Obama and Nukes: Talking the Talk, Awaiting the Walk
By: David Krieger
http://www.miller-mccune.com/politics/obama-and-nukes-talking-the-talk-1491
The five permanent members of the United Nations
Security Council possess over 98 percent of the more
than 20,000 nuclear weapons in the world. Today,
President Barack Obama led a session of the council
focusing on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament.
We take that opportunity to present a dialogue between
David Krieger, president of the Nuclear Age Peace
Foundation - an organization strident in its opposition
to nuclear weapons - and Richard Falk, professor
emeritus of International Law and Practice at
University and the chair of the Nuclear Age Peace
Foundation. Falk and Krieger have written widely on
nuclear dangers and are co-editors of the 2008 book At
the Nuclear Precipice: Catastrophe or Transformation?
David Krieger: How seriously should we take the changes
that are being proposed by the Obama administration? Do
you see these proposals as a serious turning away from
catastrophe toward transformation?
Richard Falk: I think that this is a much more hopeful
time to consider these various issues bearing on
nuclear weapons and, at the same time, it's a rather
confusing and complicated time. Of course it's
appropriate and accurate, I think, to welcome the kind
of rhetorical leadership that President Obama has so
far exhibited, particularly in his
April 5. One has to hope that this is more than a
rhetorical posture, but represents, as he said in the
speech it did, a serious commitment to take concrete
steps toward the objective of a world free from nuclear
weapons. But one has to look at two other factors here
that make me, at any rate, somewhat less optimistic
about the real tangible results.
The first is the continuing confrontation with
a potential nuclear weapon state on the unspoken
assumption that we still will be living in a world
where some countries are allowed to have those weapons
and others are forbidden. It would be a very different
confrontation, from my perspective, if it was coupled
with a call for a Middle East free from nuclear weapons
altogether or a dual call to
take account of the existence of a nuclear weapon state
in the region already. But as far as I can tell there
is no disposition to do that.
A second concern, it seems to me, is the degree to
which the bureaucratic roots of the nuclear weapons
establishment are still very deep in the governmental
structure and very dedicated, as near as I can tell, to
pursuing a path that has some of President Obama's
rhetoric, but really aims at managing and stabilizing
the nuclear weapons arsenals of the world and,
particularly, the
sense, maintain this geopolitical structure of a world
where some have the weapons and supposedly the great
danger comes from the countries that don't have the
weapons. I find that an untenable and basically
unacceptable conception of world order in relation to
this challenge posed by the continued existence of nuclear weaponry.
DK: Should we be pushing for President Obama to call
for a Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone in the
for
our efforts should be focused, or should they be
focused on taking some large steps, such as negotiating
a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with
weapons in the world, so that is where a good deal of
progress could be made at this moment. Other issues
have been stalled for the eight years of the Bush
administration, including the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty, a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, gaining
control of loose nuclear materials, and dealing with
the potential threat posed by nuclear weapons falling
into the hands of non-state extremists. There is space
at this time for considerable progress on those issues
before moving to some of the tougher issues. I would
put a Middle East Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone into that
tougher issue category, and a Northeast Asian Nuclear
Weapons-Free Zone as well, dealing with concerns in
many practical questions, such as which issues should
we be focusing on now, which ones can come later, as we
actually move towards zero? There seems to be some
momentum now, at least in comparison to what we've had
for the Bush years and largely for the
RF: Yes, I think certainly there is a case to be made
in favor of moving forward on these avenues of arms
reduction and stabilization that have been blocked over
a period when the conservatives controlled security
policy for the
difficult issues are raised alongside these other
issues, they will never be raised, and there is, I
think, a quite serious urgency in the
some extent in the Indo-Pakistan region, central and
south
referred to. And maybe one perspective to bring into
the debate about next steps is to talk about these
kinds of regional conflict zones, because they pose
immediate problems that could lead to serious
deterioration. There is the possibility that Pakistan
could come under the control of very extremist
leadership and that
a development, and one could have the first war between
nuclear weapon states easily taking place. So I'm not
convinced myself that these general denuclearizing
steps should be privileged at this early stage of the
Obama presidency. I think they should certainly be
supported, but to allow them to dominate the political
agenda at this stage is, in my view, a tactical as well
as a strategic mistake.
