Nuclear Weapons on The Huffington Post

Sam Black: Waking the Sleepy Nuclear Watchdog

2009-12-04T09:20:19Z

This article was written by my friend Kelsey Hartigan.

Facing problems like a defiant Iran that is now resolving to construct an additional 10 enrichment plants, a nuclear North Korea, and an uncooperative Syria, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has a difficult path ahead of it. The former head of the international nuclear watchdog, Mohamed ElBaradei, has left his successor, Yukiya Amano of Japan, with an underfunded and politically charged agency. The IAEA Amano is inheriting today is a far cry from the agency that Hans Blix bequeathed to ElBaradei twelve years ago. How Amano will deal with the files ElBaradei left on his desk is unclear--but we should all wish him luck. He will need it.

An early supporter of ElBaradei, Washington "discreetly influenced" the International Atomic Energy Agency's Board of Governors selection process in 1997 and helped win its support for ElBaradei as Director General. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists [subscription required] has described ElBaradei's 12-year tenure as an evolution from a "shy, circumspect Assistant Deputy Director-General from Egypt" to a "highly visible" Nobel Laureate who clashed with the Bush administration on more than one occasion.

ElBaradei's "complex legacy" will largely be determined by the outcome of pending disputes. The turning point in ElBaradei's tenure was the US invasion of Iraq. In March 2003, a month after then Secretary of State Colin Powell briefed the UN Security Council on Iraq's alleged WMD program, ElBaradei went before the Council and said that the US claims were false; Iraq had no centrifuge manufacturing plans and the British documents stating Iraq had sought to obtain uranium oxide from Africa had been forged. From that point forward, ElBaradei's Iraq experience and disdain for unwarranted unilateral action infiltrated nearly every other case that came across his desk--particularly Iran.

Criticized as being "soft" on Iran, ElBaradei was reluctant to utilize the full force of the IAEA and access suspect nuclear sites. In the wake of North Korea's withdrawal from the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the Iraq debacle, ElBaradei likely saw swift action as being too rash--especially since Iran rounded out Bush's legendary "axis of evil." Nonetheless, the same criticisms were made with regard to Syria's nuclear program; too much time, not enough action.

How Amano will handle these same situations remains to be seen. As noted in the Time's brief bio of Amano, it seems that the Japanese diplomat will be less politically active than his predecessor. Former US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, has applauded Amano's apolitical outlook, which, coming from Bolton, doesn't necessarily inspire much confidence. Amano himself has made it clear that he intends to take a less political approach:

The IAEA's basic function is not political negotiation but implementing already agreed safeguards. Remarks by the director have political implications which, if made without properly assessing these implications, can be very dangerous.

Even so, Amano's election was marred by a divisive debate that widened the gap between developed and developing nations. Most developed countries, including the United States, supported Amano's bid and his ideas about depoliticizing the agency. A majority of developing nations, however, supported Abdul Minty, a South African with an advocacy streak that mirrored ElBaradei's. Amano edged out Minty by just one vote; an unusually close outcome for the traditionally unified Board of Governors.

If Amano wants stay out of the political rigmarole and stick to monitoring nuclear activities--more power to him. But with the Additional Protocol, which grants the IAEA more comprehensive inspection authorities, in force in just 93 countries, and restricted access to Iranian, Syrian, and North Korea facilities, Amano won't be able to avoid becoming embroiled in the same political disputes that mired his predecessor's term.

In his final month as director, ElBaradei spoke at an event hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations. Venting anger built up over the years, ElBaradei balked at the disparity between the expectations of the IAEA and its severe lack of funding and authority: "In many cases, we are a sleepy watchdog because we don't have the authority."

As compliance with the IAEA's Additional Protocol is still voluntary, the agency can only inspect declared facilities through announced inspections. As a result, the IAEA is essentially relegated to knocking on doors and asking for permission to inspect these facilities. Moreover, with dilapidated labs and insufficient access to developed satellite monitoring areas, verification mechanisms like environmental sampling and satellite monitoring are typically supplied by outside parties, further stifling the agency's authority and independence. In ElBaradei's words: "I'm at the mercy of the suppliers." Such shortfalls seriously hamper the agency's ability to detect clandestine facilities, a dangerous loophole of the international nonproliferation regime.

Funding is another major issue. To put this in perspective: The New York State Police Department had a $672 million budget for the 2008/2009 fiscal year. That same year, the IAEA had a regular budget of approximately $415 million. The mere fact that the budget of a state police force is comparable--let alone more than 50% larger--than that of the international body which is responsible for ensuring that the nuclear work and materials in 150 countries is not used to build nuclear weapons should indicate the severity of the IAEA's financial situation.

Will Amano be forced to pick pocket the NY State Police?

Cash-strapped or not, Amano will have to deal with these same realities as he takes on the Iranian, North Korean, and Syrian programs--to name just the headline challenges. A recent editorial in the LA Times offers an interesting--though unrealistic--perspective on how Iran should be dealt with and argues that because of the negotiations' political nature, the IAEA should stay out of the talks.

Some observers say that Iran has the technical capacity to develop a bomb, and the world should accept that and focus on preventing Tehran from taking the next step. Others say we need stronger inspection regimes for the IAEA and stiffer penalties for those found to be in violation of the nonproliferation treaty. Still others say that disarmament by the nuclear powers would ease the appetites of nuclear have-nots.

Our position is that a nuclear-armed Iran would be destabilizing for the region and the world and must be avoided if at all possible. But as stated in "Iran: Where We Are Today," a staff report to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, the answer to Iran's nuclear ambitions "is not technical but political." The nuclear dispute reflects distrust between Iran and the United States, and the solution must be negotiated by political leaders--not the IAEA.

There is no doubting the underlying political characteristics of the Iranian situation, but excluding the IAEA from negotiations will only serve to further weaken the watchdog, which already suffers from a lack of power and financial backing. The IAEA was set up as an "Atoms for Peace" agency in 1957 and then asked in 1970 to enforce the safeguards system set up by the NPT. Iran has breached those safeguards and abused its supposedly civilian program--if the IAEA is not allowed to help find a solution it will only undercut the IAEA's international status as the top nuclear authority. The IAEA can help ease political sensitivities and provide impartial information and suggestions. For that to happen, it must be given the authority and resources necessary for it to finally do its job. If Amano is serious about taking a less political approach, Iran is the perfect opportunity to implement his strategy.

Richard W. Parker: Rescuing Nuclear Talks with Iran

2009-12-02T11:47:52Z

While all eyes focus on Afghanistan, the
situation with Iran is spiraling out of control.

Iran failed
to accept a tentative deal signed in Vienna last month to send most
of its current stockpile of low-enriched uranium abroad – and Secretary of State Clinton announced that the deal could not be changed.

Then Iran refused to stop work on its
newly-declared enrichment facility near Qom. The West responded last week by pushing through an IAEA
Board Resolution reprimanding Iran for that refusal. An infuriated Iran retaliated by
announcing last Sunday that not only will it continue work at Qom, Iran plans
to build ten new enrichment
facilities.

Last May, President Obama said he would assess
“by the end of the year” whether talks are moving in the right direction. Right now, they clearly are moving in
the wrong direction, yet the New Year
will dawn with no good options for the West. Sanctions will fail, war will make things far worse, and
choosing between sanctions and war is a lose-lose proposition.

A couple weeks ago, I blogged on the
promising efforts of outgoing IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei to
find a long-term solution to the nuclear stand-off
between Iran and the West. Unfortunately,
hopes for a long-term settlement are receding in a fog of passions aroused by
conflict over two short-term issues that ought to be solvable. A foreign policy fiasco is shaping up that doesn't need to happen.

How to get negotiations back on
track? Let’s begin by taking another
look at the moribund stockpile deal that was supposed to build confidence and ended up undermining it.

The original
plan worked out in Vienna on October 22 was an ingenious
improvisation playing off a serendipitous development: the Tehran Research
Reactor, which manufactures medical isotopes, happens to be running low on fuel. The Vienna plan calls for Iran to ship most
of its known stockpile of low-enriched uranium (LEU) to Russia for further
enrichment and then to France for processing into fuel rods to re-supply the
Tehran Reactor. This seemingly
win-win arrangement would meet Iran’s medical reactor needs while physically
removing from Iran a stockpile of raw LEU that has greatly worried the West.

Both sides welcomed the accord initially. Then criticisms emerged. The objections in Iran, ironically,
came not from Iran’s firebrand President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (he praised the
deal as a “victory” for Iran) but from his conservative rivals joined by the
titular leaders of the Green Movement in Iran.

Their objections are two-fold. First, critics point out that the deal as
written requires Iran to give up a major bargaining chip (most of its hard-won stockpile
of LEU) without getting anything of strategic value in exchange (such as
recognition of Iran’s right to enrich).

Second, Ahmadinejad’s rivals in Iran have heaped
scorn on the idea that Iran’s hard-won LEU is being entrusted to France. France may be the only willing country with
the technology to manufacture the fuel rods for the French-made Tehran reactor. But France’s President Sarkozy can
barely bring himself to say the word “Iran” except as part of a call for
tougher sanctions. And France is
remembered in Iran as the country that two decades ago expropriated a
billion-dollar Iranian investment in a multinational enrichment consortium
(Eurodif).

Given these troubling facts, it is actually not surprising that the Vienna deal
would come in for close scrutiny in Tehran.

What to do? The key thing to remember now is that the crux
of the nuclear dispute with Iran is not
the disposition of 1,200 kilograms of low-enriched uranium that may or may not
be shipped abroad, but will soon be replaced in any case. The main issue is the long-term future
of enrichment in Iran. Even if the
stockpile deal were to be shelved completely while long-term talks are ongoing,
Iran is highly unlikely to “break out” from Natanz in the next few months, with
barely enough fuel for a single bomb, in the middle of talks aimed at a permanent
accommodation with the West. Certainly
the risks of that scenario are far smaller than the risks flowing from the
alternative outcome of no talks, sanctions and war.

Moreover, the stockpile deal may yet be salvageable.
Iran has said it accepts the deal
in principle but wants greater guarantees of supply. Towards this end, Iran has informally broached the idea of a simultaneous swap on
Iranian soil of raw LEU for
fabricated fuel rods. Nuclear non-proliferation experts Jim Walsh at
MIT and Harold Feiveson at Princeton believe this sort of swap could be
structured in a way that meets Iran’s need for supply assurance with minimal added
risk to U.S. security.

For example: Russia might supply low-enriched uranium
to France. France would process
the uranium into fuel rods for Iran. Iran, upon receiving the fuel rods, would immediately
send the promised LEU to Russia. Any
move by Iran to seize both LEU and fuel rods during the exchange would be immediately detected and would stand as a major provocation not merely to the United States and France, but to Russia,
Iran’s most important ally. The
odds of that happening are quite small.

Other variations of the deal might work as well. The main point for the present is that while Western hawks and neo-cons have interpreted
Iran’s dissatisfaction with the stockpile deal as proof that Ahmadinejad is
just stalling for time -- or evidence that Iran is so riddled by internal faction
that it cannot deal at all -- this is not
true. As seen, Iran has respectable
(if not compelling) reasons for wishing to modify the original stockpile deal. Ahmadinejad
would not stall for time by approving and praising a deal his own side denounces
days later, thereby making himself look foolish. Yes, Iran has internal factions that complicate its foreign
policy. So do we; in fact, the United States leads the
world in bringing home agreements that it fails to ratify or demands be
modified thanks to its own internal factions – the Kyoto Protocol being merely
the latest example. In this case,
Iran could say the United States is so paralyzed by faction that it cannot cope
with proposals to modify a simple stockpile deal.

At the end of the day, the stockpile deal may be salvageable in modified form, or it may not. Either way, long-term talks on the issue that matters most -- the future of Iran's nuclear program writ large -- can and should proceed in a constructive vein.

What is needed now is not hot heads, moralistic
rhetoric and ominous reminders that we’re “losing patience” and “running out of
time.” What is needed is leaders
with the pragmatism and vision to know a workable (if not perfect) deal when
they see it, and the courage to make that deal.

