Legal authority is the first step. A unified effort is needed to bring comprehensive safeguards agreements—and Additional Protocols—into force for all parties to the NPT. This could be completed relatively quickly. The international community must also face up to the limitation of the Agency’s existing verification mandate, centered as it is on nuclear material. If the IAEA is expected to detect and pursue clandestine nuclear weaponization operations, it must have the corresponding legal authority.
To keep up with the pace of technological changes that facilitate nuclear proliferation and to maintain its credibility as an independent verification body, the IAEA must have the necessary financial support to be able to acquire and maintain its own state-of-the-art technological capability and train and renew its inspection workforce. Dollar for dollar, the Agency has proven to be an extraordinarily sound investment. But at its current level of funding and with the dilapidated state of its technology infrastructure, the IAEA sooner or later will be unable to fulfill its nuclear verification mission.
All states should recommit to sharing relevant information with the IAEA about potential nuclear proliferation concerns, consistently and promptly. This is a legal obligation under the NPT. Deception on the part of would-be proliferators cannot be countered effectively if countries with relevant intelligence selectively bypass or support multinational nonproliferation structures according to political whim.
Moreover, when countries with such intelligence deliberately strike first and share information later—in direct contravention of international law, as in Israel’s 2007 bombing of Syria’s facility in Dair Alzour and Iraq’s Osirak research reactor in 1981—condemnation of these actions must follow, and, more important, must come with consequences. The rule of law is meaningless if we apply it only selectively.
Two multinational initiatives already under way should be strengthened. The first is to provide the highest level of security for nuclear and radioactive material, to keep it out of the hands of extremist groups. The second is to move from national to multinational control of the nuclear fuel cycle. In December 2010, the IAEA Board adopted a decision to authorize a fuel bank of low-enriched uranium, under Agency control, to provide an assured supply of fuel to bona fide users—a measure for which I had pressed for years.[1] This is an enormously important first step. The ultimate goal, however, should be the full multinationalization of the fuel cycle, in parallel with moving toward universal nuclear disarmament.
From my front-row seat to the nuclear dramas of the past two decades, I have seen over and again how the lack of a sense of fairness and equity in negotiations is guaranteed to sabotage even the most commonsensical, desirable, and just resolutions. The road to win-win bilateral cooperation is strewn with casualties, the victims of disrespect, distrust, self-defeating domestic politics, and painful historical legacies that do not fade overnight.
Still, improbable as it might seem, after the frustrations and even outrage of these years at the helm of the IAEA, I continue to believe that diplomacy has the capacity to resolve problems that might seem intractable. A key reason for optimism is the recent progress—both ideologically and concretely—on nuclear disarmament: a complete change of face, driven by the awareness that, with the spread of nuclear technology, the rise of extremism, and the increase in cases of proliferation, continuing the status quo is a formula for self-destruction. In a landmark essay, four seasoned veterans of the cold war—Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, Sam Nunn, and William Perry—declared the world to be “on the precipice of a new and dangerous nuclear era” and were bold enough to advocate, as a realistic goal, “a world free of nuclear weapons.”[2] The response was overwhelming. In the year that followed the article’s publication, I had the opportunity to touch base with each of these gentlemen. They spoke about the enthusiastic reception of their call for disarmament, which was far more than just a well-written op-ed; they each saw it as the start of a collective campaign to change the global outlook.[3]
On the anniversary of their first essay, the same four men published a second essay, following a conference at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. This time, they gave concrete recommendations for how to achieve disarmament.[4] That these stalwart cold warriors have moved in this direction is a stark indication of a new urgency animating disarmament activism.
Margaret Beckett, the British foreign secretary, added her voice to this call for disarmament, indicating her government’s approval and outlining steps to be taken:
What we need is both a vision—a scenario for a world free of nuclear weapons—and action—progressive steps to reduce warhead numbers and to limit the role of nuclear weapons in security policy. These two strands are separate, but they are mutually reinforcing. Both are necessary, but at the moment too weak.[5]
A number of similar efforts are under way. A major international campaign was launched in Paris in December 2008 under the name Global Zero. It has been joined by more than two hundred public figures from all walks of life: former heads of state, military generals, Nobel Prize winners, ministers and parliamentarians, influential writers, and other civic leaders. Using their influence and contact networks, these individuals have sought to advance and expand the diplomatic dialogue among key governments, advocating a phased drawdown of nuclear arsenals by all countries possessing such weapons.
On April 8, 2010, U.S. president Barack Obama and Russian president Dmitry Medvedev signed a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) in Prague. The limit set on deployed strategic warheads under the new treaty is 1,550, well below that of the 2002 Moscow Treaty—and this time the numbers will be verifiable and irreversible. Even before ratification of the new treaty by the U.S. Senate, the United States started to implement its provisions. The State Department’s published statistics at the end of 2009 showed a total of 1,968 deployed strategic warheads. According to the Federation of American Scientists, “the last time the United States deployed less than 2,000 strategic warheads was in 1956.”[6]
This movement on the part of the United States and Russia—the two countries with the greatest responsibility to show leadership in disarmament, since together they account for more than 95 percent of the nuclear warheads in existence—has sent a quite positive signal to the global community. But it is not enough. Both countries must speed the pace of dismantling the thousands of undeployed weapons and downgrade deployed weapons from their cold war alert status, to allow more time for the leaders of each country to verify and respond to reports of possible nuclear weapons use. In addition, the new START treaty must be followed and strengthened soon by other multilateral arms control agreements, such as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, both of which have long been in the works. But it is gratifying to see substantial movement in the right direction. By demonstrating their irreversible commitment to achieving a world free from nuclear threat, the nuclear-weapon states can greatly contribute to the legitimacy of the nonproliferation regime and gain the moral authority to detect, deter, and defeat any cheaters in the system, with the support of the entire international community.
1
The vote on this measure passed with twenty-eight in favor. Six countries abstained—Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, South Africa, Tunisia, and Venezuela—and Pakistan was absent. The abstentions reflect a remaining vestige of distrust about the purpose of the fuel bank, stemming from the early proposal from six Western countries that had asked participants to give up their fuel cycle rights as a condition of fuel supply. Hopefully, this distrust will dissipate over time.
3
In the lead-up to the 2008 U.S. presidential primaries, Bill Perry and Sam Nunn told me that, among the four of them, the two Democrats were working on the two remaining Democratic candidates, and the two Republicans were working on the Republican candidates, to ensure that, regardless of who made it into office, the next U.S. president would be committed to working toward a nuclear-weapon-free world.
4
George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger, and Sam Nunn, “Toward a Nuclear-Free World,”
6
Hans M. Kristensen, “United States Moves Rapidly Toward New START Warhead Limit,” Federation of American Scientists Strategic Security Blog, May 2, 2010, retrieved at www.fas.org/blog/ssp/category/hans_kristensen.