserved to Westminster does not make such opposition irrelevant - rather it forces all of us to consider how best to convey that strong feeling of opposition to the UK Government."
"There are strong moral arguments against nuclear weapons. But we need to consider the practical implications of having a replacement to the Trident system on Scottish soil. That is the responsible thing to do - and that is what we are doing."

The engagement of the Government of Scotland on the question of the future of nuclear weapons has several important implications. First, it signals Scottish willingness to contribute new energy to the resolution of issues of global concern, offering an important voice to global deliberations regarding prudent and effective movement toward the ultimate abolition of nuclear weapons. Second, it suggests that despite the continuing exaggeration of the political value of nuclear weapons by some states, non-nuclear weapon state status within the NPT can still be used to assert sovereignty. Third, it indicates, as the Mayors for Peace have, that smaller governmental entities may be more sensitive to the nuclear weapon free ambitions of their constituents. Fourth, raises the profile of internal criticism of the United Kingdom’s plans to replace Trident, perhaps openning the door to greater public engagement on this vital issue.

Scotland may have a tough row to hoe with the three NPT depository governments (the United Kingdom, the United States, and Russia) – credentialling representatives for the next Prepartory Committee meeting is likely to prove quite challenging – but the presence of Mr. Salmond, Ms. Sturgeon, or their representative at the 2010 Review Conference would be an important signal to the world.

Okay, who is NOT building a new nuclear weapon?

2007-10-18T12:01:00.000-07:00

Russian President Vladimir Putin answered questions today from the Kremlin for over three hours in a live television, radio and internet broadcast of “The Hot Line with the President of Russia.”

AFP reports that:

“Putin told servicemen at the Plesetsk nuclear missile base that Russia would build another nuclear submarine next year and was also planning a "completely new" atomic weapon, about which he did not elaborate.”

Additionally, the AP reports that President Putin said:

"Our plans are not simply considerable, but huge. At the same time they are absolutely realistic…I have no doubts that we will accomplish them."

Putin’s remarks come on the heels of his discussions with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran in the first visit of a Russian leader to Iran since the 1940s, and of the Russian test launch of a Topol intercontinental ballistic missile.

In the context of previous Russian tit-for-tat behavior, such as withdrawal from START II immediately following the effective date of the U.S. abrogation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 and the recent announcement that Russian participation in the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty would end on December 12 of this year following U.S. missile defense facility siting decisions in Eastern Europe, this move may create an opportunity to ask the Russians if they would consider terminating the development of this new nuclear weapon of the United States forgoes the planned Reliable Replacement Warhead.

Additional delay on the US-India nuclear deal

2007-10-15T14:20:00.000-07:00

Amid encouragement from former Florida Governor Jeb Bush praising the US-India nuclear deal, and also from International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei stating that India should be part of the “nuclear renaissance” and that a nuclear deal would remove restrictions imposed on India by the Nuclear Suppliers Group, reports suggest that Prime Minister Singh was expected to call President Bush to announce that India would not press for the US-India deal, at least for now. In so doing, the Singh government seems to be shelving the nuclear deal, at least temporarily, to avoid the withdrawal of the UPA-Communists from the coalition government and early elections.

While India might still go forward eventually with negotiations at the Nuclear Suppliers Group and the International Atomic Energy Agency, it appears that, barring a break-through with the UPA-Communist parties, it looks as though the deal may be on hold in India.

Opposition to Nuclear Terrorism

2007-10-10T13:50:00.000-07:00

United Kingdom Member of Parliament from Woodspring and Tory Shadow Secretary of State for Defence Dr. Liam Fox addressed the threat of nuclear terrorism yesterday in a speech at Kings College, London. He makes important points about the dangers of nuclear weapons and materials and echoes Professor Graham Allison’s “three no’s: no loose nukes, no new nascent nukes, and no new nuclear states.”

However, his silence is disappointing on the topic of British leadership in the nuclear disarmament process, particularly including specific steps suggested by outgoing UK Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Margaret Beckett in a speech at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace International Nonproliferation Conference in June.

Also of interest, Dr. Fox addresses the bargain of the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) directly:

“The time is surely coming for us to revisit the NPT, especially article IV. Unless the international community develops new controls and ownership of both nuclear fuels and spent fuels and unless there are clear economic incentives for countries to accept this new authority, with the major powers willing to effectively police it, then we are asking for trouble.”

One may hope that this envisioned “revisitation” will be one that includes the voices of the international community full of non-nuclear weapon states and nuclear weapon free states who exercise impressive restraint and humility in their defense and security policies by not pursuing nuclear weapons. An imposed change – particularly one that envisions different classes of states with different rights and obligations – would strain an already weakened regime.