*Richard Parker is a Professor of Law at University of Connecticut Law School and the Founder and Executive Director of the American
Foreign Policy Project (AFPP). The
AFPP’s Iran Policy Group has studied all aspects of the Iran foreign policy
conundrum to produce a comprehensive
website offering rigorous analysis
and policy recommendations on the critical question, “What to do about
Iran.” The views expressed in this
blog are his own

Sharmine Narwani: Eleventh-hour CPR On Iran Nuclear Talks

2009-11-27T14:16:32Z

Face this fact. If Iran tomorrow announced a complete halt of its uranium enrichment program and ordered an immediate dismantling of its nuclear facilities under the full supervision of an IAEA safeguards army of inspectors ... we would still not cut the Islamic Republic any slack.

We would likely move to churn out IAEA General Assembly and UN Security Council resolutions demanding that Iran implement the Additional Protocols of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) so that we could look inside every crevice and under every boulder in that country to assure ourselves that there wasn't a "secret" weapons program.

And still we wouldn't be satisfied.

Our core problem is not with Iran's enrichment program or it's recently revealed Fordow nuclear plant buried under a mountainside. The central issue clogging up our hotlines is that we do not trust Iran. And they do not trust us.

Some background first:

After disclosing the existence of the Fordow facility in September, Iran invited the IAEA to conduct a full inspection of the site. In advance of the highly anticipated report on its findings, IAEA Director General Muhammad ElBaradei told the New York Times columnist Roger Cohen that inspectors had found "nothing to be worried about. The idea was to use it as a bunker under the mountain to protect things," he explained, referring to Iran's claims that the plant would act as a back-up facility if Israel follows through with threats to attack the country's primary enrichment site at Natanz. "It's a hole in a mountain," concluded ElBaradei.

Then the report came out and the mud-slinging started. The Associated Press, quoting unidentified western "diplomats," stated in a widely-cited article that the plant "appears too small to house a civilian nuclear program, but is large enough to serve for military activities."

The actual IAEA report released on November 16 concludes nothing of the kind. The report describes the facility blandly:

The Agency confirmed that the plant corresponded with the design information provided by Iran and that the facility was at an advanced stage of construction, although no centrifuges had been introduced into the facility. Centrifuge mounting pads, header and sub-header pipes, water piping, electrical cables and cabinets had been put in place but were not yet connected.

It all matched up not only with Iran's pre-inspection description of the Fordow site, but that of "other member states" - western countries that had been aware of the facility for years.

However, the IAEA report warns Iran that it's delayed disclosure of Fordow "gives rise to questions about whether there were any other nuclear facilities in Iran which had not been declared to the Agency."

And while Tehran has not responded publicly to this specific query, it has often raised its own questions of why - after more than two dozen IAEA reports on its nuclear program, an inspector's visit every two weeks for six years, and by far the most exhaustive inspection regime in the Agency's history - it is still treated with suspicion and must bear the brunt of sanctions when it has clearly adhered to the required safeguards demanded of member states. Especially since most of the allegations about its nuclear program that prompt the ongoing IAEA inspections come from unfriendly countries with hidden agendas.

The AP article just added fuel to the fire by feeding into news reports everywhere that the Fordow facility was built for nuclear weapons production. Never mind that nobody actually backed up this claim. In fact, in an article on the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, two specialists debunked that theory. While agreeing that Fordow was too small to be useful for enriching fuel for civilian nuclear reactors, the authors claim that it is even too small for military purposes.

"It would take four years to enrich enough natural uranium for just one bomb, hardly a viable breakout option."

And not even a likely one, given that Fordow will be under IAEA safeguards and inspections the entire time.

P5+1 Talks:

On another track altogether, suspicions and mistrust continued in this vein. In October, Iran met with the five UN Security Council nations plus Germany - P5+1 - to address concerns over its nuclear intentions, among other things. In short shrift, the outlines of a deal were hammered out to alleviate western fears over the militarization of Iran's enrichment program. The proposal was that Iran would hand over the majority of its domestically enriched uranium to Russia and France, where it would be processed further and returned to the Islamic Republic about a year later for use in a civilian capacity.

But there was no concrete agreement quite yet. The Iranian negotiating team had to head back home and get buy-in from various segments of the government. And the P5+1 started almost immediately demanding that Iran accept the proposal in full or deal with the consequences.

Back in Tehran, politics came into play. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appeared keen to push forward a deal to ensure for himself the international and domestic legitimacy he has lacked since the disputed June elections in Iran. But his opposition was just as eager to prevent him from claiming this victory. No matter the public rhetoric, rapprochement with the US is viewed as a big prize within the Islamic Republic, and the various domestic political factions are reluctant to let their opponents strike a deal easily. And so the wrangling began.

In the ensuing weeks, various reports flew out of the Iranian capital regarding the P5+1 proposal. Iran will not allow its stash of enriched uranium to leave the country. Yes, it will. Iran will not transfer its uranium to France, because France has reneged on similar agreements previously. Iran will agree to uranium storage in Turkey. Iran will only agree to the proposal if the uranium switch takes place simultaneously within its borders. And so forth.

During this time, the Obama administration has ceaselessly continued to threaten repercussions if Tehran does not agree to the P5+1 proposal by the end of the year.

ElBaradei remains firm on the issue that Iran's current supply of enriched uranium must leave Iranian soil for this deal to work:

You need to move the material from Iran to defuse the crisis and open the space for negotiation. So, what we are asking Iran is to take a minimum risk for peace and to have an agreement not based on distrust but based on trust.

But the IAEA chief has also said: "there is total distrust on the part of Iran." The Islamic Republic is a paranoid entity because of 30 years of western - and particularly American - attempts to isolate it. So Iran is now asking the P5+1 for "guarantees" - firm assurances that it will receive the agreed enriched uranium if it takes the risk of relinquishing its own store.

Is this guarantee request unreasonable - on any level? This is a unique opportunity to draw Iran back into the community of nations and even gain its assistance in addressing some of the US's most pressing concerns in the Middle East - in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, all neighbors of the Islamic Republic.

There is no trust between these two nations - that much is clear. But that is also one major reason these talks are even taking place - to build trust. Yet every tiny move is so distorted by both sides - in the media, through official statements, in diplomatic backrooms - that the possibility of compromise and cooperation is undermined at every turn.

Solutions to ponder:

The question arises: is there anything that Iran can do to that would actually assuage our fears over its nuclear intentions? And is there anything the US can do that will help a fragmented Iran take a trusting step forward?

Not as things stand. Shut off the cameras. Turn off the microphones. Stop the posturing. If a deal is to be had, both sides need to plug the leaks, de-bug the rooms and conduct actual, meaningful negotiations in complete privacy. An agreement can only be reached if it does not compromise either governments' favorability with domestic constituencies - or diminish their international and regional standing.

Remove artificial deadlines. Open up other tracks in the P5+1 discussions - these nations have many issues to discuss. Take the heat off the nuclear track and allow the Iranian factions some quiet time to reach agreement on a deal that will suit the west. Identify easily resolvable issues and engage Iran constructively on these to build trust and achieve small successes. This will build confidence and goodwill amongst all parties.

Offer Iran a free-flowing supply of enriched uranium for civilian use. Help it build nuclear reactors. Give it complete access to all resources available to nations with longstanding civilian nuclear energy programs. And watch Iran's economic and political incentives for developing its own nuclear resources fade fast. All while the IAEA and western nations enjoy unprecedented access to every nuance of Iran's nuclear program - inspections, oversight, inventory control - the whole nine yards.

ElBaradei leaves the scene:

On November 30, the Nobel Peace Prize winning IAEA chief leaves his post after a long and illustrious tenure. ElBaradei, who opposed the US's invasion of Iraq on the grounds that his team had not identified any evidence that Saddam Hussein was building weapons of mass destruction, has been a careful, impartial player in the highly charged political environment surrounding Iran's nuclear enrichment program. His departure does not bode well for the future of negotiations, and he has pressed Iran to accept a deal quickly.

In May, speaking to Newsweek magazine, ElBaradei described Iran and its negotiating team thus:

The Iranians have always been extremely well briefed on the details. They know what they want. They are excellent on the strategic goals, excellent on waiting for the right price. I don't want to make them sound like superhumans; you do see a lot of infighting among them. And part of it is about who is going to get credit for finally breaking out of this 30 years of fighting and confrontation with the United States. Everybody is positioning himself to be the national hero who would finally put Iran back onto the world map as part of the mainstream. They are not like the stereotyped fanatics bent on destroying everybody around them. They are not.

The Iranians will have to reign in their factionalism for any deal to work, but the P5+1 need to give them time and incentives to do so.

Iran Censured At UN Nuclear Meeting

2009-11-27T08:24:25Z

VIENNA — In a blow to Iran, the board of the U.N. nuclear agency on Friday overwhelmingly backed a demand from the U.S., Russia, China and three other powers that Tehran immediately stop building its newly revealed nuclear facility and freeze uranium enrichment.

Iranian officials shrugged off approval of the resolution by 25 members of the 35-nation board of the International Atomic Energy Agency. But the U.S. and its allies hinted of new U.N. sanctions if Tehran remains defiant.

Japan Says It Will Soon Release Details Of Nuclear Pact With U.S.

2009-11-25T10:43:16Z

TOKYO -- Japan's new government, already bickering with the United States about the location of a Marine air station on Okinawa, appears intent on revealing evidence of a decades-old secret pact between Tokyo and Washington that allowed U.S. ships and aircraft to carry nuclear weapons on stopovers in Japan.

Russ Wellen: Can Nuclear Terrorists Be Deterred?

2009-11-20T18:12:04Z

THE DEPROLIFERATOR -- As you no doubt know, deterrence is the product of a balance of power -- nuclear arsenals, in other words, that are roughly equal. Constrained by the eye-for-an-eye principle, but to the umpteenth power, states armed with nuclear weapons, such as the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and India and Pakistan today, keep their nukes holstered.

But terrorists, according to conventional thinking, are immune to deterrence. If they ever obtained nuclear weapons, they'd suffer few qualms about using them. First, they're secure in the knowledge that they're ostensibly stateless. It's unlikely that the state which they've attacked with nuclear weapons, such as the United States, would retaliate against the state which served as their command center for the attack. (Can't speak for another possible target, Israel, though.)

Second, not only don't they fear retaliation, were it to occur they'd welcome it. To terrorists, runs this line of thinking, an apocalypse is just an expressway to heaven for their martyred souls. Thus, according to these scenarios, turning their back on deterrence and mounting a nuclear attack is a win-win proposition for terrorists.

More likely, if terrorists were to obtain nuclear weapons, they would be as domesticated by their acquisition as states are that develop them. The better part of the power of nuclear weapons lies in their potential, not their kinetic energy. Intact, they can be used to bargain for goods, respect, and security.

For instance, Islamic terrorists might offer to turn over their nuclear weapons if Israel turned over its half of Jerusalem. Of course, when they're inevitably denied, they'll find themselves painted into a corner as sure as the United States and the Soviet Union did during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

We in the West think of terrorists, especially Islamic, as a homogeneous mass. But as with any such group, there are those on the margins of, say, al Qaeda or maybe Lashkar-e-Taiba (the Mumbai attackers), who are almost as crucial to their operations as those on the inside. Among them are individuals who provide transport and shelter; nuclear scientists and technicians, should their services be sought, fall under the same category. Since any ideological motivations on the part of the outsiders may be secondary to the financial, they may be more vulnerable to deterrence that threatens their families and people.

In fact, some believe, a deterrent to the command structures of terrorist groups does exist -- and it's self-imposed. . .

For terrorist organizations that would want to take credit for a nuclear event, failure, not discovery, is likely to be the main deterrent. ... Present evidence shows that [they] prefer to carry out actions where the odds of success are high even if those actions are less destructive than they might prefer. [Emphasis added.]

That's from Nuclear Forensics: Role, State of the Art, and Program Needs, an undated (most likely 2007 or 2008) report by the Joint Working Group of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Wait, what does forensics have to do with a nuclear attack? Setting off a nuclear weapon isn't like stabbing a stranger in an alley. Isn't the perp even more self-evident than a criminal who has an ongoing beef with someone who turns up dead?

