tag:theconversation.com,2011:/nz/topics/nuclear-policy-21471/articlesNuclear policy – The Conversation2022-02-27T23:08:01Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1779232022-02-27T23:08:01Z2022-02-27T23:08:01ZAs Putin puts nuclear forces on high alert, here are 5 genuine nuclear dangers for us all<p>Russian president Vladimir Putin overnight ordered the defence minister and the chief of the military to put nuclear deterrent forces in a “special regime of combat duty”, possibly referring to readying tactical nuclear forces. </p>
<p>This could of course be a bluff, but Putin has demonstrated on numerous occasions he has a cavalier disrespect for human life and for the planet, and that he is willing to take extreme risks to achieve his strategic goals.</p>
<p>The risk Putin would order the use of nuclear weapons in response to a US or NATO intervention is low, but it cannot be dismissed. The US has described the escalation as “dangerous rhetoric”.</p>
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<p>This deeply worrying development underscores how high the global nuclear stakes have become in recent weeks. The war in Ukraine should be a wake up call to everyone that nuclear dangers are real. </p>
<p>Will we act to eliminate the nuclear threat or press mute on the alarm and drift back to sleep? </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-can-the-west-do-to-help-ukraine-it-can-start-by-countering-putins-information-strategy-177912">What can the West do to help Ukraine? It can start by countering Putin's information strategy</a>
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<h2>5 genuine nuclear dangers</h2>
<p>Nuclear weapons aren’t just abstract instruments intended to deter aggression and maintain stability.</p>
<p>As countries modernise and expand their nuclear weapons arsenals, experts around the world have been warning nuclear weapons are increasingly being seen as “usable” by the political and military leaders who wield them. </p>
<p>They could be used:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>in a strategy to gain the upper hand</p></li>
<li><p>in an escalating conflict to try to force an adversary to back down</p></li>
<li><p>as a weapon of last resort</p></li>
<li><p>in response to an incoming missile that is mistakenly believed to be nuclear-armed</p></li>
<li><p>by accident if command and control systems break down. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>The fact Ukraine does not possess nuclear weapons doesn’t negate these risks. There are genuine dangers the conflict could take on a nuclear dimension.</p>
<h2>Possible nuclear scenarios</h2>
<p>Nuclear capabilities abound in Europe, and nuclear intentions can be hard to decipher. </p>
<p>On one side, Ukraine’s attacker, Russia, has the largest stockpile of nuclear warheads in the world, including superiority in tactical nuclear weapons designed for battlefield use.</p>
<p>On the other side, Ukraine’s most powerful strategic partner, the United States, also has an extremely large and sophisticated nuclear stockpile. NATO partners France and the UK have their own advanced nuclear capabilities; and NATO-sharing states Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey host US nuclear weapons on their territory. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448763/original/file-20220227-27-ciw227.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448763/original/file-20220227-27-ciw227.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448763/original/file-20220227-27-ciw227.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448763/original/file-20220227-27-ciw227.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448763/original/file-20220227-27-ciw227.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448763/original/file-20220227-27-ciw227.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448763/original/file-20220227-27-ciw227.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448763/original/file-20220227-27-ciw227.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Russian ICBM missile launchers move during a military parade in 2016. Russia has the largest stockpile of nuclear warheads in the world.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko</span></span>
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<p>The risk of nuclear use stems from tensions escalating between Russia, the US and NATO, even as the latter try to resist being drawn directly into the war. </p>
<p>Although it is extremely unlikely the US or its NATO allies would set out to conduct a nuclear strike against Russia, it is possible to imagine several scenarios that could lead them to become entangled in the conflict, leading to unintended nuclear escalation. </p>
<p>The most serious danger is that of misperception: the risk that action taken by the US or NATO in support of Ukraine is misinterpreted by Russia as a deliberate strategic provocation. </p>
<p>This is not a far-fetched scenario given Russia’s nuclear posture, which maintains nuclear forces on high alert, and given the nuclear threats made by President Putin.</p>
<p>In the minutes before the military offensive began, Putin <a href="https://www.gbnews.uk/news/putin-warns-of-immediate-response-with-consequences-never-seen-in-history-if-west-retaliates-to-ukraine-attack/233857">threatened</a> anyone who intervenes with </p>
<blockquote>
<p>consequences as you have never before experienced in your history. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>It was a chilling reminder Russia (like France, Pakistan, the UK, the US and possibly North Korea), does not rule out using nuclear weapons first in a conflict. </p>
<p>Would Putin follow through with his threat? At the time, he made sure to emphasise that Russia “has certain advantages in a number of the latest types of nuclear weapons” in case anyone was in any doubt. </p>
<h2>What’s needed now</h2>
<p>This raises urgent questions about how to support Ukraine and de-escalate the conflict. The war needs to be stopped, for the sake of the Ukrainian people, for the sake of Europe, for the sake of humanity, and for the sake of life on earth. </p>
<p>This might sound like hyperbole until you consider that if the international community fails to mount an effective response to Putin’s actions in Ukraine, it will signal the beginning of a brutal new era of “rule by might”. </p>
<p>A world in which the leaders of nuclear-armed states can pursue expansionist campaigns unconstrained by international law, and without fear of reprisal. </p>
<p>Two steps are vital. </p>
<p>First, political leaders must come together in support of collective security and international law. Economic sanctions are not enough. UN member states should use the UN system in the way it was originally designed to function in the post-war era, to respond collectively and decisively to acts of aggression.</p>
<p>With UN Security Council action blocked by the Russian veto, the UN General Assembly has the power to act via the “Uniting for Peace” principle, which imposes a duty on UN member states to implement a coordinated response to aggression when the Security Council fails to respond. </p>
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<p>Second, ordinary people around the world need to make it clear we will no longer tolerate living under the threat of nuclear war.</p>
<p>Nuclear weapons empower erratic and volatile heads of governments in despotic and democratic countries alike and create unacceptable risks for all humanity. </p>
<p>They are not stabilisers. They do not create “order”. Nuclear deterrence has failed again and again, bringing the world to the brink on too many occasions. </p>
<p>It’s time to demand the elimination of nuclear weapons and the creation of stable security arrangements based on a properly functioning UN system that upholds international law. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/russia-is-using-an-onslaught-of-cyber-attacks-to-undermine-ukraines-defence-capabilities-177638">Russia is using an onslaught of cyber attacks to undermine Ukraine's defence capabilities</a>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tanya Ogilvie-White is affiliated with the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network and the New Zealand Centre for Global Studies.</span></em></p>Experts around the world have been warning nuclear weapons are increasingly being seen as ‘usable’ by the political and military leaders who wield them.Tanya Ogilvie-White, Senior Fellow at the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1724742021-12-21T19:14:08Z2021-12-21T19:14:08ZHow to make up your mind about the pros and cons of nuclear power<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438694/original/file-20211221-23072-ka5u8x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C5%2C1220%2C578&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Can't decide? Let scientists guide your thinking. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nuclear Yes Please/Wise International</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>French president Emmanuel Macron has <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/macron-says-france-will-build-more-nuclear-energy-reactors-2021-11-09/">recently announced</a> that France will invest €1 billion into nuclear power, and build more reactors by 2030 to help stave off Europe’s energy crisis.</p>
<p>But even in France, where nuclear provides <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/d06500e2-7fd2-4753-a54b-bc16f1faadd8">more than 70%</a> of the country’s energy mix, the issue is controversial.</p>
<p>The debate is <a href="https://www.refletsdelaphysique.fr/images/stories/news/60-en/Reflets-60_EN_Taking-part.pdf">particularly polarised</a> among those who live near nuclear power plants, depending on whether or not they profit either materially or symbolically from this proximity. There is also a <a href="https://www.refletsdelaphysique.fr/images/stories/news/60-en/Reflets-60_EN_The-constant-tension-between-the-press-and-nuclear-power.pdf">constant tension between the press and the nuclear sector</a> over coverage of the industry.</p>
<p>Decades since the first nuclear power plant was built, the debate is still hindered by misunderstandings over both the advantages and drawbacks of this technology.</p>
<h2>Contrasting views</h2>
<p>As physicists, the two of us mainly agree on the scientific and technological basics of the debate, and on every argument based on verifiable facts. But our different sensibilities as citizens lead us to weigh each argument differently and reach different conclusions on nuclear power.</p>
<p>One of us (Stefano Panebianco) estimates that the advantages of this technology make it a viable choice for the future, while the other (François Graner) estimates that our efforts should focus on a significant decrease in our energy consumption.</p>
<p>By drawing on our contrasting views based on a shared understanding of the scientific evidence, we want to help others form an opinion by listing the pros and cons of nuclear power using the rigorous methods of our everyday life as scientists.</p>
<p>To do so, we asked experts from across the spectrum, including physicists, economists, political scientists, anthropologists, historians, journalists, and NGO volunteers to contribute to a <a href="https://www.refletsdelaphysique.fr/dossiers/256-nuclear-power-open-ended-questions-and-points-of-view">review</a> of the major questions relating to nuclear power. The collected works do not provide a conclusion: we leave it to the readers to draw their own.</p>
<p>So, how should you make up your mind? Here are the basics.</p>
<h2>Making choices about the future</h2>
<p>The physics underlying nuclear production of electricity are <a href="https://www.refletsdelaphysique.fr/images/stories/news/60-en/Reflets-60_EN_Electronuclear-technology-in-France-today.pdf">well known</a>. It is rather the industrialisation of the process that raises questions.</p>
<p>Scientific and technological research organisations try to anticipate future energy needs and develop new types of nuclear reactors to replace existing ones. Such research should not predict future choices to be made by politicians and society. However, it is a long-term process which often takes <a href="https://www.refletsdelaphysique.fr/images/stories/news/60-en/Reflets-60_EN_New-nuclear-reactor-designs.pdf">several decades of research, design, development and experimentation</a> before approval, and hence the choices of research directions today can be somewhat binding for the future.</p>
<p>For instance, the study of fast neutron breeder reactor design and optimisation is a long-standing research field. This would allow nuclear fuel to be recycled, which would preserve natural uranium resources and reduce nuclear waste.</p>
<p>In France, two successive demonstrators, <a href="http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2011/ph241/abdul-kafi1/">Phenix and Super-Phenix</a>, were built and operated last century and a third one, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-nuclearpower-astrid-idUSKCN1VK0MC">Astrid</a>, was planned in recent years. However, all of these projects have been subject to successive government decisions to pursue, stop, resume, and recently in the case of Astrid, stop again, or at least defer. These decisions were made based on economic, environmental, political and strategical criteria.</p>
<h2>How much does it cost?</h2>
<p>Natural uranium, which is used as fuel in power plants, is still a relatively abundant resource and does not yet contribute much to the total cost of nuclear energy.</p>
<p>The French Court of Auditors estimated the current average generation cost of nuclear energy for a life-span of 50 years at <a href="https://www.refletsdelaphysique.fr/images/stories/news/60-en/Reflets-60_EN_The-Cost-of-Generating-Nuclear-Electricity.pdf">€60 per megawatt-hour</a>, equivalent to six cents per kilowatt-hour. Though comparisons with other electricity sources are difficult to make, the highly variable public sale price of electricity is around 15 cents per kilowatt-hour.</p>
<p>Cost estimates heavily depend on hypotheses about the future, including the prolongation of power plant duration, waste choices and the decommissioning of reactors. Although decisions are often taken within the short-term vision of an electoral mandate, <a href="https://www.refletsdelaphysique.fr/images/stories/news/60-en/Reflets-60_EN_Managing-radioactive-waste.pdf">waste policy must take long-term implications into account</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the technical feasibility of decommissioning <a href="https://www.refletsdelaphysique.fr/images/stories/news/60-en/Reflets-60_EN_Decommissioning-nuclear-facilities.pdf">is still hard to predict</a> owing to different levels of understanding of the various reactor types. To maintain or decommission a nuclear power plant requires anticipation in term of money, know-how and energy, and so largely engages the next generations.</p>
<p>Nuclear power thus requires long-term political, financial and geological stability.</p>
<h2>Is it safe?</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://www.refletsdelaphysique.fr/images/stories/news/60-en/Reflets-60_EN_Radioactivity-in-the-environment.pdf">public debates</a> about safety, a purely technical subject has been transformed into a political one.</p>
<p>Radioactivity must be controlled throughout all stages of the nuclear fuel chain to prevent any harmful effects on either humans or the environment. The risk of <a href="https://www.refletsdelaphysique.fr/images/stories/news/60-en/Reflets-60_EN_The-risk-of-nuclear-accidents.pdf">nuclear accidents</a>, whether related to natural events, human error, waste, malice or war, has been addressed over the decades by significant improvements and by experience feedback from the two main accidents of Chernobyl and Fukushima. However, it remains a major preoccupation for the general public.</p>
<p>Preventing accidents involves many factors, including the human one; the know-how and motivation of workers depend on a <a href="https://www.refletsdelaphysique.fr/images/stories/news/60-en/Reflets-60_EN_Subcontracting-and-quality.pdf">strong partnership between operator and subcontractors</a>.</p>
<p>Other environmental impacts during normal operations include the exposure of nuclear workers and the public to <a href="https://www.refletsdelaphysique.fr/images/stories/news/60-en/Reflets-60_EN_The-impact-of-nuclear-power-plants-under-normal-operation-on-health-and-the-environment.pdf">chemical or thermal emissions</a>: the latter becomes problematic with the global warming, as river water required to run reactors becomes scarce and warmer.</p>
<h2>Does nuclear have a role in fighting climate change?</h2>
<p>What is the future of nuclear power? Scientists cannot make predictions. Instead, scenarios are useful tools for examining possible consequences and costs of hypotheses or choices, for instance by <a href="https://www.refletsdelaphysique.fr/images/stories/news/60-en/Reflets-60_EN_Envisioning-the-energy-future.pdf">decreasing greenhouse gas emissions or even decreasing energy demand</a>.</p>
<p>The fact that nuclear power plants do not emit carbon, at least during the phase of electricity production (as opposed to the whole fuel and plant life cycles), is an argument to consider in the context of bringing down global emissions.</p>
<p>Nuclear plants also deliver constant power, which is a drawback in terms of adaptation to demand, but an advantage in terms of regularity: development of intermittent renewable energies such as solar and wind <a href="https://www.refletsdelaphysique.fr/images/stories/news/60-en/Reflets-60_EN_Electricity-transmission.pdf">exert pressure on electricity distribution networks</a>, as these energies are not necessarily always available at peak times.</p>
<h2>The role of politics</h2>
<p>In practice, global energy transition scenarios are often used to <a href="https://www.refletsdelaphysique.fr/images/stories/news/60-en/Reflets-60_EN_Nuclear-power-in-global-energy-transition-scenarios.pdf">establish and endorse choices that have already been made</a>.</p>
<p>Globally, the decisions which have actually been taken rely heavily on geopolitics, for instance attempts to bring down reliance on petrol imports, and also <a href="https://www.refletsdelaphysique.fr/images/stories/news/60-en/Reflets-60_EN_The-technological-priorities-of-French-nuclear-power.pdf">decisions to develop military nuclear power</a> alongside energy policy.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.refletsdelaphysique.fr/images/stories/news/60-en/Reflets-60_EN_Civil-and-military-nuclear-power.pdf">dual system of funding civil and military research</a> alongside one another is only justified if nuclear weapons are developed, which is again a political decision.</p>
<h2>Why it’s so hard to decide</h2>
<p>In deciding what to think about nuclear power, the list of arguments to take into account is <a href="https://www.refletsdelaphysique.fr/images/stories/news/60-en/Reflets-60_EN_Some-unresolved-questions-and-unaddressed-points.pdf">frustratingly large</a>, and many are coupled together. For instance, some reactors, loaded with the so-called mixed uranium and plutonium oxide fuel, partly contribute to recycle some nuclear products. Shutting them down could have the side effect of filling the current waste storage facilities more quickly than expected.</p>
<p>Even worse, decisions are often based on speculative hypotheses due to the difficulty of prediction. What is beyond doubt is that any decision taken or not taken today will affect future generations more than our own.</p>