DK: In the Prague speech, President Obama talked about
the importance of moving toward a world free of nuclear
weapons, but he didn't really indicate that it was
something that needed to be done with a sense of
urgency. He said something to this effect: "I'm not
naïve; this may take a long time. It may not happen
within my lifetime." Surely there is cause for concern
in that lack of urgency because it's a deferral of the
end state until some time in a future that can't yet be
foreseen. And that's a similar point of view to what
former officials like Kissinger, Shultz, Perry, Nunn
and others are also articulating. They think that a
world free of nuclear weapons would be a good thing,
but they can't see "the top of the mountain," as they put it.
RF: I disagree with you a little bit there. I think
there is a difference between the visionary approach
embodied in Obama's
assessment of the status of nuclear weapons in the
Kissinger, Shultz, Perry and Nunn statements. In their
case, ironically, they see getting rid of nuclear
weapons as a strategic benefit to the
this stage. They're worried about the spread of nuclear
weapons, which they don't think can be contained by the
present nonproliferation regime, and they further
believe that any further proliferation will neutralize
whatever benefits nuclear weapons have had up to this
point in serving American security interests since the
end of World War II. Kissinger initially made his
career as a policy advisor on the basis of advocating
the reliance on
to nuclear weapons in confronting the
even endorsing the Cold War idea of "limited nuclear
war." I believe Kissinger hasn't changed his worldview;
he just sees, and I think probably correctly from a
realist point of view, that the
would be less inhibited in a world without nuclear weapons.
DK: And the
world without nuclear weapons because of the power
imbalance that nuclear weapons make possible?
RF: Yes.
DK: Without U.S. leadership, the project is going to be
stalled. If the
particularly inclined to change its reliance on nuclear
weapons more than it is being forced to do by
economics, and other states won't be pressed to move in
that direction. So, I see the real starting point is
the
Obama has put on the table to the actual steps that
will move us closer to a nuclear weapons-free world,
not only in numbers of weapons but in how we treat the
weapons, how we view them in our strategic outlook, and
how much we rely upon them militarily.
RF: Yes, I think those are certainly good ways of
assessing the motivations associated with whatever
steps are advocated by the
position of leadership. I am a little bit less
convinced that the
providing the leadership. The most successful setting
for real momentum toward the goal of elimination would
be for mutually reinforcing developments to occur in
the other nuclear weapon states, because that would
both create a kind of encouragement here as well as not
make others suspicious that this was a kind of
tactical, Kissinger-like move to shift the pieces on
the global chess board so as to give the
grip on world politics. So I would put a lot of
emphasis on engaging the other nuclear weapon states in
a more global process of denuclearization. I think it
would be very good, for instance, to have speeches by
other leaders that responded in some way to the Obama
Prague speech, and to have civil society alerted and
mobilized to a much greater extent than it is at
present in these other countries to see this as a
moment of opportunity - stark opportunity. I think as
long as the climate in civil society is as passive as I
believe it still remains, even here, there will not be
much significant progress toward zero. There will be
some progress toward stabilization and management and
reducing the risks of unintended use of nuclear weapons
or perhaps making them more secure in relation to non-
state actors and other essentially managerial initiatives.
I believe quite strongly that without a movement from
below there will be no challenge to the nuclear weapons
establishment that is well situated in the governmental
structure that operates from above. I think President
Obama's political style is very much one of responding
to pressure and not being willing to take big political
risks to get out ahead of what he regards as the
relation of forces within society. I think he's shown
that in everything he's done so far, including his
appointments to important positions, the way he has
handled the economic crisis, the way he has handled the
Palestine-Israel conflict. In all these areas he's
taken a very low-risk, low-profile strategy except rhetorically.