While that's true of a state, what makes a nuclear attack by terrorists unique is not that we wouldn't know who pulled it off or why. Chances are they'd be willing to be the bearer of both those glad tidings. Instead, the question becomes: "Who supplied them with the weapon?"

CSI: Ground Zero

Nuclear differs from criminal forensics in not only its emphasis on the chemical, but in that it's working for much higher stakes: attempting to prevent or solve the greatest mass murder in history. Specifically, according to the Joint Working Group paper, it determines questions such as:

Was the event really a nuclear explosion? What was the yield. ... Were [substances] present, which would denote the presence of [shudder -- RW] thermonuclear reactions? ... What can be inferred about provenance and history? ... What was the most probable device design?

Much of this, the paper explains, depends on the creation of a "comprehensive international database of nuclear material fingerprints." Even better would be an international program for making "the nuclear materials more easily identifiable by tagging them with distinctive markers."

It's not easy to convince states that are understandably "hesitant to internationalize the most sensitive parts of their nuclear infrastructure" to take part in these programs. But those that don't would be the first towards which suspicious eyes were cast in the event of an incident.

An alternative means of encouraging reluctant states to cooperate could be the implementation of a "negligence" doctrine. In another work on the subject, "Nuclear Attribution as Deterrence" (not online) in the March 2007 Nonproliferation Review, Michael Miller reports on a writer named Anders Corr. He argues that the U.S. Cooperative Threat (Nunn-Lugar) program, which helps secure loose nukes in Russia, as well as dismantle designated Soviet era nuclear weapons, is a double-edged sword.

Some of its funding, Corr believes, is siphoned off for corruption. Thus, lest the flow dry up, Miller writes:

. . . there is very little incentive within [Russia] to actually secure material. [Corr advocates] a harsh form of deterrence where those who permit nuclear theft, especially the leaders of the state, would be held completely accountable. ... A negligence doctrine dealing with nuclear weapons material is necessary for deterrence [lest] a negligent state. . . think that it will pay only a small price for 50 kg of lost HEU.

But, with a ploy straight out of a spy thriller, nuclear forensics could conceivably be thwarted. Here's the Joint Working Group on what it refers to as "spoof," though the term hardly does justice to its gravity:

States or terrorist organizations, for reasons that might range from protecting secrets to preventing attribution, may attempt to spoof any later investigation by mixing material from different sources.

Also, as Steve Hynd of Newshoggers points out, a spoof could conceivably by used by one state, such as Pakistan, to frame another, such as India (or vice versa), in order to invite retaliation against its enemy. Miller again:

How easily could [nuclear] signatures be falsified? It would be relatively simple for an expert nuclear weapons designer to create a weapon that looked improvised or that was made of reactor fuel instead of an alloy designed for weapons. The tradeoff would be settling for a larger chance of failure and a smaller yield.

Finally, to improve the odds that "the perpetrators of a nuclear terrorist act will fail and be apprehended and prosecuted," the Joint Working Group writes, credible forensic capability must be "demonstrated by successful attribution of intercepted materials." [Emphasis added.]

In other words, proving the provenance of interdicted nuclear materials can serve as a trial run that demonstrates how nuclear forensics might succeed in the event of a nuclear explosion. It's true that nuclear forensics suffers from staffing and funding problems. But the greatest obstacle to its effectiveness deterring states that are either careless about their nuclear materials and know-how or that are willing to trade them with terrorist groups may be a simple lack of publicity. Miller writes:

While recent academic treatments have begun to explore the technology, few government documents describe any of the specifics of post-explosion attribution. This may be intentional, to make the attribution more difficult to spoof, but it can also give the impression that the technology is less-than-ready. [But attribution capabilities] are probably good enough to publicize the technology with the aim of deterring state leaders.

Besides, "More important than technology [is its] perception. ... Thus, rather than worry that the technology will not be successful, the United States should fear that it has not been demonstrated well enough."

In the long run, in tandem with international cooperation and spelling out exactly what retribution awaits the offending state, nothing is more critical than advertising the capabilities of nuclear forensics to determine the origins of a nuclear bomb.

The emergence of a sophisticated form of deterrence that doesn't rely on that most blunt of all forces -- "mutual assured destruction" -- is a hopeful development for the future of humankind. But, however encouraging nuclear forensics is, the sheer bulk of the infrastructure and apparatus dedicated to deterring or determining a perpetrator has come to resemble those surrounding domestic crime, which costs the United States over $100 billion a year.

Some day we may learn that it's a lot cheaper to make humankind economically and, thus, psychically secure. Perhaps then we'll stop looking for security in all the wrong places -- such as in weapon systems poised to blow up in our faces at a moment's notice.

First posted at the Faster Times.

Joe Cirincione: Scientists: The Nukes Are Alright

2009-11-20T15:33:30Z

In a blow to the far-right, scientists have concluded that U.S. nuclear weapons don't need new tests or new designs.

The premier scientific panel advising the Defense Department just concluded that US nuclear weapons will last indefinitely under current maintenance programs. We don't need new nuclear weapons. We don't need new nuclear tests. We don't need expensive new nuclear programs.

To paraphrase The Who: the nukes are alright.

The report undermines the fear-based arguments of the nuclear extremists. While a strong consensus has developed among liberals and conservatives to reduce both the number and role of nuclear weapons in American security strategy, a small group has tried to use the issue for partisan attacks. They have manufactured myths of nuclear vulnerability to justify their opposition to a treaty banning all nations from conducting new nuclear tests.

Our top scientists are telling us the extremists are dead wrong.

The JASONS, a defense advisory group of nonpartisan scientists, reviewed the programs the government uses to assure the safety and reliability of our existing nuclear weapons. The US has about 9,400 nuclear weapons: 2,700 weapons in the active stockpile and other 6,700 in storage or awaiting dismantlement. Each weapon could destroy a medium-size city.

Even though most of these weapons were built years ago, the JASON panel found no evidence that aging posed any threat to weapon destructiveness, and that the "lifetimes of today's nuclear warheads could be extended for decades, with no anticipated loss of confidence."

The government spends almost $6 billion a year in a "stockpile stewardship" program that maintains these weapons. Still, nuclear weapons proponents want more. They want to design and deploy new weapons. They have opposed the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban treaty President Clinton signed in 1996 and that 150 other countries have signed.

The treaty needs approval by the Senate. But opponents say we might have to test again, raising fears that even though the US has conduced over 1000 nuclear tests--more than the rest of the world combined--we might still have to do more.

The Nuclear Hangers-on

A chief opponent of the treaty, Senator Jon Kyl (R.-AZ), writes in his Wall Street Journal article, "Why We Need to Test Nuclear Weapons":

"There were concerns a decade ago that the U.S. might be unable to safely and reliably maintain its own nuclear deterrent--and the nuclear umbrella that protects our allies such as Japan, Australia and South Korea --if it forever surrendered the right to test its weapons. Those concerns over aging and reliability have only grown."

He is wrong. But this argument has become a far-right mantra. It found its way into the deeply flawed Strategic Posture Commission.

The Commission wrote:

"The Life Extension Program has to date been effective in dealing with the problem of modernizing the arsenal. But it is becoming increasingly difficult to... as the stockpile continues to age."

Again, this is wrong.

Science Trumps Perception

The truth is exactly the opposite. There is overwhelming evidence that our nuclear weapons maintenance programs work. And they are getting better. We have more and more confidence that we can maintain our nuclear weapons practically indefinitely.

As Think Progress' Max Bergmann notes:

"In other words, there really is no need to ever test a nuclear weapon - something the US hasn't done in the last 17 years - or build new replacement warheads."

Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, agrees:

"The new JASON study explodes the old myth that the U.S. needs nuclear test explosions or new warhead designs to maintain an effective nuclear arsenal, and strengthens the case for U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty next year."

It is time to stop the fear-mongering. There is broad, bipartisan consensus for ratifying the test ban shared by national security heavyweights including George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, Sam Nunn, Bill Perry, Brent Scowcroft and scores of other former officials, military leaders and scientists.

The Senate should join this consensus and drag itself out of cold war thinking and into the new century.

Frida Berrigan: The Conventional Arms Control Challenge

2009-11-18T11:06:05Z

Massive ordnance penetrator. Sounds powerful, right? This bomb is also known by its initials: MOP.

About a month ago, Congress gave $68 million to the Boeing Corporation to accelerate the purchase and development of 10-12 "massive ordnance penetrators." The Pentagon says that the MOP bombs are the "weapon of choice" for an "urgent operational need." While not stated, the mostly likely "urgent operational need" is North Korean hardened nuclear facilities or hardened Iranian targets. It is designed to go deeper than any existing bunker-busting weapon, burrowing more than 26 feet into the ground or through concrete before detonating. These 30,000 pound bombs carry 6,000 pounds of high explosives. They are so heavy that they can only be carried by the B-2 or B-52 bomber.

The MOP is not a nuclear weapon. But it replaces a nuclear weapon that Congress was unwilling to fund over the past few years — the robust nuclear earth penetrator. This huge warhead was conceived to burrow deep into enemy lairs and deliver a nuclear wallop.

While that defunding was a success, the new funds going to the MOP bomb sends a troubling message worth listening carefully to — especially against the backdrop of excitement around President Barack Obama's commitment to nuclear weapons reductions.

The message is — we do not need nuclear weapons to deliver massive destruction. And some nuclear arms control advocates are comfortable with getting rid of nuclear weapons not because they are destructive but because the taboo against their use is so strong we cannot use them. As we begin to reduce our nuclear capabilities, watch out for a lot of pressure to ramp up conventional weapons procurement.

The Arms Continuum

In April 2009, Obama presented his vision of nuclear disarmament to the world, calling for "a world without nuclear weapons." The president is building on the calls for eliminating the bomb from a growing list of former government officials, led by ex-secretaries of state George Shultz and Henry Kissinger, former secretary of defense William Perry, and former Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Sam Nunn.

Other presidents, from John F. Kennedy to Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan, have called for nuclear disarmament. But Obama is diligent in his work on this issue. From recent progress toward a new arms reduction accord with Russia, to his proposal for a global anti-nuclear summit in Washington next year, Obama has put reducing nuclear arsenals high up on his frighteningly crowded agenda.

For this commitment and this aspiration, the Nobel Peace Prize committee has recognized him, and he will accept that prize in December in Oslo.

As we applaud these efforts and wait for them to bear fruit, we must also attend to the intersections between nuclear and conventional weapons. There is a compelling need to see nuclear weapons, major conventional armaments, and small arms along a single continuum: as deadly weapons systems that should be subject to a set of integrated principles aimed at curbing their proliferation, export, and use.

In negotiations over nuclear reductions, the Russians have raised the issue of conventional U.S. capabilities including powerful long-range missiles able to strike anywhere in the world within 60 minutes — the "Prompt Global Strike" capability that the U.S. commanders hope to deploy by 2015. "Some countries, including the United States, are working on non-nuclear strategic weapons. This is a subject of negotiations with our American colleagues," said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to Interfax, a Russian wire service. "President Dmitry Medvedev said many times that it was a key problem for Russia. Hopefully, it will be resolved within the framework of the Russian-American treaty (on the reduction of strategic offensive armaments)."

Pakistan's Capabilities

These intersections are particularly stark, critical, and dangerous in Pakistan. In the 1980s, the United States offered its close Cold War ally the opportunity to purchase 111 F-16 fighter planes. But, in the 1990s, concerns about Pakistan's nuclear weapons programs, the nuclear tests in 1998, and the military coup that brought General Pervez Musharraf to power halted military cooperation. The fighter planes were never transferred. A decade later, as it built a coalition to support the "global war on terror," the Bush administration resumed transfer of F-16s to Islamabad, which now has as many as 50 of the high-tech fighters.