Non-Aligned Movement opposes new nuclear weapons, including RRW

2007-10-02T08:54:00.000-07:00

Speaking on behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) at last month’s conference on facilitating the entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in Vienna, Malaysian Ambassador Arshad M. Hussain made clear that the NAM views new nuclear weapons, particularly including the so-called “Reliable Replacement Warhead” (RRW) as inconsistent with significant commitments undertaken by the U.S. Government under the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

“In this regard, NAM wishes to emphasize that the development of new types of nuclear weapons is contrary to the guarantee given by the five nuclear weapon States at the time of the conclusion of the CTBT, namely, that the Treaty would prevent the improvement of existing nuclear weapons and the development of new types of nuclear weapons. Pending the entry into force of the Treaty, we call upon States to refrain from any actions contrary to its objectives and purpose. In this context, NAM is seriously concerned by the decision by a nuclear weapon State to reduce the time necessary to resume nuclear testing to 18 months as a setback to the 2000 NPT Review Conference agreements. The lack of progress in the early entry into force of the CTBT also remains a cause for concern. NAM also notes with concern the recent statement by this nuclear weapon State in July 2007 in which it purportedly justified on the need invest in the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) and thus modernizing its nuclear infrastructure as part of its nuclear deterrent force. This nuclear weapon State even argued that delays on RRW would raise the prospect of having to return to underground nuclear testing, which in our view goes against the spirit and letter of the CTBT. NAM is of the view that the development of new types of nuclear weapons, is in contravention not only with the undertakings provided by the nuclear weapon States at the time of the conclusion of the CTBT, but also with the Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.”

This unambiguous statement should inform domestic discussion of likely international reaction to the RRW and other plans to develop new nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons production capabilities, and indefinitely maintain a nuclear arsenal numbering in the thousands of weapons. Specifically, it may be a preview of difficult discussions ahead at the 2010 NPT Review Conference.

Measuring progress on securing nuclear weapon-usable material

2007-09-26T12:10:00.000-07:00

In his op-ed Thwarting Terrorists: More to Be Done appearing today’s Washington Post, Dr. Matthew Bunn, Senior Research Associate in the Project on Managing the Atom at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and also Member of the Board of Advisors of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, announces the publication of his annual report Securing the Bomb 2007.

He notes in the op-ed that:

-“While this is a global threat, Russia, Pakistan and research reactors using
fuel made from highly enriched uranium pose the most urgent dangers of nuclear
theft.”
-“Roughly 140 research reactors fueled by highly enriched uranium exist in dozens of countries -- some of them on university campuses -- and many have only modest security measures in place.”
-While “U.S.-funded security upgrades have been completed for more than half of the Russian buildings with potential bomb material and more than half of Russia's warhead sites…there is still a dangerous gap between the urgency of the threat and the scope and pace of the U.S. and international response. No binding global nuclear security standards are in place. Many nuclear facilities around the world do not have
security measures that could protect against demonstrated terrorist and criminal
capabilities.”
-“Only about a quarter of the world's HEU-fueled research
reactors have had all their highly enriched uranium removed, leaving a major gap
to be closed.”

Bunn’s recommendations include:

-"We urgently need a high-priority global campaign to make sure every nuclear
weapon and every significant cache of potential bomb material is locked
down."
-"We need to forge effective global nuclear security standards."
-"We need stronger efforts to get countries to sustain upgraded security for the long
haul, and to help those individuals who work with nuclear materials to understand that corners can never be cut on security."
-"And we need to expand efforts to completely remove nuclear weapons and potential nuclear bomb material from as many facilities worldwide as possible."
-"To get all this done, President Bush should appoint a senior White House official to take full-time responsibility for policing these efforts, overcoming the obstacles to progress, and keeping the issue a priority at the White House."

One step forward, two steps back

2007-09-21T12:46:00.000-07:00

Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman announced this week at the International Atomic Energy Agency that the United States would declare another 9 metric tons of plutonium as excess material, “enough to make over 1,000 nuclear weapons.” The material from dismantled nuclear weapons will be removed over “the coming decades” and will be used to make mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel at the controversial MOX facility in Savannah River, South Carolina.

These 9 MT will be added to the 45 MT tons of plutonium that the United States has declared excess material (34 MT of which is already slated for fuel fabrication at the Savannah River Site [SRS]).

While this announcement is a useful step in further reducing the amount of excess plutonium and furthering the objectives of Article VI of the NPT, Secretary Bodman in the same breath touted the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) which has been one of the Bush Administration’s top energy and foreign policy priorities. The GNEP program would resume commercial spent fuel reprocessing in the United States, separating out tens of metric tons of weapons-usable material per year. The United Kingdom for example has a stockpile of over 100 MT of plutonium as a result of thirty years of reprocessing, and France has accumulated about 80 MT.

Reprocessing is not a necessary part of the fuel cycle, and unnecessarily producing weapons-usable material undermines U.S. efforts to convince other states not to engage in plutonium reprocessing. Another proliferation concern is that reprocessing would create additional stockpiles of plutonium or a plutonium mix that might be diverted by terrorists. In fact, due to proliferation risks and costs, the United States has not reprocessed spent fuel from commercial power plants for over thirty years, when President Ford and then President Carter stopped U.S. commercial reprocessing after India diverted reprocessed plutonium for its first nuclear explosive test in 1974.

So far, the Department of Energy will not make the commitment that the material extracted from nuclear waste will not be weapons-usable.

So while we should celebrate the declaration of additional excess plutonium, it is difficult to ignore that at the same time as Secretary Bodman defends U.S. contribution to non-proliferation, he is promoting the expansion of Department of Energy’s GNEP efforts that will lead to a new plutonium economy.