<p>This means citizens should not leave decisions to be taken only on the basis of scientific or technical arguments, but should make up their own minds, taking into account the political and societal horizon they want for themselves and their children.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172474/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>François Graner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond his academic appointment.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stefano Panebianco does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond his academic appointment.</span></em></p>It can be hard to make up your mind about nuclear power. Two scientists help you sort through the arguments and come to your own conclusions.François Graner, Directeur de recherche CNRS, Université Paris CitéStefano Panebianco, Senior Staff Scientist, CERNLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1688112021-10-15T11:36:05Z2021-10-15T11:36:05ZFrench outrage over US submarine deal will not sink a longstanding alliance<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425763/original/file-20211011-19-13qee2y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=148%2C47%2C4291%2C2310&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">French President Emmanuel Macron talks to U.S. President Joe Biden at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters in Brussels on June 14, 2021.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/frances-president-emmanuel-macron-talks-to-us-president-joe-news-photo/1233447127?adppopup=true">BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/POOL/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>France’s recent recall of its <a href="https://apnews.com/article/france-recalls-ambassadors-us-australia-submarines-0322cefb3783f9e90ee8f0c3a738717e">ambassador to the United States</a> was an exceptional move in the long history of France-U.S. relations, which began with the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/february-06/">1778 treaties</a> that created a military and commercial alliance between the two countries.</p>
<p>In France, President Joe Biden’s Sept. 15, 2021 announcement of a new trilateral security partnership between the U.S., Australia and Great Britain was <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/17/france-recalls-ambassadors-to-us-australia-to-protest-submarine-deal.html">met with disbelief and outrage</a>.</p>
<p>The alliance, which enables Australia to acquire U.S. nuclear-powered submarine technology, voids a <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/09/19/1038746061/submarine-deal-us-uk-australia-france">US$66 billion submarine deal</a> Australia <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/09/15/us-will-share-nuclear-submarine-technology-with-australia-part-new-alliance-direct-challenge-china/">signed with France in 2016</a>.</p>
<p>Beyond the financial implications his country will face after Australia’s change of mind, French Foreign Minister <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-58610234">Jean-Yves Le Drian accused the U.S.</a> and its partners of “lying, duplicity, a major breach of trust and contempt.”</p>
<p>A Sept. 22 telephone conversation between Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron helped sketch a path toward reconciliation. The two leaders <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/09/22/joint-statement-on-the-phone-call-between-president-biden-and-president-macron/">agreed on in-depth consultations</a> on matters of strategic interest, to be followed by a meeting in Europe at the end of October. Yet Le Drian acknowledged that resolving the crisis “<a href="https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/french-foreign-policy/united-nations/news-and-events/news/news-2021/article/united-nations-united-states-of-america-communique-by-jean-yves-le-drian-23">would take time and require actions</a>.” </p>
<p>But despite French outrage over the deal, there is little chance of irreparable damage between the two countries. If anything, the current diplomatic crisis highlights a cycle of conflict and rapprochement that, as <a href="https://doi.org/10.4000/angles.408">my research shows</a>, has been characteristic of U.S.-France relations since the very beginning.</p>
<p>High expectations between the U.S. and a country that is often described as its “oldest ally” have often led to diplomatic misunderstandings and quarrels in the past.</p>
<h2>‘Perfidy,’ privateers and protests</h2>
<p>Less than 20 years after French and American soldiers fought side by side against the British on the <a href="http://brandywinebattlefield.org/battle/">battlefields of Brandywine</a> and Yorktown, the two nations were at odds over the <a href="https://guides.loc.gov/jays-treaty">Jay Treaty of 1794</a>, which restored economic relations between the U.S. and Great Britain.</p>
<p>France considered the treaty a betrayal by America. In a note that echoes minister Le Drian’s recent grievances, the governing five-member <a href="https://archive.org/details/struggleforneutr00albe/page/234/mode/2up">French Directorate complained</a> that “The government of the United States has added the full measure of perfidy towards the French Republic, its most faithful ally.”</p>
<p>France consequently allowed its privateers to seize U.S. merchant ships, inflicting considerable <a href="https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/the-french-assault-on-american-shipping-1793-1813/">injury to American commerce</a>. </p>
<p>In the U.S., protests erupted in Philadelphia demanding war with France. And Congress soon passed legislation to fund a naval force, as well as the <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/alsedact.asp">Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798</a>, which increased the residency requirement for American citizenship from five to 14 years, allowed the deportation of foreigners who were considered dangerous and restricted speech critical of the government.</p>
<p>The undeclared naval war that followed, later known as the “<a href="https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/quasi-war/">Quasi-War</a>,” continued until the 1800 <a href="https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/quasi-war/treaty-of-mortefontaine/#:%7E:text=The%20Convention%20of%201800%20or%20Treaty%20of%20Mortefontaine%20resulted%20in,the%20United%20States%20and%20France.">Treaty of Mortefontaine</a>, which reestablished more friendly relations between the two countries. During the hostilities, <a href="https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/quasi-war/">France seized over 2,000 American ships</a> along the Atlantic coast and in the West Indies. </p>
<h2>US ill will</h2>
<p>The two nations again barely avoided war during the 1852-1870 reign of Napoleon III.</p>
<p>In 1862, the French emperor attempted to establish a puppet regime in Mexico and installed Maximilian of Habsburg as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Maximilian-archduke-of-Austria-and-emperor-of-Mexico">emperor of Mexico</a>.</p>
<p>For Napoleon III, this Catholic and Latin monarchy would counter the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=WX-GDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA111&lpg=PA111&dq=Napoleon+III+Mexico+counter+the+influence+of+the+Protestant+and+republican+U.S.&source=bl&ots=sYsILiMkXP&sig=ACfU3U2jQJ-I8ajh0WxXrtM7kxLKDdLEoA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj61o3G1MLzAhXShXIEHRQqAcIQ6AF6BAggEAM#v=onepage&q=Napoleon%20III%20Mexico%20counter%20the%20influence%20of%20the%20Protestant%20and%20republican%20U.S.&f=false">influence of the Protestant and republican U.S.</a> in the New World. </p>
<p>The U.S. considered the move a violation of the <a href="https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=23">Monroe Doctrine</a>, the foreign policy established in 1823 by President James Monroe which stated that any European interference in the Western Hemisphere would be viewed as a hostile act against the U.S.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425766/original/file-20211011-19-2kcuuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Cartoon depicting the Monroe Doctrine." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425766/original/file-20211011-19-2kcuuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425766/original/file-20211011-19-2kcuuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425766/original/file-20211011-19-2kcuuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425766/original/file-20211011-19-2kcuuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425766/original/file-20211011-19-2kcuuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425766/original/file-20211011-19-2kcuuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425766/original/file-20211011-19-2kcuuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The cartoon depicts Uncle Sam as a large rooster, while other roosters, representing South American countries, walk free. European nations are represented by birds in a coop marked ‘Monroe doctrine.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/political-cartoon-with-the-caption-his-foresight-europe-news-photo/96744464?adppopup=true">Fotosearch/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although the U.S. could not retaliate directly during the Civil War, fearing France would side with the Confederacy, Secretary of State William Henry Seward repeatedly warned the French that their interference in Mexico <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24912328?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">would lead to grave consequences</a>. </p>
<p>By 1865, with the Civil War over, talk of a Franco-American war became widespread after President Andrew Johnson sent General John M. Schofield to Paris to warn the French that time was running out before the U.S. would resort to military intervention to <a href="https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2001.05.0131%3Achapter%3D20%3Apage%3D382">expel Napoleon III’s forces from Mexico</a>.</p>
<p>Although Napoleon III finally agreed to withdraw his troops, this Mexican intervention earned France much ill will in the U.S. </p>
<p>Its effects would be felt during the 1870 <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Franco-German-War">Franco-Prussian War</a>, when despite the U.S. government’s neutral position, American public opinion clearly <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/29738451">favored the Germans over the French</a>.</p>
<h2>20th-century tension</h2>
<p>Diplomatic crises between the U.S. and France recurred throughout the 20th century. </p>
<p><a href="https://adst.org/2014/06/france-has-degaulle-to-withdraw-from-nato/">According to U.S. diplomat George Vest</a>, President Charles de Gaulle’s decision to withdraw France from NATO’s integrated military command in 1966 prompted former Secretary of State <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Dean-Acheson">Dean Acheson</a> and other foreign policy advisors to “figure every single way to throw the book back at France, put our relations to the minimum, retaliate in every punitive way we could.” </p>
<p>In the end, however, President Lyndon B. Johnson responded by telling de Gaulle that the <a href="https://www.cvce.eu/en/obj/letter_from_us_president_lyndon_b_johnson_to_general_de_gaulle_22_march_1966-en-f85d2acd-3287-458e-9486-18a94773a09f.html">U.S. was determined to join</a> with other NATO members in preserving the deterrent system of the alliance.</p>
<p>In 1986, relations again soured after President François Mitterrand refused to let American bomber planes fly through French airspace on their way to strike <a href="https://www.airforcemag.com/article/0399canyon/">military targets in Libya</a>. Anti-French <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1986/04/20/world/tension-over-libya-thousands-take-streets-anti-us-protests-spread-europeans.html">demonstrations followed in several U.S. cities</a>. Crowds poured Bordeaux wine down the gutter and burned French products in bonfires.</p>
<p>Another crisis followed France’s refusal to support the U.S invasion of Iraq in 2003. American officials’ anger and desire to “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/23/international/worldspecial/us-officials-consider-ways-to-punish-france.html">punish France</a>” was accompanied by a media campaign against the French “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/feb/11/pressandpublishing.usa">cheese-eating surrender monkeys</a>.” </p>
<p>The diplomatic confrontation <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/book/history-2003-iraq-crisis">left very serious strains</a>, which were not fully resolved until 2005, when bilateral relations resumed a more normal course.</p>
<p>In all these instances, as in today’s crisis, reactions on both sides went beyond the realm of politics: The language of passion replaced the more neutral discourse of diplomacy.</p>
<p>This passionate turn is the result of the mythology that surrounds France’s vision of itself as the “<a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/SecBlinken/status/1408137689954672642">oldest ally</a>” of the U.S. and of America’s idealistic vision of itself as France’s sole savior during <a href="https://www.worldwar1centennial.org/index.php/communicate/press-media/wwi-centennial-news/4564-retreat-hell-we-just-got-here-the-marines-at-belleau-wood-and-blanc-mont.html">World War I</a> and <a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AmericaWonWorldWarII">World War II</a>. </p>
<p>This mythology that whatever happens, France and the U.S. should always be on the same side – politically, economically and diplomatically – hinders more realistic relations between the two countries. </p>
<p>Going beyond the “oldest ally” rhetoric could allow both countries to take a more productive look at the true nature of their relations: those of two democratic nations whose interests sometimes coincide, sometimes diverge in the complex world of 21st-century international relations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168811/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hervé-Thomas Campangne does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Despite a ‘major breach of trust,’ the recent spat between France and the US corresponds to a long cycle of conflict and rapprochement between the two countries.Hervé-Thomas Campangne, Professor of French Studies, University of MarylandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1110242019-02-05T11:39:54Z2019-02-05T11:39:54ZA nuclear treaty between Russia and the US is falling apart – can it be saved?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257119/original/file-20190204-193203-2nnatg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, speaks to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Russia-US-Arms-Treaty/a7487e777c624e729bee3bc4a1219213/5/0">Alexei Nikolsky, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Feb. 1 that the United States would withdraw from <a href="https://www.state.gov/t/avc/trty/102360.htm#text">its nuclear weapons treaty</a> with Russia.</p>
<p>Since the Obama administration, the U.S. has accused Russia <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/opinion/sunday/trump-russia-nuclear-treaty-inf.html">of being in violation</a> of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which prohibits the U.S. and Russia from developing a certain types of ballistic and cruise missiles. A day after Pompeo’s announcement, President <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/02/world/europe/russia-inf-treaty.html">Vladimir Putin announced</a> that Russia would also suspend its participation in the treaty.</p>
<p>The treaty is not dead yet. The announcements serve as the six month’s notice required by the treaty before parties can withdraw. There is still time to reconcile differences.</p>
<p>But I don’t think that will happen.</p>
<p>I <a href="http://www.ugapress.org/index.php/books/state_behavior_and_the_nuclear_nonproliferation_regime">worked on issues</a> related to arms control and nuclear nonproliferation at both the State Department and Department of Defense.</p>
<p>Here’s why a resolution is unlikely.</p>
<h2>Cold War context</h2>
<p>In the 1970s, the Soviet Union began placing missiles in strategic locations within its territory that could each carry three nuclear warheads a distance of about 2,500 miles. </p>
<p>These SS-20 missles were in a category of weapons called “intermediate-range ballistic missiles.” The missiles could strike almost all 29 member states of the North Atlantaic Treaty Orgnization with the exception of the U.S. and Canada.</p>
<p>At the time, NATO did not have a way to address the new threat through diplomacy with the Soviets. Nor did they have equivalent missiles capable of striking strategic locations in the Soviet Union from Western Europe.</p>
<p>The U.S. sought to reassure NATO allies and deter a nuclear Soviet attack on Western Europe. In the early 1980s, it placed <a href="https://fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/theater/pershing2.htm">the Pershing II ballistic missile</a>, as well as other missiles in Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and West Germany. </p>
<p>The move was designed in part to counter the Soviet missile threat, and also <a href="https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/1026962.pdf">persuade the Soviets to negotiate</a> to limit the number of intermediate and short-range missiles on both sides in Europe and the Soviet Union.</p>
<h2>Terms of the treaty</h2>
<p>Negotiations between the U.S. and Soviet Union began in 1979 in the late stages of the Carter administration. The aim was to limit the number of intermediate-range missiles each could deploy. The negotiations carried over into the Reagan administration with various proposals on how many missiles each side could have and where they were be allowed to be placed.</p>
<p>In 1987, Mikhail Gorbachev proposed eliminating all short- and intermediate-range missiles. This led to the <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/issue-briefs/2019-02/inf-treaty-crisis-background-next-steps">landmark INF Treaty</a> that banned the entire class of missiles. The treaty was signed by Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev on Dec. 8, 1987.</p>
<p>Both sides agreed to eliminate all existing cruise and ballistic missiles that could be launched from the ground (as opposed to from the sea or sky) and had a range between roughly 300 and 3,400 miles. They also pledged to “not have such systems thereafter.” </p>
<p>Before the treaty’s implementation deadline in 1991, the U.S. and Russia destroyed more than 2,500 missiles covered by the treaty.</p>
<h2>Nuclear powers beyond Russia</h2>
<p>The United States <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/INFtreaty">first became concerned</a> with Russian compliance with the treaty in 2014, when it alleged that Russia had tested a missile that violated the range restrictions of the treaty. Russia denied the accusation.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, countries such China, Iran or North Korea, are not constrained by any treaties related to developing missiles that can carry nuclear weapons. These countries <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/the-moscow-missile-mystery-is-russia-actually-violating-the-inf-treaty/">have continued to develop or are considering developing</a> such missile technology. </p>
<p><a href="https://sputniknews.com/world/2007021060519251/">Russia began to fear</a> in the mid-2000s that the treaty was constraining its military options.</p>