While the Lockheed Martin fighter plane is subject to regulation as a major conventional system, it can also deliver nuclear weapons. This has dangerous implications. Pakistan has at least 89 nuclear weapons and the material to build dozens more. It is not a party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

While maintaining that its nuclear arsenal is a deterrent, Pakistan has not ruled out first use of nuclear weapons. Its most likely vehicle for nuclear warhead delivery is its fleet of U.S.-origin F-16 fighter planes. The blurring of the lines between conventional and strategic weapons thus has real and alarming implications, reaching far into the future.

Obama's Challenge

The Obama administration's work to reduce nuclear weapons and reduce nuclear dangers has not been complemented by similar diligent work in the area of conventional weapons exports. The United States continues to be the world's largest exporter of conventional weapons — from F-16 fighter planes and other advanced systems to M-16 rifles, grenades, and other small weapons. Despite (or perhaps because of) a large and growing trade, there is a sobering lack of interest in controlling the trade in these weapons. And what efforts at arms control do exist tend to be ad hoc, episodic, and reactive.

This might be changing. Recently, the administration signaled its willingness to work toward an Arms Trade Treaty, which would be a comprehensive, legally binding instrument establishing common international standards for the import, export, and transfer of conventional arms.

This opens the door to new action on conventional weapons. But the same week that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in New York for meetings on the Arms Trade Treaty, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency announced that in fiscal year 2009 alone, the U.S. foreign military sales program sold nearly $38 billion in weapons and defense articles. As the head of the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency recently boasted, "We can take pride in the fact that we achieved a new record." Vice Admiral Jeffrey A. Wieringa pointed out in a blog post that not only was the $37.9 billion in weapons sold in 2009 higher than ever before, it was 465% higher than a record low of $8.1 billion in 1998.

Recent arms sales notifications, some of which may be included in the 2009 total and some of which may be counted in next year's figure, include $134 million in Boeing Chinook helicopters to Morocco, $3.2 billion in Lockheed Martin F-16s to Egypt, and the offer of $7 billion in Boeing F-18 fighter planes to Brazil. Looking ahead, the agency is optimistic, projecting $38.4 billion in foreign military sales for 2010.

So, as we move forward, the best way to curb conventional weapons exports might be to link it with Obama's nuclear disarmament agenda.

Jeff Stein: U.S. Ports Still Wide Open to Nukes, Report Says

2009-11-17T19:45:09Z

Over $3 billion and seven years since U.S. intelligence discovered al Qaeda kingpin Osama Bin Laden was seeking a nuclear bomb, terrorists can still drive a radioactive truck through the holes in America's border defenses, a government watchdog agency suggested Tuesday.

"The polyvinyl toluene (PVT) portal monitors CBP currently uses for this screening can detect radiation but cannot identify the type of material causing an alarm," the Government Accountability Office's top nuclear detector expert told a House panel.

"As a result, monitors' radiation alarms "can be set off even by shipments of bananas, kitty litter, or granite tile because these materials contain small amounts of benign, naturally occurring radioactive material."

But a new detector under development that costs almost three times as much hasn't done much better during years of evaluation, even after the tests were cocked to make the devices look better, said Gene Aloise, GAO's director of Natural Resources and Environment.

Deploying the new Advanced Spectroscopic Portal (ASP) monitors, as the Department of Homeland Security intends, will cost $2 billion.

The federal government has already "spent more than $3 billion since 2002 to field devices intended to detect radioactive material being smuggled through border crossings with Canada and Mexico or through seaports." according to Global Security Newswire.

Rep. Brad Miller, D-N.C., chairing the oversight hearing of the Committee on Science and Technology, balked at spending billions more on a new device whose reliability is unproven.

"It will cost billions to deploy the newest radiation detection equipment at our ports and borders, when the existing technology still appears to be more reliable," Miller said.

"It's critically important to have equipment that detects radioactive materials that could be used for a nuclear bomb or a 'dirty bomb,' but it's almost as important that the equipment not detect radioactive materials that aren't there.

"We can't afford to shut down our ports because our machines have the hiccups," Miller said.

A Homeland Security Department spokeswoman said technical problems "take time" to solve.

"Testing and evaluation for ASP systems are still ongoing," DHS spokeswoman Amy Kudwa said in an emailed statement. "Delays in certification have been related to issues of operational ease and reliability - problems that take time to resolve."

The department's Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, or DNDO, she added, "has created a comprehensive and rigorous testing program with the end user (Customs and Border Patrol) involved in all program decisions."

But GAO's Aloise didn't sound confident about the integrity of the DNDO's testing program.

"Since 2006, we have been reporting on issues associated with the cost and performance of the ASPs and the lack of rigor in testing this equipment," Aloise told the subcommittee.

"For example, we found that tests DNDO conducted in early 2007 used biased test methods that enhanced the apparent performance of ASPs and did not use critical CBP operating procedures that are fundamental to the performance of current handheld radiation detectors."

And then there were the costs.

"In 2008 we estimated the lifecycle cost of each standard cargo version of the ASP (including deployment costs) to be about $822,000, compared with about $308,000 for the [current] PVT standard cargo portal, and the total program cost for DNDO's latest plan for deploying radiation portal monitors--which relies on a combination of ASPs and PVTs and does not deploy radiation portal monitors at all border crossings--to be about $2 billion."

DHS officials have said "they hope to deploy 1,400 of the new machines at a cost of roughly $1.2 billion to detect materials that could be used in a radiological or nuclear weapon," according to Global Security Newswire, a National Journal publication.

"The department has already spent roughly $230 million on the effort, with each sensor expected to cost approximately $822,000," it said.

After invading Afghanistan in late 2001, U.S. forces found evidence that al Qaeda was interested in acquiring a nuclear device and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

"Al Qaeda views the acquisition of WMD as a religious obligation," proliferation expert David Albright wrote after analyzing reports of captured documents.

Its ability to develop WMD technology in Afghanistan was "limited," Albright said, "and few believe al Qaeda obtained nuclear weapons while it was entrenched there.

"On the other hand," he added, "al Qaeda's determination to get nuclear weapons along with its increased ability to obtain outside technical assistance, lead to the conclusion that if al Qaeda had remained in Afghanistan, it would have likely acquired nuclear weapons eventually."

At the time of Albright's writing year after the invasion, al Qaeda was still on the run. Since then, while suffering grievous losses from counterterrorism operations and Predator drone attacks, its leadership appears to be intact and its Taliban allies growing stronger.

"As a result, preventing al Qaeda and other terrorist groups from getting nuclear weapons or other WMD must be an overarching goal of the United States and the international community," Albright warned.

Russ Wellen: The Wellspring of a New, Clear Nuclear Vision

2009-11-17T14:52:04Z

Few fields are as lacking in fresh perspectives as nuclear weapons. Entire decades have been spent by nuclear strategists deliberating which state would strike first and how many weapons the victim would have left to retaliate. Then they came up with deterrence. What a concept -- as if equally armed forces had never arrived at a standoff before.

Nor is disarmament any more creative. At one end of the spectrum, we hear guileless pleas to "ban the bomb" or "go to zero." At the other end, realists, ever willing to sell the farm out from under disarmament, haggle. A recent example: "To procure a test ban treaty, we need to put off advocating a no-first-use policy on nuclear weapons."

Much of this kind of thinking is the product of think tanks. Ostensibly engaged in research and advocacy, many not only publicize just what pleases their donors but lobby for them too. Still, policy institutes with integrity do exist and, a year ago, one was inaugurated that has the potential to break new ground.

The Madrona Institute is based in New Mexico and the state of Washington (common to both of which is the bonsai-like tree that is its namesake ). Its origins aren't in research, but in the hands-on experience that one of its founders, Merle Lefkoff, a long-time international mediator, has with "back-channel" diplomacy, including in conflict zones.

Her co-founders are Ron Zee and Roger Morris (the well-known historian whose books have chronicled the careers of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, among others). As they explain on their website, traditional diplomacy "often reinforces the fiction that people are entirely rational, that outcomes of deliberation can be controlled in order to reach pre-determined goals."

Worse, "fixed agendas are specified ahead of time, and the discussions generally proceed in incremental steps toward a fixed 'objective.' When suddenly the group appears to move 'backwards,' people often give up."

But Madrona believes that "in problem solving groups, human beings do not move in incremental, linear steps. When people sit down together to tackle a big problem, the deliberations are organic, non-linear ... and feedback changes the thinking at the negotiating table." Also, "Our experience is that a combination of seclusion and candor, under the radar screen of outside scrutiny or media attention, offers the best chance for cutting edge and often-unprecedented discussion of the problem at hand."

Besides back-channel diplomacy, Madrona's method derives from the study of complex systems as pioneered at the Santa Fe Institute -- the standard-bearer for break-the-mold think tanks. Those unfamiliar with complexity science may be intimidated by its name. But it helps to think of it as, in its own words, "a multi-disciplinary collaboration in pursuit of understanding the common themes that arise in natural, artificial, and social systems." For example, the fundamental principles of organization, once learned, can be equally applied to biology, physics, or economics.

Thus does Madrona seek to unite, as its website observes, "a diverse body of whole systems and complexity thinkers. [Complexity science] has rarely, if ever, been invited to converge, converse, and contribute to peacemaking and conflict resolution." In hopes of expediting a breakthrough, Madrona seeds its dialogues, which it has just begun hosting, with not only individuals who are expert in the subject of that particular dialogue, but hail from a variety of disciplines. Among the criteria that Madrona uses to select participants is "their demonstrated ability to think creatively outside the orthodoxy that permeates traditional diplomacy and peacemaking initiatives."

Not only aren't the discussions linear, but the individuals who run the meetings "work to build trusting relationships [and] encourage a 'leaderless process,' granting all participants equal power and authority." Nor is Madrona "attached to a particular goal ... we seek only an outcome perceived by the participants to be useful -- whatever that outcome may be."

Also integral to the process is scenario building. "Out of the co-creation of a shared story comes the possibility for movement ... Several meetings of the group are anticipated as a way to continue to refine strategic direction [and] deepen relationships [to facilitate the] joint action that informs top-level peacemaking."

As suggested above, disarmament cries out for this approach. In fact, it was the subject of the inaugural dialogue held in October by Madrona, which described it thusly:

The seeming intractability of the disarmament issue, as evidenced by the glacial pace of progress, argues for innovative ways of framing that issue ... The purpose of this policy dialogue is to apply complexity thinking to the nuclear chessboard to uncover promising new policy paths toward a nuclear-weapon-free planet.

The dialogue was broken out into four groups that imagined the future under different circumstances and within varying timeframes. For example, the group of which this author was part envisioned a nuclear terrorist attack and how the world responds over the ensuing five years.

The worst-case scenario -- despite destruction of the global economy, mass proliferation -- is all too well-known. We presented instead a vision of the United States, as well as the world, seizing the opportunity created by the crisis to not only halt proliferation, but use that success to join in other multinational initiatives. In subsequent posts, summaries of those scenarios will be presented.

First posted at the Faster Times.

Obama, Hu Jintao Press Conference Held In China (VIDEO): Leaders Talk Economy, Iran, North Korea, Tibet, And Taiwan

2009-11-17T00:50:28Z

(AP) BEIJING President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao promised a determined, joint effort to tackle climate change, nuclear disarmament and other global troubles yet emerged from their first full-blown summit Tuesday with scant progress beyond goodwill.

After two hours of talks and a separate meeting over dinner the night before, the presidents spoke of moving beyond the divisiveness over human rights, trade and military tensions that have bedeviled relations in past decades.

"The major challenges of the 21st century, from climate change to nuclear proliferation to economic recovery, are challenges that touch both our nations, and challenges that neither of our nations can solve by acting alone," Obama said, standing with the Chinese leader in the Great Hall of the People.

Hu, who heads a collective leadership that often has preferred to go it alone internationally, said: "There are growing global challenges, and countries in today's world have become more and more interdependent. "

With each of those big issues from global warming to the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs persistent differences bubbled up in the form of indirect barbs during the joint appearance.

Stung by new U.S. levies on imports of Chinese-made tires and steel pipes, Hu said he told Obama that given a still struggling global economy both countries "need to oppose and reject protectionism in all its manifestations in an even stronger stand."