Norwegian Leadership toward a Nuclear Weapon Free World

2007-09-18T17:30:00.000-07:00

"Nuclear proliferation is not yesterday's news," Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre told an audience organized by the Norwegian Red Cross, "it's a burning question for both today and the future,” Aftenpoften reported today.

The Foreign Minister’s remarks celebrated the 10th anniversary of the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer or Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction, also known as the Ottawa Treaty. Recalling complex and stalled efforts to regulate landmines, Foreign Minister Støre observed that:

“The Ottawa process turned these dynamics upside down. Instead of a ‘race to the bottom,’ the participants found themselves in a process where they were constantly being challenged by civil society actors – not on the streets, but in conference halls, at roundtables, in the day-to-day negotiations.”

The Foreign Minister discussed landmines, small arms, and cluster munitions, but expanded significantly on the potential to bring more international voices into the nuclear disarmament discussion:

“In the field of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, Norway is leading a seven-nation initiative to bring states together, on a cross-regional basis, to deal with common challenges. All stakeholders are needed, and in this particular process we have succeeded in mobilising the UK - a nuclear-weapon state - and South Africa - a member of the Non-Aligned Movement.”

Could this effort grow into an “Oslo Process,” broadly engaging global civil society in an effort to promote prudent and verifiable progress toward a world free of nuclear weapons? Many important building blocks of such an effort are already in place or under development, including the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, the Campaign for a Nuclear Weapon Free World, the call for a 2010 World Summit to eliminate nuclear weapons, the Mayors for Peace Program to Promote Solidarity of Cities Toward the Total Abolition of Nuclear Weapons, the Middle Powers Initiative, the New Agenda Coalition, former Senator Sam Nunn’s vision of “The Mountaintop,” and, of course, the stunningly progressive “Hoover Plan” articulated in a January 4, 2007 Wall Street Journal op-ed by George Schultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn.

Jimmy Carter in Defense of Arms Control

2007-09-12T14:06:00.001-07:00

In a September 12, 2007 article in the Taipei Times titled, “Nuclear Steps Undermine Peace,” former President Jimmy Carter argues “By abandoning many of the nuclear arms agreements negotiated in the last 50 years, the US has been sending mixed signals to North Korea, Iran and other states with the technical knowledge to create nuclear weapons.”

Senator Roche on the Need for Resilience on the Path to a Nuclear Weapon Free World

2007-09-12T13:07:00.000-07:00

This weekend, former Canadian Senator Douglas Roche, OC, who advises the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations on issues related to nuclear disarmament, made a stand out presentation to a conference co-hosted by the Toda Institute for Global Peace and Policy Research and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

He encouraged listeners to recover the absolute horror of the subject of the use of nuclear weapons and to awaken to the fact that half of the world’s population lives in a nuclear weapon state and that $12 trillion has been spent on nuclear weapons. He called for new resilience in response to nuclear dangers, observing a paradox of momentum and indifference with regard to these dangers, emphasizing that “by adopting a resilient attitude we can withstand the power politics that force nuclear weapons upon us.” Recalling the Hibakushas’ warning that “no one else should suffer as we did,” he held out hope that an emerging global consciousness would subvert the temptation to rely on threats of indiscriminate mass destruction.

Three Cheers for the Dominican Republic!

2007-09-05T13:25:00.000-07:00

The Associated Press reports (and the website of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization [CTBTO] confirms) that the Dominican Republic has ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, becoming the 140th state to have done so. This is particularly great news two weeks ahead of the Conference on Facilitating the Entry into Force of the CTBT (also called Article XIV Conference, which will take place from 17 to18 September 2007 in Vienna, Austria).

Six months ago, the Committee on Hemispheric Security of the Organization of American States held a special meeting celebrating the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Tlatelolco. The Dominican Republic was represented at this meeting commemorating the establishment of the first nuclear weapon-free zone in a populated region. CTBTO Executive Secretary Tibor Tóth, Randy Rydell of the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs, President of the Global Security Institute Jonathan Granoff, and Nuclear Age Peace Foundation President David Krieger, and I all spoke to the need for nuclear disarmament progress building on the leadership exhibited by the Tlatelolco signatories. I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to emphasize that:

“your governments should sign and ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Barbados, Cuba, Dominica, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago have not yet signed and the Bahamas, Colombia, the Dominican Republic and Guatemala have not yet ratified the Treaty. There is no reason any civilized nation should remain outside the nuclear test ban club. This image depicts the global network of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban’s International Monitoring System, by joining the Treaty, your government contributes to an increasingly respected global norm of nonproliferation and disarmament.”

Coincidence? Almost certainly. But this historic step by the Government of the Dominican Republic to support a legally-binding end to nuclear explosions anywhere underscores the potential in the other nine states mentioned above.

Come on, Bahamas, I know you’ve got it in you!

Accidental Airborne Alert

2007-09-05T08:38:00.000-07:00

Michael Hoffman of the Military Times reports that:

“A B-52 bomber mistakenly loaded with five nuclear warheads flew from Minot Air Force Base, N.D, to Barksdale Air Force Base, La., on Aug. 30.”

