The Atomic Analyst

Iran -- Nuclear Weapons, Not Energy

2012-04-23T11:27:00.000-04:00

Cross-posted with the Huffington Post.
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Iran claims its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but the majority of the rest of the world questions this assertion. And for good reason: A thorough assessment of the evidence shows that Iran's end goal is a nuclear weapons capability, not nuclear energy.

Before we get into evidence, though, it is first important to distinguish a nuclear weapon from a nuclear weapons capability. This distinction may not sound substantial, but it has tremendous technical and policy implications. On the one hand, a nuclear weapon means the end goal of the Iranian program is to actually build a physical bomb, complete with explosives package, fissile material, and casing -- perhaps even mated to a delivery vehicle. This is a tangible result, something we can see and touch. On the other hand, a nuclear weapons capability means the end goal of the Iranian nuclear program is to stop one step short of building the physical bomb. The necessary components are in place, but no actual weapon has been produced.

Iran seeks the latter -- a weapons capability -- and as a result is pursuing a nuclear hedging strategy. That is, Iran is shortening the ramp-up time it would need to produce a working bomb, just in case it ever believes it needs one. And there is evidence that it has conducted significant research and development in this space: The November 2011 IAEA Board of Governors report includes a hefty annex that details the weapons-specific research and development Iran has conducted in recent years. While the 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate has concluded that Iran has suspended its progress in this space, there is ample evidence to demonstrate that Iran's leaders are interested in developing the kinds of components, technologies and knowledge necessary to construct a nuclear weapon, not develop nuclear energy.

Yet Iran consistently claims that nuclear weapons are a "grave sin" in Islam, and that it is impossible for the Islamic Republic of Iran to produce such weapons of death and destruction. Further, Iran's argument goes, in order to have a peaceful nuclear power program it needs to domestically produce enriched uranium. But this is a flimsy argument. A 2007 Nonproliferation Review article demonstrates that until a country has between five and twenty nuclear energy reactors (each one at or above 1,000 megawatts), it doesn't have the economic justification to invest in domestic uranium enrichment, since this technological capability requires very substantial investments that span years and often decades to bring to fruition.

The economies of scale simply don't exist in the Iranian case: Iran only has one power-generating nuclear reactor, at Bushehr. This one facility took 35 years to build, and only with significant international assistance. It was connected to the Iranian power grid just recently, in September 2011, and will finally become fully operational this summer. Therefore, the claim by Iran that it intends to have seven operational reactors by 2025 seems dubious.

In addition, if Iran's end objective was to develop nuclear energy, not nuclear weapons, it would not be making some very suspicious moves in recent times. First, Iran has tripled its total uranium output, which suggests it is stockpiling this material for future use, and ostensibly not in a power program due to the considerations mentioned above. Second, Iran has increased its enrichment levels to 19.75 percent, which is well above the level needed for nuclear power purposes but just below the internationally defined threshold of what constitutes high enriched uranium (HEU), which is 20 percent. Remember, nuclear energy-generating reactors, including the one at Bushehr, typically need 3-5 percent enriched uranium, known as low-enriched uranium (LEU), and nothing more than that.

The explanation given by Iran for producing this 19.75 percent enriched uranium is that it intends to use it for the Tehran Research Reactor, which currently can accept uranium enriched to higher levels for research purposes and/or to create isotopes used in medical applications. But if this were indeed the case, Iran could and should have accepted any one of the three multilateral fuel supply arrangements proposed in the past five years. Yet it has rejected them all, insisting ad nauseam that it has the right to produce its own uranium -- and while this is legally true, Iran is not acting in good faith with respect to those rights.

When looking at the Iranian nuclear program, rhetoric does not match action on all counts. Iran's end goal is not nuclear energy, but a weapons capability. To be sure, this piece is not intended to advocate any kind of military action against Iran, but rather to provide an objective assessment of Iran's intentions. Only by taking a clear-eyed view of Iran can the international community move forward with Iran in dealing with its nuclear weapons ambitions.

Closing the Gap Between the United States and Pakistan

2011-11-09T12:32:00.000-05:00

The Obama administration’s announcement two weeks ago to negotiate with "reconcilable" members of the Haqqani network continues its prudent and sensible policy of engaging Pakistan to combat terrorism and rebuild Afghanistan. But the Pakistanis do not see things quite the same way, and this evolution in U.S. strategy may actually drive a wedge further between Washington and Islamabad. Before implementing any new policies, U.S. and Pakistan government officials should take great care to align their strategic interests, and should clarify what exactly they want to achieve in Afghanistan.

At the end of October, U.S. Secretary of State Clinton and Pakistani Army General Ashfaq Kayani announced that after a meeting between American and Pakistani officials, they were "90 to 95 percent" in agreement on how to achieve common objectives regarding Afghanistan and the Haqqani network. What those common objectives actually are, however, remain unclear.

First, while both countries do want to see a generally stable and independent Afghanistan, differences arise over who Afghanistan’s primary partner would be. As Howard and Teresita Schaffer write in Foreign Policy, Pakistan does not have quite the same vision for post-war Afghanistan as the United States – what is more important to Islamabad is to have in place an Afghan government that is immune to Indian influence (it certainly doesn’t help that Kabul and New Delhi recently signed a security agreement). Therefore, one of the ways to prevent this outcome is to use organizations like the Haqqani network to ensure that after NATO forces pull out, the people in charge of governing Afghanistan are pro-Pakistan.

This creates a second difference in perspective between Pakistan and the United States. While Pakistan would be quite content to give the Haqqani network space to wear down NATO troops and the Afghan National Army through relentless attacks, Washington clearly intends to crack down on and dismantle the organization – Secretary Clinton recently sent a clear message "to the insurgents on both sides of the border that we are going to fight you, and we are going to seek you in your safe havens, whether you're on the Afghan side or the Pakistani side."

And in turn, this brings up difficult questions on whether Pakistan is a trusted partner of the United States in combating terrorism. Earlier in September, outgoing Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen was unequivocal in his choice of language, calling the Haqqani network a "veritable arm" of the ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence agency. To his credit, General Kayani indicated in October that his troops could take some action to constrain the "space" in North Waziristan where the Haqqani group operates and moves with virtual impunity. But this is a proposed baby step at a time when leaps and bounds are needed.

These differences get to the fundamental problem of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship. Over the past decade, Islamabad has successfully convinced the United States that it is a willing and cooperative partner in the U.S. campaign against terrorism in the region, but at the same time, it has fostered, either directly or indirectly, the growth of terrorist and insurgent networks on its soil. As a result, the likelihood that Pakistani officials would now crack down militarily on the Haqqani network is slim – indeed, two weeks ago they expressed enthusiasm for engaging Haqqani members in negotiations, but have not guaranteed the U.S. they will participate in further military operations in the tribal areas.

This means that if Secretary Clinton and General Kayani’s statement that they are "90 to 95 percent" in agreement is true, the remaining five to ten percent needs to be addressed right away. Before the Obama administration decides to go ahead with its idea of sitting down at the table with “reconcilable” members of the Haqqani network, it should clarify with Pakistan how to address the challenges described above.

As a part of the Obama administration’s larger "fight, talk, build" strategy to reconstruct a stable, secure Afghanistan, the decision to involve Haqqani members in negotiations is a forward-looking and sound idea. But the difference in ends and means between the United States and Pakistan is sufficiently large that any attempt at Afghan reconciliation that doesn’t first get Islamabad and Washington on the same page will surely fail.

Improving Nuclear Confidence Between India and Pakistan

2011-08-02T20:04:00.000-04:00

The largely positive meeting between Pakistan and India’s foreign ministers last week marks an uptick in bilateral relations, but the two countries still have a long way to go.

On Wednesday, July 27, Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna met with his newly inducted Pakistani counterpart, Hina Rabbani Khar. The meeting was colored by the most recent Mumbai bombings, leading many to doubt that it would be successful. Happily, however, the meeting was positive. One outcome was that Ms. Khar and Mr. Krishna agreed to convene again in September to discuss nuclear and conventional security matters.

This is a positive step. Another meeting could give the two countries a chance to explore further avenues of cooperation that could lead to increased mutual confidence, and one issue for both countries to discuss is the control of fissile material. Although realistically this topic will acquire little traction in the coming years, merely bringing it up for consideration in ongoing bilateral talks encourages India and Pakistan to make frank assessments of mutual stability, and may help create consensus on enhancing regional security.

An international “fissile material cutoff treaty,” or FMCT, has been discussed for decades in the United Nations Conference on Disarmament (CD). This agreement would contribute to global nonproliferation efforts by controlling stockpiles of weapons-usable plutonium and highly enriched uranium worldwide. Disagreements abound, however, on what exactly such a treaty should entail.

One interpretation, which India supports, is that the accord would cap global stocks of weapons-usable fissile material where they stand now and put a freeze on further production, but would not necessarily require countries to reduce existing stocks. The opposing perspective, favored by Pakistan, is that the agreement should actually prohibit the existence of weapons-usable fissile materials, which means countries would have to make active reductions to their stocks.

Pakistan has its justifications for holding out. India has more plutonium than Pakistan, on account of India’s more robust nuclear energy sector and helped along by the 2005 U.S.-India nuclear cooperation agreement. Combined with India’s conventional military superiority, this fissile material gap makes Islamabad nervous about being in a strategically inferior position, and has prompted Pakistan to increase its plutonium stocks to build a bigger nuclear arsenal. Any agreement on a fissile material ban, therefore, would not be in Pakistan’s interests, at least until its leaders feel more secure with India.

But it is in Pakistan and India’s interests to work towards a moratorium on fissile material production -- doing so could build peace and stability on the subcontinent. Getting to this point, however, will take much time and effort. In the meantime, there are some intermediary steps India and Pakistan can take.

First, Islamabad and New Delhi could arrange for a series of meetings between the nuclear regulatory authorities of the two countries, in order to share best practices on nuclear materials protection, control and accounting (MPC&A). Additionally, the scientific communities of both countries could be brought together to devise verification measures to be implemented in the event a fissile material agreement, bilateral or otherwise, comes to fruition. These steps would begin to build nuclear confidence between India and Pakistan.