Obama later called on China to relax controls that keep the Chinese currency relatively weak and thus help fuel exports something Beijing officials have rejected in recent days. Obama also pointedly raised human rights, saying they are fundamental to all.

"We do not believe these principles are unique to America, but rather they are universal rights and that they should be available to all peoples, to all ethnic and religious minorities," Obama said in his only nationally televised remarks on the sensitive issue.

The mixture of promises and lasting differences underscored how intertwined the superpower United States and rising power China are, and the difficult task Obama faces in managing friction with an authoritarian, sometimes testy Beijing.

On his first visit ever to China, Obama said he was mostly striving to better understand China, a geopolitical force on its way to becoming the world's second-largest economy.

"Our relationship going forward will not be without disagreement or difficulty," Obama said. "But because of our cooperation, both the United States and China are more prosperous and secure."

Aside from his meetings with Hu, Obama received a formal welcome. He walked past rows of soldiers in dress uniforms and dined on chicken soup with bean curd, Chinese-style beef steak and roast grouper at a state banquet. He also toured the Forbidden City, the emperors' palace for more than 400 years, and met the head of China's legislature, a former mayor of Shanghai, the commercial hub where Obama started his three-day stay in China.

In a minor advance, the two leaders set a deadline of early next year for resuming an on-again, off-again dialogue on human rights. Charting a new frontier for cooperation, the two agreed to reciprocal visits by the heads of their space programs. Promises were made to step up visits by military leaders to help overcome years of distrust over a Chinese military buildup and U.S. reconnaissance missions in the seas off China.

Headway was made on climate change. The two committed their countries the biggest emitters of the heat-trapping gases causing global warming to backing a detailed political agreement at next month's climate-change conference in Copenhagen. In their formula, rich countries would commit to reduction targets while developing ones would agree to meet softer goals that would be monitored.

Yet the positions were not markedly different from those Beijing and Washington held before Obama's arrival.

So it also was with attempts to curb Iran's nuclear program and disarm nuclear-armed North Korea. Though Obama talked of continuing diplomatic efforts on Iran and North Korea, Hu did not endorse the U.S. leader's talk of sterner actions should negotiations falter. Beijing has strong interests in keeping North Korea stable and in maintaining budding energy cooperation with Iran.

"Iran has an opportunity to present and demonstrate its peaceful intentions, but if it fails to take this opportunity, there will be consequences," the U.S. president said. Hu did not mention consequences.

Keeping the differences veiled rather than open was a measure of success of sorts for Obama. With its economy still in trouble, U.S. international prestige still battered and China holding $800 billion in U.S. government debt, Obama came to the Beijing summit with a weaker hand than previous U.S. presidents. That makes the emphasis on practical cooperation all the more needed, Chinese analysts said.

"The Chinese leadership will not worry too much about the U.S. pressure. In the context of the financial crisis and George W. Bush's legacy on the issues of Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the U.S. needs China much more than China needs the U.S.," said Yu Wanli, an America expert at Peking University.

At their joint appearance, Hu called on the U.S. to respect China's "core interests" code for ending support for Taiwan and for the Dalai Lama, in his Tibetan government-in-exile. Obama obliged by saying Tibet was part of China. But he urged China to restart talks with the Dalai Lama's representatives something Hu did not mention.

WATCH:<

Obama: US, Russia Will Have New Nuclear Pact By Year's End

2009-11-15T10:04:45Z

SHANGHAI — President Barack Obama sought a political balance Monday on his first trip to China, seeking help on urgent global problems while weighing if and when to raise concerns over human rights.

Obama's agenda began with talks with local politicians and, in one of the marquee events of his weeklong Asian trip, he was to conduct an American-style town hall with Chinese university students.

Chris Weigant: Cold War's End -- The Wall Comes Down

2009-11-09T20:17:44Z

It must be a little hard to understand, for anyone reading this under the age of about 30 or so, the significance of the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago. Because one event has become historical shorthand for an immense change in the dynamics of not just our country, but the entire world. We've all seen the pictures of an exuberant crowd at the Brandenburg Gate (or "Checkpoint Charlie"), seemingly tearing The Wall down with their bare hands. But it wasn't just one wall, or one city, or even one country that the events in Berlin were changing -- it was the entire political makeup of the planet. Because the fall of The Wall signified the fall of the Soviet Union, and an end to the Cold War. And while this was of enormous historical import, I fear that future generations won't really pay much attention to it. Truth be told, I can already feel it slipping away in the American consciousness. Which, while I understand the impulse, I still think is a shame. Because as the Cold War is forgotten, passing into the dusty pages of children's history books, we run the risk of forgetting some of its lessons.

The Cold War was a war of shadows. It only erupted into outright (or "hot") wars in limited ways and limited areas (Korea, Vietnam, various Central American and African skirmishes). The history books do a fine job of marking these flareups (since they have concrete facts like battles and dates), distilling them into a couple of paragraphs for bored schoolchildren to read. But these are mere trees; the forest left unseen was the national fear which every sane man, woman, and child felt for almost half a century -- the fear of instant and total annihilation from a massive nuclear strike. And that is the lesson which is in danger of being forgotten, at least in my humble opinion.

The single-most stunning political prophecy which has even been written in American history was written by a Frenchman. In the 1830s -- when the United States of America was barely a half-century old itself, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote, as the final words to the first volume of Democracy In America (it sold so well, he went back and wrote a sequel later; at the urging of his publisher, no doubt) a fairly accurate description of the Cold War -- over one hundred years before it happened. What Tocqueville wrote, in the time of Andrew Jackson:

There are now two great nations in the world which, starting from different points, seem to be advancing toward the same goal: the Russians and the Anglo-Americans.

Both have grown in obscurity, and while the world's attention was occupied elsewhere, they have suddenly taken their place among the leading nations, making the world take note of their birth and of their greatness almost at the same instant.

All other peoples seem to have nearly reached their natural limits and to need nothing but to preserve them; but these two are growing. All the others have halted or advanced only through great exertions; they alone march easily and quickly forward along a path whose end no eye can yet see.

The American fights against natural obstacles; the Russian is at grips with men. The former combats the wilderness and barbarism; the latter, civilization with all its arms. America's conquests are made with the plowshare, Russia's with the sword.

To attain their aims, the former relies on personal interest and gives free scope to the unguided strength and common sense of individuals.

The latter in a sense concentrates the whole power of society in one man.

One has freedom as the principal means of action; the other has servitude.

Their point of departure is different and their paths diverse; nevertheless, each seems called by some secret design of Providence one day to hold in its hands the destinies of half the world.

As you can see, this is a fairly accurate description of the latter half of the Twentieth Century, given the limitations Tocqueville faced in making such a prediction (he did not, you'll notice, foresee the rise of communism and overthrow of the czars). But his last sentence stands as the absolute gold standard of political prediction, for this country's history at least.

Because that was what the Cold War was all about. It was seen as a global struggle for territory, and for hearts and minds, between two "super" powers. Democracy and Communism were in the mightiest struggle this planet has ever seen, each competing to gain enough strength to destroy the other. And each side had nuclear weapons. Lots of them. Lots and lots and lots of them. Thousands and thousands of A-bombs and H-bombs. Back then the term "ground zero" held only one meaning -- the point directly under a nuclear explosion. Not to be disrespectful, but it never would have entered our minds back then to cheapen this frightening term by applying it to anything less, no matter how horrifying.

All of America (and, one assumes without having too much data, all of the Soviet Union as well) lived with the constant fear that these bombs could drop at any time. The college I attended had, just to remind you (in those anti-nuke-movement days), little arrows painted here and there stating "9.2 miles to ground zero," since we had an Air Force base nearby. But virtually nowhere in America (where anybody actually lived) was truly deemed safe. Everywhere was a potential target for an atom bomb, for one reason or another. And, again, the bombs could have dropped any day during that time.

It's tough for younger readers who were not exposed to this mindset to understand what this meant in terms of daily life. I came of age in the later parts of the Cold War, and didn't even see the craziness of the early parts (the McCarthy era, the backyard bomb shelter craze, the Civil Defense air raid drills, and all the rest of it). By the time I came on the scene, most of these had faded. But the background anxiety remained. The Emergency Broadcast System was just beginning to be used for natural disasters, when I was growing up. It was created, of course, to warn us all that the bombs were coming. And it was tested frequently ("bee-eee-eee-eee-eep"), so you'd remember it was there. Likewise, the first of the month at noon the local neighborhood air raid sirens would be tested. And the knowledge that everything around you could be incinerated in a flash was always present.

Children today, thankfully, grow up largely without this awareness (even though the danger still does indeed exist, America and Russia have largely buried the hatchet -- at least for now -- so the danger is not viewed as imminent). They don't do "duck and cover" drills in elementary schools anymore, in other words. Truth be told, by the time I was in school, people had mostly figured out the ludicrousness of hiding under your desk when the whole building was likely to be vaporized in an attack, so I never experienced such drills myself.

America has so rarely been directly attacked on our own territory that such overreaction is understandable. There was 9/11, of course. There was Pearl Harbor and a few Aleutian islands during World War II -- back when Hawai'i and Alaska weren't even states, merely territories. And there was the War of 1812, when the British burned the original White House. But that's about it, not counting the Civil War (since it didn't directly involve foreigners). During World War II, both the East and West Coasts of America prepared for attacks and invasions, but thankfully they never came. We simply didn't have to go through anything akin to the Blitz in London.

Americans, to put it bluntly, are not used to having bombs dropped on us. And with the arms race which took place during the Cold War, all of a sudden one bomb could obliterate an entire city. And thousands of those bombs were in the hands of people we considered downright unstable, if not outright insane. The threat of a "first strike" was the biggest fear, because we, as a nation, demonized the Soviets until they were barely recognizable as human beings. This happens in any war, I should mention -- cold or hot. But these "evil monsters" were capable of such widespread and massive destruction that it literally changed the psychology of our entire country for almost 50 years.

And when the Berlin Wall came down, it symbolized the end of that era. The Soviet Union's disintegration meant America could finally take a deep breath and heave an enormous sigh of relief. We had won the long battle of wits. The Cold War was over.

That is what The Wall coming down meant. That is why it was important, beyond the boundaries of one city in Europe. It was the end of an era for the entire planet.

My personal Berlin Wall story, such as it is: I was in Berlin about eleven months after The Wall came down, in 1990. I visited Brandenburg Gate, but didn't see the statue of the horses on top, because they had taken them down to be cleaned. Oh, well. But on the site was an open-air bazaar of East Germans selling anything they thought the tourists would buy. You could buy as big -- and as graffitied -- a chuck of The Wall as you could afford. You could also buy all sorts of other things. The military mementos were simply stunning. I could have, for a hundred bucks or so, bought a full East German general's dress uniform -- although the medals would have run me a little extra. Because I couldn't really see a use for such a thing for myself, I took a pass. But I did buy one of those fuzzy Russian hats with the ear flaps, which were standard issue for their militaries. It had a big metal star on it (red, of course), with a hammer-and-sickle icon in the middle. Being a Californian, I don't have a lot of use for such a hat, but I did wear it recently (minus the big red star, I wasn't making any sort of political statement, just keeping my ears from freezing off) to Barack Obama's inauguration.

But back to Berlin. Being eleven months late for the party, we found no Wall at Brandenburg Gate. We got some advice, headed off on the U-bahn, and got off were we had been directed. It was a very strange place. Imagine, if you will, a city park. This park is long, but rather narrow, as it stretches and curves off into the distance. It seems like a grassy place where soccer fields should be, until you notice the oddity of the enormous light poles dotting the landscape. The Wall was gone -- but its ghost remained. You could easily see where it had been, and which side had wanted to keep an eye on it (in West Berlin, it ran right up to buildings and streets, because nobody cared how close to it you got in the West -- the dogs, the mines, the snipers, the floodlights and all the rest were all on the East side). We followed a line of other tourists, to a section of the Wall which hadn't been torn down yet. When we got there, we paid a few marks to some enterprising Ossies (who were much better at the whole capitalism game than the sad former soldiers at Brandenburg, selling off their former glory). They had little hammers and chisels, which they would rent to you (until you got tired), for a few marks.