DK: Most of what you refer to - for the
to supply nuclear materials and technology to a known
proliferator of nuclear weapons - occurred primarily
under the Bush administration. So it's too soon to tell
whether that's a policy that President Obama intends to follow.
I think we agree that a No First Use policy would be a
strong signal to the world that the
serious about moving toward a nuclear weapons-free
world. I think that we also agree that another signal
would be for the
Israel's nuclear arsenal, and to be more proactive
about a
RF: A third point that I think is important is the
serious commitment, either in collaboration with other
governments or on our own, to develop a roadmap that
sketched in a process that leads toward a world without nuclear weapons.
DK: I was just moving to that. One of the actions that
President Obama called for in his
Global
that global summit, what he was saying was in essence
that we want to prevent nuclear terrorism. If this
Global
it could be a really valuable project. The United
States has the convening power to bring together the
nations of the world that would be needed, including
the nine nuclear weapons states, for such a global
summit. These states could actually look at the
security issues related to nuclear weapons in all their
dimensions, including the dimension of the existing
nuclear weapons in the hands of the nine nuclear
weapons states, and the potential for accidents,
proliferation, and all of the other security issues
that nuclear weapons pose. It could include nuclear
policy issues, such as No First Use. It seems to me
that if the Global
broadened, that could actually be the place to initiate
a joint effort at developing a roadmap on the way to a
new treaty that would lead, with the appropriate
confidence-building measures and assurances against
cheating, to the phased, verifiable, irreversible, and
transparent elimination of nuclear weapons.
RF: I suspect that there will be a lot of pressure to
keep the global summit narrowly focused on the
terrorist issue, making the argument that if the focus
is diluted nothing will come out of the summit.
I think it's important to bring into the discussion the
role of the U.N. system and possibly regional groupings
of states, as well as to look at what groups in civil
society can do in relation to their own governments.
One of the important achievements in the latter stages
of the Cold War was the transnational peace movement in
opposition politics in
kind of collaboration that was often described as
détente from below. A public climate of opposition was
built through the mobilization of civil society that
created a context able to take advantage of other
opportunities for fundamental change. ....
We have to acknowledge that the place where democracy
seems to be least effective is in relation to the
national security agenda, and that ineffectiveness has
been reinforced now for decades of an essentially
militarist state having emerged out of first, World War
II, and then the long decades of the Cold War and
intensified after 9/11. In all these situations, what
one has observed is a continuity of a governmental
structure that is organized around the primacy of using
military power in the world. Eisenhower, of course
warned long ago, about the military-industrial complex
in his farewell address, but that's almost 50 years ago
and we now spend as much as the whole world put
together on our military budget. It's an extraordinary
thing. I mean Defense Secretary Gates was quoted
recently as saying that the American navy is stronger
than the navies of the next 13 powers in the world, but
despite this disparity we must still make it even
stronger. One needs to understand that a leader like
Obama is faced with that enormous antidemocratic,
militarized, bureaucratic structure and that he would
probably receive a vicious backlash from this military
establishment if he makes clear that his advocacy in
favor of eliminating nuclear weapons is intended to
become a real political project. At the same time, such
a move would be very, very reinforcing for his
leadership and for
certainly involve a fierce struggle with the national
security bureaucracy and its links to the media and to
certain think tanks and so on. I think this entrenched
militarism is a formidable obstacle astride the path to
a nuclear free world. It's not so much just that the
public is ill-informed; it is a matter of a hidden,
unaccountable power structure that does not want to
make basic changes. Incremental changes are acceptable,
but seeking basic changes invariably arouses formidable
bureaucratic resistance.
