Obstacles and Prospects for Reducing Nuclear Threats over the Next Year

Obstacles and Prospects for Reducing Nuclear Threats over the Next Year 

Presentation of Joseph Cirincione
President, Ploughshares Fund

Arms Control Association Annual Meeting
Washington, DC
May 20, 2009 

[PDF Below]

On April 5, Barack Obama gave the first, full foreign policy speech of his presidency.  It was devoted to nuclear policy and was one of the most comprehensive, progressive and ambitious arms control and disarmament speeches every delivered by a US president. With this address President Obama began the transformation of US nuclear policy.

The question is:  Can he finish the job?

I see four major obstacles:

First, the Global Economic Crisis, which, if it worsens, threatens to swallow any transformational agenda, including on nuclear policy.

Second, the Nuclear Neanderthals, those with financial or ideological ties to the existing nuclear bureaucracy and posture.  No matter how hard they beat the drums, however, this is a tribe in decline, clinging to tired doctrines and obsolete weapons. 

Third is a more serious problem:  the divisions within the administration itself.  The tensions between the transformationalists, who share the president’s vision of a world without nuclear weapons, and the incrementalists, who do not believe elimination possible or proliferation reversible, will intensify.  Though all are good people, the half-steps favored by the incrementalists will not give us full security.    Going slowly when we must go boldly, risks the failure of the president’s agenda.

Still, with skill, presidential leadership and the active participation of organizations like the Arms Control Association, these divisions can be softened, coalitions forged, and the forces of reaction defeated.

The last obstacle is Cynicism.  This is the perhaps the most serious and deserves a bit more attention.

A Deadly Adversary

Washington is the perfect place to talk about cynicism.  You want to talk about sin?  Go to Vegas.  Vanity? LA.  Greed? New York.  But cynicism?  Washington is the capital of cynicism. 

It is here in all types and flavors.  We have right cynicism that holds that nuclear disarmament is undesirable.  The arrogance, insults and falsehoods of this tendency are on display most every week on the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.

Moderate cynicism holds that nuclear disarmament is unachievable.  This is the pose of many editors and journalists.  It argues with vapid phrases, little knowledge and nonsensical assertions that eliminating nuclear weapons is as futile as eliminating gunpowder.  It is the pose of those who wish to appear worldly and wise--without exerting too much effort 

We also have the left cynicism of those who believe disarmament is both desirable and feasible, but who do not believe this president is up to the task.  They disparage the appointments that are not good enough, the reports that do not go far enough, and a president who does not believe deeply enough.  

 Overcoming this pervasive cynicism will be our greatest challenge, for it can sap the will of officials, filling them with a fear of appearing weak or foolish, and demoralize proponents, who will shrink from commitment to an apparently hopeless cause. 

Cynicism is sometimes justified.  But it should never substitute for research or reason.  We cannot let attitude replace analysis.

Obama understand this.  In his Prague speech, he says “such fatalism is our deadly adversary. “ He notes:

“There are those who hear talk of a world without nuclear weapons and doubt whether it's worth setting a goal that seems impossible to achieve.”

And speaking directly to our experience:

“I know that a call to arms can stir the souls of men and women more than a call to lay them down.   That is why the voices of peace and progress must be raised together.”

I share this belief.  Not just ideologically, not just philosophically, but from a calm analysis of the political and historic trends now in motion.  I see the arrows moving in our direction. 

I see the threats increasing, having developed a fierce momentum over the past 8 years.  But I also see the growing consensus that the policies of the past administration have failed—now joined with a new consensus that sees disarmament and nonproliferation as two sides of the same coin—that disarmament develops the unity needed to prevent proliferation which, in turn, provides the security needed for disarmament.  There is an historic shift of the center of America’s security elite to a renewed embrace of disarmament and arms control.

The New Realism

Indeed, arms control is the new realism.  There is a global sense of urgency that is fueling new efforts, new alliances and new progress in New York, Geneva, Vienna, Moscow and Washington.

I do not have time for a full analysis here today, but let me provide two examples to demonstrate how conservatives who just a few years ago condemned treaties as "the illusion of security" are now embracing agreements to reduce nuclear arms. 


