tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/nuclear-non-proliferation-10025/articlesNuclear non-proliferation – The Conversation2024-02-07T19:17:46Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2225002024-02-07T19:17:46Z2024-02-07T19:17:46ZUnderground nuclear tests are hard to detect. A new method can spot them 99% of the time<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573342/original/file-20240205-18-173q39.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=29%2C0%2C1967%2C1047&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Castle_Bravo_nuclear_test.jpg">US Department of Energy via Wikimedia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since the first detonation of an atomic bomb in 1945, more than 2,000 nuclear weapons tests have been conducted by eight countries: the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan and North Korea. </p>
<p>Groups such as the <a href="https://www.ctbto.org">Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization</a> are constantly on the lookout for new tests. However, for reasons of safety and secrecy, modern nuclear tests are carried out underground – which makes them difficult to detect. Often, the only indication they have occurred is from the seismic waves they generate.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://academic.oup.com/gji/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/gji/ggae011">paper published in Geophysical Journal International</a>, my colleagues and I have developed a way to distinguish between underground nuclear tests and natural earthquakes with around 99% accuracy.</p>
<h2>Fallout</h2>
<p>The invention of nuclear weapons sparked an international arms race, as the Soviet Union, the UK and France developed and tested increasingly larger and more sophisticated devices in an attempt to keep up with the US.</p>
<p>Many early tests caused serious environmental and societal damage. For example, the US’s 1954 Castle Bravo test, conducted in secret at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, delivered <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/13/marshall-islands-pacific-us-nuclear-bomb-test-payment">large volumes of radioactive fallout</a> to several nearby islands and their inhabitants.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/315-nuclear-bombs-and-ongoing-suffering-the-shameful-history-of-nuclear-testing-in-australia-and-the-pacific-148909">315 nuclear bombs and ongoing suffering: the shameful history of nuclear testing in Australia and the Pacific</a>
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<p>Between 1952 and 1957, the UK conducted several tests in Australia, scattering long-lived radioactive material over wide areas of South Australian bushland, with <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/maralinga">devastating consequences</a> for local Indigenous communities. </p>
<p>In 1963, the US, the UK and the USSR agreed to carry out future tests underground to limit fallout. Nevertheless, testing continued unabated as China, India, Pakistan and North Korea also entered the fray over the following decades.</p>
<h2>How to spot an atom bomb</h2>
<p>During this period there were substantial international efforts to figure out how to monitor nuclear testing. The competitive nature of weapons development means much research and testing is conducted in secret. </p>
<p>Groups such as the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization today run global networks of instruments specifically designed to <a href="https://www.ctbto.org/our-work/international-monitoring-system">identify any potential tests</a>. These include:</p>
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<li>air-testing stations to detect minute quantities of radioactive elements in the atmosphere</li>
<li>aquatic listening posts to hear underwater tests</li>
<li>infrasound detectors to catch the low-frequency booms and rumbles of explosions in the atmosphere</li>
<li>seismometers to record the shaking of Earth caused by underground tests. </li>
</ul>
<h2>A needle in a haystack</h2>
<p>Seismometers are designed to measure seismic waves: tiny vibrations of the ground surface generated when large amounts of energy are suddenly released underground, such as during earthquakes or nuclear explosions.</p>
<p>There are two main kinds of seismic waves. First are body waves, which travel outwards in all directions, including down into the deep Earth, before returning to the surface. Second are surface waves, which travel along Earth’s surface like ripples spreading out on a pond. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The Comprehensive Test-Ban-Treaty Organization uses seismic stations to monitor the globe for underground nuclear explosions.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The difficulty in using seismic waves to monitor underground nuclear tests is distinguishing between explosions and naturally occurring earthquakes. A core goal of monitoring is never to miss an explosion, but there are thousands of sizeable natural quakes around the world every day. </p>