While Dean Steve Fetter of the University of Maryland observes in Mr. Hoffman’s story that there was no specific risk of detonation or diversion associated with this incident, it does once again underscore the question: why does the U.S. retain so many nuclear weapons?

Indian and American Doctors Agree: Nuclear Deal is Bad

2007-08-28T13:33:00.000-07:00

On August 17, Physicians for Social Responsibility and Indian Doctors for Peace and Development, respectively U.S. and Indian affiliates of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, issued a Joint Statement on the U.S.-India nuclear deal.

The very predictable slippery slope of the US-India deal

2007-08-22T08:40:00.000-07:00

Reports that Pakistan and China are discussing the prospects for a nuclear deal similar to the one that the Bush administration has negotiated with India comes as no surprise to those familiar with how the global non-proliferation regime works. It further highlights how harmful the US-India nuclear initiative is for nuclear non-proliferation efforts.

Already last fall, only days after the Senate approved changes to U.S. law to allow an exception for India, China expressed its intention to follow suit.

The United States seems to have opened the floodgates with this deal as France, Australia, and now Japan, are also leaping at the opportunity to sell their nuclear goods to India as the United States is pushing for an exception for India in international guidelines.

France signed an agreement with India in February 2006, and Australia recently announced its intent to sell uranium to India, reversing its long-standing policy not to sell uranium to non-NPT countries. Japan is also jumping into the fray as the heads of Japanese nuclear companies Toshiba, Hitachi and Mitsubishi are traveling to India this week with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to seek nuclear business opportunities. A senior Japanese official prefaced the trip with the comment, “The US has lost the technological edge for nuclear power plants. The world leaders in this technology now are Japan and France."

With international competition lining up to take advantage of the new rules, it remains uncertain whether U.S. businesses will benefit from this deal either in the nuclear arena or non-nuclear defense technologies.

This agreement is a bad deal for the United States on all fronts, and dangerously undermines international security by jeopardizing non-proliferation rules thirty years in the making.

Obama, Hagel introduce non-proliferation bill

2007-08-17T07:11:00.000-07:00

Before leaving town for the Congressional August recess, Senators Barack Obama (D-IL) and Chuck Hagel (R-NE) introduced S.1977, a bill

“to provide for sustained United States leadership in a cooperative global effort to prevent nuclear terrorism, reduce global nuclear arsenals, stop the spread of nuclear weapons and related material and technology, and support the responsible and peaceful use of nuclear technology.”

The bill builds on the recommendations outlined in the January 4, 2007 Wall Street Journal op-ed, A World Free of Nuclear Weapons, by George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger and Sam Nunn.

It emphasizes that

"securing nuclear weapons and weapons-usable material at their source is the most direct a reliable way to disrupt efforts by terrorist organizations to acquire such material.”

and urges that

“nuclear weapon states should reaffirm their commitment to Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty”

The bill authorizes:
-$50 million for an international nuclear fuel bank (same funding level as proposed in the Senate energy & Water Appropriations bill)
-$15 million annually until 2012 for strengthening the inspection capabilities of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as recommended by Matthew Bunn and Anthony Wier in Securing the Bomb 2006
-an additional $20 million for the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI) for FY2008-FY2010
-$15 million for FY 2008 and $10 million for FY 2009 for a nuclear forensics program

It also fulfills an important oversight role by mandating:
-a plan for ensuring that all nuclear weapons and weapons
-usable material at vulnerable sites worldwide are secure by 2012, and annual progress reports
-a report by the National Academy of Sciences on a verification regime for an effective Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty
-two reports on the 2010 NPT Review Conference: one in 2009 detailing objectives, strategy and policies for the Conference and one detailing its outcomes

Lastly, it creates a Commission of 15 Members:
-to provide recommendations on the threat of the spread of nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons technology and nuclear terrorism
-to report on efforts to reduce global nuclear arsenals, the development of new nuclear weapons, the need for nuclear energy, and the contribution of existing multilateral entities

At a time when the United States has walked back from many of its commitments under the NPT, this kind of legislation serves as an important reminder and re-affirmation that successful US leadership and long-term US security depend on maintaining a viable and credible non-proliferation and arms control regime in place, which over time will require substantial, prudent and verifiable progress toward the ultimate objective of a world free of nuclear weapons.

As Congress prepares to finalize the funding levels for non-proliferation and arms control issues (in the Defense Authorization bills and the Energy & Water Appropriations bills), several other important and useful bills have been introduced in the Senate recently.

Among them is S.1914, a bill introduced by Sen. Feinstein (D-CA) with Sens. Collins (R-ME), Durbin (D-IL), Kennedy (D-MA), Feingold (D-WI), Casey (D-PA), that would prevent funding for the design and development of a new generation of nuclear weapons, the so-called Reliable Replacement Warhead, until the new Presidential administration completes a nuclear posture and policy review.

Palau Steps Up for Disarmament

2007-08-07T16:06:00.000-07:00

Palau is asserting its sovereignty in new ways (perhaps as confidence wanes in the value of their 2003 inclusion in the Bush Administration’s “Coalition of the Willing”).

The Associated Press reports that Palau has ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), bringing the number of states who have ratified the Treaty to 139.