Exhibit A is James Schelsinger, former Republican secretary of defense and energy, who just endorsed a new treaty with Russia, "The moment appears ripe for a renewal of arms control with Russia, and this bodes well for a continued reductions in the nuclear arsenal," said the US Strategic Posture Commission he co-chairs.

Schlesinger once led the charge against further nuclear reductions and helped frame the Bush administration's alternative approach.  He wrote in his 2000 article, The Demise of Arms Control?, "The necessary target for arms control is to constrain those who desire to acquire nuclear weapons.” In this view, the threat comes from other states, and a large, robust US nuclear arsenal was needed to counter proliferation.

But two weeks ago Schlesinger switched. The commission (whose leadership he shares with former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry) reported to Congress that: "the United States must seek additional cooperative measures of a political kind, including for example arms control and nonproliferation."

Exhibit B is Brent Scowcroft, a perennial realist and a representative of a different wing of the Republican Party.  He was never ideologically opposed to negotiated reductions with the Russians; however, in 1999 he opposed the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty.

Two weeks ago, Scowcroft also shifted.  The Council on Foreign Relations Task Force he co-chaired with the ubiquitous Bill Perry recommended the Senate ratify the nuclear test ban he once questioned.  They also agreed, "U.S.-Russia relationship is ripe for a new formal arms control agreement," one "that would reflect current defense needs and realities and would result in deeper arms reductions."

Charles Curtis at the Nuclear Threat Initiative describes the effect of these shifts and other changes as the thawing of frozen seas.   Each day, we see new passages opened to Europe, Russia and Asia. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, for example, is hopeful of quick agreement on joint reductions, "The U.S. approach seems very constructive to me."  Some routes, like those to North Korea, are still blocked.

I do not want to overstate this.  Secretary Schlesinger is still opposed to nuclear disarmament.  Scowcroft still favors a large US nuclear arsenal.  But both (and many of their colleagues) have shifted significantly.  While not endorsing Obama's ultimate goal, they support several of his preliminary steps.  That is enough for now.  The key is to forge broad agreement on the immediate policies whose fulfillment can build confidence in the realism of nuclear disarmament and the logic of zero.

If Obama holds firmly to his ultimate goal, it appears that prospects are improving for building this bipartisan consensus on actions that can help realize his vision.

I believe that there is a reasonable good chance of achieving in the next 12 months a number of critical threat reduction agreements whose victories can unlock the broader strategic agenda.  These include:

• A follow-on treaty to START with a further lowering of the number of strategic nuclear weapons allowed under the SORT treaty.
• Negotiations underway for a new treaty to limit total US and Russian forces to 1000 or fewer weapons.
• US Senate ratification of the nuclear test ban treaty.
• A new US Nuclear Posture Review that will reduce the role of nuclear weapons in security policy and begin the transformation of the nuclear force to the 21st Century threats.
• A successful 2010 NPT Review Conference that will increase the barriers to proliferation.
• Negotiations well underway for a verifiable ban on the production of nuclear weapons material.
• The containment and possible roll back of the North Korean program.
• Negotiations for the containment of the Iranian program, with some tangible signs of progress.
• An accelerated program for securing and eliminating where possible all loose nuclear materials and weapons, propelled by an historic Global Summit on the Prevention of Nuclear Terrorism. 
• This will be real progress, making our world more secure and more peaceful.  

But tough problems will remain.  Most importantly Pakistan, which will remain the most dangerous country on earth for some time, where nuclear materials, an unstable government and an entrenched Al Qaeda and Taliban combine to pose the greatest threat to the United States, Israel and other nations.  

The hard work will not be over.  It will never be over.  But whereas 12 months ago the chances of achieving the accomplishments listed above were close to zero, the chances are now 80 percent or better that we will realize most or all of them by the time of the 2010 Arms Control Association annual meeting

I and the leaders of Ploughshares Fund believe that, given adequate resources, unselfish collaboration, and the skill and determination we know are present in the arms control and security organizations, we can, working with the administration and Congress, achieve these substantial victories over the next year.  

We have no choice.  We have to.