<p>Some analysts have argued the U.S. should abandon the INF Treaty for <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/10/23/how-china-plays-into-trumps-decision-pull-out-inf-treaty-with-russia/?utm_term=.1e13c28e9cc5">this same reason</a> – not because of Russian noncompliance, but because it limits U.S. military options <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/10/23/the-inf-treaty-hamstrings-the-u-s-trump-is-right-to-leave-it/?utm_term=.8bc8f3a606bb">vis-à-vis China</a>. The treaty prohibits the U.S. from putting ground-launched, short-range missiles in places like Japan. Trump’s national security adviser <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424053111903918104576500273389091098">John Bolton is a firm proponent</a> of this approach.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/2/1/18206619/inf-treaty-usa-russia-pompeo-trump">Prospects for the treaty</a> don’t look good. </p>
<p>Russia has long denied being in violation of the treaty. The Trump administration is skeptical of arms control in general and <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/USNuclearModernization">has plans to continue modernizing</a> the U.S. nuclear arsenal. </p>
<p>Unbound by the treaty, the U.S. could develop new nuclear weapons systems in East Asia to <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/01/31/leaving-inf-treaty-won-t-help-trump-counter-china-pub-78262">counter Chinese military advances</a>. The treaty’s demise seems likely. What follows depends on several variables, especially the outcome of the U.S. 2020 presidential election.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111024/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeffrey Fields receives funding from the MacArthur Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York. </span></em></p>A Cold War era treaty helped dismantle more than 2,500 missiles between the US and Russia.Jeffrey Fields, Associate Professor of the Practice of International Relations, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/744942017-03-16T02:25:49Z2017-03-16T02:25:49ZNorth Korea and the dangers of Trump’s diplomacy-free Asia strategy<p>North Korea’s missile launches last week are an early warning that the Trump administration’s Asia strategy could end up triggering the world’s next major war.</p>
<p>Spurred by the launches, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is touring Japan, South Korea and China this week. But Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile activities are not Trump’s priority in Asia.</p>
<p>For Trump and “inner circle” advisers like <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/02/23/stephen-bannons-nationalist-call-to-arms-annotated/">Steve Bannon</a>, the <a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/files/chathamhouse/publications/research/2017-01-18-americas-international-role-trump-wickett-final2.pdf">top concern</a> is economic. Trump and his team see U.S. trade deficits, concentrated in Asia, as <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/12/trump-trade-deficit/509912/">draining America’s wealth</a> and threatening its <a href="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-03-05/wsj-op-ed-peter-navarro-writes-deficits-could-put-us-national-security-jeopardy">national</a> <a href="http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/03/07/business/economy-business/top-trump-adviser-outlines-aggressive-trade-policy-sees-deficit-threat-national-security/#.WMWXnfnys2w">security</a>. Trump claims he is out to redefine U.S. economic ties to Asia’s major economies.</p>
<p>Whatever this goal’s merits, from my experience at the National Security Council, on the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff and as a visiting scholar at Peking University, I believe it is dangerously flawed as a basis for U.S. Asia strategy. Asia today is more economically interdependent than any other part of the world. It also has serious security challenges. Besides competitive posturing on the Korean peninsula, these challenges include escalating disputes in the East and South China seas. </p>
<p>Yet there is no mechanism bringing America and its Asian allies together with China to manage these problems through multilateral diplomacy. </p>
<p>This raises risks that regional security challenges will turn into armed conflicts. The devastation that such conflicts would wreak on global welfare makes it imperative that Washington and major regional players create an effective security framework. I’m concerned that Trump’s strategy ignores this imperative. </p>
<h2>Trump and Asia’s diplomacy deficit</h2>
<p>Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs highlight the dangers flowing from Asia’s lack of a regional security mechanism. North Korea is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/world/asia/north-korea-claims-its-nuclear-arsenal-is-just-a-deterrent.html">chronically concerned</a> that its security is at <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missile-statement-idUSKCN0XN1XE">risk</a>. Consequently, it <a href="http://www.belfercenter.org/publication/north-koreas-nuclear-weapons-future-strategy-and-doctrine">takes steps</a> to develop <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/09/north-korea-is-practicing-for-nuclear-war/">nuclear and missile capabilities</a> that, from Pyongyang’s vantage, might keep America and its allies at bay. But Pyongyang’s quest for deterrence also <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/09/north-korea-is-practicing-for-nuclear-war/">raises risks</a> that conventional conflict in Korea escalates to nuclear war. </p>
<p>In my assessment, Trump does not view conflict prevention in Korea as an urgent focus. Trumpian rhetoric emphasizes “radical <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/11/trump-radical-islam/508331/">Islam</a>” and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/us/politics/stephen-bannon-cpac-speech.html?_r=0">illegal immigration</a> as immediate threats to Americans. Through this prism, war in Asia seems less directly dangerous. North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear-armed missiles could even be a useful lever to advance Trump’s real regional goals.</p>
<p>North Korean nuclear and missile tests give Trump openings to “reassure” <a href="http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201702120027.html">Japan</a> and <a href="http://www.vox.com/world/2016/11/10/13585524/donald-trump-phone-call-south-korea-park-geun-hye">South</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/30/world/asia/trump-north-korea-south.html?_r=0">Korea</a>, in more fulsome terms than his campaign rhetoric suggested, of U.S. commitment to <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-03-07/abe-gets-trump-backing-as-north-korea-warns-of-nuclear-disaster">their</a> <a href="https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/world/asia/korea-missile-defense-china-trump.html?smid=tw-nytimesworld&smtyp=cur&referer=https://t.co/e7YDIlyz89">security</a>. He has already done so directly and through <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/02/james-mattis-arrives-in-south-korea-japan-to-soothe-fears-over-trumps-foreign-policy.html">Defense</a> <a href="http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/02/04/national/politics-diplomacy/inada-says-hopes-mattis-visit-strengthens-regional-security-ties-south-korea/">Secretary</a> <a href="http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/02/04/national/politics-diplomacy/inada-says-hopes-mattis-visit-strengthens-regional-security-ties-south-korea/#.WMiPCfnys2x">James Mattis</a>. Last week, Trump deployed the first Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) units to South Korea, which can purportedly intercept North Korean warheads.</p>
<p>It appears Trump is playing on these moves to seek more <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/cdae8542-ed22-11e6-930f-061b01e23655">Japanese</a> and <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2017-01-17/hyundai-highlights-us-spending-plan-before-trump-takes-oath">Korean</a> investment in the United States. He also wants understandings on <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-02-10/trump-vows-level-playing-field-for-u-s-japan-china-currency">currency</a> <a href="http://english.donga.com/Home/3/all/26/834470/1">valuation</a> and more balanced <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/052cf600-e95b-11e6-893c-082c54a7f539">bilateral</a> <a href="http://www.voanews.com/a/south-korea-feeling-pressure-to-appease-trump-on-trade/3707669.html">trade</a>. </p>
<p>With China – a major economic partner, but not an ally – Trump aims to leverage U.S. military power and <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/9892b7ae-d2f9-11e6-9341-7393bb2e1b51">other</a> <a href="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-13/trump-unveil-passive-aggressive-currency-war-china">coercive</a> <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-eyes-new-tactic-to-press-china-1487034167">levers</a> to wrest <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/01/25/trade-trumps-national-security-in-trumps-worldview-thats-really-bad-news-for-china/?utm_term=.8f52d3af97f6">trade</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/07/technology/zte-china-fine.html?_r=0">and</a> <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-02-10/trump-vows-level-playing-field-for-u-s-japan-china-currency">monetary</a> concessions. </p>
<p>To this end, Trump seeks to increase pressure on China by expanding America’s regional military posture. Pyongyang’s weapons tests create openings to do so. Already, Beijing worries that THAAD deployments to Asia could ultimately threaten <a href="https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/what-thaad-deployment-south-korea-means-china">China’s</a> <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-03-06/explaining-thaad-and-why-it-so-bothers-china-quicktake-q-a">defensive</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/03/07/why-china-is-so-mad-about-thaad-a-missile-defense-system-aimed-at-deterring-north-korea/?utm_term=.71b4ff6002f8">and</a> <a href="https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/03/11/world/asia/us-south-korea-thaad-antimissile-system-china.html">deterrent</a> <a href="http://thediplomat.com/2017/03/thaad-and-chinas-nuclear-second-strike-capability/">capabilities</a>.</p>
<p>But Trump’s strategy offers no solution to security problems associated with North Korea’s nuclear and missile development. </p>
<h2>Solving the North Korea problem</h2>
<p>As previous U.S. administrations have learned, there is no preventive military option against Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile capabilities. Attacking them will trigger Seoul’s destruction by North Korean conventional artillery. </p>
<p>Saying the problem is China’s to solve won’t work, either. </p>
<p>Beijing is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/world/asia/china-north-korea-relations-kim-jong-un.html">increasingly displeased</a> with North Korea’s nuclear and missile displays. But there are 30,000 U.S. soldiers in South Korea today. In such a setting, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8_NFOEfgBU">Beijing</a> will not accept U.S.-allied South Korea’s effective extension to China’s border. This could enable deployment of tens of thousands of U.S. troops to that border. Thus, Beijing will never press Pyongyang in ways that bring North Korea to the verge of collapse, no matter how much Washington wants it to.</p>
<p>If Trump wanted to solve the Korea problem, he would pursue what China <a href="http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/zxxx_662805/t1444204.shtml">proposed</a> last week: dual track diplomacy aimed at “denuclearizing the peninsula on the one hand and establishing a peace mechanism on the other.” Initially, this would entail “suspension for suspension.” Pyongyang would halt its weapons tests; Washington and Seoul would stop joint military exercises. </p>
<p>Parties could then negotiate more comprehensively. America and its allies would seek a Korea without nuclear weapons. For Pyongyang and Beijing, denuclearization would be joined with a regional <a href="http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/zxxx_662805/t1444204.shtml">“peace mechanism”</a> and a U.S.-North Korean peace treaty. </p>
<p>But the dual track would commit America to a cooperative approach to Asian security. And that would not help Trump pursue his economic goals. In a stable Asia, how would Trump leverage military power to extract economic concessions from allies or from China?</p>
<p>Barring major changes in Trump’s Asia strategy, North Korea will likely keep developing its strategic deterrent. This will continue <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/09/north-korea-is-practicing-for-nuclear-war/">raising risks</a> that conventional conflict on the Korean peninsula escalates rapidly to nuclear war. </p>
<p>China is reacting deliberately to what it sees as provocative U.S. policies. President Xi <a href="http://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Economy/International-Relations/Xi-eyes-US-visit-as-Beijing-mends-fences">wants</a> a summit with Trump before July’s G20 summit. Chinese officials and analysts also say Xi wants to keep Sino-U.S. relations on a relatively even keel through this fall’s 19th Party Congress. The Congress will approve Xi’s second term as China’s top leader. Xi wants to be seen as a steady steward of Chinese interests in a global order still significantly influenced by Washington. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, China may not mind if Trump renegotiates America’s economic relationships in Asia – especially to the extent this happens at the expense of U.S. allies. But if Trump keeps building what China sees as a more robust and ultimately offensive regional military posture, Beijing will respond. </p>
<p>China will leverage its own economic and political ties to U.S. allies in Asia to constrain and undermine Trump’s strategy. Recently impeached South Korean President Park Geun-hye will probably be replaced by a progressive figure espousing engagement with Pyongyang and more multilateral regional security approaches. This could position Beijing to contain and ultimately reverse U.S. THAAD deployments. </p>
<p>Overall, Trump’s Asia strategy is unlikely to boost Sino-U.S. cooperation on regional security. Instead, it will almost certainly intensify Sino-U.S. security competition.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74494/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Flynt L. Leverett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Tensions in Asia may soon boil over. If U.S. leaders fail to seek pathways to peace, the consequences may be grim, warns former National Security Council member.Flynt L. Leverett, Professor of International Affairs and Asian Studies, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/722352017-02-21T01:19:16Z2017-02-21T01:19:16ZHow governments and companies can prevent the next insider attack<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155695/original/image-20170206-18520-oy6tx5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An insider can bypass many layers of security. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Los Alamos National Laboratory</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Now that they are in office, President Donald Trump and his team must protect the nation from many threats – including from insiders. Insider threats could take many forms, such as the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/18/edward-snowden-leaks-grave-threat">next Edward Snowden</a>, who leaked <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-23123964">hundreds of thousands of secret documents</a> to the press, or the next <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nidal-hasan-sentenced-to-death-for-fort-hood-shooting-rampage/2013/08/28/aad28de2-0ffa-11e3-bdf6-e4fc677d94a1_story.html">Nidal Hasan</a>, the Fort Hood mass killer. </p>
<p>Indeed, in today’s high-tech and hyperconnected world, threats from insiders go far beyond leakers and lone-wolf shooters. A single insider might be able to help adversaries steal nuclear material that terrorists could use to make a crude nuclear bomb, install malware that could compromise millions of accounts or sabotage a toxic chemical facility to cause thousands of deaths. How can we better protect against the enemy within, no matter what it is that needs to be protected?</p>
<p>President Obama became so alarmed at <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/us/snowden-used-low-cost-tool-to-best-nsa.html?_r=0">the government’s weak protections against insiders</a> that he created a “<a href="https://fas.org/sgp/obama/insider.pdf">National Insider Threat Policy</a>.” It required each federal agency to put in place a set of basic safeguards against internal betrayals, such as software to detect mass downloading of secret documents and systems to encourage reporting of worrying behavior. </p>
<p>But President Trump will find there is a great deal still to be done. This is in part because the insider problem is so challenging. Insiders are known and trusted by other employees (and have to be, if the organization is to function well); they may have detailed knowledge of the security system and its weaknesses; and they can take months or even years to plan their activities.</p>
<p>We co-organized a research project to investigate this challenge and suggest potential solutions, which led to our new book, “<a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100868640">Insider Threats</a>.” The book was prepared as part of the <a href="https://www.amacad.org/content/Research/researchproject.aspx?d=289">Global Nuclear Futures initiative</a> at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The volume analyzes a range of situations as diverse as <a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/04/27/135761076/afghan-officer-fires-on-nato-troops-kills-several">Afghan Army soldiers</a> attacking their U.S. trainers and the <a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/02/15/93170200/timeline-how-the-anthrax-terror-unfolded">anthrax attacks</a> in the United States in 2001 – which were probably perpetrated by Bruce Ivins, a disturbed scientist from the U.S. Army’s biological defense lab. The cases reveal a series of hard-learned lessons that can help organizations protect against threats from insiders.</p>
<h2>‘Not in my organization’</h2>
<p>First, a remarkable number of people wrongly assume their workplace couldn’t possibly be threatened by insiders. That is a bias we dub “NIMO,” for “not in my organization.” That overconfidence can have fatal consequences. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155699/original/image-20170206-18508-63ojfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155699/original/image-20170206-18508-63ojfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155699/original/image-20170206-18508-63ojfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155699/original/image-20170206-18508-63ojfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155699/original/image-20170206-18508-63ojfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155699/original/image-20170206-18508-63ojfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1069&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155699/original/image-20170206-18508-63ojfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1069&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155699/original/image-20170206-18508-63ojfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1069&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Killed by insiders: Indira Gandhi.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Indira_Gandhi_1977.jpg">Dutch National Archives</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1984, for example, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/31/newsid_2464000/2464423.stm">killed by two of her own Sikh bodyguards</a>, one of them a <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/1984/1106/110608.html">trusted favorite</a>. Her security chief had even <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/1984/1106/110608.html">warned her to remove the Sikhs from her guard</a>, citing Sikh anger about an <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/10881115/Operation-Blue-Star-How-an-Indian-army-raid-on-the-Golden-Temple-ended-in-disaster.html">Indian military attack</a> on Sikhism’s holiest site, the <a href="http://www.goldentempleamritsar.org/">Golden Temple</a>.</p>
