Tag Archives: Nuclear Security Summit

Israel keeps nukes at bay by not talking

WASHINGTON — Covering your face to make something go away works well if you’re 3 years old, or if you’re Israel, and trying to keep neighboring Egypt from developing nuclear weapons.

This month, President Barack Obama was a regular Chatty Cathy when it came to nuke talk, while Israel was characteristically quiet. Obama signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia: Both countries agreed to cut their strategic nuclear arsenals by about a third. Obama also hosted a two-day Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, attended by 49 world leaders. The goal there was get the countries on board to prevent nuclear smuggling and secure all vulnerable nuclear materials around the world in the next four years.

But when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pulled out of the summit, and sent a second-tier diplomat instead, some participants and reacted  angrily. Their contention: Netanyahu’s refusal to participate in ongoing nuclear treaty talks threatens to undermine global security.

What these detractors fail to acknowledge, some experts say, is that there’s a more dangerous threat ­much closer to home.

“We’ve got big egos,” Henry Sokolski, president of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center on Washington said of U.S. officials. “What if it turns out that we’re one of the biggest problems?”

Washington’s ego is twofold. Though trying to become a world peace negotiator is a noble undertaking, even Washington may not be equipped to fend off the ramifications that could result from Israel’s speaking up on the topic of nuclear proliferation.

“They don’t get any benefits from declaring that they have nuclear weapons, Institute for Science and International Security president David Albright, a physicist who has written numerous assessments on secret nuclear weapons programs throughout the world, said of Israel’s position. “They could get some serious repercussions. It will be hard to keep Egypt from building. There’s a reality that if you talk about it, it leads others to talk about it.”

Put simply: If Israel’s nuke program is confirmed and recognized, everyone else in the Middle East will want nukes too.

Sokolski agrees with Albright about the need for caution.

“While their arsenal is something that needs to be talked about, it matters how you do it,” said Sokolski. “If you’re reckless, you can make things worse.”

Additionally, if Israel were to declare, Obama might have to address the longstanding rumor that the United States helped Israel violate the first tenant of the summit—to prevent nuclear smuggling. U.S. officials may have helped Israel build its first bomb by enabling it to procure highly enriched uranium from the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation in Pennsylvania the early 1960s. HEU is a necessary component for building a nuclear weapon.

Scientists Victor Gilinsky and Roger J. Mattson tackled this subject in “Revisiting the NUMEC Affair,” an article published in the March/April 2010 edition of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

“You could look at all the documents and ask yourself whether something had happened here. The answer was probably yes. Then the question was whether you could do anything about it, and the answer was no,” the article quoted James Connor, President Gerald Ford’s cabinet secretary, having said with regard to the incident.

But now that it’s 2010 and Obama is scheduled to meet with 200 countries to review the Non-Proliferation Treaty in May, the treaty credited with keeping nuclear weapons from spreading for four decades, he seems eager “to do something about it.” But what he “does” during the duration of his anti-nuke mission seems to be leading him in only one direction: fueling his adversaries’ ire.

Either Israel admits to having nuclear weapons, which will entice her neighbors and also potentially lift the lid on the defamatory rumor. Or Israel continues to remain mum and Washington is accused of coddling the Jewish countryyet again.

In light of a recent statement by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Obama appears headed in the direction of the latter:

“There is no room to pressure Israel to join the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,” said Barak, quoted in an April 14 Haaretz article. “Israel has never threatened to annihilate other nations and peoples, while today Iran, and also Syria, Libya and Iraq in the past, all of whom signed this treaty, have systematically violated its stipulations while explicitly threatening Israel’s existence.

And if Israel is further alienated by the nascent global nuclear “trust,” she may be more incentivized to hold her even weapons closer.

“It’s not like Israel has the security that comes with having friends in the region,” observed Sokolski. “When you’re not loved and you feel isolated, it’s not surprising that you might seek solace in as many defenses as you can compound. I don’t like seeing people who are nervous feel more isolated.”

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Nuclear weapons past, Nuclear energy future

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s recent vow that ­the United States will have an atomic arsenal as long as nuclear weapons exist casts a historical shadow over this season of nonproliferation and disarmament agreements. While some find the promise reassuring, others believe it is in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Obama’s pledge during the recent Nuclear Summit in Washington that the United States will not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states has been hailed by his Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, as a milestone in U.S. national security policy. But others think that the vow, and other aspects of Obama’s broader ­nuclear agenda, do little to solve ­age-old challenges and contradictions, and may even exacerbate them.

With New START, an arms reduction treaty just signed by ­Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev­, paired with the release of the Nuclear Posture Review and progress with the Nuclear Summit, steps toward a future without nuclear weapon­s have been taken, albeit they’re baby-sized, some experts say. ­This reflects ­the political leanings of Washington at the moment and the Obama administration’s desire to keep any hope of real progress alive more than it does any substantive progress, according to Leonard Spector, deputy director of the non-partisan James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Washington.

“The real tricky detail is how to keep the deterrent viable,” Spector said in an interview. “Republicans say we need a new or refurbished nuclear weapon; Obama wants to refurbish facilities, but probably doesn’t want to see a new weapon. The politics are such that to get the START treaty ratified, they need Republicans and they don’t want to do something that would antagonize them.”

Obama’s comments are aimed not only at getting ­Republicans on board, but also at reassuring U.S. citizens, allies and partners that Washington will protect them from ­the threat of nuclear warfare. “A reliable deterrent is needed for politics, but it’s also just sound policy,” Spector said.

However, critics say the Obama administration’s actions expose the White House to charges of hypocrisy. They ask: how can the United States try and persuade other countries to dismantle or not pursue unapproved nuclear programs at a time when it refuses to take similar steps on its own? ­­Some point to ­Article­ F­our ­of the ­ Non-Proliferation Treaty, which ­offers the “inalienable right … to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.” Others cite ­Article Six, which requires treaty parties to pursue disarmament “in good faith.”