Furthermore, both countries could make voluntary declarations of their existing stocks of un-reprocessed spent nuclear fuel, which would help build confidence by increasing transparency. Sharing information on spent fuel from civilian programs is not as threatening to national security as giving away details on weapons-grade plutonium, and therefore would make the move more politically digestible.

Fissile material is a particularly delicate issue between India and Pakistan that has never found consensus in the past. But this does not preclude future progress. The best long-term, sustainable way forward is to achieve a universal fissile material agreement through the multilateral forum of the UN Conference on Disarmament. None of the ideas presented above is intended to replace that process, and India and Pakistan should not be excluded from it.

In the interim, however, it is hoped that as both countries move closer to their September meeting, they consider some of the above suggestions. Hopefully, that meeting can at least begin to move Islamabad and New Delhi in a positive direction away from the status quo, to work towards reducing nuclear dangers on the subcontinent.

Time For a New Conversation with Pakistan

2011-07-13T14:16:00.002-04:00

Pakistan often makes rhetorical statements that are contradictory to its actions -- which is not the way to make long-term, sustainable progress on the security issues of most concern to Pakistan, its neighbors and its partners. The problem is that the rest of us are not doing enough to put an end to that duplicity. It’s time to change course.

Over the years, Islamabad has successfully convinced the United States that it is a willing and cooperative partner in the U.S. campaign against terrorism in the region -- while simultaneously fostering, either directly or indirectly, the growth of terrorist and insurgent networks on its soil. It has convinced India that it is ready to return to the negotiating table to develop confidence-building measures between the two nuclear-armed countries -- but in the meantime is increasing the rate at which it is expanding its nuclear arsenal.

And perhaps most alarmingly, Pakistan seems to have convinced itself that its nuclear weapons are safe. Yet increasingly frequent and credible reports are corroborating long-standing suspicions that the integrity of the Pakistani military and intelligence services has been compromised by extremist elements, which have the potential to facilitate a successful attack on a Pakistani nuclear installation.

To make matters worse, the rest of us have fallen for Pakistan’s maneuvers. The United States provides billions of dollars in aid to Pakistan, much of it for security and internal stability -- but it is questionable how effective those dollars have been. India has exercised tremendous restraint in its reaction to terrorist attacks that emanated, one way or another, from Pakistan over the past decade. Of course, this restraint is quite commendable, but New Delhi may not be so reserved if and when another attack occurs on its soil -- and that would cause long-term and compounded problems for all involved.

So how can we break this cycle?

There is some good news: Just this weekend, the Obama administration announced that it would withhold $800 million, or nearly one-third, of the $2.7 billion in annual U.S. military aid to Pakistan. This move indicates a serious reassessment of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship, and creates space for a few options going forward.

The first option is to give up and completely disengage from Pakistan. Realistically, however, this is unacceptable, particularly at a time when the United States is trying to withdraw from Afghanistan without creating a governance and security vacuum in the region. To disconnect now altogether would be catastrophic.

The second option is to maintain the status quo. Even though we are fully aware of how disastrous the outcome could be in the end, it seems we are generally more afraid of pursuing an alternate path. But our "business-as-usual" approach is not prudent either, since it has produced little tangible progress.

The third and smartest option is to stop going any further down this path. Along with other regional partners, the United States can accept and publicly acknowledge the difficult truth -- that in the current scenario we have made little progress. Although this admission would take time and effort, just working towards that point would create space for fresh engagement amongst all parties under a different set of understandings and assumptions.

The Obama administration’s decision this weekend is a step in this direction, and hopefully will prompt a frank reevaluation on both sides of how to strengthen Pakistan’s relationship with the U.S. in a mutually beneficial and sustainable manner.

Ultimately, while Pakistan indeed faces very serious challenges, it can work with the United States on strengthening internal and external security, if it can learn to trust Washington again. Similarly, Pakistan can normalize its relations with India. Indeed, it must -- any other path will lead to destabilization and conflict.

Most importantly, Pakistan can work towards increasing security on the subcontinent without having to rely so heavily on its nuclear weapons -- for example, through collaboration and confidence-building measures with India on both nuclear and non-nuclear issues, and through similar dialogue and initiatives with the United States.

The bottom line is that the starting point for all of these challenges is a new conversation, not a continuation of the status quo. It’s time for all of us to start anew.
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Originally published on the Ploughshares Fund website.

Praying For Restraint Again

2011-07-13T11:24:00.013-04:00

This will be a constantly updated document.

Explosions in Mumbai again today. Three blasts: One in Zaveri Bazaar, one in Dadar, and one in Opera House.

There absolutely will be calls for PM Singh to respond, perhaps even to retaliate -- but against whom? No one has taken credit yet for the attacks. Part of India's challenge in 2008 was responding to that attack in a timely manner, because attribution took so long.

In the meantime, Pakistan wasted no time in issuing a statement (updated 7/14/2011 1:35PM EDT) condemning the attacks and expressing sympathy and support for India:

President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani, the Government and the people of Pakistan, have condemned the blasts in Mumbai and expressed distress on the loss of lives and injuries. The President and the Prime Minister have expressed their deepest sympathies to the Indian leadership on the loss of lives, injuries and damage to property in Mumbai.

I don't hope for a long attribution period -- someone clearly is responsible for these coordinated attacks, and they must be held accountable. But if -- just if -- the attackers are linked somehow to Pakistan, this may be the last straw.

I'm praying that this is not the case.

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UPDATE 7/13/2011, 5:30PM EDT: Adding some details from the following Time blog post, which makes a good point -- this attack seems more like the 2006 and 1993 bombings, not the 2008 attack, in a couple of respects. First, its lifespan was just a few minutes, not a three-day siege. This indicates a lower level of coordination and logistical sophistication.

Second, the locations where the explosions occurred indicate the targets were local Mumbaikers, not foreigners or the wealthy.

Not 100% sure what this means, but if I've learned anything through my terrorism studies, it is that a terrorist organization tends to stick to a certain vision and MO. The first point, regarding coordination and sophistication, is less salient here, but the second -- that the targets were completely different from 2008 -- just might indicate that LeT isn't behind this one.

No guarantees though. More updates as they come in.

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UPDATE 7/13/2011, 5:45PM EDT: Daniel Markey at the Council on Foreign Relations had written last year about the next terrorist attack in India post-11/26. His conclusion was that even in the wake of another attack, India and Pakistan's tensions would not be exacerbated to the point of nuclear exchange. Certainly an interesting read, but as much as I'd like to believe it in my heart, I'm not completely convinced. Fingers still crossed.

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UPDATE 7/14/2011, 1:28PM EDT: It slipped my mind, in yesterday's frenzy of activity, that in the article I had written about India-Pakistan just two days ago, I included the following line:

New Delhi may not be so reserved if and when another attack occurs on its soil.

My intent is not to sound sensationalist or to engage in fear-mongering -- if anything, the one thing from which we all would benefit right now is a level-headed approach to what is going on. But there is a serious concern that each time any attack occurs on Indian soil, India and Pakistan will come closer to armed conflict -- whether Pakistan is complicit in the attack or not.

On a separate note, the latest reports put the number of casualties at 21, with well over 100 injured / hospitalized. Apparently some security analysts are starting to make some guesses as to who is behind the attacks, but nothing concrete has been determined yet, so I'm not going to spin the rumor mill.

More to come ...

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UPDATE 7/15/2011, 2:30PM EDT: This Reuters article indicates that the explosives used were not simple crude devices, but somewhat sophisticated. This Times of India piece says the devices used a mix of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil. These two details, if and when confirmed, may suggest prior training. PM Singh and local Mumbai authorities are still sorting out the damage to determine who is behind the attack.

Nothing conclusive yet.

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UPDATE 7/17/2011, 10:30PM EDT: In this article from Pakistan source The News, Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao says it is too early to blame any country for last week's attacks.

So it seems the authorities are still sifting through the rubble and piecing together all the clues in this puzzle. Apparently, India-Pakistan relations haven't been derailed for now.

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UPDATE 7/18/2011, 12:12PM EDT: This Hindustan Times article confirms that the detonation devices used ammonium nitrate fuel oil as the primary explosive, and adds that ball bearings were a part of the package as well. The detonators were timed, but investigations continue into what specific type of timers was used.

Also, the consensus in the media seems to be that the death toll rests at 19, and that the number of people injured is 129.

Time For a New Conversation With Pakistan

2011-07-12T16:02:00.002-04:00

Pakistan often makes rhetorical statements that are contradictory to its actions – which is not the way to make long-term, sustainable progress on the security issues of most concern to Pakistan, its neighbors and its partners. The problem is that the rest of us are not doing enough to put an end to that duplicity. It’s time to change course.

Over the years, Islamabad has successfully convinced the United States that it is a willing and cooperative partner in the U.S. campaign against terrorism in the region – while simultaneously fostering, either directly or indirectly, the growth of terrorist and insurgent networks on its soil. It has convinced India that it is ready to return to the negotiating table to develop confidence-building measures between the two nuclear-armed countries – but in the meantime is increasing the rate at which it is expanding its nuclear arsenal.

And perhaps most alarmingly, Pakistan seems to have convinced itself that its nuclear weapons are safe. Yet increasingly frequent and credible reports are corroborating long-standing suspicions that the integrity of the Pakistani military and intelligence services has been compromised by extremist elements, which have the potential to facilitate a successful attack on a Pakistani nuclear installation.

To make matters worse, the rest of us have fallen for Pakistan’s maneuvers. The United States provides billions of dollars in aid to Pakistan, much of it for security and internal stability – but it is questionable how effective those dollars have been. India has exercised tremendous restraint in its reaction to terrorist attacks that emanated, one way or another, from Pakistan over the past decade. Of course, this restraint is quite commendable, but New Delhi may not be so reserved if and when another attack occurs on its soil – and that would cause long-term and compounded problems for all involved.

So how can we break this cycle?

There is some good news: Just this weekend, the Obama administration announced that it would withhold $800 million, or nearly one-third, of the $2.7 billion in annual U.S. military aid to Pakistan. This move indicates a serious reassessment of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship, and creates space for a few options going forward.

The first option is to give up and completely disengage from Pakistan. Realistically, however, this is unacceptable, particularly at a time when the United States is trying to withdraw from Afghanistan without creating a governance and security vacuum in the region. To disconnect now altogether would be catastrophic.