<h2>Missing the red flags</h2>
<p>One of the most striking elements of the cases in our study is how organizations ignore even the most obvious and alarming red flags. U.S. Army biodefense researcher Bruce Ivins, for example, complained about his increasingly dangerous paranoia in an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/07/washington/07ivins.html">email to a colleague</a>. Ivins even speculated about being mentioned in newspaper reports with the headline: “Paranoid man works with deadly anthrax.” </p>
<p>No one reported, or acted on, that or any of his many other signals that something was amiss. Instead, his coworkers wrote them off as harmless eccentricity. Even when an employee told his boss that she feared he would attack her, <a href="https://www.med.unc.edu/psych/forensic/files/EBAP_Report_ExSum_Redacted_Version.pdf#page=23">no action was taken</a>.</p>
<p>Companies and government agencies must provide strong incentives for their employees to report worrying behavior – including clear and well-enforced reporting rules, and recognition for those who do the right thing. Those efforts should make clear that in some cases, the result of reporting will be that a troubled colleague gets much-needed help.</p>
<h2>Disgruntlement dangers</h2>
<p>Employees who are upset are far more common than mentally disturbed ones, and therefore more likely to pose an insider threat. <a href="https://resources.sei.cmu.edu/asset_files/TechnicalReport/2008_005_001_14981.pdf">One study</a> of insider cyber-sabotage found that 92 percent of the cases examined occurred “following a negative work-related event such as termination, dispute with a current or former employer, demotion, or transfer.”</p>
<p>More than half of the insiders in these cases were already seen as disgruntled before the incident occurred. Fortunately, simple steps can <a href="http://www.apa.org/monitor/2010/12/morale.aspx">combat employee dissatisfaction</a>. These include providing effective processes for making and resolving complaints, complimenting and rewarding employees for good work and reining in bullying bosses.</p>
<h2>Multiple layers of defense</h2>
<p>Organizations often make the mistake of thinking a single element of defense – such as background checks – is enough to protect them from insiders. But defenses are often less effective than they seem. Years ago, for example, Roger Johnston and his colleagues in the Vulnerability Assessment Team at Los Alamos National Laboratory tested over 100 types of widely used tamper-indicating seals. They found that all of them could be defeated with equipment from any hardware store, with <a href="http://scienceandglobalsecurity.org/archive/sgs09johnston.pdf">average defeat times of less than five minutes</a>.</p>
<p>Hence, organizations need a comprehensive approach to protecting against insiders, from ensuring that no one can access the protected items without being monitored to building a vigilant, questioning culture. Nuclear facilities, for example, should keep material that could be used in a nuclear bomb in a locked vault to which few have access, constantly monitor the vault, ensure that no one is ever in the vault alone and, where practical, keep the material in forms too big and heavy for one person to carry and hide. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155702/original/image-20170206-23515-3q8ehg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155702/original/image-20170206-23515-3q8ehg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155702/original/image-20170206-23515-3q8ehg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155702/original/image-20170206-23515-3q8ehg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155702/original/image-20170206-23515-3q8ehg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155702/original/image-20170206-23515-3q8ehg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155702/original/image-20170206-23515-3q8ehg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155702/original/image-20170206-23515-3q8ehg.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A turbine at this Belgian nuclear plant was destroyed by insider sabotage in 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/Doel_Kerncentrale_2.JPG">Torsade de Pointes</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Monitoring people, information and physical spaces can be critical. After an <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-bunn/belgium-nuclear-terrorism_b_9559006.html">insider destroyed a nuclear reactor’s turbine in Belgium</a> in 2014, for example, the country established new rules ensuring no one could ever be alone and unwatched in key reactor areas.</p>
<p>Testing and constantly looking for vulnerabilities are also key. Johnston’s effort is only one example of an essential approach: assigning intelligent teams to look for ways to defeat security systems, identifying weaknesses and helping to fix them.</p>
<p>Building a strong security culture in the organization – in which all employees take security seriously and are constantly on the lookout for vulnerabilities to be addressed or concerning behavior the organization should know about – is fundamental. The Fort Hood massacre can be blamed, in part, on a breakdown of security culture. Despite clear danger signs in erratic behavior and radical statements, none of Nidal Hasan’s <a href="http://strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/parameters/issues/summer_2015/7_zegart.pdf">commanders wanted to cope with the hassle</a> of disciplining him.</p>
<p>Fixing these systemic problems takes focused leadership from the top of the organization, incentives for strong security performance and a broad understanding of both the threat and the <a href="http://www.nuclearinst.com/write/MediaUploads/SDF%20documents/_Security/Key_attributes_of_an_excellent_Nuclear_Security_Culture.pdf">relevance of security measures to deal with it throughout the organization</a>. Capable leadership will make organizations more successful and more secure.</p>
<p>In our high-tech society, the insider threat is ever-present. High-security organizations, governments and companies alike need to take action to counter the organizational and cognitive biases that often blind us to the insider danger – or future blunders will condemn us to more disasters.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72235/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The Global Nuclear Futures project of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences sponsored this insider threat research, with funding from the Carnegie Corporation
of New York, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The John D.
and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the
Flora Family Foundation, and the Kavli Foundation for their support.
Matthew Bunn's research at the Managing the Atom project of the Harvard Kennedy School receives funding from the MacArthur Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The U.S. Department of Energy has contracted with Bunn for studies on security culture. Bunn is a consultant for Oak Ridge National Laboratory and has previously consulted for Pacific Northwest, Livermore, and Brookhaven national laboratories.
Bunn is a member of the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine; of the steering committee of the Fissile Material Working Group; and of the Board of Directors of the Arms Control Association.
Matthew Bunn is related to a member of The Conversation's editorial team.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Scott D. Sagan's recent research has been supported by the MacArthur Foundation and the Project on Advanced Systems and Concepts for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction (PASCC) under the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. He is a consultant to the Sandia National Laboratory and is on the advisory board of the Federation of American Scientists and the Frankfurt Peace Research Institute.</span></em></p>Basic safeguards are not enough to protect against insider threats. It requires rethinking how to overcome the biases that cause us to dismiss the danger.Matthew Bunn, Professor of Practice, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard Kennedy SchoolScott D. Sagan, Professor of Political Science, Stanford UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/721362017-01-30T16:41:26Z2017-01-30T16:41:26ZBrexatom: the UK will now leave Europe’s nuclear energy authority<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154782/original/image-20170130-7675-1re937e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nadezda Murmakova / shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The UK government’s European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill is short, extremely short, at just 137 words, but will nevertheless have huge ramifications. Tucked away in the “<a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/2016-2017/0132/en/17132en07.htm">Commentary on provisions of Bill</a>” is the long-awaited clarification that Brexit will also mean Brexatom, with the UK leaving the Euratom Treaty.</p>
<p>The existence of such a treaty may come as surprise to many people. Euratom was in fact one of the three founding treaties of what is now the European Union, and in 1957 established the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) to support the development of nuclear energy. Since then it has remained largely unreformed, and exists as a legal entity separate from the EU. There was therefore some legal ambiguity as to whether the UK could remain with the Euratom after it left the European Union. This has now been clarified: the UK is leaving anyway.</p>
<p>The Euratom Treaty covers nuclear non-proliferation as well as safety standards for workers, the public and the environment. The Euratom executive has its own research and development programme and is a global leader in nuclear fusion. It also set up a nuclear-specific loan facility and created a supply agency to ensure adequate access to nuclear materials (such as uraniam fuels). </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154802/original/image-20170130-7685-i3ki4n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154802/original/image-20170130-7685-i3ki4n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154802/original/image-20170130-7685-i3ki4n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154802/original/image-20170130-7685-i3ki4n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154802/original/image-20170130-7685-i3ki4n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154802/original/image-20170130-7685-i3ki4n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154802/original/image-20170130-7685-i3ki4n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154802/original/image-20170130-7685-i3ki4n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Calder Hall, the world’s first nuclear power station, opened at Sellafield in Cumbria in 1956.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HD.15.019_(11823864155).jpg">Energy.gov</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The UK government must now start to unpick these institutional relationships and start building up its domestic capabilities in nuclear safety, research and so on. By choosing to exit Euratom, it has also left European institutions and the remaining member states with some problems. </p>
<h2>What next for European nuclear science?</h2>
<p>In the short term, the most direct additional government expense will be in research and development. It might still be possible to remain in the EU’s research programme, as demonstrated by Switzerland, which makes a <a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-14-2383_en.htm">financial contribution to take part</a>. The Euratom research budget is <a href="http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/intm/140114.pdf">€1.6 billion</a> over five years. The UK currently pays around 12% of the whole EU budget which means that its contribution to Euratom’s research budget is about £32m a year. This in turn results in, at least, a similar level of investment in UK-based projects. While it is less than the government’s domestic nuclear research budget of £66m, it would be a considerable additional amount to fund. </p>
<p>The largest share of Euratom research budget goes towards nuclear fusion. Fusion is the politically controversial process of combining atoms, rather than splitting them (nuclear fission). To some, it offers the opportunity for clean and limitless energy, while others see it as a technology that is <a href="http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2008/oct/08/europe-moves-forward-with-laser-fusion-plans">always 40 years from commercialisation</a>. </p>
<p>In France, Euratom is building the International Thermonuclear Experiment Reactor (ITER) which, when complete, will be the world’s largest fusion experiment. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"774190728759144448"}"></div></p>
<p>Euratom already funds the Joint European Torus (JET), a precursor to the ITER based in Oxfordshire. Brexit will be particularly problematic for the £2.5 billion JET facility as its current funding expires in 2018. The EU provides <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-ministers-visit-oxfordshire-to-open-research-centre-and-highlight-risks-to-uk-science-and-innovation-from-brexit">€60m a year</a> for its operation so the UK will need to provide significant post-Brexit finance if it is to keep operating.</p>
<p>However, the nuclear industry is also concerned that Brexit will impact upon its costs. For the reactor builders, being outside the nuclear common market (another key chapter of the Euratom Treaty) as well as the single market and having no freedom of movement may lead to higher prices if tariffs and customs checks are introduced or if restrictions are imposed on foreign nuclear scientists and engineers.</p>
<h2>Security is at risk</h2>
<p>There will also be technical and institutional challenges to replace the functions carried out by Euratom safeguards inspectors. Chapter VII of the Euratom Treaty establishes a nuclear material control system, giving the European Commission responsibility for “<a href="https://ec.europa.eu/energy/sites/ener/files/documents/20141007%20Nuclear%20Safeguards%20Brochure.pdf">satisfying itself</a>” through physical inspections at nuclear facilities that material is not being diverted for military purposes. </p>
<p>In 1976 a trilateral agreement was signed between Euratom, the International Atomic Agency (IAEA) – the international nuclear watchdog – and the UK, sharing responsibility on the non-proliferation of nuclear material. Since 2010 the IAEA has reduced its presence during regular inspections in Europe as it relies more on the “<a href="https://ec.europa.eu/energy/sites/ener/files/documents/20151211%20Annual_Report%202014.pdf">complementary results</a>” of Euratom inspections.</p>
<p>A quarter of all time spent on nuclear inspections throughout the EU is carried out in Britain, due to the scale of nuclear fuel fabrication and waste management facilities, such as Sellafield. Without Euratom involvement, the UK’s Office for Nuclear Regulations will need to undertake many more inspections to meet IAEA requirements. The government should be able to find the extra cash, but it will be difficult to quickly hire and train the necessary new staff to implement rigorous safeguards.</p>
<p>Leaving the Euratom Treaty will also have political implications for the UK and the EU. Outside the EU, the UK is going to have to develop new or adjust existing bilateral nuclear trade agreements so it can still import uranium or crucial reactor parts. While some argue that outside the EU the UK will be free from the political shackles of the Brussels bureaucracy and “anti-nuclear” member states like Austria, the UK diplomatic service will have to work hard to replace the conferred influence of being part of the EU.</p>
<p>The political impact in the EU remains equally unclear. Britain has been one of Europe’s most active supporters of nuclear power, and the industry’s <a href="https://www.foratom.org/newsfeed/potential-impact-of-the-brexit-on-the-european-nuclear-industry/">trade association</a> worries that Brexit could tip the balance of member states towards an anti-nuclear majority. The complications around Brexatom also puts a spotlight onto the Euratom Treaty itself, whose legal status and many of its functions are out of step with the modern EU and may once again lead to calls for it <a href="http://www.foei.org/press/archive-by-subject/climate-justice-energy-press/one-hundred-civil-society-groups-say-abolish-euratom">to be abolished</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72136/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Antony Froggatt receives funding from UK Energy Research Centre for work on the energy and climate policy implication of Brexit. He is affiliated with Chatham House. </span></em></p>Euratom is responsible for nuclear non-proliferation, safety, and research.Antony Froggatt, Associate Member, Energy Policy Group, University of ExeterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/683372016-11-15T19:08:06Z2016-11-15T19:08:06ZAs the world pushes for a ban on nuclear weapons, Australia votes to stay on the wrong side of history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144977/original/image-20161108-4715-1i1447e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">More than 70 years after the Hiroshima bombing, a majority of countries are pushing for a legally-binding treaty against nuclear weapons.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tim Wright/ICAN/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In early December, the nations of the world are poised to take an historic step forward on nuclear weapons. Yet most Australians still haven’t heard about what’s happening, even though Australia is an important part of this story – which is set to get even bigger in the months ahead.</p>
<p>On October 27 2016, I watched as countries from around the world met in New York and <a href="http://reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmament-fora/1com/1com16/resolutions/L41.pdf">resolved</a> through the United Nations’ <a href="http://www.un.org/en/ga/first/">General Assembly First Committee</a> to negotiate a new legally binding treaty to “prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination”. It was carried by a <a href="http://www.icanw.org/campaign-news/results/">majority of 123 to 38</a>, with 16 abstentions. Australia was among the minority to <a href="http://reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmament-fora/1com/1com16/eov/L41_Poland-etal.pdf">vote “no”</a>.</p>
<p>Given that overwhelming majority, it is almost certain that resolution will be formally ratified in early December at a full UN general assembly meeting. </p>
<p>After it’s ratified, international negotiating meetings will take place <a href="http://reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmament-fora/1com/1com16/resolutions/L41.pdf">in March and June-July 2017</a>. Those meetings will be open to all states, and will reflect a majority view: crucially, no government or group of governments (including <a href="http://www.un.org/en/sc/">UN Security Council members</a>) will have a veto. International and civil society organisations will also have a seat at the table.</p>