<p>As a result, monitoring underground tests is like searching for a potentially non-existent needle in a haystack the size of a planet.</p>
<h2>Nukes vs quakes</h2>
<p>Many different methods have been developed to aid this search over the past 60 years. </p>
<p>Some of the simplest include analysing the location or depth of the source. If an event occurs far from volcanoes and plate tectonic boundaries, it might be considered more suspicious. Alternatively, if it occurs at a depth greater than say three kilometres, it is unlikely to have been a nuclear test.</p>
<p>However, these simple methods are not foolproof. Tests might be carried out in earthquake-prone areas for camouflage, for example, and shallow earthquakes are also possible.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/north-korea-tests-not-just-a-bomb-but-the-global-nuclear-monitoring-system-83715">North Korea tests not just a bomb but the global nuclear monitoring system</a>
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<p>A more sophisticated monitoring approach involves calculating the ratio of the amount of the energy transmitted in body waves to the amount carried in surface waves. Earthquakes tend to expend more of their energy in surface waves than explosions do. </p>
<p>This method has proven highly effective for identifying underground nuclear tests, but it too is imperfect. It failed to effectively classify the 2017 North Korean nuclear test, which generated substantial surface waves because it was carried out <a href="https://doi.org/10.1785/0220180099">inside a tunnel in a mountain</a>.</p>
<p>This outcome underlines the importance of using multiple independent discrimination techniques during monitoring – no single method is likely to prove reliable for all events.</p>
<h2>An alternative method</h2>
<p>In 2023, my colleagues and I from the Australian National University and Los Alamos National Laboratory in the US got together to re-examine the problem of determining the source of seismic waves.</p>
<p>We used a recently developed approach to represent how rocks are displaced at the source of a seismic event, and combined it with a more advanced statistical model to describe different types of event. As a result, we were able to take advantage of fundamental differences between the sources of explosions and earthquakes to develop an <a href="https://academic.oup.com/gji/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/gji/ggae011">improved method of classifying these events</a>.</p>
<p>We tested our approach on catalogues of known explosions and earthquakes from the western United States, and found that the method gets it right around 99% of the time. This makes it a useful new tool in efforts to monitor underground nuclear tests.</p>
<p>Robust techniques for identification of nuclear tests will continue to be a key component of global monitoring programs. They are critical for ensuring governments are held accountable for the environmental and societal impacts of nuclear weapons testing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222500/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Hoggard works for the Australian National University. He receives funding from Geoscience Australia and the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>Listening for underground nuclear explosions amid the constant rumble of earthquakes is like looking for a needle that may not exist in a haystack the size of a planet.Mark Hoggard, DECRA Research Fellow, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2101152023-07-31T12:23:52Z2023-07-31T12:23:52ZHiroshima attack marks its 78th anniversary – its lessons of unnecessary mass destruction could help guide future nuclear arms talks<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539797/original/file-20230727-15-m7op1g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Visitors to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima view a large-scale panoramic photograph of the destruction following the 1945 bombing.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/visitors-to-hiroshima-peace-memorial-museum-view-a-large-news-photo/1227916055?adppopup=true">Carl Court/Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It was 8:15 on a Monday morning, Aug. 6, 1945. World War II was raging in Japan.</p>
<p>An American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first atomic bomb over <a href="https://www.ctbto.org/news-and-events/news/6-and-9-august-1945-hiroshima-nagasaki#:%7E:text=On%206%20August%201945%2C%20at,were%20confident%20it%20would%20work">Hiroshima, Japan</a> – an important military center with a civilian population close to 300,000 people. </p>
<p>The U.S. wanted to end the war, and Japan was unwilling to <a href="https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/education/presidential-inquiries/decision-drop-atomic-bomb">surrender unconditionally</a>. </p>
<p>The bomber plane was called the Enola Gay, named for Enola Gay Tibbets, <a href="https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Events/1945/hiroshima.htm">the mother of the pilot</a>. </p>