Also of note, Radio New Zealand International reported on August 1, 2007 that Palau was elected as one of 21 Vice-Presidents of the United Nations General Assembly, the smallest country every to hold that post, according to Marianas Variety. Let’s hope that Palau uses this important moment for small state diplomacy to advance the universality of the CTBT.

If Palau campaigns to bring small states into the CTBT at the General Assembly, they will be successful. More small states ratifying the Treaty would mean less political cover for those that remain outside, advancing the cause of early entry-into-force. In this way, Palau could make a historically disproportionate contribution to international security.

Is Disarmament Still "On the Level" at the UN?

2007-08-07T11:17:00.000-07:00

In a statement delivered in Hiroshima yesterday on the occasion of the 62nd anniversary of atomic bombing of that city, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon declared:

“Nuclear proliferation is one of the most pressing problems confronting our world. Tens of thousands of nuclear weapons remain, many of them on “hair-trigger” alert. The emergence of a nuclear black market and attempts by terrorists to acquire nuclear weapons and materials have compounded the nuclear threat. Today, our challenge -- as it was for the founders of the United Nations -- is to make the world safer for succeeding generations. This requires us to continue to work towards a world free of nuclear dangers and, ultimately, of nuclear weapons.”

The Secretary General’s words are laudable, but there is reason to believe the UN’s institutional commitment to disarmament could use added support.

The statement was delivered by Sergio de Queiroz Duarte of Brazil who was appointed last month as the United Nations High Representative for Disarmament “at the Under-Secretary-General level.” The footnote added to Mr. Duarte’s title underlines what it is meant to obscure: that the role of disarmament leadership has apparently been downgraded at the United Nations.
The new situation may still be sinking in at the UN. For example, the webpage of the new Office for Disarmament Affairs bears its new name here and its former, more prominent name of Department for Disarmament Affairs, here. For those of us who recall the integration of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency into the Department of State, the implications are disheartening.

The first Under-Secretary General for Disarmament Affairs, Sri Lankan Ambassador Jayantha Dhanapala, was appointed in January 1998, riding high from his leadership of the achievement of the indefinite extension of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Of course, that was before:

the South Asian tests of May 1998,
the defeat of the CTBT in the U.S. Senate,
the dissolution of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency,
U.S. abrogation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty,
the Russian Duma’s rejection of START II,
the termination of the 1994 Agreed Framework,
North Korea’s exit from the NPT,
the invasion of Iraq, and so on.

The change was announced on February 5 of this year, barely a month after Secretary General Ban took office. Noel Stott of the Arms Management Programme at ISS Tshwane in Pretoria observes that the announcement of the change drew:

“opposition from civil society, the Non-aligned Movement (NAM) and countries such as Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Austria and New Zealand.”

Stott concludes that:

“Whether the new office and a High Representative for Disarmament Affairs at the Under-Secretary-General level will have a stronger impact in support of Member States' efforts to address the threats and security challenges confronting the international community will form a core aspect of any future assessment of Ban Ki-moon’s tenure as Secretary-General.”

We agree. The world is watching, Mr. Secretary General. But issues are usually not elevated by diminishing the rank of their advocates. And today’s disarmament agenda is daunting, including:

kick-starting the fissile material cut-off negotiations,
the challenge of bringing the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty into force,
responding to the Russian announcement of withdrawal from the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty,
shoring up nuclear safeguards in the context of the U.S.-India nuclear deal,
the expiration of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in 2009,
the NPT Review Conference in 2010,
the expiration of the Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty in 2012, and so on.

For his part, former Under-Secretary General Dhanapala was appointed this month to the Board of Dialog Telekom. One may wonder if Mr. Duarte and his successors will receive the same sort of reception from private industry upon leaving UN service “at the Under-Secretary General level.”

Rice Skips, Disarmament Advances at ASEAN Regional Forum

2007-08-03T07:34:00.000-07:00

Leon T. Hadar of the CATO Institute observes that Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice’s decision to “prioritize” Middle East diplomacy over attendance at the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum may tend to marginalize U.S. influence in the region; noting that this is only the second time a U.S. Secretary of State has missed the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) meeting since they began in 1994 (the first time was also Secretary Rice in 2005). But the decision may have an unintended consequence for efforts to promote progress toward a nuclear weapon free world.

Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte did attend and made a proprosal on nonproliferation to the 27 foreign ministers in attendance. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Chris Hill briefed the press yesterday in Manila, saying of ARF nonproliferation efforts that:

“we believe that this is the type of issue for which the ARF is ideally suited -- and we had a very good tete-a-tete on that issue. There are some technical problems that remain, but I’m confident that we can find a resolution. And I think the ARF can make a contribution in this field.”

Abdul Khalik of the Jakarta Post reports a slightly different version from Manila:

“Indonesia on Thursday blocked a U.S. proposal to stop the spread of nuclear weapons during the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) meeting in Manila because it did not include efforts toward disarmament…the U.S. then changed the wording of the proposal, but the proposal was dropped because Indonesia insisted the issue of disarmament must be included.”

Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda, who blocked the proposal, explained the connection:

"There's a slightly different approach in the sense that to us nuclear non-proliferation should be seen in the full context, not in separation with other elements, namely disarmament and cooperation on nuclear technology. That's why we suggested that perhaps we should add more elements in the area of cooperation if we're going to develop it in the context of ARF."

Nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament are organically linked through the international legal rule of sovereign equality embodied in Article 2(1) of the United Nations Charter. These objectives are also legally linked through the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which embodies the global norm of nuclear nonproliferation and binds it explicitly to progress toward the ultimate goal of nuclear disarmament in Article VI.

The gentle reminder from our friends in Manila serves the longstanding U.S. interest in enduring nonproliferation and disarmament and hopefully regional cooperation toward these entwined objectives will be strengthened by the exchange (and those observing from the United States will take this important feedback into account in planning for our ongoing efforts toward compliance with Article VI of the NPT). One may wonder if Secretary Rice would have been more successful in swaying her peers than her Deputy was, but we’ll never know because, as Benjamin Disraeli observed, "History is made by those who show up."

Southeast Asia Contributes to Nuclear Disarmament

2007-07-31T13:16:00.000-07:00

On Monday, Foreign Ministers at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) ministerial in Manila issued a Joint Statement on the Commission for the Treaty on the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone (SEANWFZ). The Treaty was signed in 1995 by Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

The Joint Statement pledges the State Parties to work to ensure compliance, work toward accession of the nuclear weapon states, cooperate with international bodies and others, and develop a specific workplan.

This is a great step forward, and a great opportunity to offer some suggestions for steps the Commission might take to broaden and strengthen the contribution SEANWFZ makes to international peace and security:

An official acknowledgment of the changing political climate suggesting the possibility of progress toward a world free of nuclear weapons signaled by a January 2007 Wall Street Journal op-ed by George Schultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger and Sam Nunn and other recent developments.
An effort to seek agreement between the Commission and the Organization for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean (OPANAL); this might begin with regular meetings every five years, possibly timed six months ahead of Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conferences to give the Zone implementing bodies an opportunity to prepare a report to each Review Conference on their joint work.
Explicit collaboration with the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) as a like-minded international organization; this might include support of entry-into-force of the CTBT.
Promoting outreach from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to the African Union in support of entry-into-force of the Treaty of Pelindaba (which would establish the African Nuclear Weapon Free Zone). This might be as simple as a letter or as robust as a coordinate demarche campaign by all ASEAN States to all African Union states.
A statement of support for extension of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) and further verified reductions in the U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals.
An inquiry to the British Foreign Ministry regarding how SEANWFZ State Parties might contribute to the British effort to advance the cause of a world free of nuclear weapons announced by outgoing Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Margaret Beckett.

Missed Opportunities in Nuclear Material Security

2007-07-25T09:30:00.000-07:00

Several recent reports underscore the need to account for and secure nuclear material as our best chance to reduce the risk of theft or diversion of fissile material, and the resulting risk of nuclear terrorism.

The Government Accounting Office’s recent discovery of lax security procedures for controlling access to nuclear materials in the United States draws attention to a broader problem worldwide, as Doug writes in a letter published in yesterday’s Washington Post:

“The GAO's startling undercover work reminds us that this is exactly what we do need: more effective lists and verification measures to ensure that all nuclear weapons and materials are accounted for. This means we need presidential leadership to tighten domestic regulation of nuclear materials, accelerate cooperative threat reduction and extend START.”

Taking the goal of a nuclear weapon free world seriously, as George P. Schultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger, and Sam Nunn argued in a January Wall Street Journal op-ed, will require effort to carefully verify and protect nuclear materials everywhere.

However, efforts to secure vulnerable fissile materials remain unjustifiably slow and US priorities in this area have been questionable:

*As a Government Accounting Office report documented in March 2007, the Department of Energy has been misleading on the progress it has made in installing security upgrades at sites that have vulnerable fissile material.

*Based on a March 2007 GAO report which concluded that the radiation detection technology proposed by the Department of Homeland Security is much less effective than the administration had claimed and that the cost-benefit analysis does not support the costly procurement and installation of the new monitors, the Washington Post now reports that, the Department of Homeland Security may have misled Congress:

“Congress had allowed the five-year project to move ahead after Homeland Security assured appropriators that the $377,000 machines would detect highly enriched uranium 95 percent of the time… Auditors from the Government Accountability Office later found that the detection rates of machines tested by the department were as low as 17 percent and no higher than about 50 percent.”

The GAO noted (p.12) the concern of one national laboratory scientist about the possibility of false negatives that detectors could

“conceivably misidentify HEU as a benign nuclear or radiological material or not detect it at all, particularly if the HEU is placed side by side with a non-threatening material, such as kitty litter.”

*Even if this radiation detection technology worked 100% of the time, it would not provide 100% protection against nuclear smuggling as smugglers might circumvent major ports and border crossings where this technology would be installed, instead using smaller, less traveled border crossings. As an example, Lawrence Scott Sheets and William J. Broad, in a January report in the International Herald Tribune about the case of a Russian citizen, Oleg Khinsagov, arrested in the Republic of Georgia last year for smuggling and attempting to sell a sample of HEU, warn about the problem of poorly policed border crossings and noted that the smuggler had traveled from Russia to Tbilisi by a high mountain road.