<p>This is the best opportunity to kickstart nuclear disarmament since the end of the Cold War a quarter of a century ago. And it’s crucial that we act now, amid a <a href="http://lab.arstubiedriba.lv/WMJ/vol62/3-october-2016/#page=8">growing threat of nuclear war</a> (as we discuss in the latest edition of the <a href="http://lab.arstubiedriba.lv/WMJ/vol62/3-october-2016/#page=1">World Medical Association’s journal</a>). </p>
<p>But the resolution was bitterly <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/28/un-votes-to-start-negotiating-treaty-to-ban-nuclear-weapons">opposed</a> by most nuclear-armed states, including the United States and Russia. Those claiming “protection” from US nuclear weapons – members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization <a href="http://www.nato.int/nato-welcome/">(NATO)</a>, and Japan, South Korea and Australia – also opposed the ban. This is because the treaty to be negotiated will fill the legal gap that has left nuclear weapons as the only weapon of mass destruction not yet explicitly banned by international treaty.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144982/original/image-20161108-4698-1vneo4n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144982/original/image-20161108-4698-1vneo4n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144982/original/image-20161108-4698-1vneo4n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144982/original/image-20161108-4698-1vneo4n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144982/original/image-20161108-4698-1vneo4n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144982/original/image-20161108-4698-1vneo4n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144982/original/image-20161108-4698-1vneo4n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144982/original/image-20161108-4698-1vneo4n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">About 90% of the world’s nuclear warheads are owned by Russia and the United States.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://fas.org/issues/nuclear-weapons/status-world-nuclear-forces/">Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris, 'Status of World Nuclear Forces', Federation of American Scientists. A regularly updated version of this is available here: http://bit.ly/2fz9ONt</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Like the treaties that ban <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/bio/">biological</a> and <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/chemical/">chemical</a> weapons, <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/geneva/aplc/">landmines</a> and <a href="http://www.unog.ch/80256EE600585943/(httpPages)/F27A2B84309E0C5AC12574F70036F176?OpenDocument">cluster munitions</a>, a treaty banning nuclear weapons would make it clear that these weapons are unacceptable, and that their possession, threat and use cannot be justified under any circumstances. </p>
<p>It would codify in international law what UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said: “There are no right hands for the wrong weapons.”</p>
<h2>Why treaties are worthwhile – even when some refuse to join</h2>
<p>Of course, prohibiting unacceptable weapons is not the same as eliminating them entirely. So why bother? </p>
<p>Experience shows us that weapons treaties <em>can</em> make a difference – even when some countries refuse to sign, as we would expect (at least initially) with a treaty banning nuclear weapons.</p>
<p>For example, more than 80% of the world’s nations have signed on to the <a href="http://www.icbl.org/en-gb/the-treaty/treaty-in-detail/treaty-text.aspx">landmines ban treaty</a>. Even though the US is not among the signatories, it has still proudly declared itself to essentially be in compliance with the landmines treaty (<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/09/23/statement-nsc-spokesperson-caitlin-hayden-anti-personnel-landmine-policy">except in the Korean Peninsula</a>) and plans to cease its production of cluster munitions. </p>
<p>Back in 1999, when the landmines ban first came into force, there were about 25 landmine casualties being reported every day around the world. According to the most <a href="http://www.the-monitor.org/media/2152583/Landmine-Monitor-2015_finalpdf.pdf">recent Landmine Monitor report</a>, those devastating landmines injuries and deaths have been reduced by 60%, to about 10 a day in 2014.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144980/original/image-20161108-4694-1tezoss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144980/original/image-20161108-4694-1tezoss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144980/original/image-20161108-4694-1tezoss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144980/original/image-20161108-4694-1tezoss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144980/original/image-20161108-4694-1tezoss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144980/original/image-20161108-4694-1tezoss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144980/original/image-20161108-4694-1tezoss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144980/original/image-20161108-4694-1tezoss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Since the landmine treaty came into force, fewer people are being killed or maimed by landmines.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/iloasiapacific/8394370033/in/photolist-2iK7FR-hm8TUc-63Gsyf-2FqkrQ-c728iQ-2uWzv-jogn8-krjSZ-nH9RcQ-2iPvyG-2uWzn-63CcNB-2iPrbh-63GrYW-63CcHz-63GstL-2hNmDj-2uWoW-2uWiE-c72ads-2uWwD-hiTFjK-cGUtTj-9Nkxs-2uWwu-2uWwf-dMMkKP-2uWnA-6c5J7G-2uWni-2uWA2-hjU7Au-4HNoMV-as64SU-hjcMHE-2uWy8-reoy3-nx1zfP-6c1zta-2Tvx7j-2uWyU-hiTBVk-c72dwW-56gFNY-2uWwH-2uWz8-hiWT9m-4TaTxY-2uWnp-2TvweN">ILO in Asia and the Pacific/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Biological weapons haven’t been used by any government since the second world war. All countries except for North Korea have stopped nuclear test explosions, even though the <a href="http://www.state.gov/t/avc/c42328.htm">Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty</a> has not yet entered into force because key nuclear-capable countries have not yet signed up. </p>
<p>And when use of chemical weapons in Syria was confirmed by a UN investigation, Russia and the US forced the Syrian regime to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/world/middleeast/syria-talks.html">join the Chemical Weapons Convention</a>. Most – though tragically not yet all – of Syria’s stockpile of chemical weapons has been destroyed. </p>
<h2>Australia’s role in fighting a nuclear weapon ban</h2>
<p>In voting “no”, Australia stuck out like a sore thumb among Asia-Pacific nations in at October’s UN committee meeting. All of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (<a href="http://asean.org/">ASEAN</a>) <a href="http://asean.org/asean/asean-member-states/">members</a> – including Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand – as well as New Zealand and ten out of 12 Pacific island countries <a href="http://www.icanw.org/campaign-news/results/">voted yes</a>.</p>
<p>Australia is signatory to all the key international treaties banning or controlling weapons. On some, like the <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/chemical/">Chemical Weapons Convention</a>, Australia was a leader. Australia’s active opposition and efforts to undermine moves towards a treaty banning nuclear weapons stand in stark contrast. </p>
<p>Australia’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/28/un-votes-to-start-negotiating-treaty-to-ban-nuclear-weapons">stated arguments</a> for opposing a ban treaty have varied, including that there are no “shortcuts” to disarmament; that only measures with the support of the nuclear-armed states are worthwhile; that a ban would damage the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, causing instability and deepening divisions between states with and without nuclear weapons; that it wouldn’t address North Korea’s threatening behaviour; and that it does not take account of today’s security challenges.</p>
<p>Perhaps the most extraordinary justification of Australia’s position came from Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s first assistant secretary, Richard Sadleir, <a href="http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/committees/estimate/aa4f0e69-697b-4d56-ad2a-ef0c34f8251d/toc_pdf/Foreign%20Affairs,%20Defence%20and%20Trade%20Legislation%20Committee_2016_10_20_4504.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf#search=%22committees/estimate/aa4f0e69-697b-4d56-ad2a-ef0c34f8251d/0000%22">who said</a> at a Senate estimates hearing on October 20, 2016:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>it is not an auspicious time to be pushing for a treaty of this sort. Indeed, in order to be able to effectively carry forward disarmament, you need to have a world in which there is not a threat of nuclear weapons and people feel safe and secure.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Can anyone seriously imagine Australian officials arguing that we need to keep stockpiles of sarin nerve gas, plague bacteria, smallpox virus, or botulism toxin for deterrence, just in case, because we live in an uncertain world? </p>
<p>Yet that is what Australia continues to argue about nuclear weapons. Sadleir is saying that disarmament is only possible after it has happened, when we live in an impossibly perfect world. It’s a nonsensical argument that puts off nuclear disarmament indefinitely. </p>
<p>As revealed in <a href="http://www.icanw.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/FOI-DFAT-Sept2015.pdf">Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade internal documents</a>, released through a Freedom of Information request, the real reason that Australia opposes a ban treaty is that it would jeopardise our <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/16/australia-isolated-in-its-hesitation-to-sign-treaty-banning-nuclear-weapons">reliance on US nuclear weapons</a>.</p>
<h2>How Australia can help with disarmament</h2>
<p>It’s 71 years since the Hiroshima bombing, and 46 years since the <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/npt/">nuclear non-proliferation treaty</a> came into force, committing all governments to bring about nuclear disarmament. But that treaty is too weak: no disarmament negotiations are underway or planned. </p>
<p>Instead, every nuclear armed state is <a href="https://www.icrc.org/en/international-review/article/nuclear-arsenals-current-developments-trends-and-capabilities?language=en">investing massively</a> in keeping and modernising their nuclear arsenals for the indefinite future. The US alone has said it plans to spend about <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/publication/49870">US$348 billion over the next decade</a> on its nuclear arsenal.</p>
<p>Nations like Australia cannot eliminate weapons they don’t own. But they can prohibit them, by international treaty and in domestic law. And they can push other nations to do more to reduce threats to humanity – just as Australia has done with every other weapon of mass destruction.</p>
<p>An overwhelming majority of Australians have said in the past that they support a treaty banning nuclear weapons: 84% according to a <a href="http://www.icanw.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/NielsenPoll.pdf">2014 Nielsen poll</a> commissioned by the <a href="http://www.icanw.org/">International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons</a>, with only 3% opposed. </p>
<p>This is an issue that should be above party politics. In 2015, the Labor Party adopted a new national policy platform committing to support the negotiation of a global treaty banning nuclear weapons. At a public meeting in Perth last month, Bill Shorten said that a Labor government would support the UN resolution for a ban treaty.</p>
<p>In October 2016, our government let us down by voting to be counted on the wrong side of history. Thankfully, we can still expect to see the United Nations ratify the move towards a new treaty banning nuclear weapons in December, with negotiations set to begin in March 2017 in New York. It’s still not too late for Australia to change its vote, and participate constructively in the negotiations next year.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68337/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tilman Ruff is a co-president of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. He is also founding chair and current International Steering Group and Australian Committee member of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.
</span></em></p>In early December, the nations of the world are poised to take an historic step on nuclear weapons. Yet Australia sticks out like a sore thumb among Asia-Pacific nations in arguing against change.Tilman Ruff, Associate Professor, International Education and Learning Unit, Nossal Institute for Global Health, School of Population and Global Health, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/685762016-11-15T19:07:54Z2016-11-15T19:07:54ZThree good reasons to worry about Trump having the nuclear codes<p>Among the more alarming aspects of Donald Trump’s election is that he will soon have command of <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com.au/nine-nations-have-nukes--heres-how-many-each-country-has-2014-6?r=US&IR=T">thousands of nuclear weapons</a>. This poses a new and unknown threat to global peace and security, but it also provides an urgent incentive for all states to join the <a href="http://nwp.ilpi.org/?p=2214">humanitarian initiative</a> to ban nuclear weapons.</p>
<p>The humanitarian initiative is a group of states and civil society organisations working towards a ban on nuclear weapons. For the last five years, the group has made steady progress towards this goal. Unfortunately, states that have nuclear weapons, or states that seek protection under a so-called nuclear umbrella, have <a href="http://theconversation.com/as-the-world-pushes-for-a-ban-on-nuclear-weapons-australia-votes-to-stay-on-the-wrong-side-of-history-68337">largely opposed a treaty banning nuclear weapons</a>. This includes nearly all NATO members, as well as Australia. </p>
<p>Trump’s access to nuclear weapons raises three major concerns.</p>
<h2>Unpredictability</h2>
<p>Firstly, and not to be taken lightly: Trump is highly unpredictable. </p>
<p>Western-allied states seek to frame the issue of the nuclear weapons as a threat from an unpredictable “other”. In this telling of the story, only “unhinged leaders” such as Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, or terrorists would be willing to use nuclear weapons. By contrast, the US casts itself as worthy of nuclear weapons due to its stable, law-abiding and trustworthy leadership. </p>
<p>But throughout the election campaign, Trump came across as irrational, <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/05/politics/sean-duffy-donald-trump-sensitive/">hypersensitive</a> and prone to <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2016/02/23/politics/donald-trump-nevada-rally-punch/">threatening</a> those with whom he disagrees or disapproves. He revealed his <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/donald-trump-flip-flop_us_57ac3753e4b0db3be07d4192">inconsistent beliefs</a> and false claims about basic truths, and willingness to <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/full-list-donald-trump-s-rapidly-changing-policy-positions-n547801">change these beliefs</a> for votes on a whim.</p>
<p>Of course, whether it is under President Obama or President Trump, the US is capable of launching, within minutes, a nuclear attack that could threaten the extinction of human life on Earth.</p>
<p>But with Trump, it is nearly impossible to separate empty braggadocio from genuine intention. That means we must take special precautions; Trump has done nothing so far to dispel <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/9-terrifying-things-donald-trump-has-publicly-said-about-nuclear-weapons-99f6290bc32a#.flibiz8lg">fears</a> he will apply his reckless brand of decision-making to nuclear weapons.</p>
<h2>Inevitable proliferation?</h2>
<p>The second problem posed by Trump’s access to nuclear weapons is that he sees their spread as inevitable. Trump has said that he doesn’t want more nuclear weapons in the world, but <a href="http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2016/03/29/full-rush-transcript-donald-trump-cnn-milwaukee-republican-presidential-town-hall/">added that:</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Can I be honest with you? It’s going to happen, anyway. It’s going to happen anyway. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Proliferation is only inevitable if presidents like Trump shirk their obligations to non-proliferation, and continue to rely on nuclear deterrence instead of making genuine efforts towards disarmament.</p>
<p>The US has an obligation under the <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/npt/">Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty</a> to not encourage any non-nuclear weapon state to acquire nuclear weapons. But some of Trump’s <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/27/us/politics/donald-trump-transcript.html?_r=1">confusing</a> <a href="http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2016/03/29/full-rush-transcript-donald-trump-cnn-milwaukee-republican-presidential-town-hall/">comments</a> on the topic could be interpreted as encouraging the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Japan, South Korea, and possibly Saudi Arabia.</p>
<p>He has also <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-rip-iran-deal-easier-said-done-063733649.html">promised</a> to “rip up” the US’ commitment to the 2015 <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-33518524">deal</a> to lift sanctions on Iran in exchange for that country limiting its nuclear activity. This agreement makes the Middle East, and world, safer.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/the-nine-countries-that-have-nuclear-weapons-a6798756.html">Nine states</a> currently possess 15,000 nuclear weapons. The latest <a href="http://www.recna.nagasaki-u.ac.jp/recna/bd/files/nuclear2016ENG.pdf">estimates</a> indicate that Russia has 7,300; USA, 7,000; France, 300; China, 260; United Kingdom, 215; Pakistan, 130; India, 120; Israel, 80; and North Korea, 10. More states with nuclear weapons further increases the chance of a nuclear war. It encourages a new Cold War style nuclear arms race, and increases the likelihood of terrorist groups procuring nuclear weapons grade materials. </p>
<h2>International law</h2>
<p>The third dilemma posed by Trump’s access to nuclear weapons is his utter contempt for and ignorance of international law. He has advocated the <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/02/politics/donald-trump-terrorists-families/">direct targeting of civilians</a> during war including families, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/28/donald-trump-ohio-rally-isis-torture-tpp-rape">endorsed the use of torture</a> and lamented that torture techniques are <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-vows-to-strengthen-laws-to-allow-torture-waterboarding-election-2016/">too soft</a>, and confirmed that he would <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/mar/3/donald-trump-says-hed-force-us-military-commit-war/">enforce the commission of war crimes</a> by the military. Although he has since partially retreated from some of these statements, it seems he still advocates the use of torture and the contravention of international law in the interests of the US. </p>