The second option is to maintain the status quo. Even though we are fully aware of how disastrous the outcome could be in the end, it seems we are generally more afraid of pursuing an alternate path. But our "business-as-usual" approach is not prudent either, since it has produced little tangible progress.

The third and smartest option is to stop going any further down this path. Along with other regional partners, the United States can accept and publicly acknowledge the difficult truth – that in the current scenario we have made little progress. Although this admission would take time and effort, just working towards that point would create space for fresh engagement amongst all parties under a different set of understandings and assumptions.

The Obama administration’s decision this weekend is a step in this direction, and hopefully will prompt a frank reevaluation on both sides of how to strengthen Pakistan’s relationship with the U.S. in a mutually beneficial and sustainable manner.

Ultimately, while Pakistan indeed faces very serious challenges, it can work with the United States on strengthening internal and external security, if it can learn to trust Washington again. Similarly, Pakistan can normalize its relations with India. Indeed, it must – any other path will lead to destabilization and conflict.

Most importantly, Pakistan can work towards increasing security on the subcontinent without having to rely so heavily on its nuclear weapons – for example, through collaboration and confidence-building measures with India on both nuclear and non-nuclear issues, and through similar dialogue and initiatives with the United States.

The bottom line is that the starting point for all of these challenges is a new conversation, not a continuation of the status quo. It’s time for all of us to start anew.
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Originally published on the Ploughshares Fund website.

An Insecure and Reluctant Partner

2011-06-27T16:10:00.000-04:00

The Obama administration is preparing to implement the first phase of its military drawdown in Afghanistan at a time when nuclear security inside Pakistan is at its most tenuous. That already delicate situation has only become more fragile in the weeks following the killing of Osama bin Laden in May of this year.

Since then, Pakistani officials and international security experts alike have become more concerned about the ability of the Pakistani military to safeguard and secure its nuclear weapons and related facilities from attack. The fundamental question, however, is who would mount such an assault?

U.S. officials and those outside Pakistan are concerned primarily with terrorists: a situation in which a small group of militants execute a coordinated attack on a nuclear facility in Pakistan, gaining access to loosely guarded assembled warheads or weapons-grade fissile material. Those terrorists certainly would not hesitate to use their newly acquired assets to detonate a nuclear weapon over a major city, killing thousands of innocent civilians and forever altering the international security landscape. The world as we know it would never again be the same.

This fear is not unjustified -- the ability of the Pakistani military to defend its fortified bases and installations against militant attack has been brought into question in recent years. Breaches of Pakistani bases by militant groups have occurred most notably in October 2009 in Rawalpindi and in May of this year in Karachi. For many outside Pakistan, a repeat of this type of event -- but with nuclear facilities, weapons and material -- is the ultimate nightmare scenario.

Inside Pakistan, however, the fundamental fear is that the country's nuclear installations would be attacked not by terrorists, but by the United States or India. Military and civilian officials there are afraid American or Indian commandos would sneak into the country -- much like U.S. Navy SEALs did last month -- and launch a coordinated attack on Pakistani nuclear facilities, stripping Pakistan of its most prized possession and what it considers its primary deterrent force.

Certainly, the fear is rooted in a newfound and very palpable sense of humiliation within the ranks of the Pakistani armed forces. In a country where the military is seen as one of the only functional national institutions -- with sole guardianship over the country's most potent weapon and bargaining chip -- the swiftness and success of the bin Laden raid have shaken faith in the military's ability to detect and deflect any threat to its assets. Indeed, both retiring and serving officers are calling for Army chief General Ashfaq Kayani to resign, along with ISI chief Ahmad Shuja Pasha and even President Asif Ali Zardari.

The need for Pakistan to reevaluate its security capabilities has never been more urgent. American troop withdrawals from Afghanistan will force Pakistan to step up its capacity for ensuring internal stability, and this will place additional stress on a military and a national police force that are already stretched thin. At the same time, an erosion of integrity and trust within the ranks of the Pakistani military will make it even more difficult for Kayani to keep his troops in line.

In the meantime, Pakistan's ability to provide a significant degree of confidence in its nuclear security is being increasingly questioned by U.S. policymakers.

All of this is symptomatic of the widening gap of mistrust between Washington and Islamabad. Regrettably, this could not be happening at a more inopportune time. As Toby Dalton and George Perkovich of the Carnegie Endowment wrote last month, "It is impossible to build a strategic relationship when one partner can't be trusted to prevent nuclear terrorism and the other can't be trusted not to exploit its intelligence and military presence to steal or destroy the other's nuclear deterrent."

As the Obama administration prepares to shift responsibility for Afghanistan's security and governance to the Afghan people, it must keep in mind the security concerns of its reluctant ally in Islamabad. The U.S.-Pakistan relationship as it stands now is fraught with mutual mistrust, and is not sustainable. What is needed now more than ever is a realistic and firm reassessment by both countries of their bilateral strategic relationship. Only by asking difficult questions and identifying innovative ways to strengthen that relationship -- even separate from the nuclear security issue -- can Pakistan and the United States make significant and measurable progress towards improving security in the region.
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Originally published on the Ploughshares Fund website.

Osama bin Laden Is Dead, But Nothing Really Changes

2011-05-01T23:21:00.007-04:00

Cross-posted with the Huffington Post.
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Tonight, at 11:35pm EST on a Sunday evening, President Obama announced that Osama bin Laden is now dead, thanks to U.S. action taken within Pakistan. This is a tremendous breakthrough in America's self-proclaimed "war on terror," and certainly newsworthy. More importantly, it is a rare but special moment of justice for all of the families who lost loved ones a decade ago. From a practical foreign policy standpoint, however, this development unfortunately raises more questions than it puts to rest.

First is the question of whether drone strikes in Pakistan will stop. According to the President, bin Laden was killed by a coordinated attack in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The President did not directly address the matter, but he did say the kill was successful thanks to coordination between the Pakistani and American governments. It would seem that as of right now, killing Osama bin Laden will not preclude further drone strikes or any other covert operations within Pakistan's borders, since additional al-Qaeda cells are operating in the country -- as long as the Pakistani government continues to provide such assistance as is necessary. If anything, the demonstrated success of using drones to at least locate, even if not kill, bin Laden will suggest to many in the CIA, Department of Defense and White House that their use is a cost-effective measure that clearly can deliver results.

Second is the question of how U.S. military engagement in the Middle East will change. Will forces be pulling out tomorrow? Absolutely not. Will the latest version of the timetable established by the White House be accelerated, bringing troops home sooner? Most likely not. Our troops will remain right where they are, at least for the foreseeable future -- and if they are brought home sooner than expected, it will not be thanks to Osama bin Laden.

This leads into the third question -- how this will impact al-Qaeda. The President said the organization, headed by Osama bin Laden, has been disrupted by our intelligence operatives and military personnel. The reality, however, is that the organization has nevertheless been running strong for the past ten years since 9/11, and of course longer before that. It is as much a matter of discussion in academic and policymaking circles today as it was then -- indeed, my class on terrorism this semester at the Fletcher School dedicated entire class periods to the study of al-Qaeda's ideology, activities and structure. In particular, the death of bin Laden will have little effect on the organizational hierarchy of al-Qaeda, which is sufficiently hydra-headed to ensure continuity of leadership. As it stands, bin Laden was hiding out in Pakistan for the past half-decade or so, and al-Qaeda has continued on. His death will not change anything.

There are additional questions that come to mind, and certainly another post altogether will be devoted to whether Osama bin Laden's death has an impact on the threat of nuclear terrorism as the U.S. security and defense establishment understands it. But this is a start. Any and all thoughts welcome.

The Future of Nuclear Energy in the U.S.

2011-04-02T13:19:00.003-04:00

Cross-posted with the Huffington Post.
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In the wake of the earthquake and tsunami that overwhelmed the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan, and as workers continue battling the second- and third-degree effects of the disaster, important questions are being raised about the future of nuclear energy in the United States.

The U.S. Department of Energy has been investing for a long time in alternatives to coal- and oil-based energy, including nuclear and renewables, in order to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. Currently, there are 104 nuclear power plants in 31 states, which combined satisfy about 20% of our energy demand. There are additional plants that were slated for construction, but the Japan earthquake has changed that, and now many in the U.S. are calling for at least a temporary suspension on the development of new nuclear power plants.

One such person is Fletcher alum and former Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson (F71). On Thursday March 31, when I attended a talk with Secretary Richardson at the Harvard Kennedy School, he suggested that we should be asking important questions about the designs of these new plants intended for construction, including how strong the containment vessel would be and whether the spent fuel pool would be placed at a sufficient distance from the reactor core to prevent a Fukushima-type disaster from being replicated here in the United States.

In the Q&A, I pushed back on Secretary Richardson and suggested these are perhaps the wrong questions to ask, since the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is currently reviewing at least six new nuclear plant designs that would not have any of the design flaws and environmental security concerns that manifested themselves in Japan.

These new designs under NRC review are small modular reactors (SMRs), which -- in contrast to the large, above-ground megaplants like Fukushima-Daiichi that can produce upwards of 1,000 MWe -- put out less than 350 MWe and are more suitable for smaller towns and rural areas. They are manufactured in a completely encased unit, including the nuclear fuel, so there is more security in the nuclear fuel cycle and less proliferation risk. And according to preliminary studies, because these SMRs are designed to be buried at least partially underground, they would be less susceptible to damage from seismic shifts.

Secretary Richardson's response was a positive one -- that new designs should constantly be evaluated and old designs reevaluated, and that SMRs should be a part of the nuclear mix in the future.

But as George Marshall was known to ask, how could we be wrong? What are the downsides to these small modular reactor designs? What in these new designs would be cause for concern?

In other words, what are we missing?

If the Egyptians Were in America, They Would Be Protesting Obama

2011-02-09T14:50:00.011-05:00

Cross-posted with the Huffington Post.
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Breaking news: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak just stepped down and transferred power to Vice President Omar Suleiman and the armed forces.