<p>Its passenger was “Little Boy” – an atomic bomb that quickly killed <a href="https://www.icanw.org/hiroshima_and_nagasaki_bombings">80,000 people in Hiroshima</a>. Tens of thousands more would later die of the excruciating effects of radiation exposure. </p>
<p>Three days later, U.S. soldiers in a second B-29 bomber plane dropped another <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki">atomic bomb on Nagasaki</a>, killing an estimated 40,000 people. </p>
<p>It was the first – and so far, only – time atomic bombs were used against civilians. But U.S. scientists were confident it would work, because they <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/the-manhattan-project-and-its-cold-war-legacy?gad=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwtO-kBhDIARIsAL6LorcawhIylSgwAJ1ta5ttJ0OYLVVmSsYKK7Ti3vG9MXUHix5jhCkH_q8aAtgxEALw_wcB">had tested one just like it in New Mexico</a> a month before. This was part of the <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-was-the-manhattan-project/">Manhattan Project</a>, a secret, federally funded science effort that produced the first nuclear weapons. </p>
<p>What might have been a single year of nuclear weapons development ushered in decades and decades of <a href="https://www.iaea.org/topics/non-proliferation-treaty">nuclear proliferation</a> – a challenge across countries and professions.</p>
<p>Having worked on nuclear weapons both as a journalist covering the Pentagon and then as a White House special assistant on the National Security Council and undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, <a href="https://fletcher.tufts.edu/people/faculty/tara-sonenshine">I understand how critical it is</a> to educate and inform citizens about the dangers of nuclear war and how to control the development of nuclear weapons. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539641/original/file-20230726-17-h4r1mh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white photo shows a massive cloud of smoke in the air." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539641/original/file-20230726-17-h4r1mh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539641/original/file-20230726-17-h4r1mh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539641/original/file-20230726-17-h4r1mh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539641/original/file-20230726-17-h4r1mh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539641/original/file-20230726-17-h4r1mh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539641/original/file-20230726-17-h4r1mh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539641/original/file-20230726-17-h4r1mh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=526&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">An aerial photograph shows the mushroom cloud that ballooned after U.S. soldiers dropped the ‘Little Boy’ atomic bomb over Hiroshima in 1945.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/an-aerial-photograph-of-hiroshima-japan-shortly-after-the-news-photo/513666223?adppopup=true">Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>The man who started it all</h2>
<p>Nobel Prize-winning physicist Albert Einstein warned then-President Franklin Roosevelt in 1939 that the Nazis might be <a href="https://time.com/5641891/einstein-szilard-letter/#">developing nuclear weapons</a>. Einstein urged the U.S. to stockpile uranium and begin developing an atomic bomb – a warning he would later regret.</p>
<p>Einstein <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/11/ive-created-a-monster-on-the-regrets-of-inventors/249044/">wrote a letter</a> to Newsweek, published in 1947, headlined “The Man Who Started It All.” In it, he made a confession. “Had I known that the Germans would not succeed in producing an atomic bomb, I would never have lifted a finger,” Einstein wrote. </p>
<p>Einstein repeated <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/einstein-regret-video">his regret in 1954</a>, writing that the letter to Roosevelt was his “one great mistake in life.”</p>
<p>But by then it was too late. </p>
<p>The Soviet Union began its own <a href="https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/history/hydrogen-bomb-1950/">bomb development program in the late 1940s</a>, partly in response to Hiroshima and Nagasaki but also as a response to the Nazi invasion of their country in the 1940s. The Soviet Union secretly conducted its first atomic <a href="https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/history/soviet-atomic-program-1946/">weapons test in 1949</a>.</p>
<p>The U.S. responded by <a href="https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/history/hydrogen-bomb-1950/">testing more advanced nuclear weapons</a> in November 1952. The result was a hydrogen bomb explosion with approximately 700 times the power of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. </p>
<p>A nuclear arms race had begun.</p>
<h2>Arms control</h2>
<p>The U.S. atomic bomb attacks on Japan remain the only military use of nuclear weapons.</p>