<h2>Horrific and lasting impact</h2>
<p>The evidence of the horrific humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons should be motive enough for any state to support a nuclear weapons ban. </p>
<p>Nuclear weapons don’t just kill people in a blast. They also cause cancer in survivors – and their children and grandchildren. The risk of a nuclear weapons detonation is real and, statistically, increases over time. If a nuclear bomb was detonated there is no organisation or government on Earth sufficiently prepared to deal with the deadly consequences. </p>
<p>But if states remain unconvinced, a Trump presidency should present a final and decisive incentive for all states to support a humanitarian ban on the use of nuclear weapons.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68576/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Slade received a Australian Post-Graduate Scholarship Award.</span></em></p>Donald Trump will soon have command of thousands of nuclear weapons. This presents a new and unknown threat to global security - and an urgent incentive for all states to ban nuclear weapons.Richard Slade, PhD Candidate (International Law), Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/612852016-06-21T20:11:45Z2016-06-21T20:11:45ZAre the Greens really the climate radicals we need?<p>If you despair of Australia’s lacklustre climate policies, you might take heart from the Greens’ <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/greens-back-15degree-warming-limit-turning-up-heat-on-labor-coalition-20151109-gkua5x.html">stated goal</a> of limiting global warming to 1.5°C. But are the party’s own policies up to the job? </p>
<p>Shortly after announcing this target late last year, the Greens launched an ambitious <a href="http://renewaustralia.org.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2015/11/2015_11_Renew_Australia.pdf">renewables policy</a>, promising to achieve 90% renewable electricity by 2030 and save money in the process. </p>
<p>But as wonderful as it sounds, even this plan is insufficient to meet a 1.5°C target.</p>
<p>The arithmetic is simple. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), to preserve a two-thirds chance of avoiding 1.5°C warming, future carbon dioxide emissions <a href="http://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-only-five-years-left-before-one-point-five-c-budget-is-blown">must not exceed 200 billion tonnes</a>. As annual global emissions are now around 40 billion tonnes, we will blow the budget within five years.</p>
<p>Now let’s suppose that the entire world achieves the Greens’ <a href="http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/greens-call-for-emissions-target-of-zero-net-pollution-by-2040-12337">emissions reduction targets</a> of 60-80% by 2030 (relative to 2000 levels), and 100% by 2040. Assuming a steady trajectory to 70% in 2030 and another steady move to full decarbonisation a decade later, that puts global CO₂ emissions by 2040 at more than 400 billion tonnes – far beyond the budget described above.</p>
<h2>Idealism vs realism</h2>
<p>Does it matter if the numbers don’t add up? After all, the rest of the world has <a href="https://theconversation.com/most-countries-need-to-at-least-double-their-efforts-on-climate-study-49731">exactly the same problem</a>. If we want to avoid losing hope of averting dangerous climate change, surely wishful thinking and calls to action are better than no target at all? </p>
<p>But there is a growing group of <a href="http://www.springer.com/us/book/9783319029399">energy experts</a>, <a href="https://decarbonisesa.com/about-2/who-gets-it/">environmentalists</a> and <a href="https://bravenewclimate.com/2014/12/15/an-open-letter-to-environmentalists-on-nuclear-energy/">conservation scientists</a> who are worried by the environmental movement’s failure to process the full implications of the climate challenge.</p>
<p>Take the Greens’ promise to achieve 90% renewable electricity by 2030. There are several major economies – <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516301458">Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, France</a> – that already have near-zero-emission electricity. But all of them use large amounts of hydroelectricity, nuclear power, or both.</p>
<p>Rather than follow the only proven path to clean electricity, the Greens propose that Australia should emulate Germany’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/energiewende">Energiewende</a> policy.</p>
<p>While Energiewende has expanded renewable energy, it has failed to cut emissions. True, the <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516301458">emissions intensity of German electricity</a> is about 40% lower than Australia’s. But both Germany’s <a href="http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/03/14/german-co2-emissions-rise-10-million-tonnes-in-2015/">total greenhouse emissions</a> and the <a href="http://www.theenergycollective.com/micha/2294847/why-renewable-energies-are-causing-increase-coal-power-germany">carbon intensity of its electricity</a> have plateaued, despite record investments in renewable energy. German emissions intensity remains an order of magnitude higher than those of the nuclear/hydro countries such as Switzerland and France.</p>
<p>Germany’s problem is that it has had to back up its intermittent wind and solar generation with fossil fuels. The Greens promise that canny Australian engineers will succeed where Germans have failed, by using <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-pushing-water-uphill-can-solve-our-renewable-energy-issues-28196">“pumped hydro” power storage</a> power storage and <a href="https://theconversation.com/with-a-bit-of-concentration-solar-thermal-could-power-your-town-2005">concentrated solar thermal energy</a>. </p>
<p>However, the <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2016/06/05/steven-chu-criticizes-clean-power-plan-for-neglecting-nuclear/#3e695b307f35">jury is still out</a> on these technologies – and even <a href="http://climateworks.com.au/">ClimateWorks</a>, whose modelling the Greens uses, <a href="http://www.climateworksaustralia.org/sites/default/files/documents/publications/climateworks_pdd2050_initialreport_20140923.pdf">acknowledges</a> that “large investments in Research and Design are needed to improve the performance of existing low-carbon technologies to required levels”.</p>
<p>Spain’s 20-megawatt <a href="http://www.torresolenergy.com/TORRESOL/gemasolar-plant/en">Gemasolar power plant</a> shows that solar thermal and storage can supply baseload power. But it would take around 100 Gemasolars to replace a typical major coal-fired power station, and bigger solar thermal plants, such as <a href="http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/ivanpah-solar-plant-falling-short-of-expected-electricity-production">Ivanpah</a>, the world’s largest, have not produced the expected output. While it would be foolhardy to write off solar thermal, it’s also mightily brave to bet the climate on it.</p>
<h2>Making up the shortfall</h2>
<p>Is an all-renewables future possible in Australia? Of course. But it won’t come fast, cheaply or without significant environmental impacts. The most authoritative “<a href="https://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/resources/d67797b7-d563-427f-84eb-c3bb69e34073/files/100-percent-renewables-study-modelling-outcomes-report.pdf">100% renewables study</a>” so far was released in 2013 by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO). Although the Greens requested this report, they didn’t like its conclusions: that an all-renewable grid would need baseload power from <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/geothermal-energy">geothermal</a> (not yet a scalable technology) and <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/bioenergy">bioenergy</a> (which has a range of knock-on environmental impacts).</p>
<p>Part of the problem with the Greens’ approach is that it made many of its energy choices long before climate change was a major issue. The party emerged as a political force through campaigns against nuclear technologies and the Franklin River dam. It has always backed wind and solar (which now provide <a href="http://www.ren21.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/GSR_2016_KeyFindings1.pdf">around 2% of global energy</a>), but has opposed the world’s two largest sources of low-carbon energy: hydroelectrcity (6.8%) and nuclear (now 4.4%).</p>
<p>Am I suggesting that the Greens embrace nuclear power? While that is unlikely given their deeply held political commitments, it is not unreasonable to ask for an end to the anti-nuclear fearmongering. The Greens’ <a href="http://greens.org.au/policy-platform">national policy platform</a> demands the <a href="http://greens.org.au/policies/nuclear-uranium">closure</a> of the <a href="http://www.ansto.gov.au/ResearchHub/Bragg/Facilities/OPALReactor/index.htm">OPAL reactor</a> south of Sydney, which produces radioisotopes for cancer detection and treatment. Without such reactors, <a href="http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/comment/nuclear-medicine-comes-from-nuclear-reactors-20160225-gn3dlg.html">life-saving nuclear medicine</a> would become impossible.</p>
<p>The Greens are right that nuclear cannot compete on cost with coal, and if we only wanted to halve our emissions then <a href="https://bravenewclimate.com/2015/11/08/the-capacity-factor-of-wind/">gas and renewables</a> would be the logical choice. But if our goal is <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261914010101">zero-carbon electricity</a>, and given the uncertainty about the pace of innovation in other low-carbon technologies, it is worth heeding the advice of South Australia’s <a href="http://yoursay.sa.gov.au/pages/nuclear-fuel-cycle-royal-commission-report-release/">nuclear Royal Commission</a> that “action is taken now to plan for [nuclear’s] potential implementation”.</p>
<p>Of course the Greens are right that wind and solar must make a much larger contribution to our future energy mix. But to hope that we can avoid dangerous warming without drawing on every available tool is to put ideology before arithmetic.</p>
<p>Truly radical climate action means we shouldn’t unconditionally rule out any promising technology – from <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/carbon-capture-and-storage">carbon capture and storage</a> to <a href="http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/nature14673">low-methane genetically modified crops</a>.</p>
<p>Rather than accept the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) findings about carbon budget overshoot and the consequent need for “negative emissions” technologies such as carbon capture and storage, Green politicians <a href="https://twitter.com/AdamBandt/status/671181826283606016">promote alternative research</a> outlining all-renewable paths to global decarbonisation. Such studies assume both unprecedented technological progress, and extreme global inequality in energy use (for example by assuming that <a href="http://stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/WWS-50-USState-plans.html">Indians will be content to use 84% less energy than Australians</a>).</p>
<h2>Embracing science</h2>
<p>Of course, this is not to say that the two major Australian parties, with their underwhelming climate ambitions, are any better. Yet so successfully have the Greens cast themselves as the party of climate science that it’s easy to forget how radically they dissent from a scientific worldview in their responses to climate change. </p>
<p>Former NASA climatologist James Hansen, often dubbed the father of climate awareness, has branded green opposition to nuclear power as a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/03/nuclear-power-paves-the-only-viable-path-forward-on-climate-change">major obstacle to solving the climate problem</a>. In response, he was <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/how-not-to-debate-nuclear-energy-and-climate-change">pilloried and branded a “denier”</a>.</p>
<p>The idea that greedy polluters are the only barrier to an all-renewable future presents climate action as a simple moral choice. Unfortunately, caring for the planet is not so easy. Effective mitigation requires tough choices among imperfect options.</p>
<p>To be effective, we environmentalists must examine our own biases as carefully as we do those of our opponents. And we must do more than accept climate science; we must also use science in our search for solutions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61285/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Symons is a former Greens campaign manager in the federal division of Melbourne. He will be a participant in the Breakthrough Institute's 2016 annual dialogue. </span></em></p>The Greens have successfully cast themselves as the party of climate science. But to hit their climate goals they may need to become even more radical, by embracing technologies like nuclear power.Jonathan Symons, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/499672015-11-05T03:50:50Z2015-11-05T03:50:50ZWhy South Africa should not build eight new nuclear power stations<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/100604/original/image-20151103-16507-e9sdic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa is considering new nuclear power stations to supplement the Koeberg plant near Cape Town.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mike Hutchings/Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It has been an eventful year in South Africa, characterised by power <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2015-08-26-economic-effects-of-load-shedding-hit-home">cuts</a>, <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2015-08-06-malema-wants-zuma-to-answer-for-nkandla-in-court">parliamentary confrontations</a> about wasteful expenditure and student <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-south-africa-students-protest-tuition-hikes-49620">fee protests</a>. There has, however, been a massive elephant in the room that has impacted all these issues but enjoyed surprisingly scarce attention. The idea, vigorously driven by government, is for the country to build nuclear plants with an expected price tag of <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2015-05-19-nuclear-build-to-start-this-year">one trillion rand</a>.</p>
<p>This equates to 4000 times the controversial costs to upgrade President Jacob Zuma’s <a href="http://www.news24.com/Archives/City-Press/10-things-worth-knowing-about-Madonselas-Nkandla-report-20150430">Nkandla residence</a> and 400 times the shortfall the tertiary education sector will experience in 2016 because of the freeze in university fee increases.</p>
<h2>South Africa’s electricity needs</h2>
<p>The expansion of South Africa’s power generating capacity is a necessary condition for economic growth and housing development. </p>
<p>Delays in its implementation, as well as the collapse of ageing power utility Eskom’s <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2014-11-03-eskom-majuba-collapse-has-significant-consequences">infrastructure</a>, have forced frequent scheduled power outages. The expansion program is guided by the Department of Energy’s <a href="http://www.doe-irp.co.za/">Integrated Resource Plan for Electricity 2010-2030</a>.</p>
<p>The plan proposed transforming the South African energy generation mix from the current completely coal dominated one to a more balanced setup in 2030. The aim was that by then 10.3% and 10.7% would be allocated to wind and solar renewable energy technologies; and 12.7%, or 9600 MW in generating capacity, to nuclear.</p>
<h2>The on, off, on-again nuclear build</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/fukushima-accident/">Fukushima</a> nuclear catastrophe resulted in a worldwide critical reevaluation of the safety and necessity of nuclear energy. Some new projects were cancelled. <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2011-06-06-germany-maps-out-path-to-postnuclear-future/">Germany</a> went as far as adopting a road map that would lead to the eventual closure of all its nuclear power stations.</p>
<p>In South Africa too the need for the continued inclusion of nuclear power in the energy mix was being <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2013-08-15-academic-blasts-sa-neanderthal-power-policy">reexamined</a>. In addition to the negative public sentiment towards nuclear, it was also noted that energy demand was increasing at less than the projected <a href="http://www.financialmail.co.za/features/2013/12/05/sa-reports-lower-power-consumption">rate</a>. This was partly due to a depression of the mining and heavy industry sectors.</p>
<p>This led to an update of the resources plan in <a href="http://www.doe-irp.co.za/">2013</a>. Configurations without nuclear energy were shown to be optimal in several of the scenarios investigated in the document. It concluded:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The nuclear decision can possibly be delayed. The revised demand projections suggest that no new nuclear base-load capacity is required until after 2025 (and for lower demand not until at earliest 2035).</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But in late 2014 the government took an about-turn in its approach to the nuclear build, displaying a sudden urgency to seal a large deal with <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2014-10-16-vladimir-putins-quest-for-a-nuclear-monopoly">Russia</a>. The speedy and secretive manner in which government initiated a process with massive and long-term cost implications, and the inexplicable decision to declare Russia as a preferred partner ahead of other potential options, immediately led to intense suspicion of <a href="http://www.fin24.com/Economy/SA-nuclear-plan-stirs-fears-of-secrecy-corruption-20150814">corruption</a>. </p>
<p>With reference to a previous scandal-enveloped acquisition mega-project, the nuclear build became labelled as a <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2015-07-16-nuke-plan-50-shades-of-arms-deal">new arms deal</a> “on steroids”.</p>
<p>Government soon denied the Russians were the designated preferential suppliers. It quickly arranged a series of “nuclear vendor parade <a href="http://www.gov.za/government-concludes-round-two-nuclear-vendor-parade-workshops">workshops</a>”, where other countries could showcase their products. Nonetheless, the perception remains that the Russian nuclear developer Rosatom has already been assured of its <a href="http://www.enca.com/south-africa/new-nuclear-agreements-shows-sas-bias-towards-rosatom">frontrunner</a> status.</p>
<p>The opaqueness of the process is further illustrated by the vagueness of the construction plans, including the plant locations and specifications. The proposed nuclear plant locations have not been fully disclosed. An initial study in 2007 compared five coastal <a href="http://projects.gibb.co.za/Projects/Eskom-Nuclear-1">sites</a>: Duynefontein (near the existing Koeberg plant in Cape Town), Bantamsklip (between Gansbaai and Cape Agulhas), <a href="http://www.thyspunt.com/">Thyspunt</a> (close to Jeffrey’s Bay) and two localities on the <a href="http://www.namaqualand.com/">Namaqualand</a> shoreline.</p>