As an interested observer who has watched the protests continue for the past few weeks, I have been struck most by what I understand to be the underlying impetus of this historic reform movement: two decades of economic stagnation, crippling unemployment, and the deterioration of social services for those most needy. Not free speech, not freedom of religion, not human rights, but a relatively modest and universal demand for economic opportunity for all Egyptians. And I recognize I'm oversimplifying here, but the Mubarak administration largely failed to provide such opportunity to its citizens despite tremendous developmental undertakings in recent history, such as the al-Azhar Park in the Old City.

What truly stupefies me, however, is that unless we do something about it immediately, the same type of failure is about to happen right here at home, directly under our noses, at the hands of President Obama.

Next week, the White House will release its fiscal year 2012 budget proposal, in which it will make good on Obama’s promise in his State of the Union Address to enact “painful cuts.” One particularly poignant example is a 50% cut in Community Service Block Grant (CSBG) funding for Community Action Programs (CAPs) -- organizations that serve the most impoverished and marginalized of our society -- with the intent to redistribute the remaining funding through a competitive bid basis that is modeled largely on the failed Race to the Top educational initiative.

If this cut in funding is actually approved by Congress, CAPs that provide essential services to people living at or below the poverty line -- including fuel assistance, workforce training, education, earned income tax credit, food pantries and Head Start -- will need to significantly cut back or stop many of these programs.

Worse still, many CAPs will be forced to completely close their doors, and the very impoverished they exist to serve will have nowhere else to turn.

In Egypt, a lack of economic opportunity under President Mubarak for the past 20-plus years fomented a mass revolution. And for good cause: people expect, if nothing else, that their government will create an environment in which economic opportunity can thrive. Currently, most Egyptians live on about $2 per day in an economy that unfortunately has experienced little to no trickle-down effect. The country is facing massive poverty, high levels of unemployment, and ever-rising food prices. And as we can now see, this dissatisfaction with the Egyptian government's failure to deliver is slowly spreading across the Middle East.

Here at home, we are still coping with our own deteriorating economic situation. People who lost their jobs during the worst times of the recession in 2008-2009 are still having trouble getting back on their feet, and increasingly are turning to Community Action Programs for assistance. Yet President Obama is proposing cuts to community services for those most in need.

But there are people fighting back. Already, U.S. Congressional representatives including Ed Markey, John Kerry, Barney Frank and Michael Capuano have submitted a letter to the President asking him to reconsider his stated intent. A few days ago, The Boston Globe ran this article highlighting the immense damage that would be caused by this funding cut. And an online petition aimed at “saving” community action programs has begun to go viral, having already collected thousands of signatures in the past twenty-four hours.

I do not mean to suggest American workers will revolt any time soon, but there is a lesson to be learned from Egypt. The failures of the Mubarak administration, as well as the outcome of the protests in Mubarak's resignation today, cannot be replicated in any way here in the United States. But if the White House budget is proposed as anticipated, and worse, approved by Congress, we will be doomed to repeat those shortcomings as a nation -- and appallingly, the poorest citizens of our society will be forced to bear the overwhelming burden of President Obama's choice.

This article was co-authored by Mimi Vu. Mimi studies public policy at Harvard University and law at the University of California at Berkeley, where she focuses on consumer protection and labor laws affecting low-income communities. Prior to returning to school, she worked for six years at Action for Boston Community Development, Inc. (ABCD), one of the nation’s largest nonprofit, community action programs.

Japan Flexes Its Muscle

2011-01-18T00:28:00.002-05:00

Cross-posted with the Huffington Post.
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The Global Security Newswire ran a short article last Wednesday on the recently-inked civilian nuclear energy pact between France and India, wherein the French company Areva would build two nuclear power reactors at a site in India. The snag right now is that the construction of these reactors would require a particular piece of machinery -- an "extra large forging" -- which can only be provided by Japanese industry. Now Japan is stepping in and conditioning the provision of that crucial part: India should sign and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, for one. And India should sign the NPT as well.

Without getting into the feasibility of such a move -- after all, there is no way India is going to give up its ability to test, underground or otherwise, and would likely only join the NPT if Pakistan did so as well -- the Japanese strategy is a well-intentioned one. Why allow countries like India that lie outside the framework of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to continue soliciting and receiving international assistance to develop an indigenous civilian nuclear energy program, all while facing little to no resistance to their growing military nuclear capability?

The Japanese are playing their cards well. They are effectively holding up their hands and saying, "Wait a second, France and India. You need our help in providing these forgings so that you can work together with each other in addressing India's energy needs, which is well and good. But India needs to demonstrate its willingness to join almost the entire international community and demonstrate its commitment to nonproliferation."

This is Japan taking a stand. Although it has a tremendous indigenous nuclear power capability and therefore is considered an industry leader in nuclear energy expertise and technology, it isn't a country that otherwise has significant muscles to flex in the nuclear world: It has no nuclear weapons of its own -- indeed, it relies on the extended deterrence umbrella of the United States. It is not a permanent member on the United Nations Security Council (in fact, Japan is not even currently on the UNSC). And aside from its involvement in the Six Party Talks revolving around North Korea (and that's for historical, cultural and obvious geostrategic reasons), Japan does not wield much power in international nuclear security discussions. It has been absent from any talks on Iran's nascent nuclear capability, which were led most recently by the "P5+1" (the five UNSC permanent members, plus Germany).

And yet, Japan is making a statement -- conditioning the further development of India's nuclear power industry on certain demonstrable nonproliferation commitments. India, for its part, needs all the assistance it can get -- it faces tremendous energy demands, and nuclear energy may very well present a scalable and relatively safe alternative to coal-based energy production. Moreover, India has diversified its reliance on the international community: in the past five years, it has concluded nuclear energy cooperation agreements with the United States, Russia, and France, among others.

In essence, therefore, Japan is demonstrating that if a number of like-minded nations can band together and present the same set of conditions to any country interested in nuclear energy -- not just India, but perhaps Pakistan, North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, and/or Israel -- they can hold such indigenous nuclear power development hostage and present a situation of conditionality from which the country receiving assistance could not shy away.

Imagine, if you will, what would happen if, for example, Russia, France and the United States went along with Japan and threatened to cap or cut off their assistance to a country unless certain nonproliferation conditions were met. Imagine the enormous pressure that would be placed on that country.

This is hypothetical, of course -- but it certainly is something to ponder. And many important questions arise -- Is it feasible? Is it a model that would work for any country? Is it sustainable? How would one verify that commitments made are not just nominal?

Thoughts, comments, feedback all welcome.

Why We Need New START

2010-11-29T15:13:00.002-05:00

Cross-posted with the Huffington Post.
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This article will be short, but hopefully to the point: New START must be ratified because right now, and as of December 6 of last year, we can no longer see inside the Russian nuclear complex, and we don't know what's going on there.

In order to succeed, arms control -- unlike any other international issue -- requires the type of verification of compliance, commitment and mutual cooperation that can only be assured through the formal institution of a legally-binding treaty. Climate change, trade, human rights, even maritime issues -- commitment to any and all of these can be monitored and measured in so many ways, whether one brings a treaty into force or not.

But the very nature of arms control -- which entails reducing one's nuclear warheads and delivery systems, which are intended to defend a nation and its territory -- means that the ability, and more importantly the incentive, to cheat are significantly higher.

START I, which entered into force on December 5, 1994, allowed the United States to put into place verification mechanisms, including the presence of on-the-ground inspectors, to ensure there would be no cheating within the post-Cold War Russian system. Combined with the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program, this effort had tremendous success over the past 15 years -- not only in reducing the global danger posed by nuclear weapons, but also in building confidence between Russia and the United States through enhanced transparency.

START I expired on December 5 of last year, and as of next Sunday it will have been a full 365 days since we have had that on-the-ground presence in Russia to continue the verification work that is absolutely critical to bilateral nonproliferation efforts.

We need New START because it would allow us to restore our monitoring and verification mechanisms in Russia. It's pretty simple. No other issue is more critical to national and global security in the immediate term than this.

Our Chance on New START Is Slipping Away

2010-11-01T14:22:00.004-04:00

Cross-posted with the Huffington Post.
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Tomorrow, November 2, is midterm election day in the US, and by nearly all credible accounts, the Republican party seems poised to make big gains when voters go to the polls. Interestingly, this time around these victories will be based overwhelmingly on domestic issues -- namely the economy and jobs creation. A quick look at the ~~smear~~ ad campaigns right here in the state of Massachusetts shows that candidates are focused on things like tax cuts, unemployment, education, and the overall state of the economy. There is little to no focus on national security or foreign policy issues. You see neither incumbents nor contenders discussing Iran, North Korea, terrorism, Afghanistan / Iraq, or climate change.

One shouldn't be surprised, then, to see New START -- a treaty that nearly everyone endorses, from former Secretaries of State and Defense to the former commanders of both Strategic Air Command and STRATCOM -- getting such little attention in the run-up to these critical elections. Moreover, the chances of New START being ratified by the Senate, which are already slim-to-none in the lame-duck session between November and January, will become even more minuscule once Congress begins its new session in 2011.

It is difficult to overstate the significant degree to which current and former policymakers have endorsed New START. Politicians on both sides of the aisle, from Senator John Kerry (D-MA and chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee) to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) agree that New START will continue a legacy of mutual, phased and verifiable arms control measures that were first set out and implemented by the Reagan administration. Moreover, New START is sensible because it is a confidence-building measure, and particularly after Russia's nuclear saber-rattling during George W. Bush's second term, such measures are absolutely necessary to promote good relations between the two former Cold War rivals -- who, let's not forget, still hold between them 95% of the world's nuclear weapons stockpile.

But for all its sensibility and utility as part of a long-term vision and strategy to make the world a safer place for generations to come, New START has foundered on the Senate floor. Domestic politicking, a desire on the Republican side to see the President fail, and to some degree a lingering mistrust of Russia have all presented serious obstacles to the ratification of what the Obama administration almost certainly thought would be a no-brainer. And even though it has been more than six months since Presidents Obama and Medvedev signed it in Prague, failure to ratify New START here at home would be a devastating blow to the President's foreign policy agenda, the centerpiece of which is arms control and nonproliferation.

A trusted Washington source told me the sincere hope of the Obama administration was that New START would be signed before its predecessor treaty expired in December of 2009, and that it would be ratified well in advance of midterm elections. By this time, the President had hoped to be pushing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). So much for that.