“Nuclear newcomers take Article Six more seriously than Washington,” ­Steven Miller, director of Harvard’s International Security Program, said during a forum on the “Global Nuclear Future’’ at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs in February.  Such conflicting interpretations become particularly heated when nuclear energy capabilities are restricted on the grounds of nonproliferation, Miller said. In a time characterized by climate change and terrorism – two concepts that will surely grow to be more and more intertwined – determining how to move the world toward green nuclear energy and away from nuclear weapons capabilities is truly the challenge of this nuclear era, nuclear experts say.

The recently released Nuclear Posture Review ­, the Congressionally-mandated blueprint for long-term U.S. nuclear policy and strategy—dovetails with Obama’s stated desire to change the framework of the international nuclear energy debate. Suggestions include reducing incentives for countries to have their own uranium enriching abilities, establishing international fuel banks and pursuing an agreement of fuel suppliers to take back waste. There’s no hinting at allowing nuclear plant technology into countries where enriched uranium might be used for weapons, even if it is ostensibly for nuclear power.

“These ideas don’t work or they are infeasible,” said Sharon Squassoni, director of the Proliferation Prevention Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Ultimately, I think this is a shortsighted policy that has its roots in the conundrum that we face under the non-Proliferation Treaty.”

Ellen Tauscher, secretary of state for arms control and international security, acknowledged in a recent speech prior to the unveiling of the new nuclear agenda that U.S. policy has created the feeling of a “chokehold” on other countries’ nuclear energy abilities, denying their NPT rights.

With the ambitious Nuclear Summit in Washington now closed, having served as the signing ground for several unprecedented promises, monitoring the actual implementation of these treaties will be the true test of whether a nuclear weaponless, green energy future is achievable, experts say. They note that signers of the NPT promised disarmament and access to nuclear energy 40 years ago, but the need for further disarmament and nuclear energy agreements continues today.

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Nuclear summit caps U.S. policy shift

CHICAGO — The Nuclear Security Summit in Washington reflects a new hierarchy of nuclear danger, one where Cold War-era superpower antagonism rides well behind the threat posed by terrorist groups.

“The possibility of a state attack with nuclear weapons is essentially zero, at least for the United States,” said Barry Kellman, director of the International Weapons Control Center at the DePaul University College of Law. “Raising relatively the threat of nuclear terrorism makes a lot of sense.”

The announcement Monday that Ukraine – a former republic of the Soviet Union – would relinquish its stockpile of highly enriched uranium seems to affirm the shift in the United States’ nuclear threat assessment: nuclear material theft represents a greater danger than any ballistic missile launch.

In an afternoon press conference during the two-day summit, Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, called Ukraine’s announcement a “landmark decision.”

The statement caps nearly a week of diplomatic maneuvering by the Obama administration, which has placed terrorism at the fore of nuclear defense policy.

On April 6, the Defense Department released a restructured Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), which states, “The United States will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states that are party to the NPT [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty] and in compliance with their nuclear non-proliferation regime.” Days later, President Obama signed a new nuclear disarmament treaty alongside Russian President Dmitri Medvedev in Prague, which pledges a one-third arms reduction among nations that once sought to guarantee “mutually assured destruction” to the other. (pdf of the treaty)

That “Cold War era of bipolar military confrontation,” states the NPR, “is poorly suited to address the challenges posed by suicidal terrorists.”

The Nuclear Security Summit aims to address that threat. “The summit is dedicated to nuclear security and the threat of nuclear terrorism,” stated deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes during a Friday press briefing, according to a White House transcript. “[It’s] intended to rally collective action behind the goal of securing all vulnerable nuclear materials within four years.”

That goal impelled the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, on Jan. 14, to push the Doomsday Clock one minute further away from midnight. “It’s great progress in the right direction,” said BAS Executive Director Kennette Benedict of the summit. “Highly-enriched uranium is available in many more sites than the nuclear bombs themselves.”

The Doomsday Clock currently stands at six minutes until midnight.

Nine countries, according to the Federation of American Scientists, currently hold nuclear arsenals: The United States; Russia; France; China and the U.K. are members of the NPT. India, Pakistan and North Korea are not signatories; Israel remains an undeclared nuclear power.

At the press conference, Brennan ranked the consequences of a nuclear terrorist attack “the most devastating, as well as the most lasting,” compared with a biological, chemical or conventional attack. He called the ability to detonate a nuclear device “the ultimate and most prized goal” of terrorist groups.

Asked by reporters for solid evidence of a nuclear-based terrorist threat, Brennan cited “a strong body of intelligence,” and mentioned 2001 court documents suggesting Al Qaeda’s effort to acquire fissionable material. (In 2001, Al Qaeda informant Jamal Ahmed Al-Fadl testified to an attempt by the terrorist group to obtain uranium in Sudan during the mid 1990s [see the testimony].)

The Nuclear Security Summit drew representatives from 46 countries, and has been widely reported as the largest such gathering called by an American president since the United Nations’ charter was signed in 1945 in San Francisco. In addition to the Ukrainian pledge, the New York Times reported Chinese President Hu Jintao has agreed to negotiate new sanctions against Iran.

Monday was also marked by the release of “Securing the Bomb 2010,” an analysis of global nuclear security, by the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a Washington-based advocacy group co-chaired by CNN founder Ted Turner and Sam Nunn, the former Democratic senator from Georgia. “The threat of global nuclear war has become remote, but the risk of nuclear attack has increased,” the report reads, reiterating the need to secure weapons-usable nuclear materials.

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