<p>At a <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2015-07-16-nuke-plan-50-shades-of-arms-deal">press briefing</a> in July 2015, Department of Energy and Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa representatives disclosed that there may eventually be as many as eight nuclear plants, with unnamed sites in the province of <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/kwazulu-natal/at-least-one-nuke-power-station-for-kzn-1.1886079#.VjdNwHsaLcs">KwaZulu-Natal</a> now also under consideration. Most recently, a draft Environmental Impact <a href="http://projects.gibb.co.za/en-us/projects/eskomnuclear1reviseddrafteirversion2?EntryId=2796">Assessment</a> presents Thyspunt as the preferred site for a 4000 MW nuclear plant dubbed “Nuclear 1”.</p>
<h2>Cost and completion time</h2>
<p>The ongoing construction of two mega coal power stations at Medupi and Kusile amply illustrates what could happen with the nuclear build. Work on <a href="http://www.fin24.com/BizNews/Medupi-timeline-Costs-delays-spiralling-no-completion-in-sight-20150806">Medupi</a> commenced in 2007, and was initially projected to be completed in 2011. Its new completion date is given as 2019, meaning the construction period is likely to be at least three times that initially declared.</p>
<p>The costs have also spiralled to over R150 billion, double the initial estimate. If similar circumstances prevail in the nuclear build, that would result in a construction process of 20 years or more and a price tag of one or two trillion rand (at current South African rand value, given the current <a href="http://www.bdlive.co.za/business/energy/2015/07/14/state-estimates-nuclear-build-to-cost-r500bn">500</a> to <a href="http://businesstech.co.za/news/energy/89342/electricity-price-hikes-to-fund-r1-trillion-sa-nuclear-build-da/">1000</a> billion rand cost estimate). Some funding models only require later payment, but these will then saddle the future generation with a huge debt burden.</p>
<p>The nuclear build is a very <a href="http://www.fin24.com/Opinion/Can-Russia-deliver-on-nuclear-promise-20150903">risky</a> exercise with numerous potential pitfalls. And there are alternatives. The shortfall in the projected nuclear capacity can be covered by a 50% larger than planned renewable energy investment. Wind and solar energy plants have been operationalised <a href="http://www.southafrica.info/business/investing/solar-141113.htm#.VjdWu3saLcs">on schedule</a>, and solar panel prices continue falling. The intermittence of renewable energy availability is considered <a href="http://ntww1.csir.co.za/plsql/ptl0002/PTL0002_PGE157_MEDIA_REL?MEDIA_RELEASE_NO=7526622">manageable</a>. Finally, energy saving strategies have yet to be fully explored.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49967/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hartmut Winkler receives funding from the National Research Foundation.</span></em></p>South Africa has plans to build new power stations despite many calling for no nuclear energy in the country.Hartmut Winkler, Professor of Physics, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/496142015-10-23T09:44:52Z2015-10-23T09:44:52ZBritain runs the risk that Chinese state-owned nuclear firms have more in mind than just business<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99388/original/image-20151022-8024-fhig85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Who's got their finger on the off button?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/wlodi/3085157011/">wlodi</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Chinese president Xi Jinping will return to Beijing with good reason to think his first trip to the UK was a roaring success. Feted by a UK government more concerned with cash than with China’s domestic human rights record, Xi will arrive home with a keen overseas partner and a fistful of contracts.</p>
<p>Foremost among these is a joint deal between French company EDF and the state-owned China General Nuclear Power Corporation to <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/20/china-to-take-one-third-stake-in-24bn-hinkley-nuclear-power-station">build and operate two nuclear power stations</a> in the UK. The deal has renewed concerns about the cybersecurity implications of Chinese involvement in British critical infrastructure, and highlights the UK government’s unwillingness to tackle these issues head on.</p>
<p>The concern is that China will insert means of covert entry – back-doors – into the control systems of the new nuclear power stations. These could be used to allow monitoring or even sabotage of the facility. There is a long history of mistrust by UK intelligence agencies as to the motivations and capabilities of Chinese companies like Huawei as they become <a href="https://theconversation.com/keeping-tabs-on-huawei-raises-awkward-questions-for-everyone-21622">involved in British infrastructure projects</a>. Britain’s intelligence agency GCHQ, which leads the UK’s cybersecurity efforts, is unlikely to be placated by a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/oct/21/uk-china-cybersecurity-pact-xi-jinping-david-cameron">UK-China bilateral cybersecurity agreement</a> signed this week. Not least because, according to the UK’s closest allies and its own intelligence, China cannot be trusted to keep its word.</p>
<p>In September the US and China signed a similar agreement after the US <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-threatens-sanctions-against-china-over-cyber-hacking">threatened China with sanctions</a> over its continued cyber-espionage aimed at extracting intellectual property <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-china-cybersecurity-talks-should-focus-more-on-trade-secret-theft-than-espionage-43453">and trade secrets from US companies</a>. But security experts reported that the treaty was <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/crowdstrike-china-violating-cyberagreement-us-cyberespionage-intellectual-property">broken almost immediately</a>. The net effect of the agreement was zero: China neither stopped its persistent commercial espionage, nor did it change the international community’s perception of China’s behaviour in cyberspace. There is no reason to expect the UK-China agreement will be any different, although more such agreements may help shape global norms about appropriate state behaviour in the long term.</p>
<p>But commercial espionage is not the fundamental concern about Chinese hardware sitting at the heart of British critical infrastructure. The real issue is one of strategic leverage, about which the British government seems blase to the point of irresponsibility, at least in public. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99389/original/image-20151022-7999-1hsfoi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99389/original/image-20151022-7999-1hsfoi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99389/original/image-20151022-7999-1hsfoi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99389/original/image-20151022-7999-1hsfoi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99389/original/image-20151022-7999-1hsfoi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99389/original/image-20151022-7999-1hsfoi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99389/original/image-20151022-7999-1hsfoi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Critical national infrastructure shouldn’t be outsourced to other nations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ratcliffe-on-Soar_Power_Station_-_East_Midlands_Parkway.jpg">Luiscarlosrubino</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As the new nuclear plants will be built and operated by a Chinese state-controlled firm, it is unwise to dismiss entirely the potential for Chinese state interests to interfere in the running of those UK power stations. This is more serious than the opportunities for commercial skullduggery alone. Foreign investment comes with its own peculiar forms of economic leverage but the ability to control electricity generation at a distance is especially useful. Clearly, the fact that nuclear materials are involved cannot be ignored.</p>
<p>This is not to target China unfairly. Were the situation to be reversed, the Chinese would be right to be equally concerned. In fact, China has never held back from citing national security as the reason for <a href="http://thesigers.com/analysis/2015/3/11/chinas-ban-on-virtual-private-networks">asserting control over its national infrastructure networks</a>. Whether we approve of these moves or not, they make sense in both national and international political terms.</p>
<p>Five years ago, the Conservative-led coalition government in the UK published its <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/61936/national-security-strategy.pdf">national security strategy</a> which identified cyber-attacks carried out by nation states or non-state actors as among the most serious threats to British national security – ranked alongside war, terrorism and natural disasters. The government now shows that while it quite reasonably seeks a stable commercial relationship with a powerful China, it may also end up undermining that stability by handing China the opportunity to carry out the very actions its own strategy warns against. There is a tension between the two positions and few signs that the government has considered how to resolve it. </p>
<p>It is hard to imagine the UK being drawn into a real conflict with China, except perhaps as a junior partner of the US if the <a href="https://theconversation.com/dispute-over-the-south-china-sea-could-put-east-asia-at-war-again-37825">present wrangling over the South China Sea</a> escalates into war. However, it is terrible strategy not to consider the options if the worst does happen. Rumours about “secret plans” to <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3276687/Ministers-draw-secret-plans-nationalise-Chinese-run-nuclear-power-stations-case-relations-Communist-state-turn-sour.html">re-nationalise Chinese-run nuclear infrastructure</a> in an emergency won’t convince anyone that the UK has a plan to counter China if it starts turning the electricity on and off across the UK in an effort to influence the British government. </p>
<p>President Xi has been happy to call the UK “China’s best partner in the West”. Let us hope no one has reason to question the asymmetry of that relationship should friends become foes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49614/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Stevens does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There is a tension between the UK’s national security strategy and a new nuclear deal with China.Tim Stevens, Teaching Fellow in Politics & International Relations, Royal Holloway University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/490922015-10-19T13:50:49Z2015-10-19T13:50:49ZIran’s tentative nuclear deal may not mean an international oil boom<p>The merest hint of a successful deal over Iran’s nuclear programme <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/038166e0-2b09-11e5-acfb-cbd2e1c81cca.html#axzz3ocj2nMrR">is enough to get people excited</a>. And as the country emerges from economic isolation, nowhere is the enthusiasm more keenly felt than in the huge oil firms with a chance to make a splash in one of the <a href="http://www.eia.gov/beta/international/">world’s most resource-rich nations</a>. But are the conditions really there for a boom that will ripple across our lives?</p>
<p>The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreed between Iran and the so-called P5+1 nations (China, France, Russia, the UK, the US and Germany) brings the prospect of an end to international sanctions. There were threats that the deal might be blocked by the US Congress, which <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/11/us/politics/iran-nuclear-deal-senate.html">were eventually overcome</a>, and this week has apparently seen the green light in Tehran <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/10/nuclear-deal-wins-final-iran-approval-151014164725034.html">from parliament and the Guardian Council</a>. </p>
<h2>Sanctioned</h2>
<p>In theory, it looks simple from here. The agreement is that the sanctions would be lifted on the “day of implementation” provided that Iran complies with its promises to restrict its nuclear programme. While both the American and Iranian governments seem willing to move towards practical implementation, there remain doubts surrounding the legislative foundation on which this rests. This political fragility – and one crucial detail in the agreement – are a spanner in the works for delivering what would amount to a revolution in global oil markets.</p>
<p>The appeal is clear to <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/10/09/uk-iran-nuclear-usa-exclusive-idUKKCN0S32O320151009">Royal-Dutch Shell, France’s Total and Italy’s Eni</a>. Iran is home to vast oil and gas reserves which to date have not been effectively tapped due to international restrictions. Iran had planned to introduce a new variety of flexible, <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/92402244-2975-11e5-8613-e7aedbb7bdb7.html#slide0">less risky contracts</a> as well as 50 new production projects to the international petroleum market in a conference to be held in London at the end of this year, but has since been postponed for the fourth time, <a href="http://www.ft.com/fastft/396711/iran-oil-conference">to early 2016</a>.</p>
<p>The Iranian regime’s inconsistent implementation of the agreement has created a confusing situation. On the one hand, the head of the <a href="https://www.iaea.org/">International Atomic Energy Agency</a> was permitted to visit Iran’s most controversial military site, Parchin, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-34315492">as recently as September 21</a>, contrary to the recent parliamentary interpretation of the deal excluding such inspections. In contrast, in October Iran successfully fired a long-range ballistic missile and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/15/iran-reveals-huge-underground-missile-base-with-broadcast-on-state-tv">revealed one of its missile bases</a> hidden in a mountain, in what seems to be a deliberately provocative act, undermining their commitments under the agreement. </p>
<h2>Political will</h2>
<p>This odd chain of events highlights the idea that the agreement’s apparent political success remains shaky, and far from solid ground for major corporate decision making. Legislative obstacles and provocative military actions make it clear that enforcement of an agreement is heavily dependent on the simple political will of the parties involved. </p>
<p>As an example, we can view the involvement of the Iranian parliament in ratifying the JCPOA as a device to mirror the debates within the US senate, rather than a genuine act of parliament. The law that confers the power on parliament to scrutinise international agreements is outlined <a href="http://www.iranonline.com/iran/iran-info/government/constitution-6-2.html">in Article 77 of the Iranian Constitution</a> which mandates that: “International treaties, protocols, contracts and agreements must be approved by the Islamic Consultative Assembly”. </p>
<p>That means that by referring to the agreement as a “Plan of Action”, the Iranian government avoids the JCPOA being treated as an international treaty requiring domestic ratification. Rather than conferring obligations on any of the parties, it was intended, at least as claimed by the Iranian government, to be of a voluntary nature. Its implementation was said to be contingent on the actions of the other parties. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98506/original/image-20151015-30744-1y6ce7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98506/original/image-20151015-30744-1y6ce7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98506/original/image-20151015-30744-1y6ce7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98506/original/image-20151015-30744-1y6ce7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98506/original/image-20151015-30744-1y6ce7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98506/original/image-20151015-30744-1y6ce7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98506/original/image-20151015-30744-1y6ce7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98506/original/image-20151015-30744-1y6ce7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Iranian president Hassan Rouhani speaks at the UN.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/un_photo/21608904059/in/photolist-yVvhkn-gbv7ad-gbvpcB-gbuTPu-vGg7Vp-gbvq72-m6T6et-vZ94rq-gboxBh-gboxCu-gbooZP-gauA5M-gauA1Z-gauzZB-gauk5r-gidPDV-gidin4-gid6NS-gido1y-ozm4PY-gidoos-iAmrZa-nE5BRw-npCB97-qkB9uT-aEUi4Z-aEUhye-kTViAG-wmD2Mc-ganstw-aEUidR-aEY8Us-aEUi9n-aEUi6X-aEUi2D-aEUi1k-aEY8FQ-aEY8DE-aEUhUt-aEY8A1-aEY8yJ-aEUhNH-aEY8vm-aEY8tL-aEY8sf-aEY8qY-aEY8ps-aEUhEV-aEUhCn-aEUhzT">United Nations Photo</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This allowed the government of president Hassan Rouhani to resist submitting the agreement to the parliament in the form of a bill. In fact, under the Iranian constitution, simply by not signing the JCPOA, Rouhani removed a further prompt which would have required parliamentary approval. </p>
<p>And then we have the idea, <a href="http://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/comment/2015/8/5/should-irans-islamic-assembly-vote-on-the-nuclear-deal">frequently claimed</a>, that it is not in any case the responsibility of parliament to deal with nuclear agreements. The idea being that such power has been specifically conferred to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) under the constitution. </p>
<p>And so, this “plan of action” accepted by the Rouhani government on the basis of the negotiating parties’ good faith has weight right now, but is subject to his political influence. Looking ahead to more solid foundations, were the ratification of the JCPOA by parliament and the Guardian Council to be combined with the signature of the president, then that would render the deal as domestic law. That would bind not only Rouhani’s government but any future government to come which would be a positive development. </p>
<h2>An uncertain future</h2>
<p>Any foreign company, in the current environment, would be well served to hold themselves back and wait until they can verify the agreement has entered into an established implementation phase. The current position remains economically fragile and crucially, subject to shifting political sands. If you want further proof of this fragility then <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7bbbc08e-6c44-11e5-aca9-d87542bf8673.html#axzz3odOJfAt6">look no further than the intention</a> of the US government to maintain sanctions against the <a href="http://www.cfr.org/iran/irans-revolutionary-guards/p14324">Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps</a>.</p>
<p>The Corps was established to defend the Islamic Republic against internal and external threats but has expanded to exert great influence over the Iranian oil and gas industry through hundreds of companies within its control. Even if there is a smooth path to ending sanctions under the current deal, then investors must ensure that their Iranian counterparts and contractors are not still subject to restrictions due to their connection with the Corps.</p>