As a citizen and somewhat informed voter, I find it frustrating when domestic resistance and political pandering get in the way of the development and progress of strong, sensible agendas. It's a shame, really, that our national security strategy and the future of our country depends on the myopic politicking of a handful of representatives who are blocking the progress of New START for all the wrong reasons.

As Governor Schwarzenegger so eloquently put it, "There are those in America that are trying to flex their muscles and pretend they're ballsy by saying, 'we've got to keep those nuclear weapons' ... [but] it's an idiot that says that. It's stupid to say that."

Amen to that.

Venezuela Is Going Nuclear, and We Should Be Worried

2010-10-07T18:15:00.000-04:00

UPDATE, Oct. 9 2010: Thanks to all who have read and commented. I feel that I would be remiss to not provide some clarification on my own position regarding this article and its substantive arguments.

In my writing, I do say that Venezuela's potential for developing a nuclear weapons program is based on the yet-to-be-confirmed accuracy of the article written by Roger Noriega. It's important that I make clear, and that readers understand, that what Noriega says very well may be based on speculation, less-than-investigative journalism, and/or hearsay. It is of course wise to wait until more substantial evidence is presented to confirm Noriega's report. Nonetheless, important questions are raised regarding the openness or lack thereof of Venezuela's nuclear program.

Moreover, while I am aware that Venezuela is not geographically south of the equator, I am emphasizing here its commitment to the Latin American nuclear weapons free zone. It is important for the countries of the region, from a nonproliferation framework perspective, that the integrity of this and identical NWFZs across the southern hemisphere be maintained, as such agreements do serve to strengthen the global nonproliferation regime.

Finally, as an individual studying and writing on nuclear issues, I am deeply committed to nonproliferation principles, and I believe I make this quite clear in my introductory and concluding paragraphs. I am not at all interested in the ideological issues that have been brought up in the comments. To clarify, I am neither a neo-conservative (please read past articles on HuffPo and on my own website) nor a Chávez-basher, but I am always interested in any and all countries, including Venezuela and Iran, that are developing or are interested in nuclear infrastructure development.

Thanks for reading.

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You may know that the entire world, south of the equator, is one huge nuclear weapon free zone (NWFZ). You may also know that the very first region of the world to come up with the concept of a NWFZ is Latin America. But what you may not know, until you read this eye-opening and chilling article by Roger Noriega, is that this delicate balance of NWFZs in the southern hemisphere is about to be upended by Hugo Chávez, with the help of his trusty friend Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

A little background: Nuclear weapon free zones are an important component of what we today call the global nonproliferation regime, the cornerstone of which is the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). NWFZs not only serve as confidence-building measures amongst countries within a given region, but provide their members with legally binding negative security assurances from the five recognized nuclear weapons states. They arguably promote the overall security and stability of a region -- as nuclear weapons are overwhelmingly destabilizing tools -- and contribute to the objective of the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons worldwide.

As early as 1958, countries in Latin America were discussing arms control agreements, which would include a ban on nuclear weapons. As a result of those discussions, the Treaty of Tlatelolco was presented in 1967 and then entered into force two years later. Venezuela has been a member of the Latin American NWFZ since March 1970, but in the past few years has been showing signs of breaking with convention and going rogue.

Since 2007, Venezuela has been exploring the idea of developing its own indigenous nuclear infrastructure. Moreover, there is compelling evidence that Venezuela's government and banks, with the help of the Ahmadinejad government and Iranian shell companies, are providing Iran with uranium mined in southeastern Venezuela -- which, if true, would be a blatant violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1929 prohibiting Iranian engagement in "uranium mining, production or use of nuclear materials and technology." And there are additional anecdotes, as detailed in Noriega's article, that lend credibility to the idea that Venezuela is interested specifically in nuclear weapons and not just civilian nuclear energy.

If the information available to us so far is accurate, we might be looking at having two more states join the nine nuclear weapons powers -- four of which are not even recognized under the NPT. Iran would be number 10, as by all informed and detailed accounts it is pursuing more than just nuclear power, and Venezuela might not be too far behind as number 11. And if they do acquire weapons capability, the irony of Iran and Venezuela would also be reflected in the demonstrated failure of the global nonproliferation regime: both of them currently belong to the NPT, and yet are developing their capabilities while within that framework, à la North Korea.

At the same time, there is little "we" (the international community) can really do, from a legal or extralegal standpoint, beyond passing additional Security Council resolutions or using strong and compelling rhetoric. Nonetheless, we need to make use of all available political, diplomatic, economic and legal channels to prevent Venezuela from developing a nuclear weapons capability, going rogue, upsetting the balance of the Latin American NWFZ, and punching yet another hole in an already weather-beaten global nonproliferation framework.

The US Defense Establishment Is Tied Inextricably to China

2010-09-30T11:48:00.005-04:00

Cross-posted with the Huffington Post.
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This might be old hat to others, but this morning I read a fascinating and eye-opening Businessweek article on the intricacies of defense acquisition for the Pentagon and how much of the essential components required to operate critical equipment -- from submarines to tanks to laser-guided smart bombs -- come from China.

In particular, China produces 97% of the world's supply of so-called "rare earth" elements, including neodymium, yttrium, dysprosium and 14 others, which have long been recognized as essential to the development of defense equipment ranging from helicopters to tank guns to missiles. These elements are bought by defense contractors who work with the US Department of Defense, including Boeing, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon. According to Brett Lambert, director of the Pentagon’s Office of Industrial Policy:

The department has long recognized that rare-earth elements are important raw material inputs for many defense systems and that many companies in our base have expressed concern regarding the future availability of the refined products of these elements.

That concern over future availability is driven by a recent hike in export quotas and taxes, which are driving up prices and making acquisition more costly for US defense contractors. Yet there aren't many other options: at present, it would take about 15 years for the US to rebuild a rare earths manufacturing supply chain of its own.

This means that in the meantime, the ability of the United States to defend itself through all three legs -- land, air and sea -- is contingent upon its continued cooperation with its largest economic rival.

In related news, the Global Security Newswire reported just earlier today that the US and China are looking to renew military ties -- an interesting juxtaposition that underlines the intricate web of government military interests and those of private-sector contractors, all within the context of international business and global politics and economics.

When International Treaties Stall at Home

2010-09-08T17:15:00.010-04:00

Cross-posted with the Huffington Post.
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Last week, I was sitting in a class on international treaty obligations and compliance with Antonia Chayes, Professor of International Politics and Law at The Fletcher School. We were discussing the difficulties of (a) ratifying an international treaty at home and (b) complying with said treaty after ratification, and I couldn't help but think of the recent news off the Global Security Newswire that Senator John Kerry (D-MA) has submitted a draft ratification resolution for New START, which was signed by Presidents Obama and Medvedev earlier this year.

I'm not interested here in the fine-print details of Kerry's draft proposal. Rather, what fascinates me is the degree to which domestic politics influence international relations, and vice-versa. Obama won the national election two years ago (can you believe we're already halfway through this term?) on a platform that focused on increasing American national security by lowering our reliance on nuclear weapons, especially in light of the relatively new global threat of nuclear terrorism. And, whether he deserved it or not, Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize shortly after being inaugurated. He also made some very powerful speeches, put out a forward-looking Nuclear Posture Review, and even hosted the first Nuclear Security Summit a few months ago. He actually followed through on his commitment to advance arms control talks with Russia, and one year after announcing in Prague that the United States is committed to a world free of nuclear weapons, he and Medvedev kept their promise and signed New START.

But despite all this progress and momentum, not all is good and harmonious on the nuclear front. Things have stalled here at home, and from the beginning, New START in particular has faced a steep uphill battle from Senators on both sides of the party divide, though the more vocal opponents are Republican. And given that national Congressional elections are just two months away, and that the President's national approval ratings have dropped by over 20 percentage points since he took office, people are clamoring for change -- and our elected officials are all too happy to pander to those interests. From playing on electorate fears to just giving the people what they want to hear, many of our Representatives and Senators are losing sight of the big picture. They think ratifying New START would undermine national security, would cut funding for critical defense projects, and would make us appear to the rest of the world as weak apologists who are all too eager to disarm unilaterally.

The reality is precisely the opposite. Our Congressmen and women really could learn a lot from paying attention to smart people like James Acton at the Carnegie Endowment, who writes that, contrary to the picture Republicans in particular are painting of the President as a naïve idealist, the Obama administration is composed of realists who understand that "the world must be made a significantly safer place before nuclear weapons are eliminated:"

... trying to create the conditions that would allow nuclear weapons to be safely eliminated is not “dangerous” [...] On the contrary, because a prerequisite to abolition would be much stronger bulwarks against states that violate international laws and norms -- including nonproliferation ones -- creating the conditions for abolition would significantly enhance U.S. security.

Ratification of New START would be one such condition for eventual global and mutual abolition, and getting the treaty passed through Congress would actually serve to enhance national security, not erode it.

Just today, Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) offered a resolution text that amends Senator Kerry's draft proposal and includes verbiage that, it is hoped, will be more amenable to Republican concerns. Though I don't particularly like the provision that the United States can withdraw from the treaty if the proposed $10 billion for Obama's stockpile plan is not approved by Congress, it certainly should make the treaty more digestible for those GOP Senators who still don't believe ratification of New START is an overall good thing.

And though New START is just one example, it is a particularly salient one of an international legal phenomenon that fascinates me: Treaties are negotiated, sliced and diced, rehashed, renegotiated (with many interim iterations) and finally signed -- only to have all that progress hit a dead end when it comes to ratification and entry of said treaty into force.

What can be done, from both an international treaty negotiation perspective and a domestic political perspective, to prevent roadblocks like this from cropping up all the time? I'm open to any and all answers.

Why Muslims Should Support Nuclear Weapons Disarmament

2010-09-01T18:25:00.010-04:00

Cross-posted with the Huffington Post.
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Sadly, though the current fixation of national debate is still the "Ground Zero Mosque," public opinion polls indicate that American sentiment towards the bomb has become ambivalent, and most recently, dangerously lukewarm -- something I discussed in my piece last week.

But the issue can be refocused in a spiritual light and bring to the ongoing debate on nuclear weapons an angle and voice that were notably absent for the duration of the Cold War.