*Another GAO report from January reveals that the Department of Energy has made only limited progress in securing many of the most vulnerable sources of radiological material (that could be used to make a dirty bomb). Despite this limited progress, the funding for international radiological threat reduction program at the Department of Energy has been drastically cut in the past years (cut from $24 million in the FY 2006 budget request to $6 million in the FY 2008 budget request).

These reports reflect a questionable approach of focusing resources and energy on technologies that are not yet ripe deployed at locations that are not truly choke-points against the threat of nuclear or radiological terrorism.

Given limited resources, the danger is that these efforts may distract resources and attention away from proven methods to control nuclear materials at the source where it is produced and used. Verified control at the source represents our best chance to prevent the theft or diversion of nuclear material and this approach should be the focus of our political and financial resources rather than single-minded pursuit of a porous and technically elusive last line of defense at the border.

European Union grant funds African nuclear security, misses NPT opportunity

2007-07-23T14:49:00.001-07:00

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports that the European Union (EU) has provided a nearly 7 million Euro grant “to upgrade physical protection of nuclear materials and facilities in the countries, secure vulnerable radioactive sources, and combat illicit trafficking in nuclear and radioactive materials, with much of this funding to go to African states.”

The EU is to be commended for providing this support, the IAEA for its important work to enhance nuclear security globally, and recipient nations for their willingness to collaborate productively with international efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation or misuse of nuclear materials.

But all parties have missed an important opportunity to declare their renewed support for their obligations under Article VI of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons:

Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.

At least half a dozen recipient states have not ratified the Treaty of Pelindaba and a few have not ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Envisioning and working toward a world free of nuclear weapons means that no opportunity should be missed to increase the normative pressure and web of international legal rules that promote nuclear disarmament. Failing to do so reinforces the naïve and artificial separation between nonproliferation and disarmament that threatens the achievement of both.

Securing Africa's moral authority toward a world free of nuclear weapons

2007-07-17T14:18:00.000-07:00

African political commentator and poet Mukoma Wa Ngugi surfaces some interesting points in his July 16, 2007 piece on Znet, “Africa and Nuclear Weapons.”

Recalling the anxieties of the Cold War and emphasizing a nuclear dimension in contemporary international politics, Ngugi lauds the Treaty of Pelindaba which establishes the African Nuclear Weapon Free Zone:

“Today the question is whether the continent will become the theater of a nuclear dance between two predator nations - a growing and hungry China and the ever expansionist United States. It is therefore a great relief that Africa has arguably the most advanced non-proliferation treaty: the African Nuclear Weapons Free Zone Treaty (ANWFZ) also known as the Treaty of Pelindaba which came into effect in 1996. According to the African Union, 22 countries have thus far ratified it.”

22 ratifications is still short of the 28 needed to bring the Treaty into force, twelve years and five days after it was opened for signature in Cairo. The African Union (AU) website now lists 23 ratifications – Gabon apparently slipped their instrument of ratification last Thursday (probably after Ngugi’s piece had already been submitted). Why have the other 20 African states acknowledge by the AU not yet ratified Pelindaba? Ngugi argues that they should:

“The atomic bomb that was dropped on Japan, was ironically enriched with uranium from what was then the Belgium Congo, and today, most nuclear weapons have uranium from an independent African state making us complicit in future atrocities. But by the same token, Africa through the ANWFZ treaty shows it can be a moral leader.”

Africa’s leadership on this issue is important for material as well as moral reasons, as the famous “16 words” from President Bush’s January 28, 2003 State of the Union Address suggest:

“The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

In a globalizing world, effectively verified nonproliferation is an increasingly communal enterprise – lots of people in lots of places matter more and more, which increases the responsibility of people everywhere to think globally and act locally to prevent nuclear proliferation. Ngugi surfaces the importance of this moral obligation for Africa:

“Uranium producing countries such as Namibia have not ratified the ANWFZ. This means that some African countries even though not developing nuclear weapons are aiding other nations, mostly Western, produce them – something the ANWFZ treaty forbids.”

The African states listed by the AU as not yet having ratified the African Nuclear Weapon Free Zone are: Angola*, Benin, Burundi*, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chad*, Comoros*, Congo*, Djibouti, the Democratic Republic of the Congo*, Egypt*, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana*, Guinea-Bissau*, Liberia*, Malawi*, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, the Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia**, Sao Tome & Principe*, Sudan, Tunisia, Uganda, and Zambia. The states with * after their names have also not ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT); Somalia has two because it hasn’t even signed the CTBT. According to the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization, the CTBTO, six other African states have also not signed the CTBT: the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Gambia, Mauritius, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe.

Perhaps it is time for the African Union, perhaps in partnership with the Organization for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin American and the Caribbean and other relevant regional organizations, to consider a concerted push for Africa-wide adherence to these crucial agreements to secure Africa’s moral authority to play a stronger leadership role toward a world free of nuclear weapons.

Mr. Bolton had his Chance

2007-07-16T14:27:00.001-07:00

As International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors prepared to re-establish international verification of North Korea’s nuclear program last week, Leonor rebutted John Bolton's delicately titled opinion piece "Pyongyang Pussyfooting" in a letter to the editor published in The Wall Street Journal on July 12, 2007:

“Attempting to negotiate in good faith with a country that is hostile to the U.S., as distasteful as this may be to Mr. Bolton, is a process inherent to effective diplomacy; it was used successfully by the Reagan administration with the "Evil Empire" and helped usher an end to the Cold War, and it remains the most effective way to stop Kim Jong Il's nuclear weapons program. Failing to do so will result in significant cost to national security.”