DK: Another signal may be what comes out of the U.S.-
that Bush made in 2002, which is still being
implemented, is to reduce the deployed strategic
arsenals on both the
1,700 and 2,200 nuclear weapons each. Under the Bush
agreement with Putin, the strategic weapons that are
taken off deployed status can either be put in storage
- the core can be placed in storage - or they can be
dismantled and destroyed. There's no limit to the
number of weapons that can be kept in reserve. The
Bush-Putin treaty only dealt with deployed strategic
weapons, so there's no limit to the number that can be
kept in reserve. Right now the
Russia, a number of weapons awaiting dismantlement, but
they also have a number of other weapons that are
considered strategic reserve weapons. How to count
remains an issue. Should there be one overall number -
strategic, tactical and reserve - or should there be
several numbers? Under the Bush plan, there was one
upper limit specified (2,200), but only for deployed
strategic weapons. Other numbers, for the overall
arsenal, for instance, were unspecified and unknown.
They were not subject to accounting. I think there
should be one number of nuclear weapons, and it should
be the same formula for each country. It should include
reserves and deployed weapons.
RF: That seems to me essential to the credibility of
any kind of disarming process in relation to other
nuclear weapon states.
DK: We don't yet know how the new negotiations will
handle the number, and we also don't know if they'll
actually make any significant reduction below the
current level that has been agreed to. There have been
a number of people who have suggested that going down
to 1,000 or less would be a good next step, but the
numbers that I've heard referred to in relation to the
Obama administration are around 1,500, which would be a
rather minimal incremental step downward. I'm not sure
how much emphasis to put on that kind of
incrementalism, or even on the number itself, when in
the bigger picture it is not the number that is
critical as much as it is the demonstration of
political will to achieve zero. At the same time, if it
turns out that it's not a very significant reduction, I
think that may be a warning sign that the bureaucrats
working on stabilization and wanting to continue
American nuclear dominance are in more control than perhaps Obama is.
RF: That's always a question as to how much leadership
is possible in the national security domain of policy
because of the strength of the permanent bureaucracy -
its nonaccountability and its links to influential
media. That's why I feel it is so important to have
this counter pressure mounted by a mobilized civil
society to the extent possible. The question is whether
it is possible to mobilize civil society around this
kind of issue in the absence of existential fear of the
sort that existed from time to time in the Cold War.
When the American or European public became very scared
about the prospect of a nuclear war, then the climate
of opinion changed in favor of denuclearizing initiatives and visions.
DK: I think the greater problem in relation to nuclear
energy is the intense desire of many countries around
the world to proceed with development of nuclear
energy, in part because they believe it shows a high
level of technological achievement. They have bought-in
to the promotional arguments that nuclear power will
provide a country with its energy needs at a relatively
low cost. I don't think that's a correct understanding,
but it's widespread. When I was at the 2009 Non-
Proliferation Treaty Preparatory Committee meeting, I
didn't hear one country denounce the idea of the spread
of nuclear energy technology, and most of them were
continuing to enthusiastically embrace it.
RF: I think the oil squeeze with rising prices and the
prospect of supply scarcities, as well as skepticism
about the contribution of solar and wind energy, is
making opposition to nuclear energy a losing battle. I
don't think you can stop the spread of nuclear energy
capabilities. What can be done is to insist on a
safeguarding and monitoring superstructure that makes
diversion for military development much more difficult.
Even this will be difficult to accomplish without
reciprocating denuclearizing moves by the nuclear weapons states.
DK: You absolutely have to stop the production and use
of highly enriched uranium; convert existing stockpiles
of highly enriched uranium to low-enriched uranium only
for power plants; have safeguards that involve
international challenge inspections; and control all
fissionable materials, including any reprocessing of
plutonium. It will be a major undertaking. It will make
the job of achieving a world free of nuclear weapons
harder by many degrees.
RF: Incredibly difficult, and it will be very difficult
to get countries, like the
kind of regulatory standards that it would want to
impose on others and without mutuality nothing very
significant can be achieved.
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