So not only did I get to see the actual Wall, I got to chip off my own little chunks and flakes of it. I brought enough back from my trip to give one out to all the members of my extended family who were younger than I. All the cousins and nieces and nephews opened their holiday presents from me that December... and were likely profoundly disappointed in what they saw. A little flake of concrete, with a dash of paint on it. "This is what Chris is giving out this year?" I could almost hear them collectively say. I don't even know if any of them kept them, truth be told. But I wanted them to own a little piece of history, so they might understand a little bit of what all the kids who grew up before them had to live through. At the very least, I hope they got some "show and tell" points at school with them.

I did keep one chunk for myself, though. I have it here on my desk. I was extremely late to the party, as I said, but I like to think that I did my own tiny, tiny bit -- with a little rock collector's hammer and chisel, rented from a former communist -- striking my own little blow for freedom.

[Note: I couldn't really find a way to work this in to the story, as it would have been a distraction, but if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend Roger Waters' live performance of Pink Floyd's The Wall, which was staged and filmed at the Brandenburg Gate site the same year I was there (no, I didn't get to see it). It is the most surreal overlap of art and reality (which is imitating which?) I have ever seen, complete with East German military displays (as part of the staging), as well as cameos from a seriously eclectic group of artists (the only time, I would warrant, that Joni Mitchell, Cyndi Lauper, and Tim Curry ever shared a stage -- to name but three). If you've heard the album before, but never seen this "concert flick," I would urge you to do so as soon as possible.]

Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com

NEW! Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

Tim Mohr: Music for the Fall of the Berlin Wall

2009-11-09T13:57:56Z

Kids today! All worked up about terrorism. Ooooh, scary, a gaggle of bearded men in caves are after us. Pfffff. Back before the fall of the Berlin Wall -- 20 years ago on November 9, 1989 -- the world lived in the constant shadow of a genuine existential threat: total nuclear annihilation.

The possibility that we could all be vaporized in a matter of minutes occupied a dark but prominent place not only in our individual consciences but in pop culture as well. There were cheeky admonishments like Billy Bragg's "Help Save the Youth of American" or Men At Work's "It's a Mistake." And the bomb loomed large for thrash bands, too. For some it may have been just another means to engage in their lyrical orgies of blood and gore, but for others -- check out Exodus's "Fabulous Disaster" -- it was a source of visceral anguish and something bordering on political anger.

And no wonder. With Bonzo dreaming of taking the arms race into space, trigger-fingered loonies pulling his strings, and the opaque and as it turned out reeling and desperate Soviet Union bogged down in Afghanistan, the chance of nuclear Armageddon -- whether due to hawkish swagger or flat-out fuckup -- was tangible. This doomsday obsession was also the basis for some often morbidly romantic music. It may have been grounded in the same sort of teen gloom that can be traced from "The Leader of the Pack" and "Dead Man's Curve" to My Chemical Romance, but the awareness of mortality in 1980s nuke-pop was amplified by the inescapably bleak Cold War reality.

And then, with the fall of the Wall, the threat evaporated -- at least in the popular imagination. The music, however, lives on, offering an oddly affecting reminder of the magnitude of pre-Wall tension and just why its fall was such a big deal.

Alphaville, "Forever Young"
Not surprisingly given the fact that their country was bristling with missiles (on both sides) and was regarded as the likely flash point for World War III, the krauts had the most angst of this sort -- like in this worldwide hit from West Germany. The idea of staying forever young sounds nice enough, right? Except for one little thing: the reason we will remain forever young is because we'll all be fried in a global blast of mutually assured destruction.

Nena, "99 Red Balloons"
Ja, one minute you and your boyfriend are doing ze smooching and holding ze hands as you watch your balloons float into the sky. The next minute an early warning system picks up your dirigibles and triggers an all-out nuclear exchange. Scheisse.

Ultravox, "Dancing With Tears In My Eyes"
A danse macabre, as it turns out--the tears are your subtle acknowledgment that these are the last moments you and he or she will savor here on earth before the whole thing goes up in flames.

The Smiths, "Ask"
Shyness, coyness -- bollocks. Don't hold back, because if it's not love (as if!) then it's the bomb that will bring us together. That's "bring us together" as in meet our common destiny of being rendered radioactive ash. La la la la la la laaaa la.

The Sisters of Mercy, "Black Planet"
Sure, you can run around in the radiation and there's no traffic to contend with, but otherwise this chronicle of life after atomic war seems to indicate that, all in all, it sucks.

Anne Clark, "Poem For A Nuclear Romance"
What will our love matter when the sky is no longer blue but burning red and kissing will reduce my lips to a pulp and hideous creates will return from the underground? Perhaps not surprisingly, though Clark is English, her career blossomed in Germany.

U2, "Seconds"
It could all go bye-bye in the blink of an eye. So Bono calls out the "puppets" in the USSR, GDR, UK and USA.

Kate Bush, "Breathing"
The narrator is an unborn child with a rather prodigious and unlikely knowledge of fission reactions and their aftermath.

Fischer-Z, "Cruise Missiles"
Another British act that made it big in Germany, here warning among other things that fallout shelters will house only the wealthy and powerful.

The Cure, "A Strange Day"
"Strange" might not be the first modifier to spring to your mind to describe a day when the world goes up in flames. But you're not Robert Smith, and given the material surrounding this song--the Cure's pitch black Pornography album--the end of the life on planet earth might not have seemed so bad to him.

Seymour Hersh: Can An Unstable Pakistan Keep Safe Its Nuclear Arsenal?

2009-11-08T08:46:26Z

In the tumultuous days leading up to the Pakistan Army's ground offensive in the tribal area of South Waziristan, which began on October 17th, the Pakistani Taliban attacked what should have been some of the country's best-guarded targets. In the most brazen strike, ten gunmen penetrated the Army's main headquarters, in Rawalpindi, instigating a twenty-two-hour standoff that left twenty-three dead and the military thoroughly embarrassed. The terrorists had been dressed in Army uniforms. There were also attacks on police installations in Peshawar and Lahore, and, once the offensive began, an Army general was shot dead by gunmen on motorcycles on the streets of Islamabad, the capital. The assassins clearly had advance knowledge of the general's route, indicating that they had contacts and allies inside the security forces.

Iran Tested Advanced Nuclear Warhead: Secret Report

2009-11-06T10:16:54Z

The UN's nuclear watchdog has asked Iran to explain evidence suggesting that Iranian scientists have experimented with an advanced nuclear warhead design, the Guardian has learned.

John Feffer: North Korea: Journalists vs. Diplomats?

2009-11-06T09:36:09Z

At the recent off-the-record meeting between U.S. and North Korean representatives at a conference in California, journalists were eager for any crumb of information about what the two interlocutors said to each other. The dialogue was "useful," according to the North Korean representative. The U.S. side remarked that the mood was "better than we've seen in months."

Talk about ho-hum journalism.

But, in the interests of diplomacy, this is precisely the kind of media coverage that U.S.-North Korean relations needs at the moment. In fact, for real progress to be made in resolving the longest-standing adversarial relationship the United States has with any country in the world, journalists would be well-advised to sit on their hands and keep their mouths shut. At the very least, all those involved in the sensitive negotiations should agree to say absolutely nothing of interest to the press.

As a journalist, I don't feel very good about making this recommendation. Handcuff the reporters? Muzzle the broadcasters? That's what North Korea does. Surely I'm not advising that we take a page from their book.

But here's why I think that the only way the two sides can achieve any real compromise is through sustained and secret dialogue on a comprehensive agreement, outside of the media spotlight.

For the better part of 20 years, during those periods when they've been willing to talk with each other, the United States and North Korea have subscribed to the "step by step" approach to rapprochement. There is much talk at these moments of trust-building, of confidence-building, of finding one's way across the stream stone by slippery stone.

This cautious engagement approach, which has a veneer of common sense, has yielded two significant agreements -- the Agreed Framework of 1994 and the Six Party Talks agreement of 2007 -- and a few minor accords. Aside from some shipments of food and oil, these agreements have yielded nothing more than a half-built light-water nuclear reactor (by the United States and allies) and a half-destroyed nuclear complex (by North Korea).

What the agreements didn't accomplish far outweighs what they did accomplish. There is still no peace agreement to replace the armistice that ended the hostilities of the Korean War. There is no diplomatic relationship between Pyongyang and Washington. North Korea still has some kind of nuclear capability; the United States continues to contain the country with overwhelming force. Except for North Korea's nukes, the situation doesn't look a whole different from 20 years ago.

Contrast that picture with U.S.-Chinese relations. China has nuclear weapons. China is the only rising power that the Pentagon fears will compete seriously with the United States. China still has human rights problems. But Washington and Beijing have a very significant relationship.

What will it take for the United States and North Korea to move into a relationship comparable to the one that the United States enjoys with China? Step-by-step engagement won't do the trick. Each time the United States negotiates a partial agreement with North Korea, it comes under attack by conservatives in Congress and the media. Such opposition contributed to the deep-sixing of the Agreed Framework. Similar opposition forced the Bush administration to backtrack on concessions made near the end of its second term.

Step-by-step engagement, in other words, is just another form of death by a thousand cuts. If John Bolton in the Wall Street Journal and Sam Brownback (R-KS) in Congress can't stop the first engagement agreement, then they will rally their forces to block the next one or the one after that. While the diplomats are "building confidence" through partial agreements, they are losing confidence at home because of the attacks of their opponents.

So, what's the only way around this paradox? The obvious answer is a comprehensive agreement that covers all major obstacles in the relationship between the two countries. The less obvious answer is: this comprehensive agreement should be negotiated in secret. If journalists leak word of the agreement before it is hammered out and agreed upon by both sides, it will have the same effect as the partial agreements of the past. The opposition will have a chance to sharpen their knives and get ready for the kill.

The Nixon administration negotiated the opening to China in secret. The Dayton Agreement emerged from a tightly controlled three-week negotiation among Serb, Croat, and Bosnian representatives. The Oslo Accords came after 14 secret meetings between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators between December 1992 and August 1993 (though ultimately unsuccessful, these accords nearly brought off a peace agreement in the world's most conflict-ridden region).

With envoy Stephen Bosworth likely to visit North Korea this month, the U.S. team should bear in mind the lessons of Beijing, Dayton, and Oslo. Keep it comprehensive. Keep it secret. And remain at the negotiating table until the job is done.

The journalists will be disappointed at not getting their scoops. Too bad. Peace is, frankly, more important than a good news story.

Originally published in Asia Chronicle.

Alyn Ware: Thinking the Unthinkable on Nuclear Policy

2009-11-05T16:37:43Z

In late September, President Obama chaired the UN Security Council as it adopted an unprecedented resolution on non-proliferation and global nuclear disarmament, vague on the details perhaps, but nonetheless a symbolic first step toward a world without nuclear weapons. It was a down payment on pledges Obama made in Prague in April, when he spoke of America's commitment to nuclear disarmament, saying we "must ignore the voices who tell us that the world cannot change." It didn't take long for those voices to chime. Three days after the Security Council resolution, the North Korean government fulminated that giving up its nuclear weapons was "unthinkable, even in a dream."

So who's naïve and who's behind the times? Should we ignore North Korea's naysaying? Should we dismiss President Obama's ambition as a "dream" and be skeptical about the Nobel Committee awarding its peace prize to him for it? Neither; we should take both positions seriously.

Abolition of nuclear weapons has indeed been an elusive dream ever since the birth of the atomic age in 1945. The very first resolution of the United Nations called for controlling nuclear weapons, then Cold War arsenals grew to the equivalent of 200,000 Hiroshima-sized bombs. At the end of the Cold War, Reagan and Gorbachev agreed on the goal of a nuclear-weapons-free world, but amid the complications of atypical military forces and alliance structures, failed to agree on a path to it. Since then the situation has gotten more complex, with nuclear weapons proliferating to India, Pakistan and North Korea while other countries like Iran may be moving towards nuclear weapons capacity.