An excellent interview was published today in the U.S. News & World Report with the Rev. Tyler Wigg-Stevenson, an evangelical Christian and founder of the Two Futures Project. According to the website, the Project is:

... a movement of American Christians for the abolition of all nuclear weapons ... We support concrete and practical steps to reduce nuclear dangers immediately, while pursuing the multilateral, global, irreversible, and verifiable elimination of nuclear weapons, as a biblically-grounded mandate and as a contemporary security imperative ... By joining together with one voice of Christian conscience, we seek to encourage and enable our national leaders to make the complete elimination of nuclear weapons the organizing principle of American nuclear weapons policy. We join in this work to the glory of God. [emphasis added]

I think this is not only absolutely fascinating, it is absolutely necessary. The strategy of the Two Futures Project -- to re-establish a 45-year-long debate on nuclear weapons, historically devoid of religion and faith-based morality altogether, in a contemporary understanding of what it means to be a loving, caring, responsible Christian -- is to be commended. In his interview with U.S. News, the Reverend lays it out very neatly:

From my point of view, there's no legitimate theological basis in the Bible for Christians to justify the killing of innocents. Nuclear weapons also violate the "just war" criteria, for instance. They don't discriminate between innocents and non-innocents, and they are disproportionate. With that theological conviction, there are only two futures: a world in which nuclear weapons are used, and one in which they are abolished. For me, the choice is easy.

For moderate and intellectual Muslims as well, the choice should be simple: either annihilate the human race or eliminate the global threat posed by nuclear weapons. Believe it or not -- and I know I'm opening up a big hole here -- there is plenty of talk in the Qur'an about being good, kind, righteous, giving and generous to one's fellow man, regardless of religious creed. Please note that while the following translations come from Abdullah Yusuf Ali, a renowned Qur'anic scholar, the interpretations thereof are completely mine. A few examples:

O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise (each other)). Verily the most honoured of you in the sight of Allah is (he who is) the most righteous of you. And Allah has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things). --Qur'an 49:13

Here's another one, one of my favorite passages, that discusses what righteousness really is:

It is not righteousness that ye turn your faces towards east or West; but it is righteousness- to believe in Allah and the Last Day, and the Angels, and the Book, and the Messengers; to spend of your substance, out of love for Him, for your kin, for orphans, for the needy, for the wayfarer, for those who ask, and for the ransom of slaves; to be steadfast in prayer, and practice regular charity; to fulfill the contracts which ye have made; and to be firm and patient, in pain (or suffering) and adversity, and throughout all periods of panic. Such are the people of truth, the Allah-fearing. --Qur'an 2:177

And finally, a passage that gives credibility to my argument that moderate Muslims should have no problem with, and in fact should support, the Two Futures Project:

Those who believe (in the Qur'an), and those who follow the Jewish (scriptures), and the Christians and the Sabians,- any who believe in Allah and the Last Day, and work righteousness, shall have their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve. --Qur'an 2:62

Hence, and in light of these verses, it is my (admittedly simplistic) conclusion that when it comes to threats to humanity, there should be a Muslim voice to join hands with that of Christians who support the Two Futures Project -- a voice that is grounded in the realities of our time, that is forward-looking and hopeful, that understands Islam to be a faith of peace and an integral part of the Abrahamic tradition and experience, and that advocates for the salvation and dignity of all human life, irrespective of belief or creed.

And that would truly be joining in this work to the glory of God.

Ratifying the CTBT Is Absolutely Necessary

2010-08-23T10:55:00.015-04:00

Cross-posted with the Huffington Post.
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Why do we sometimes ignore facts and stubbornly continue to believe in falsehoods?

A quick example: Not that I'd have a problem with it if he were, but President Obama is not a Muslim. Yet an unsettling percentage of Americans still believe he is. In March of this year, Harris found that overall, 32% of those polled believe President Obama is a Muslim. Five months later, the Pew Research Center released the results of its poll and found that a full 18% of respondents believe the same thing.

So, if sample and survey methodologies are intact, with a high degree of confidence, and if we can in fact make fair and accurate inferences about the American people based on these and other surveys, then we can conclude that at least a fifth of the American people believe in something that simply isn't true. Yet we persist in clinging to debunked myths.

Which brings me to my point: This Sunday, August 29, marks the first International Day Against Nuclear Tests, passed by the UN General Assembly in December 2009 to promote the total elimination of nuclear weapons testing, with a view to one day globally ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

And although President Obama has made the reduction of the global nuclear threat one of his top-priority foreign policy objectives, and despite the fact that the United States hasn't conducted a nuclear test of any sort since September 1992, Congress has yet to approve and ratify the CTBT, which was signed by the US in 1996.

Though the matter of ratifying the CTBT here at home and bringing it into force requires other nations to do the same in order to make it an internationally legally binding treaty, domestic politics of course have a tremendous hand in shaping the outcome of proposed Congressional bills. The CTBT, like many other proposals, is subject to the influence of the American people, who continue to believe that the United States needs nuclear weapons and therefore should retain its testing capabilities.

Earlier this month, Rasmussen released the results of a survey which revealed that a full 77% of those polled believe the US nuclear arsenal is important to national security, with more than half (57%) saying the US should not reduce the number of nuclear weapons in its arsenal. Moreover, nearly half of all respondents (46%) feel the United States should actually continue developing new nuclear weapons.

Compare these statistics to a 2004 survey conducted by the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland, in which it was found that 65% of respondents (including 54% of Republicans) felt it is NOT necessary for the US to develop new nuclear weapons.

So it seems public opinion is once again shifting away from advocacy for decreasing reliance on nuclear weapons in foreign policy and statesmanship, and back towards dependence on weapons development and testing to ensure a credible and sustained level of deterrence. Which is deplorable, since the threat against which we can effectively "deter" is no longer the nation-state as a political entity, but rather amorphous terrorist groups that operate across national boundaries and therefore are much harder to target, either in prevention or retaliation.

If anything, this change in the nature of the nuclear threat should give our legislators more reason to push for ratification of the CTBT, since bringing this treaty into force is a critical component of a long-term, forward-looking plan to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world. And as the President continues working with Russian and other world leaders to mitigate the global nuclear threat, one thing all of us here at home can do is to make our voices heard by calling our Congressional representatives and telling them that ratification of the CTBT is a necessary step to prevent non-state actors from acquiring and using a nuclear weapon.

It is true that the CTBT in and of itself will not lessen the nuclear threat in any immediate or tangible way. But in looking at the big picture, we should understand that the only way to prevent nuclear terrorism from ever becoming a reality is to address this double-headed problem at its sources. And while the world's armed forces and intelligence agencies work every day to stop terrorism, the other half of the problem -- the actual nuclear weapons, materials, and delivery systems that terrorist groups covet -- must be addressed simultaneously.

Take away a nuke, and that's one less opportunity for the bad guys to get a hold of one and detonate it over a major city, American or otherwise, with nearly complete impunity.

Now, more than ever, and in anticipation of the upcoming International Day Against Nuclear Tests, let's again ask ourselves why CTBT ratification hasn't happened yet, and work to finally make it a reality. The polls show that most Americans still favor reliance on nuclear arsenals to guarantee our national security. Yet, sadly and ironically, this dependence actually weakens our security. Though it would be a small one, having the CTBT come into force would nonetheless be a significant step in the right direction once again.

And that's something we can all believe in.

The Nuclear [Movie] Renaissance, or: Bad Idea, James Cameron

2010-08-12T16:59:00.010-04:00

Cross-posted with the Huffington Post.
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I'm noticing what might be a curious trend lately in Hollywood: movies are being made about nuclear weapons again. Much like the so-called "nuclear renaissance," which captures the current renewed global interest in nuclear power to address energy needs, there seems to be a revitalization of interest in making movies about nuclear weapons.

Take, for example, the star-studded, Lucky Walker-directed Countdown to Zero, produced by Lawrence Bender of Inglourious Basterds and An Inconvenient Truth. Also, there's Nuclear Tipping Point, a much more sober, History Channel-style film released this year by former Senator Sam Nunn's Nuclear Threat Initiative organization. And then there are smaller films produced by activist groups and non-profit organizations, like the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation's U.S. Leadership for a Nuclear Weapons-Free World, which can be ordered for free.

But going back over 60 years, one of the earliest nuclear-themed films was the 1949 French movie, La Bataille de L'Eau Lourde, or The Battle For the Heavy Water. It's a fascinating story, based on actual events, about how a daring group of French physicists played a pivotal role in preventing Adolf Hitler from developing the world's first nuclear bomb. The real-life story is so incredible, I have to share it here:

Before the Manhattan Project in the United States ever took off, there was the German Uranverein, a group of brilliant nuclear physicists dedicated to exploring revolutionary concepts of fission in uranium atoms. Their wartime objective: to develop the German nuclear program, and to, at the very least, successfully sustain a nuclear chain reaction.

Quickly the Uranverein realized that they needed some way to moderate the chain reaction -- that is, to be able to slow down the speed at which already fast-moving neutrons hit other uranium atoms, since a neutron moving too quickly would pass right through a uranium atom without splitting it. The physicists decided on heavy water as a medium, which would slow down neutrons just enough to sustain a chain reaction. At the time, however, the only place in Europe creating heavy water was a fertilizer plant in Vemork, Norway that was producing it as a by-product.

By this time, French physicist and Nobel laureate Frédéric Joliot-Curie (son-in-law of Marie Curie) had identified the potential use of heavy water in uranium fission as well, and informed the French Ministry of Armaments of its importance in nuclear research. When approached by a representative of the French government, the managing director of the Vemork plant handed his entire supply of by-product heavy water over to France at no cost, saying: "Our company will accept not one centime for the product you are taking, if it will aid France's victory."

A total of 185 kilos of heavy water was smuggled eventually to Paris in the spring of 1940. But in May and June, as Nazi forces advanced on France and marched towards Paris, it became apparent that the heavy water, which still was crucial to the development of the German atomic program, could not be allowed to fall into enemy hands. So a group of French scientists, carrying the heavy water in jerrycans, embarked on a perilous journey to deliver the precious cargo into British hands.

Fortunately, they completed their mission, and the Allies were thus able to thwart, not for the first time, Germany's attempts to develop its nuclear program.