The Prodigal State Party

2007-07-11T08:25:00.000-07:00

Yoo Cheong-mo of Yonhap reports that International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director Mohammed El Baradei called for North Korea to return to the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) at the Inchon International Airport in Seoul on Wednesday:

“Now is a very crucial time for the IAEA, Korea and the entire world. North Korea has just returned to a verification process. I wish it would lead to North Korea's return to the NPT and complete scrapping of its nuclear weapons program.”

This is an important step toward reigning in the North Korean breakout from the NPT. Some observers have contested the legal force of North Korea’s asserted departure from the NPT on January 10, 2003.

The argument that North Korea’s withdrawal is illegal because it was asserted to have immediate effect is weak. Complex negotiations following the DPRK’s original assertion of its intention to withdraw from the NPT around March 9-11, 1993 (Wit, Poneman, Gallucci, Going Critical, page 25-6) led to interesting disagreement as to whether a state party to the NPT could “suspend” its withdrawal after the three month waiting period specified in Article X of the NPT had run out or, in the alternative, its withdrawal clock was reset if it chose to remain in the Treaty after having announced its intent to withdraw. This disagreement cleverly widened room for diplomacy and sparked discussions about how procedural measures might raise the bar against further NPT defections, but it did not fundamentally change North Korea’s right to withdraw. It only mattered so long as everyone – including the North Koreans – agreed that North Korea remained a state party to the NPT.

Law is important, but legalistic debate cannot reclaim the four-and-a-half years that the North has spent outside the NPT any more than IAEA inspectors can travel back in time to verify compliance during that period. But an unambiguous North Korean return to the NPT would be good for three reasons. First, it would multilateralize North Korea’s commitment to verified nuclear disarmament – even if entered into cynically, this global commitment to all NPT members would demonstrate that even a state that seems to spoil for an adjective (like “rogue” or “outlaw”) must acknowledge the relationship between verified and legally binding nonproliferation and contemporary sovereignty. Second, it would emphasize the resilience of the Treaty. Today, North Korea stands outside the NPT as a model to other states that might choose nuclear weapons proliferation over the rule of law, although no other states have yet followed suit. The DPRK’s return to the NPT would signal that breakout is not sustainable. Third, returning North Korea to the NPT would move this nearly universal Treaty even closer to universality – emphasizing that the historical and strategic circumstances that have left only three other states outside the Treaty should not be immune to creative efforts to bring them into meaningful and effective levels of partnership with NPT states parties for nonproliferation.

Highlights of more plutonium-related news from LANL this week

2007-07-06T11:38:00.001-07:00

Highlights of other plutonium news out of Los Alamos this week include:

Julie Ann Grimm of Santa Fe’s The New Mexican reports that a “project to divert Rio Grande surface water for use in the Santa Fe area is designed to handle possible contaminants that drain into the river from Los Alamos National Laboratory, planners said Thursday.”

Andy Lenderman of The New Mexican reports that on June 26, 2007 a LANL employee who works at the lab’s plutonium facility was stopped with 30.5 grams of cocaine in his car, while another 1.3 grams of cocaine and electric scales were seized from his home.

Plutonium Pit Party Points a Path to the Past

2007-07-06T11:28:00.000-07:00

On Monday, July 2, Senator Pete Domenici, Representative Heather Wilson and others gathered at Los Alamos National Laboratories to “celebrate” the production of the first plutonium “pit” certified for use in the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile since the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided the Rocky Flats facility in Colorado in 1989. Noticeably absent were 1) a clear vision for the future of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, 2) a sustainable vision for the future of the national laboratories, and 3) the application of the best science and technical expertise to the real problems urgently facing the United States.

At the event, Senator Domenici reportedly said:

“The only thing that would keep [Los Alamos] from being the permanent pit manufacturing center would be if we don't get the physical facilities.”

But bricks and mortar are not the only consideration in scoping the future of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, as Sam Nunn and other national leaders have argued, an informed and careful national consideration of the future of U.S. nuclear weapon is urgently needed.

But in a nearby event sponsored by Physicians for Social Responsibility/New Mexico, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, and the New Mexico Conference of Churches, concerned citizens questioned whether the celebration might be miscast:

Dr. Mike McCally of Physicians for Social Responsibility said:

“Nuclear weapons development is just not needed... DOE laboratories and Los Alamos in particular are not focused on the urgent needs of the 21st century. Laboratory programs focused on energy, environment, nuclear proliferation, global warming, would be a cause for celebration.”

Former Vice President of Sandia National Laboratories, Robert Peurifoy, who joined by telephone said:

“They don't need to be replaced at this time because they are not broken…I'm not in favor of jumping in and replacing something just to have work.”

Why is Los Alamos building new pits when we have no urgent need for replacements and lots of crucial scientific and technical work urgently needed to support the national interest in areas like port security, nonproliferation verification, energy efficiency, terrorism prevention, and environmental remediation?