<p>But today <a href="https://www.sipri.org/media/press-release/2023/states-invest-nuclear-arsenals-geopolitical-relations-deteriorate-new-sipri-yearbook-out-now">there are nine countries</a> that have nuclear weapons – the U.S., Russia, France, China, the United Kingdom, Pakistan, India, Israel and North Korea. The U.S. and Russia jointly have about <a href="https://rb.gy/gbfq7">90% of the nuclear warheads</a> in the world. </p>
<p>There has been progress over the past few decades in <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/experts-assess-the-nuclear-non-proliferation-treaty-50-years-after-it-went-into-effect/">reducing the global stockpile of nuclear weapons</a> while preventing the development of new ones. But that momentum has been uneven and oftentimes rocky. </p>
<p>The U.S. and the Soviet Union first agreed to limit their respective countries’ nuclear weapons stockpile and to prevent further development of <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/INFtreaty">new weapons in 1986</a>.</p>
<p>And in 1991 the U.S. and the Soviet Union signed on to another <a href="https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/history/reagan-and-gorbachev-reykjavik-summit/">legally binding international treaty</a> that required the countries to destroy 2,693 nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of about 300 to more than 3,400 miles (500-5,500 kilometers). </p>
<p>The two countries signed another well-known <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/start1">international agreement called START I</a> in 1994, not long after the fall of the Soviet Union. </p>
<p>That treaty is <a href="https://armscontrolcenter.org/strategic-arms-reduction-treaty-start-i/#:%7E:text=The%20treaty%20is%20considered%20one,eight%20years%20after%20full%20implementation.">considered by experts one of the most successful</a> arms control agreements. It resulted in the U.S. and Russia’s dismantling 80% of all the world’s <a href="https://armscontrolcenter.org/strategic-arms-reduction-treaty-start-i/">strategic nuclear weapons</a> by 2001.</p>
<p>Russia and the U.S. signed on to a new START treaty in 2011, restricting the countries to each keep 1,550 nuclear weapons.</p>
<p>START II, as it is known, will expire in February 2026. There are no <a href="https://www.state.gov/new-start/">current plans</a> for the countries to renew the deal, and it is not clear what comes next. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539813/original/file-20230727-23-o73a1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white photo shows two men toasting each other, surrounded by other men at a table." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539813/original/file-20230727-23-o73a1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539813/original/file-20230727-23-o73a1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539813/original/file-20230727-23-o73a1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539813/original/file-20230727-23-o73a1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539813/original/file-20230727-23-o73a1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539813/original/file-20230727-23-o73a1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539813/original/file-20230727-23-o73a1r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=408&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">Former U.S. President Gerald Ford and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev toast following nuclear nonproliferation talks in 1974.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/american-statesman-gerald-ford-the-38th-president-of-the-news-photo/3277304?adppopup=true">Keystone/CNP/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Complicating factors</h2>
<p>Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine – and Russian President <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/putin-nuclear-weapons-threat-real-biden-warns-rcna90114">Vladimir Putin’s repeated threats</a> to strike Ukraine and Western countries with nuclear weapons – has complicated plans to renew the new START deal. </p>
<p>Although Putin has not formally ended Russian adherence to the START II agreement, Russia has <a href="https://geneva.usmission.gov/2023/05/16/cessation-of-the-nuclear-arms-race-and-nuclear-disarmament/">stopped participating</a> in the nuclear inspection checks that the deal requires. This lack of transparency makes <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/31/politics/us-russia-nuclear-arms-control-treaty/index.html">diplomacy over the deal more difficult</a>.</p>
<p>Another complicating factor is that <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2022/02/china-russia-nuclear-weapons/622089/">China has made it clear</a> that it is not interested in an arms control agreement until it has the same number of nuclear weapons that the U.S. and Russia have. </p>
<p>Indeed, since 2019, China has increased the size, readiness, accuracy and <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2023-01/news/pentagon-chinese-nuclear-arsenal-exceeds-400-warheads#:%7E:text=The%20report%20projects%20that%20China,timeline%2C%22%20the%20report%20states">diversity of its nuclear arsenal</a>.</p>