Nine years later, the French film La Bataille de L'Eau Lourde was produced, starring -- believe it or not -- many of the original physicists playing themselves. I've been trying to find a copy of this old black-and-white; if anyone has any leads, please contact me.

But back to the topic of movies. What prompted me to write this piece was yesterday's news that James Cameron is revisiting a script that he had optioned earlier this year, for a movie based on the Charles Pellegrino book Last Train From Hiroshima. It recounts the journey of the only person officially recognized to survive both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings, Tsutomu Yamaguchi, who passed away in January of this year at the age of 93.

Yamaguchi-san had become a vocal proponent for nuclear disarmament, and his story has been told by Japanese filmmaker Hideo Nakamura in Twice Bombed Twice Survived, as well as in Pellegrino's book. He was our generation's reminder of the horror nuclear weapons can unleash, and his death this year gave us reason both to remember his terrifying experience and to ask ourselves again why these weapons still play such a tremendous role in our and other nations' defense strategies.

I think this movie idea is going too far. Remember, Cameron is the guy who brought us Avatar, which, though it was entertaining, could hardly be called social commentary. And he's credited for creating the Terminator series, Aliens, and, of course, Titanic -- which no one remembers now as an historically accurate account of the tragic sinking of the cruise ship, but rather focuses on a romance that transcends social class divides and is most famous for Leo DiCaprio's famous line, "I'm king of the world!"

Aside from the 1949 French film, the recent spate of nuclear-themed movies is a serious look at the dangers posed by nuclear weapons. I have a feeling James Cameron would take the Pellegrino book, which already has an alarming number of falsifications, and will turn it into a mega-blockbuster with a romance-driven plot that either minimizes or completely ignores the real issue, which is the horror of the atomic bomb.

If Cameron seriously does Last Train, it had better be done well. I, for one, am not holding my breath.

Hiroshima, 9/11 and the Proposed NYC Mosque

2010-08-05T14:51:00.004-04:00

Cross-posted with the Huffington Post.
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Tomorrow, August 6, marks the 65th anniversary of the US nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. On that day, and in the coming weeks and months as a result of the ensuing fire and radiation, 140,000 Japanese civilians died. An additional 80,000 would perish in Nagasaki, when three days later the US dropped another nuclear weapon there.

But body count and civilian status aside, these two events in 1945 sparked a terrifying arms race spanning over four decades, the consequences of which we are still dealing with today. And for the first time ever, the United States will send an official delegation, led by US Ambassador to Japan John Roos, to the memorial tomorrow.

Though Japan and the US have come a long way in bilateral relations since World War II, there are still some in Japan who feel they are owed, at the very least, an apology by the US government. Says one elderly Japanese woman, quoted in this article:

"Americans think that the bombing was reasonable because it speeded up the end of the war. They try to see it in a positive way," Naomi Sawa, a 69-year-old former teacher, said after paying her respects to the dead. "But we were devastated."

Sixty-five years later, and despite the progress our two nations have made, there are still people in Japan who believe that the US was justified in the use of the bomb, and that all American citizens to this day still think President Truman made the right decision.

Of course, that's not a universal truth. And I see a clear parallel between this set of circumstances and that surrounding the current controversy in New York, as plans proceed to build a large mosque and cultural center two blocks from Ground Zero.

One warm September morning nearly a decade ago, our resolve as a nation was tested, and we rallied. Our commander-in-chief swore to "take the fight to the enemy." But he was also rational: President Bush stated, time and again, that "the enemy" was not Islam as a religion, nor the billions of Muslims worldwide who adhere to the faith in all its forms. No, the real enemy of America was the group of twisted militant radicals who had usurped Islam for their selfish, warped cause.

Indeed, for moderate Muslims worldwide and especially for American Muslims, the enemy of America also was and always has been the enemy of Islam.

Yet, nearly a decade later, more and more honest, well-intentioned Americans are forgetting President Bush's pleas: that moderate, accepting, pluralist interpretations of Islam -- as practiced by the millions of Muslims living in the US -- are America's biggest ally in the war on terror. And nowhere is this mindlessness more evident than in the protests over the Cordoba House proposal in New York City.

Never mind that the proposed mosque location is a full two blocks away from the World Trade Center site -- a site which, in this writer's opinion, should be preserved as an eternal, non-denominational memorial to the lives lost on that tragic day in 2001. Never mind that it is not just a mosque, but an interfaith, cultural and community center with a proposed fitness center, swimming pool and performing arts space.

No, the real issue I take with the entire matter is that the group of Muslims and supporters that plans on building this center represents precisely that flavor of Islam that is America's biggest ally: an Islam that is moderate, open, accepting, peaceful, outspoken against terrorism in the name of Islam, and American in the truest sense (see this Time Magazine article here).

And inflammatory personalities like Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin are only making matters worse. Of course, they have the right to freedom of speech, but liberty should never be equated to license. They're only serving to further stoke the anti-Muslim fire that, unfortunately, is growing and spreading more and more each day.

With all that said, these sorts of reactions are to be expected. After all, it hasn't been a full 10 years yet since 9/11, and we as a nation are still struggling with the demons that haunt us, as well as trying to find a better, more peaceful path forward. It has been 65 years since Hiroshima, and yet many Japanese believe that not only was the US in the wrong, but that all Americans to this day still believe we did the right thing by dropping two nuclear weapons on Japan. That simply is not true. Many in the US, and especially those most intimate with America's secret weapons program in the 1940s, have regretted President Truman's decision -- not only because the destructive power of the nuclear bomb was unleashed upon innocent civilians, but also because of the ensuing arms race it sparked.

We are still struggling with those demons as well. But what Americans need to do, now more than ever, is start thinking for themselves again. Listen to what someone like Sarah Palin says -- and then ask yourself if you would come to the same conclusion anyway. Is it really "against common moral sense," as she says, to build an open, moderate Islamic mosque two blocks from Ground Zero? Would we really be up in arms if a church were being proposed? Or a synagogue? Or, for that matter, a Hindu mandir or Buddhist temple? Most likely not.

Remember now, more than ever, that we are American in our values. We uphold freedom and liberty more than anything else. It is precisely our adherence to and defense of these values that have made us a strong, robust, diverse and resilient nation.

Let us not forget who we are.

The Real Deal with Cesium

2010-07-23T16:17:00.004-04:00

Cross-posted with the Huffington Post.
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The month of July has been a big one for the chemical element Cesium. Produced naturally through the nuclear fuel cycle and used in a variety of applications from agriculture to cancer treatment, it is highly radioactive in isotopic form Cs-137.

The idea has been floated for a long time of using cesium in a radioactive "dirty bomb," which wouldn't have the same explosive power as a uranium or plutonium nuclear bomb but would contaminate land, water supplies and living organisms, including people. In March 2002, Henry Kelly, President of the Federation of American Scientists, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the possibility of constructing dirty bombs using three different radioactive elements -- cesium, cobalt and americium. He demonstrated that if a cesium-137 bomb were exploded using 10 pounds of TNT at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, the resulting contamination might look something like this:

Where the innermost ring represents one cancer death per 100 people due to remaining radiation, the middle ring represents one cancer death per 1,000 people, and the outer ring represents one cancer death per 10,000 people. Moreover, the EPA would recommend decontamination or destruction of the entire area within the outermost ring.

So since cesium can be stolen from a hospital and thus can be more easily acquired than, say, uranium or plutonium, it wouldn't be a stretch to imagine a terrorist group acquiring enough cesium to construct a barrage of low-explosive, highly radioactive bombs and blanketing a major city with them.

It's a good thing people are paying attention to this terrifying possibility: during the month of July alone, cesium and its relatives have gotten some great coverage, though not in the mainstream media. The Global Security Newswire reported on July 6 that federal and New York state authorities, together with people from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), collaborated on removing a small amount of cesium-137 from St. Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan. Two weeks later, on July 22, the same media outlet reported that a lead-lined safe containing radioactive "seeds" used in cancer treatment had gone missing from a hospital in Illinois.

But here's the scariest incident of attempted or actual cesium theft or disappearance: on July 10, five men were arrested in Pretoria, South Africa, for attempting to sell a cesium device for $6 million dollars to undercover agents posing as potential black-market buyers. Rachel Maddow on MSNBC did a good job of covering the matter in her show on July 19. You can watch the six-minute clip here.

If anyone comes across more incidents of cesium theft or disappearance, anywhere in the world and no matter how spurious the report, please let me know.

Nuclear Smuggling in the Former Soviet Union

2010-07-15T16:50:00.004-04:00

Cross-posted with the Huffington Post.
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Part of my research responsibilities this summer at the Project on Managing the Atom at Harvard includes working on the Anecdotes of Insecurity project, which is hosted on the Nuclear Threat Initiative website (accessible here, though it is admittedly outdated). And in working on that project today, I came across some news that really has piqued my interest in the swath of land that connects Russia to Iran and Turkey -- namely, the countries of Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia.

In 2006, a North Ossetian man named Oleg Khintsagov (sometimes spelled Khinsagov) was arrested for selling 100 grams of highly enriched uranium (HEU) to an undercover Georgian official. He was sentenced to 7 years in prison. An excellent detailed report of the entire episode (in PDF format) is available from the Belfer Center here.

Just last month, it was announced that Khintsagov would receive a presidential pardon that would drop the last two years of his sentence, effectively ending his imprisonment sometime in January or February 2011.

Dr. Matt Bunn, one of the principal investigators at the Project on Managing the Atom where I'm working this summer, was quoted in the Georgian Daily article:

Matthew Bunn, a specialist on nuclear theft and terrorism at Harvard University, called Khintsagov’s early release not uncommon, but nonetheless troubling. “One of the key things to stop nuclear smuggling is to try and deter people from getting into nuclear smuggling. … Anything that decreases the consequences is a concern,” Bunn said.

Which brings me to a very interesting statistic, offered up in April of this year by Georgia President Mikheil Saakashvili at the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, DC. I'm putting this one short sentence into a block quote just to illustrate the alarming danger of the situation:

"The Georgian ministry of interior has foiled eight attempts of illicit trafficking of enriched uranium during the last ten years, including several cases of weapons-grade enrichment."

