A WORLD FREE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Moving the Needle on Nuclear Security

Toward

President Obama in Prague

Czechoslovakia April 5,209,  Obama declared.“

    As the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act. We cannot succeed in this endeavor alone, but we can lead it; we can start it." "So today, I state, clearly and with conviction, America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons."

US hosts Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) in Washington

on April 13, 2010.  /46 Countries

Principal Four year goal of securing all vulnerable fissile materials and responding to the threat of nuclear terrorism.

 Communiqué Specifics:

    Consolidation of HEU and plutonium stocks and reduction in their  use.

    The universality and commitment to the terms of already ratified treaties.

    Abide by the GLOBAL INITIATIVE TO COMBAT NUCLEAR TERRRORISM (GICNT)

Bush and Putin (2006)  relying on the IMPLEMENTATION AND Assesment  GROUP (IAG). Building requirements through the exchange of technical  capacities to deter, detect, prevent, and respond to nuclear terrorists threats. (ratified by 67 states and now covers both peaceful (civilian) and Military nuclear applications).

 Through capacity building among law enforcement, industry and technical personnel.

  Provide additional resources for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to develop and facilitate the implementation of its’ Nuclear Security Guidelines and nuclear security assistance services to different (requesting) states. .

UN Security Council Resolution 1540  (in response to 9/11 , 2001 targeting non-state actors  {the A.Q. Kahn network} and Weapons of Mass Destruction.)

                   (The next NNS Summit in South Korea in November 2011)

(The Nuclear Security Summit):

 Support for the Work of the IAEA in providing technical assistance to states and promulgating best practices, including a the quick completion of the Latest revision of Circular 225 on “The Physical Protection of Nuclear  Material and Facilities.”

 (Together, the communiqué’ and the Work Plan will establish an evolving framework for an international nuclear security regime based on existing treaties and multilateral instruments). “The race between cooperation and Catastrophy.”

      For a vast majority of states, the threat of nuclear terrorism is remote and concern about the physical protection of materials of facilities is esoteric at best .  Formulating partnerships to address mutually identified needs that are directly pertinent to nuclear security objectives creates requisite ownership of the outcomes. For long-term sustainability, there must be baseline security standards formulated by consensus. 

  The United Nations Security Council also provides the “power filter” for what achieves global coverage. In this case, however, they also constitute the  "treaty –based”  legitimate nuclear weapons states. Thereby, any security Council resolution or US-launched initiative that attempts to prescribe standards and dictate obligations on nuclear security will elicit suspicion and be deemed illegitimate. 

  Using robust legal forensics to compel implementation of security standards would be considered counter productive a this stage. It would be slow and difficult to establish and would only generate greater animosity and resistance to the realization of the summit’s immediate objectives.

Current synergistic Approaches:

 In response to a 2008 congressional mandate, the National Academy of Sciences (NASS) convened a high-level panel to analyze “options for strengthening and expanding the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Program.” CTR, also known as Nunn-Lugar, which encompasses the efforts spurred by the Soviet Union’s collapse to address an array of proliferation threats,  physical protection of nuclear weapons and materials being chief among them. The Academy's report praised CTR's efforts and recommended an enhanced suite program  (CTR2.0) to be undertaken by the US government , as part of a cooperative network  that includes a wide range of countries, international organizations, and nongovernmental partners.

     CTR 2.0 will include efforts to promote industrial, chemical and biological safety and security: counter-smuggling; counter-piracy; border security; maritime security; securing and eliminating excess conventional munitions; nuclear contamination assessment; and emergency response planning and training.  The focus on mutually agreed objectives is a means to generate incentives for states to implement the obligations set forth by the NSS documents.  This engenders “ownership” and therefore insures  sustainability of the program.

 Summary: The NUCLEAR SECURITY SUMMIT (NSS) represents a well-thought-out and executed experiment to strive for legitimacy with a “non-treaty,”  expedited forum of “like-minded” states. It is only through its’ systems-wide view of the relevant infrastructure, especially as it pertains to the human dimension of these requirements, that sustainable results for our nuclear security assistance will be achieved. It has been  unilateral in it genesis, but broadly multilateral and diverse in the collection of states for its delivery.  The NSS Work Plan clearly recognized this reality in its extensive treatment of infrastructure (robust regulatory capacity, including independent oversight and enforceable standards for industry) and attention to the “human dimension” that will  reliably sustain that infrastructure into the future.

The commitments it produced provide the initial framework for An International Nuclear Security Regime, in view of the overlapping and extensive obligations encompassed by the  Communique’ as well as the layered delineation of critical requirements detailed in the Work Plan.

Information from this article and other sources plus a nineteen minute video, “Radiation Challenge,”will be shown as a Free public offering.  The date and venue will be posted as an event on this Web Site.

Time to get everybody informed and active,      Stan  Dienst    PSR.