Most recently, President Obama has taken some serious steps forward, commencing negotiations with Russia on stockpile reductions, kick-starting deliberations at the Conference on Disarmament (the world's multilateral disarmament negotiating body) after a 12 year hiatus, and initiating steps towards Senate ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

Skeptics may be right in asking whether this amounts to any real change to the nuclear status quo or indicates any real hope for a nuclear-weapons-free world. A 'realist' might argue that nuclear deterrence is the indispensable guarantor of modern State security. On the other hand, the goal of a nuclear-weapons-free world has been recently endorsed by such realists as Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, former NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson, former German Federal Minister Egon Bahr, former Italian Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema and former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser.

Why have they come to support it? Perhaps it's a strategic calculation -- the realization that the status quo, where a few countries try to maintain their elite position of possessing nuclear weapons while denying them to others, is unsustainable. Perhaps it's pragmatism -- the recognition that in today's interconnected world, the borders and territorially-based wealth, which nuclear weapons were designed to protect, now barely exist.

I like to think of it as a question of ethics -- an admission that some of the laws which apply to resolving conflicts in the sandbox also apply at the international level -- that fairness should prevail, bullying is not allowed, toys should be shared and everyone needs to feel loved and respected. The best way to deal with a bully is not to punish but to resolve -- to draw a firm line against inappropriate behavior, but also to search for the reasons behind that behavior and address those.

This tough-love approach could work with countries of nuclear proliferation concern. It's appropriate to be tough and draw a line against the nuclear weapons programs of India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea - and against the possibility of Iran developing nuclear weapons. But one must also listen to them, cultivate some empathy and receptivity in order to understand the reasons these countries are pursuing nuclear programs, and find ways to resolve them. Perceived lack of security, unfairness or disrespect may drive governments to nuclearize. But they all can be overcome.

In the case of North Korea, assurances that they will not be attacked and some additional aid would be effective. North Korea is unlikely to return to the 1993 agreement on the demilitarization of the Korean Peninsula, but if it were no longer under current nuclear-threat postures from Japan and South Korea pursuant to their military alliance with the United States, it could be willing to join a North East Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone, as recently proposed by the governing party in Japan.

With Iran, a regional equity approach could work. Iran has resisted giving up uranium enrichment and other proliferation-sensitive activities while other countries including Israel practice them. The proposal of Hans Blix, former United Nations Chief Inspector in Iraq, for a regional moratorium on such activities might be acceptable to Iran -- especially if it is put forward as a stepping stone towards a Middle East Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone.

India nuclearized for international status, after decades of pushing unsuccessfully for a global ban on nuclear weapons. Pakistan, also a supporter of a global nuclear weapons ban, simply followed suit. Neither is likely to denuclearize now, unless the other nuclear-weapons-possessors agree to a global ban. But if they did, it's likely India and Pakistan would join them.

Is it credible that long established nuclear weapons states would ever agree to a ban? United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon thinks so. He framed a Model Nuclear Weapons Convention -- a draft treaty which demonstrates the legal, technical and political elements required to achieve and sustain it. These include actions in key international forums to achieve a comprehensive ban and phased elimination of nuclear weapons, and measures to ensure and verify compliance. President Obama got the ball rolling in two of these forums -- the Conference on Disarmament and the United Nations Security Council.

Obama and Ban Ki-moon are far from alone. The Inter-Parliamentary Union, which comprises most of the democratic parliaments in the world, adopted a groundbreaking resolution in April supporting the plan. Over 125 countries, including some of the nuclear-weapon-possessing States, now support a United Nations resolution calling for negotiations to achieve nuclear abolition through a nuclear weapons convention. These governments aren't just dreaming or thinking about a world without nuclear weapons, they are actively planning and voting for it.

It's become commonplace to say we can't put the nuclear genie back in the bottle, or make history run backwards. There's a grain of truth to this: the historical cause-and-effect relationships that have led to nuclear proliferation can't be ignored, and have to be respected. But neither does history unfold in a locked, inevitable way. If we can work to understand and resolve the causes, there is no reason why we can't change the effects, and find ways to make the dream of nuclear disarmament a reality.

Steven Crandell: Honoring Women for Peace

2009-11-05T14:26:43Z

I want to tell a story about three women, a golden dove and the pursuit of peace.

First, some facts:

Two women who have changed the world for the better will be honored at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation's 26th Annual Evening for Peace this weekend in Santa Barbara, California.

The Evening for Peace honors remarkable leaders who pursue peace with integrity, persistence and heart.

In past years, we have given our awards to Nobel Peace Laureates Mairead Corrigan Maguire and Jody Williams as well as to other remarkable women, including Hafsat Abiola, Helen Caldicott, Anne Ehrlich, Mary Travers, Queen Noor of Jordan and Bianca Jagger.

This year's honorees are peace-builders who have provided the inspiration for the event's theme - Women for Peace.

Riane Eisler will receive the Foundation's Distinguished Peace Leadership Award. As an author, social scientist and lawyer, she has been a pioneer in showing how women's rights (and therefore human rights) are the building blocks of world peace. Her international bestseller, The Chalice and the Blade, outlines the need for a cultural transformation, moving from the politics of dominance to the practice of partnership. She was named as one of the world 20 Great Peacemakers and serves as President of the Center for Partnership Studies and as a Councilor on the World Future Council.

Judith Mayotte will receive the Foundation's World Citizenship Award. A true humanitarian, she worked as a nun in the inner-cities of America helping people at the margins of society. After leaving her order, she became a television producer, winning an Emmy for her work on the Portrait of America series in 1986 and later served as a special advisor to the Clinton administration on refugee matters. She is featured as one of the Smithsonian Museum's 100 Everyday Freedom Heroes. She now teaches in South Africa as a visiting professor at the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre and The University of the Western Cape.

The third woman in my story is another distinguished peace leader characterized by commitment, courage and compassion. Her name is Frances Moore Lappé.

This week she sent a beautiful golden statuette of a dove to David Krieger, the President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. She included a note and asked that the dove be included in the Evening for Peace. This is what the note said:

I am delighted and honored to pass this Golden Dove to David Krieger, and to the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Thirty identical Golden Doves, created by German artist Richard Hillinger, are circling the planet to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. David, you are a hero to me for your tireless, focused, creative, determined work for peace.

Peace, living free of the fear of annihilation, is foundational to all other human rights. His Holiness, the XIVth Dalai Lama, once congratulated your foundation for "encouraging a climate of peace and harmony in the world," and for "being a consistent voice in ending the nuclear weapons threat to humanity and all life." I am proud to second His Holiness. May you and the Foundation continue to grow in strength and influence, enabling more and more of us to realize that it is within our power to end the nuclear threat.

David Krieger is delighted at the gift of the peace dove and with the theme of this year's Evening for Peace.

"Women are central to achieving and maintaining peace," he said. "We need more women to be leaders in the quest for peace."

I agree.

The key is Riane Eisler's concept of partnership. Peace is a team sport. It can only be achieved through cooperation and as a community. And such cooperation begins inside the individual.

There can't be peace in our society, or the world, if there is violence and
hatred in our hearts. If we accept the status quo of a violent world where only the powerful can prosper, then we have turned our future into a painful prison.

But once we imagine with our hearts, we are free to reach out and build peace with others, as Riane and Judith and Frances have done.

Connection leads to understanding. Understanding to compassion. And compassion to cooperation, partnership and peace.

Peace be with you all.

Russ Wellen: When Will the U.S. and Russia Stop Acting Like It's Still the Cold War?

2009-11-04T10:52:04Z

Sometimes it seems as if neither the United States nor Russia got the message that the Cold War ended almost two decades ago. Last week I wrote about the Dooomsday Device, a back-up defense system that Russia developed in the 80's. In the aftermath of a nuclear attack, it ensures that, even if no civilian and military leaders are still around to issue the command, a retaliatory nuclear attack will still be launched. Depending on your point of view, it's either the ultimate in deterrence or the most senseless act of revenge ever.

In fact, it was engineered in response to U.S. plans to develop the Strategic Defense Initiative (missile defense) at the height of the Cold War. The United States claimed that missile defense was just an innocuous defense from an initial attack. But the Soviet Union interpreted "Star Wars" as a shield behind which the United States could mount a nuclear attack, secure in the knowledge that Russia's retaliatory warheads would, in effect, be just rain falling on an umbrella.

Like missile defense, Dead Hand, as the Russians call their Doomsday Device, exists to this day. Except theirs actually works.

If Russia clings to a Cold War mentality in other ways as well, who can blame it? The era combined the best of both worlds:

Stability, for those who believed in the illusion of deterrence, and ...

Life on the edge, for those who knew the true extent to which the United States and the Soviet Union were actually at each other's throats during the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Reagan administrations.

Recently discussions were held in Moscow between Russian foreign ministry officials and representatives of Global Zero, the disarmament group that comprises former heads of state, foreign ministers, defense ministers, national security advisors, and military commanders. But it turns out Russia's not ready for a new round of disarmament talks (at least not with those out of power).

The AP reports:

[Ground Zero member Richard] Burt said Russian officials appear to be concerned that steep cuts in their nuclear arsenal will leave them vulnerable to military threats.

"There is I think a feeling in certain circles in the Russian defense establishment that their conventional forces are rundown and as a result they're going to have to rely more on their nuclear forces," Burt said.

Hasn't that rationale informed many of Russia's defense policies -- as well as those of the United States at times -- since the dawn of the nuclear age? According to a 2003 Nonproliferation Review article by Harold Feiveson and Ernst Jan Hogendoorn:

For Russia, the end of the Cold War did impact the country's no-first-use policy -- but in an unexpected direction. In 1993 -- facing a precipitous drop in conventional military strength -- Russia renounced the 1982 policy of no first use, and changed its declaratory policy to maintaining the option to use nuclear weapons against any nuclear armed aggressor, including non-nuclear states allied with a nuclear weapons state.

Today, not only is Russia dragging its feet on disarmament, but, as Simon Saradzhyan reports for Zurich's International Relations and Security Network: [Russia's] 2000 Military Doctrine asserts that Russia "reserves the right" to use nuclear weapons first "in response to large-scale aggression using conventional weapons in situations [such as] regional war."

Not only is Russia dragging its feet on disarmament by continuing to retain the right to first use -- in a regional war, no less -- but, "Changes in the [follow-up] to the 2000 document include [allowing] use of nuclear weapons when repelling an aggression [in] even a local war." Bear in mind that Russia's "pledge to use nuclear weapons to defend itself and its allies failed to deter Russia's foes" in the regional conflicts that it's faced thus far in Chechnya and South Ossetia (not to mention Georgia). [Emphasis added.]

In fact, Saradzhyan quotes a retired Russian general who "argued that the new doctrine looks 'detached from reality'." Worst of all, he writes, "The planned expansion of the use of nuclear weapons will raise a lot of questions on how it conforms with" President Medvedev's May 2009 commitment to Global Zero, which, five months later, looks like a passing fancy on his part.

First Strike Culpability

If you believe that nuclear weapons provide a sound deterrent, it's likely you assume that first-strike capability is the backbone of deterrence. A policy of no-first-use would remove a weight from your pan of the scale that monitors nuclear balance and deposit it in that of your designated enemy's. In other words, if the United States declared no-first-use, its foe might jump to the conclusion that, should push come to shove, a red carpet has been laid out for it to strike first. Since U.S. nuclear installations are prime targets, the ability of the United States to retaliate would be severely compromised.

As Feiveson and Hogendoorn explain in their Nonproliferation Review article, it was the Eisenhower administration that first adopted first-use as national security policy. One of its directives read: "In the event of hostilities, the United States will consider nuclear weapons to be available for use as other munitions." [Emphasis added.]

Here we have as clear a depiction as one could want of how the military views nuclear weapons: There's no qualitative difference between them and conventional weapons. To the military, nuclear weapons don't constitute a fundamental break in the weapons continuum nor do they invoke visions of the apocalypse and evoke elemental ethical questions. They're just an inevitable development in the history of bombs. Of course, in recent years, because of the constraints on their use, the Pentagon has grown less enamored of nuclear weapons.