Eight cases during the last ten years is a lot -- especially when speculating about the number of attempts that weren't thwarted. If the prospects of nuclear smuggling and terrorism are to be taken seriously, then government officials must pay closer attention to regions like the Caucasus, where the potential for illicit trafficking of nuclear-related materials is at its highest. Throw in the fact that the region borders Iran (it's not coincidence that so much smuggling comes through Georgia), and the potential for disaster becomes much greater.

The Caucasus region has become a hotbed of illicit trafficking in all manner of goods, from the everyday and mundane to the highly dangerous. This trend has given the region of South Ossetia (where Khintsagov went to sell his HEU) the nickname of "the world's biggest duty-free shop." Seems to me it has been earned.

Ad hoc Agreements and Nonproliferation

2010-07-07T13:44:00.002-04:00

For a while now, I have been looking into the litany of agreements, frameworks, treaties and partnerships that constitute the “global nonproliferation regime.” The cornerstone, of course, is the 1968 NPT. Other formal components include the IAEA and its safeguards, the role of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) in export controls, and the establishment of nuclear weapon free zones (NWFZ) across the world. All of these are initiatives that to one degree or another are formal, multilateral, and codified in international law.

But there are less formal, more ad hoc agreements that form a sort of “second layer” on top of the formal-arrangement layer. These initiatives may be strictly bilateral, they may be loose partnerships or coalitions with no formal structure, and/or they may not be codified in international law – which is another way of saying they may not be constrained by international law. Examples of these second-layer efforts include the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism (GICNT), the Bush-legacy Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), and the number of bilateral agreements the United States has recently been inking with nations around the world. Two very current examples include a US-Malta anti-nuclear smuggling agreement, and a safeguards agreement between the US and Kuwait. Both deals are agreed to and signed on the US side by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a semiautonomous branch of the Department of Energy.

The benefit of such deals, and of ad hoc arrangements in general, is that by not having the structure of a formal international organization with a secretariat, offices, etc., these agreements and partnerships are more fluid and can mobilize much more quickly. For example, if US intelligence picks up a story about a German-registered merchant vessel bound for Iran from North Korea that potentially has uranium enrichment components on board, one of two things could happen: either the United States could request action from a body like the UN Security Council, or it could leverage a partnership like the PSI.

In the first scenario, the UNSC would convene, deliberate, and finally make a decision in the form of a resolution -- or not. Either way, this process would take considerable time, which in the example given is of the utmost importance and cannot be wasted.

In the second scenario, the US might call on a PSI member state that can interdict the merchant vessel while it is en route to Iran. The member state would probably be a country like Japan, Philippines, Oman, or Qatar, and fellow PSI member Germany would give at least its acknowledgment if not its full permission for the US and/or other coordinating states to take action. That merchant vessel could be intercepted and any illicit materials could be seized -- all in a matter of hours. In the meantime, the UN Security Council would still be debating.

(Incidentally, this example is a variation of an actual situation in 2003, when a ship carrying centrifuge equipment and bound for Libya was interdicted. Following talks with US and UK officials, Libya renounced its nuclear ambitions later that year.)

The role and importance of such "second-layer" arrangements -- which fill the gaps that inevitably are created when formal international arrangements are codified and bureaucratized -- will continue to increase as world leaders recommit themselves to serious arms control efforts, with a view to nonproliferation and disarmament. In a post-Cold War, 9/11-influenced asymmetric arena, the threat of nuclear annihilation comes less from official state actors and more from non-state actors, who could acquire the requisite materials, technology and/or expertise to detonate a weapon of some kind and suffer little consequence, owing to their amorphous, undefinable nature in international politics. As such, the international community will need to continue to possess the capability to move quickly and efficiently, at a moment's notice, to increase the security of nuclear weapons stockpiles, facilities and material, all while preventing in real time any attempts to breach that security.

Nuclear Musical Chairs

2010-06-21T14:34:00.006-04:00

Just until last week, Pakistan and China were forging ahead with a civilian nuclear deal, although now things don't look so sure. India and South Korea, looking to strengthen ties, agreed two weeks ago to start discussing nuclear trade. And now India and Canada have entered into a nuclear cooperation agreement.

What is going on? Why the sudden uptick in bilateral nuclear energy agreements? And how interesting that these talks and agreements are being struck with India and Pakistan. It seems that everyone wants a slice of the action in South Asia.

The watershed decision that sparked this race? Why, the Bush legacy US-India deal, of course. I've talked about this agreement once before. No, twice before. There is no doubt in this writer's mind that the agreement was a bad idea from the very start -- not from a practical, energy needs-addressing standpoint, but from an international legal and precedent perspective. It should never have been done. After all, Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) rules dictate that agreements with any country that is not party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) are not permitted. Yet the US was able to flex some muscle a few years ago and get the NSG to allow an exception to the rules for India.

And just last week, the annual NSG meeting was held in Christchurch, New Zealand, where the China-Pakistan deal was to be discussed one way or another. The NSG members were expecting China to explain its position and answer fundamental questions that would clarify exactly how the deal would take place and be implemented -- especially since nuclear-related trade between an NSG member and a country that is not party to the NPT is prohibited. As it turned out, the Chinese were unable to provide answers to these core questions, and now it appears the deal may not happen at all. But the fact that this item was even on the agenda at all -- and that it has garnered considerable international media attention -- is a testament to the staying power and legacy of the US-India deal, which violated the very same rules that the China-Pakistan deal would have broken. In fact, reports the BBC:

In 2008 the US pushed through an exemption at the Nuclear Suppliers Group enabling India to buy civil nuclear technology abroad. And going into this meeting China's logic seemed to be that if the US could get a deal for its friend -- India -- then China should be able to do the same for its ally -- Pakistan.

Unfortunately for China and Pakistan, that's not how things are turning out. I'm interested to see how talks between the two countries continue to unfold in the coming weeks.

Waltz with Bashar (al-Assad)

2010-06-10T18:13:00.004-04:00

Last Sunday, I flew into Monterey, California to spend one week studying international nuclear safeguards policy at the Monterey Institute for International Studies. I learned a lot in those five days, through a series of very informative lectures and presentations from national lab employees, representatives from the IAEA, and safeguards inspectors. Yeah, I said inspectors. You know those news stories you hear, for example, about Iran refusing to let "inspectors" into the country, or about North Korea kicking out "international inspectors?" Yeah, we got to meet and speak with those folks. Seasoned veterans of the nuclear field who have been there, done that and seen it all.

Aside from these lectures, presentations and guest speakers, another part of our course required us to engage in a simulation exercise, in which we were put into pairs and assumed the roles of the representative countries on the IAEA Board of Governors. In this scenario, the Board was meeting to discuss and vote on a draft resolution, put forth by the United States, condemning Syria's clandestine nuclear weapons program, at least as alleged, and calling for the IAEA Director General to invoke his "special inspections" right to coerce Syria into compliance and transparency.

Background: There are 15 countries on the Board of Governors, one of which serves in a presidential or oversight capacity (which is rotational). That country in the simulation was Malaysia. In addition, according to IAEA rules, any country that is named explicitly in a draft resolution, and against which the Board is considering taking action, is allowed to sit in on Board sessions, though it is not allowed to vote. In the simulation, that country was, of course, Syria.

Turns out my partner and I were assigned to play the role of Syria. Right away we recognized the unique role we could play in negotiations. After all, the initial draft was extremely harsh (from the historically Syrian perspective), as it named specific sites which allegedly were nuclear facility sites tied to the Syrian military nuclear program. So we could try to force a more favorable outcome, which ideally would be the voting down of any resolution on the table. In a less ideal but still favorable second option, we would aim to dilute the language of the resolution so much that the end product would be ambiguous, non-binding and relatively unenforceable. No matter what, we resolved, we would do everything in our power to ensure Syria suffered minimal repercussion.

In order to achieve our goal, we had to leverage our unique position of being almost like a ghost at the Board meeting. We could discuss issues with other Board members, we could voice our opinions in plenary sessions, and we could even make a formal statement prior to the final voting session. But we couldn't vote ourselves. So we had to seek out countries on the Board that might empathize with us -- or that would want to leverage our issues for their own personal gain.

As it so happened, we didn't have to raise a finger. Egypt approached us almost immediately, and we struck a strong relationship. Because Israel unilaterally attacked at least one Syrian site, and because Israel has a nuclear weapons arsenal, Egypt championed our cause and claimed, partially on our behalf and partially on its own, that the real issue at stake wasn't whether Syria had a clandestine nuclear weapons program, or whether the site that was attacked had anything to do with such a program, but rather that Israel made a move which in itself constituted an act of war, and that the real criminal here was Israel, not Syria. If anything, Syria was the victim.

Other countries approached us in similar manners, and lines were quickly drawn and sides were taken. Essentially, it came down to the Non-Aligned Movement (a large group within the United Nations General Assembly that has significant latent negotiating and voting power) versus the United States and its allies.

Interestingly, of the P-5 (US, UK, Russia, China, France), Russia and France sought out the Syrian delegation and put an interesting proposal on table, in which the draft resolution would urge the Director General to conduct a special inspection in Syria without explicitly calling it a "special inspection." In return, Russia and France hoped that by appeasing us, they could work out an agreement by which they would be able to provide Syria with civilian nuclear energy cooperation. Russia also had additional interests in having access to Syrian territory to build natural gas pipelines through the Levant at a later date.

In the end, after three hard and long days of intense negotiations, increasing tension and constant bickering over the placement and choice of individual words, the Board of Governors produced a final resolution that was passed by a vote of 11 to 3, with 1 abstaining. That document was so diluted, so vague and toothless, that we as the Syrian delegation were quite satisfied with our intense lobbying efforts and with the final outcome.

Through the exercise, I learned quite a bit about how difficult it can be to get states to agree on anything. I also stepped into the shoes of the Syrians and took a look at things from their perspective. I must say, I am both impressed and daunted by the enormous complexity of trying to resolve such issues.

On a more real-world note, here's a Washington Times article from last week on what the Board of Governors should do on the Syrian issue. Though the Board meeting has already happened, it's still of note to read the article all the way through. Though I don't agree with everything the author says, it is important to realize that his viewpoint is reflective of many countries' perspectives on this highly complex, politically charged issue.