<p>It is a worrying wrinkle in the works among many and the coming months will be crucial in determining whether the force of political will can overcome the obstacles thrown in its path, and open up a secure new front for eager, but hopefully cautious, businesses.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49092/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mohammad Hedayati-Kakhki does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The merest hint of a successful deal over Iran’s nuclear programme is enough to get people excited. And as the country emerges from economic isolation, nowhere is the enthusiasm more keenly felt than in…Mohammad Hedayati-Kakhki, Co-founder and Special Advisor of the Islam, Law & Modernity Research Group, Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/485532015-10-14T05:28:25Z2015-10-14T05:28:25ZAll at sea: making sense of the UK’s muddled nuclear policy<p>The chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne, has recently been waving huge wads of cash at different (but similarly delinquent) parts of UK nuclear policy. In August, he sailed triumphantly up the Clyde to the Trident-hosting Faslane Naval base to announce <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/aug/31/faslane-naval-base-clyde-500m-jobs-george-osborne">£500m of investment</a>. This was a move many considered to be jumping the gun, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/georgeosborne/11834734/George-Osborne-denies-jumping-the-gun-over-Trident.html">or even “arrogant”</a> given that no final decision has been made on its renewal. </p>
<p>A few weeks later, on his tour of China, Osborne was announcing <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/energy/11878566/Hinkley-Point-new-nuclear-plant-edges-closer-with-2-billion-Government-guarantee.html">an astonishing £2 billion loan guarantee</a> to city investors if the developers of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/if-the-hinkley-c-nuclear-deal-looks-astonishing-thats-because-it-is-47947">Hinkley C reactor</a> go bust. And this is additional to a <a href="http://news.sky.com/story/1157272/hinkley-point-nuclear-plant-deal-to-go-ahead">guaranteed strike price of £92.50 per megawatt hour</a> for 35 years (roughly double the current price of electricity – and <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/407059/Contracts_for_Difference_-_Auction_Results_-_Official_Statistics.pdf">significantly more than the current strike price for several renewables</a>). As <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/23/hinkley-point-squandermania-george-osborne-china">Simon Jenkins writes</a> in relation to the chancellor’s recent announcements: “You can accuse George Osborne of many things, but austerity isn’t one of them”.</p>
<h2>No laughing matter</h2>
<p>It has got to the point with Hinkley C where one must wonder how Osborne, the secretary of state for Energy and Climate Change, Amber Rudd and the chief executive of EDF, Vincent de Rivaz, manage to keep straight faces while repeating what a good deal the project will be for everybody. The French state-owned energy firm EDF is due to partner with the Chinese under the deal <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/sep/25/george-osborne-presses-on-with-hinkley-power-station-despite-criticism">announced by Osborne</a> in Beijing, and Rivaz’s boss, Jean-Bernard Levy, has admitted that the Chinese state is the only investor that can be <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/only-china-wants-to-invest-in-britains-new-2bn-hinkley-point-nuclear-plant-because-no-one-else-10513752.html">persuaded that the project is viable</a>. </p>
<p>Even this is only possible, with still-secret commitments that the Chinese can then build <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33092379">their own further nuclear power stations in the UK</a>. Indeed, there is now <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2015/sep/21/hinkley-point-nuclear-station-enemies">virtually no commentator in the British media</a>, or elsewhere, who seriously considers the Hinkley C project to be a sensible idea. As the <a href="http://new.spectator.co.uk/2014/02/why-has-britain-signed-up-for-the-worlds-most-expensive-power-station/">most expensive nuclear power station ever built</a>, left and right are united in recognising it as one of the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/23/hinkley-point-squandermania-george-osborne-china">worst infrastructure project decisions in British history</a>. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/dec/16/greenpolitics.environment">Experts formerly claiming nuclear to be a “necessity”</a> now <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/energy/nuclearpower/11244499/Nuclear-power-may-not-be-needed-says-top-atomic-advocate.html">seem to have realised</a> that other low-carbon pathways are not only possible, <a href="http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/commentators/2985547/shame_upon_them_the_governments_nuclear_lies_exposed.html">but manifestly more attractive</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98104/original/image-20151012-17849-7n2ki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98104/original/image-20151012-17849-7n2ki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98104/original/image-20151012-17849-7n2ki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98104/original/image-20151012-17849-7n2ki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98104/original/image-20151012-17849-7n2ki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98104/original/image-20151012-17849-7n2ki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98104/original/image-20151012-17849-7n2ki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98104/original/image-20151012-17849-7n2ki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Off the grid. Power games.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nayukim/5704133786/in/photolist-9G4bff-8fB3n1-7fPcNv-6hxGTB-dDhLgN-dMa93K-6f4tHd-6ujT2p-exjV6s-e6dsaa-6xcXpM-jGQXWA-5AvSJX-eAj9Hi-wNG4wT-aiigho-6YuaPm-az4yEU-56aTUt-7mpwpq-4drMr4-6H5j8H-unXgdr-qaR3J-dGymt1-Bh48K-7LoPYX-rebJBm-qjKuiC-2tkDrw-6j6GCU-aERAyd-7g6wZH-mT4QF-62sb1b-tDMLSG-DnExC-87bmts-2Ns44B-5sPkjb-ax47SF-bjoEkR-4S8cbC-ftqfCt-6Pdhim-yxi2xG-6jbgEq-2tkMyd-BkQGQ-9QZckg">Nayu Kim</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>British journalists who were noisily <a href="http://www.monbiot.com/2012/10/09/the-heart-of-the-matter/">insisting people were wrong</a> to protest against Hinkley C are now themselves <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/18/we-are-pro-nuclear-but-hinkley-c-must-be-scrapped">equally vociferously arguing</a> against the power station. As support for renewables are cut and commitments to Hinkley remain, international observers <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/22/al-gore-puzzled-by-ukcuts-to-renewable-energy-support">look on in wonder at UK energy policy</a> – but for all the wrong reasons. </p>
<p>It seems a sorry end for the <a href="https://blogs.sussex.ac.uk/sussexenergygroup/2015/02/17/the-politics-of-the-uk-nuclear-renaissance/">unusual partisan attachment</a> that the UK government has shown for new nuclear since 2008. With all the <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/85470214/Letter-to-David-Cameron-on-nuclear-power">efforts of orchestrated pro-nuclear advocacy</a> – <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2011/jun/15/italy-nuclear-referendum">lambasting anyone</a> daring to depart from complete ideological commitment to new nuclear – it might be expected that nuclear plans would be looking more secure. But the main aims now seem to be <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/18/nuclear-environmentalists-scrap-hinkley-c-plans">blame management</a> and <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/c9e9fe1e-604c-11e5-a28b-50226830d644,Authorised=false.html?siteedition=uk&_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2Fc9e9fe1e-604c-11e5-a28b-50226830d644.html%3Fsiteedition%3Duk&_i_referer=&classification=conditional_standard&iab=barrier-app#axzz3nJQv5ZzR">saving face</a>.</p>
<h2>Route map</h2>
<p>Never plausible to anyone recalling past episodes of nuclear enthusiasm, the latest bout of zeal for a “nuclear renaissance” has now lost all credibility. With global investments in renewable electricity two years ago <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-14/fossil-fuels-just-lost-the-race-against-renewables">overtaking those in all fossil fuel generation put together</a>, the direction of change is clear. <a href="http://www.irena.org/DocumentDownloads/Publications/IRENA_RE_Power_Costs_2014_report.pdf">Numerous</a> <a href="http://www.iiasa.ac.at/web/home/research/Flagship-Projects/Global-Energy-Assessment/GEA-Summary-web.pdf">international assessments</a> show renewables are already price-competitive even with optimistic costings for new nuclear. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98106/original/image-20151012-17831-8uipae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98106/original/image-20151012-17831-8uipae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98106/original/image-20151012-17831-8uipae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98106/original/image-20151012-17831-8uipae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98106/original/image-20151012-17831-8uipae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98106/original/image-20151012-17831-8uipae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98106/original/image-20151012-17831-8uipae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98106/original/image-20151012-17831-8uipae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Panel beaters. Renewables are outpacing nuclear.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/126337375@N05/15986041648/in/photolist-33fGbC-goDsq4-a8779z-zpfY7D-99MMwG-9QUEgj-a89Zsh-qmCDeJ-rzeVyL-qmM3ic-uWtVef-9QUEJ7-8Wid58-cDri8b-uXZC2x-b89YkF-m5fNmZ-m5gzW7-9QUEqw-9QRPdv-9QRPic-9QUEmu-9QRNWP-9QUE8W-a877h4-9QUECf-uWtYbh-uWtUPY-uWtXNJ-uEvv9R-uXeqta-uWXYFx-u17Hcg-uEo4kQ-uWXV5z-u17HBe-uEnT99-u17HPP-uEvAFH-tZX2UC-uEo3a3-dbg82N-vrJry5-v9rpuS-qM3sRp">BELECTRIC UK</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>Despite better nuclear engineering and a worse renewable resource, <a href="https://www.sussex.ac.uk/webteam/gateway/file.php?name=2015-18-swps-johnston-stirling.pdf&site=25">developments in Germany reinforce the picture</a>. Even in the UK, where official analysis tends to remain <a href="http://www.michaelmeacher.info/weblog/2011/04/how-is-this-nuclear-obsession-explained/">eccentrically romantic about nuclear</a>, the picture has long been clear for anyone with an open mind. As early as <a href="http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http:/www.berr.gov.uk/files/file10719.pdf">2003</a> the most detailed energy white paper for decades found nuclear power “unattractive” – before being overturned by a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/272376/6887.pdf">cursory revision</a> that was itself rejected by <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/new-nuclear-power-plans-unlawful-452507">judicial review for being too superficial</a>. </p>
<p><a href="http://infrastructure.planninginspectorate.gov.uk/wp-content/ipc/uploads/projects/EN010049/2.%20Post-Submission/Representations/ExA%20Questions/Round%201/Responses/2.1.2%20Poyry%20Report.pdf">Specialist analyses</a> for the UK government – of kinds that the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Commons/2015-07-13/6774/">has resisted making public</a> – repeatedly find many renewables to offer better value than new nuclear. This is borne out in the <a href="http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2015/02/uk-renewables-auction-pushes-down-costs/">government’s own data for electricity contracts</a>. And, for any project with such a long lifetime, perhaps even more damning is that <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/db44f166-d927-11e4-b907-00144feab7de.html#axzz3nJQv5ZzR">renewable costs keep dropping</a>, while <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/08/hinkley-point-european-commission-nuclear-power-station-somerset">nuclear costs keep rising</a>.</p>
<p>So it is an understatement to say it is odd that DECC is cutting support for <a href="http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2015/07/decc-amber-rudd-reduces-subsidies-for-renewable-energy/">onshore wind, solar power</a> and <a href="http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2411785/energy-efficiency-support-faces-gbp40m-cuts-as-decc-trims-budget">ending support for home energy efficiency</a> – while unswervingly staying committed to extortionate new nuclear power. Former minister for energy, Ed Davey, puts it bluntly:</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98110/original/image-20151012-17849-ohrxg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98110/original/image-20151012-17849-ohrxg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98110/original/image-20151012-17849-ohrxg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=268&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98110/original/image-20151012-17849-ohrxg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=268&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98110/original/image-20151012-17849-ohrxg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=268&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98110/original/image-20151012-17849-ohrxg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98110/original/image-20151012-17849-ohrxg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98110/original/image-20151012-17849-ohrxg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://twitter.com/edwardjdavey">Twitter</a></span>
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<p>For Davey, the only explanation can be one of partisan commitment by Osborne – because <a href="https://twitter.com/TimPBouverie/status/645971907695804416">“he just wanted a nuclear power plant”</a>. It is sure that Osborne <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2011/jun/15/italy-nuclear-referendum">is no environmentalist</a>. With so much nuclear work contracted abroad and UK employment allowed to haemorrhage in other sectors – for instance in <a href="http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/business/business-news/osbornes-low-watt-indifference-failed-10154181">steel</a> and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/aug/27/slashing-household-solar-subsides-kill-off-industry-government-feed-in-tariff">solar power</a> – it doesn’t seem Osborne is motivated by jobs. </p>
<p>Attracting Chinese infrastructure investment may play a role, but the realities make it clear there are many more economically promising alternatives than nuclear. And encouraging Chinese involvement in a <a href="https://theconversation.com/serious-issues-for-george-osborne-on-chinas-role-in-the-uks-nuclear-future-48541">technology with such grave national security implications</a> further compounds the oddity. George Osborne’s nuclear obsession really does require some kind of explanation.</p>
<h2>‘Deep state’</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2015/aug/07/shining-a-light-on-britains-nuclear-state">As we have explored elsewhere</a>, perhaps the best clue lies in Osborne’s trip up the Clyde to Faslane; maybe the real commitment here is to maintaining Britain’s nuclear arsenal. Amid the clamour of the recent China visit, it was also announced that <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34342784">a big slice of Hinkley contracts would go to Rolls Royce</a> – the makers of Britain’s nuclear submarine reactors. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98112/original/image-20151012-17858-1a0pygo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98112/original/image-20151012-17858-1a0pygo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98112/original/image-20151012-17858-1a0pygo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98112/original/image-20151012-17858-1a0pygo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98112/original/image-20151012-17858-1a0pygo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98112/original/image-20151012-17858-1a0pygo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98112/original/image-20151012-17858-1a0pygo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98112/original/image-20151012-17858-1a0pygo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">HMS Vigilant returns to port.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/defenceimages/14419385728/in/photolist-nYc81L-tcz62k-5EE7UC-evC8Kz-s99WjK-s99WZn-rcmy8z-rPQ2QT-s6S2AJ-rRyCS7-rRGQVF-rc9Wd1-s99WaM-s99WCv-rcmxi8-9oNtW6-5FdFB8-jEbTQ-qBite-9ab9pK-9xGrka-qBkbE-qBkcd-qBits-qBfRR-qBisZ-qBisU-eoigDM-eoih3T-23fm5q-yrqGKS-5EnLjR-3fTs2u-5EzPc2-9NEnS2-o7tgZe-o79Xeo-o2HyZT-5EzPiT-5EzPnr-qBitg-qBfRo-qBfRs-qBfRM-qBkbw-qBfRF-qBkc1-qBkbN-qBfRx-qBitk">Defence Images</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
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<p>The calculation seems to be, that trickle-down from foreign power reactor manufacturers may be just enough to sustain a national industrial capability sufficient to continue the nuclear-armed status that current debates remind is so <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/04/09/uk-britain-election-nuclear-idUKKBN0N00HO20150409">emotively cherished both by Tories</a> and at the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/11839043/The-case-for-renewing-Trident-is-irrefutable.html">top of Labour</a>. There are <a href="http://steps-centre.org/author/philj/">tantalising signs</a> that this lay behind the strange reversal in nuclear white papers mentioned above. If this is not at the bottom of Osborne’s mind, it is difficult to know what is.</p>
<p>If so, the implications for the health of UK politics are extremely serious. The Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour Party is <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/01/trident-corbyn-shadow-cabinet-labour">raising these issues anew</a>. All sides are limbering up for the coming argument over Trident. But if the above analysis is true, then massive financial pre-commitments are being made (<a href="http://www.robedwards.com/2014/11/revealed-westminsters-37-million-us-deal-for-trident-missile-launchers.html">and some already firmly in place</a>) on an unprecedented scale, that risk effectively locking in a decision before the process of making it has ostensibly begun. </p>
<p>With mainstream press reports of senior British Army figures <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/british-army-could-stage-mutiny-under-corbyn-says-senior-serving-general-10509742.html">mooting mutiny under a Corbyn government</a>, this carries more than a whiff of something akin to an unaccountable British <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/anthony-barnett/is-there-uk-deep-state">“deep state”</a>. For anyone who cares about <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-germany-is-dumping-nuclear-power-and-britain-isnt-46359">democracy</a> – whatever their views on nuclear power or nuclear weapons – now is the moment to ask some searching questions about what nuclear policy is doing to British politics. And there seems no-one better to ask than Osborne.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/48553/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip Johnstone receives funding from The ESRC and works at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU), University of Sussex. Phil is also a member of the Nuclear Consulting Group. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andy Stirling receives funding from the ESRC for research on this topic. Alongside many other commitments (including advisory roles for the UK Government on energy and other technology policy issues and for the nuclear industry on energy diversity), he has worked in the past for Greenpeace International and currently serves (unpaid) on the board of Greenpeace UK.</span></em></p>Is George Osborne deploying the ‘Deep State’ to secure a long-term nuclear arsenal for Britain?Philip Johnstone, Research Fellow, SPRU, University of Sussex Business School, University of SussexAndy Stirling, Professor of Science & Technology Policy and co-director of the ESRC STEPS Centre, University of Sussex Business School, University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.