Forty years later, not much had changed. Of the Bush administration, the authors write: "... the United States was diplomatically disavowing the use of nuclear weapons except in certain extreme circumstances, and yet at the same time, hedging the disavowal to allow the greatest possible latitude for the use of nuclear weapons."

Despite what many think, hedging doesn't imply straddling two domains. Just the opposite in fact, it's defined as planting a barrier to protect your own. Either way, it's effect is to muddy the waters.

For example, does a state's first-use policy apply only to other nuclear states, or to non-nuclear states as well? What could possibly drive a nuclear state to attack a non-nuclear state with nuclear weapons?

The nuclear state might feel that the non-nuclear state is acting with impunity because it's protected by another nuclear state. More likely the nuclear state is operating under the assumption that the non-nuclear state is about to launch an attack with either the B or the C team of weapons of mass destruction -- Biological and Chemical weapons. Never mind that, a policy of first use against WMD runs the risk of watering down the concept of deterrence by diverting it into streams other than the nuclear.

Meanwhile, above the fray -- though not exactly occupying the moral high ground because it's got nuclear weapons, too -- stands China. Feiveson and Hogendoorn write:

China . .. remains the only declared nuclear weapons state that has maintained a largely unhedged no-first-use policy, and in 1995 reiterated its commitment that "China undertakes not to be the first to use nuclear weapons at any time or under any circumstances."

During the U.N. Security Council meeting on disarmament that President Obama convened in September, as the Guardian reported ...

China pushed to have a clause included in today's resolution calling on weapons states to emulate its own "no first use" policy, but the US has long resisted such an undertaking, reserving the right to carry out a pre-emptive strike. But Obama is pressing the Pentagon to consider radical changes to US doctrine to downgrade the role of nuclear weapons.

One would hope that our next nuclear posture review disavows first use of nuclear weapons. Unless nuclear states can shed the Cold War mentality once and for all, it's hard to be optimistic about the long-terms prospects for disarmament.

Cross-posted at the Faster Times.

Iran's Political Crisis Blocks Nuclear Deal

2009-11-03T10:57:39Z

CAIRO - Iran's leadership has once again equivocated after agreeing to a deal that would ease its nuclear standoff with the West. But this time, that may be as much a product of the nation's smoldering political crisis as it is a negotiating tactic, political analysts and Iran experts said.

Andy Borowitz: Obama to Iran: Abandon Nukes or We Will Defriend You on Facebook

2009-10-30T07:59:16Z

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) - Using his strongest rhetoric to date, President Barack Obama warned Iran today that if it did not abandon its nuclear program the United States would join with other Western nations to defriend Iran on Facebook.

As strongly worded as it was, the defriending threat, delivered in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, underscored the limited array of tools available to the President in countering Iran's nuclear ambitions.

"President Obama can and probably will convince other nations to defriend Iran," said one foreign policy insider who attended the President's speech. "Whether or not he can convince them to block Iran remains to be seen."

Blocking Iran on Facebook might be seen as a provocative measure, since it would prevent Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from playing some of his favorite Facebook games, such as What Anti-Semitic Celebrity Are You?

Elsewhere, many American children will be going as Northwest pilots for Halloween, meaning they will just stay in their rooms and play on their laptops. More here.

Robert Amsterdam: Lula's Red Carpet Welcome for Ahmadinejad

2009-10-29T14:16:52Z

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, affectionately nicknamed Lula, comes as close to being a global rock star as a politician can get. But like any towering celebrity, there are some troubling developments behind all the glamour.

With less than a year to go before finishing his second term in office, Lula is riding a wave of popularity that is virtually unprecedented in Latin American history (75-80% approval ratings). The Brazilian economy, with the swagger of its BRIC status, has swelled over the past decade and survived the crisis, championed by many investors to be the top emerging market for growth over the short term (5% GDP growth speculated for this year). The President himself has been beatified to almost-sainthood in several films, including the latest high-budget biopic entitled "Lula, Son of Brazil," which has many guessing that he's aiming to become Secretary General of the United Nations. All that, plus he just got them the Olympics and the World Cup.

Why then, with so much going for him and his country, should he make such controversial choices in his friends? Lula's increasingly warm embrace of Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, including an official state visit to Brazil Nov. 23-26, is causing many of his fawning admirers to rub their eyes in disbelief.

For those of us who enthusiastically support Brazil and its people, culture, and economy, the logic of the relationship with Iran is perplexing. There is no overlap in values, for example. This week Iran executed five people (including women), while another 135 juvenile offenders are on death row. Second only to China in capital punishment, Iran has also issued death sentences to five people now accused of fomenting unrest during the post-elections protests - a number which is likely to grow. Brazil, on the other hand, has proudly outlawed capital punishment since 1889, the second country of Latin America to adopt such a law.

The low level of trade between the two countries fails to provide an explanation either. Iran doesn't figure among the top 20 trade partners either for purchasing Brazilian exports or sending imports, and although Ahmadinejad has excitedly said that relations with Brazil have "no limits," even oil minister Azizollah Ramezani has stated that it is too far away to be a potential market for hydrocarbons (though oil and gas technical expertise is an area of interest).

The professed area of mutual interests is in the nuclear sphere. Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki describes Brazil as holding a "common position" on rights to nuclear energy, while on Brazil's behalf Lula has repeatedly voiced his opposition to sanctions.

However, the true motivations behind the Brazil-Iranian relationship have very little to do with these statements. For Brazil, the elephant in the room is Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, whose own jovial relations with Iran and the purchase of $6 billion in Russian arms are prompting his neighbors to take action toward containment. What better way to procure information on what Iran is doing with its new "factories" in remote parts of Venezuela than strike up a competing relationship - which could also be the logic of Brazil hijacking the Honduran situation from Chávez's control by housing ousted President Mel Zelaya in their embassy.

During a visit this month to Brasilia, I was repeatedly told that the government believes that Chávez can be most influenced by keeping him close. Hence the hasty vote today to confirm Venezuelan ascension to Mercosur despite their failing to meet conditions set forth in the Treaty of Asunción. Many would call Brazil's decision to incorporate Chávez into Mercosur as naïve, but at the time of this writing President Lula was already boarding a plane for a coincidental visit to Caracas to celebrate Venezuela's entry at a presidential dinner.

Though there are other explanations for Lula to pursue his Iran policy (his South-South agenda, generalized anti-American goals, or bolstering Brazil's diplomatic clout in the UN), the balancing strategy with Venezuela is the most convincing. He feels that he has to create these alliances as measures of security to catch up with Chávez, which demonstrates once again that the Venezuela's activities cannot just be dismissed as harmless mischief-making by Washington. Testifying before Congress this week, Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Council of the Americas, underscored this threat and commented that Brazil is "playing with fire" in bringing Iran into the region.

Venezuela is not only having an impact on foreign policies of neighboring states (Ecuador's Rafael Correa is in Moscow today), but also in the arms race Chávez has kicked off. Lula recently commented, "Everyone knows Brazil is a peaceful nation, but we need to be able to show our teeth if anyone wants to mess with us."

As for Iran's interest in Latin America, their thinking goes that the further they are able to penetrate into Washington's backyard, the safer they become. By increasing the costs of intervention, the Latin American strategy provides a staging ground for a real or imagined threat to the United States, which aims to have a dissuasive impact on the push for sanctions and diplomatic pressure. To boot, after a questioned election, it is always good to receive the congratulations of the global leader of the responsible left.

At the moment it is hard to say whether Lula, despite his celebrity and admirable achievements, is in over his head with Iran. Brazil is an impressive growing power, and one that has changed dramatically in the recent past, so it is understandable that its assertion of international leadership is fraught with challenges and inconsistencies. Soon the country's influence will be too big to simply shrug off issues of human rights and democracy without costs to its reputation.

This may already be happening. The most callous and frightening thing Lula has said with regard to Iran came shortly after the June elections, when demonstrations erupted and the police truncheons came down violently on the heads of protesting students. Quoted in the Brazilian media, Lula described these events as nothing more than the tears of poor "losers." That is not a hopeful message for those brave young men and women who now face show trials and execution for having attempted to change their country. Coinciding with the sports analogy, Fabio Barretto, the director of the latest glowing Lula biopic, was recently quoted saying, "In Brazil, there are no losers ... only people who keep trying until they succeed."

It would be nice if Lula's own story could mean something more outside of Brazil.

Gloria Duffy: Eyes on the Real Prize

2009-10-27T13:43:50Z

It certainly was an "October surprise" when the Norwegian Nobel committee awarded President Obama the Nobel Peace Prize. The immediate reaction was to wonder what this would mean - for the President's agenda at home and abroad, and for the American people.

The US is entering a season of key international negotiations, during which two arms control treaties that have been languishing for years will hopefully be completed. The stature conferred by the Nobel Peace Prize, as well as the inspiration it may give the President, should assist Mr. Obama both at home and abroad in bringing these treaties to a positive conclusion.

On December 5th of this year, the only treaty limiting US and Russian strategic nuclear weapons, originally completed by the first President Bush, is set to expire. After a long hiatus, US negotiators led by Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller are now working rapidly with their Russian counterparts to meet this deadline for a follow-on treaty.

Similarly, the only treaty banning nuclear weapons testing, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) has now awaited US Senate ratification for 13 years, ever since the UN General Assembly adopted it in 1996.

Of these two, the most imminent, and most important, is the so-called "START Follow-On" agreement. START II (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) was signed in 1993, but it never came fully into force. An interim treaty inked in 2002 keeps the US and Russia on track to reduce our deployed strategic nuclear warheads from 2200 to 1700 each by 2012. It is that interim agreement that expires on December 5. Without a follow-on treaty confirming and extending these ceilings, all limits are off and the US and Russia could potentially once again engage in an expensive and risky nuclear arms race.

A Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is also desirable because we are not keen on countries seeking nuclear weapons having the unrestricted ability to test them, the crucial step in having a usable nuclear weapons capability. Not all the countries we worry about have acceded to this treaty, but many have, and we would rather they remain bound by its provisions. For it to come into force, though, the US Senate must ratify the treaty.

And these two arms control treaties add up to more than the sum of their parts, because in the Spring of 2010 an international conference will convene to review the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the main global agreement through which 184 countries have agreed to forgo nuclear weapons. Five countries are recognized as nuclear weapons powers, including the US, and just four nations - North Korea, India, Pakistan and Israel - have declined to be members.

While not a perfect treaty, still the NPT contains important powers governing its members, such as the requirement for inspection of nuclear facilities by the International Atomic Energy Agency that is currently being used to open up Iran's nuclear enrichment plant. Failure by the US and Russia to agree on limiting their own nuclear weapons could be used as an excuse by other countries to drop out of the NPT when it comes up for review next spring.

Some serious issues remain in the negotiations between the US and Russia over the shape of the START Follow-On. My hope is that the sense of international approval conveyed by the Nobel Peace Prize will strengthen President Obama in these negotiations. It is a declaration of approval for the path he seeks that will hopefully enhance US credibility and influence.

Perhaps even more importantly, a battle is shaping up at home over Senate ratification of the START Follow-On treaty. Treaty ratification requires a two-thirds majority of the Senate, or sixty-seven votes. Several Republicans must thus join the Democrats in ratifying both the START Follow-On and CTBT Treaties.

Much talk is afoot now in Washington of exacting prices for these votes, including modernizing US nuclear weapons and even adding new weapons programs. While maintaining our remaining nuclear weapons in good working order is prudent, costly pork-barrel military programs that could defeat the very purpose of the START Follow-On Treaty are not smart and don't make the country safer.

I am a fan of the old adage that "politics stops at the water's edge." That is, the US should present a unified face to the outside world. To protect our security, our foreign and defense policies should be bipartisan and not tools of partisan politics. I hope the Nobel Peace Prize will strengthen President Obama to complete and gain ratification of these two important treaties, with bipartisan support and free of pressures that would further burden the federal budget while not improving our security. That is the real prize now within his reach.

Iran To Accept UN Nuclear Deal

2009-10-27T08:09:36Z

Iran will accept a UN deal on its nuclear programme, but only if "very important changes" are made, Iranian state media have reported.