<p>The U.S. Department of Defense reported in 2022 that <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/does-the-pentagon-report-on-chinas-military-correctly-judge-the-threat/">China was on course to have 1,500 nuclear weapons</a> within the next decade – roughly matching the stockpile that the U.S. and Russia each have. In 2015, China had an estimated <a href="https://www.nti.org/analysis/articles/china-nuclear">260 nuclear warheads</a>, and by 2023 that number rose to <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2023-01/news/pentagon-chinese-nuclear-arsenal-exceeds-400-warheads#:%7E:text=The%20report%20projects%20that%20China,timeline%2C%22%20the%20report%20states">more than 400.</a> </p>
<p>At the same time, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/04/13/1169878514/north-korea-missile-test-solid-fuel">North Korea continues testing</a> its ballistic nuclear missiles. </p>
<p>Iran is <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/iran-enriching-uranium-weapons-grade-nuclear-iaea-rcna72753">enriching uranium</a> to near-weapons-grade levels. Some observers have voiced concern that Iran could soon reach <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/iran-enriching-uranium-weapons-grade-nuclear-iaea-rcna72753">90% enrichment levels</a>, meaning it would then just be a few months before Iran develops a nuclear bomb. </p>
<p>In a world of potential nuclear terrorism and conflicts that risk the unthinkable use of nuclear weapons, I think that the need to control proliferation and double down on arms control is a useful starting point.</p>
<p>So, what else can be done to contain the real threat of nuclear war?</p>
<h2>Diplomacy is the way forward</h2>
<p>Diplomacy matters, as was clear in the early years of U.S.-Soviet agreements. </p>
<p>In my view, a formal agreement between the U.S. and Iran to slow down its nuclear development would be valuable. Creating a better relationship between the U.S. and China might reduce the chances of a confrontation over Taiwan with the potential for a nuclear conflagration. </p>
<p>The U.S. can also use public diplomacy tools – everything from official speeches to international educational exchanges – to warn the world of the escalating dangers of unchecked nuclear weapons use. This is one way to get ordinary citizens to put pressure on their governments to work on disarmament, similar to how young activists have moved public opinion on climate change. </p>
<p>The U.S. could potentially <a href="https://press.un.org/en/2023/sc15250.doc.htm">use its global podium</a> to underscore the horrific nature of threats that come with the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/25/politics/biden-russia-dirty-bomb/index.html">use of nuclear weapons</a> and make clear such use is inadmissible. </p>
<p>Remembering Aug. 6, 1945, is painful. But the best way to honor history is not to repeat it. </p>
<p><em>This article was updated to correct where World War II fighting continued on August 6, 1945.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210115/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tara Sonenshine 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>The United States and Russia, the two biggest nuclear powers, have no imminent plans for talks on a nuclear deal. That should change, writes a former US diplomat.Tara Sonenshine, Edward R. Murrow Professor of Practice in Public Diplomacy, Tufts UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2017602023-03-15T03:08:06Z2023-03-15T03:08:06ZIf AUKUS is all about nuclear submarines, how can it comply with nuclear non-proliferation treaties? A law scholar explains<p>The issue of nuclear non-proliferation is back in the headlines, thanks to details <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/03/13/joint-leaders-statement-on-aukus-2">announced</a> yesterday at a US navy base of a deal involving Australia’s purchase of nuclear submarines.</p>
<p>The AUKUS plan, which may cost Australia upwards of A$300 billion over the next 30 years, involves Australia purchasing three Virginia-class nuclear-powered, conventionally armed submarines by the early 2030s. Australia will also build its own nuclear powered submarines using US nuclear technology by the 2050s. </p>
<p>Australia, the US and the UK have <a href="https://www.pm.gov.au/media/aukus-remarks">said</a> the deal complies with their <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/npt/">nuclear</a> <a href="https://treaties.un.org/pages/showDetails.aspx?objid=08000002800cea40">non-proliferation</a> obligations. </p>
<p>But China has <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/china-aukus-countries-clash-iaea-over-nuclear-submarine-plan-2022-09-16/">said</a> the AUKUS deal represents “the illegal transfer of nuclear weapon materials, making it essentially an act of nuclear proliferation.”</p>
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<p>So what are Australia’s obligations under the existing nuclear non-proliferation regime and does this deal comply?</p>
<p>To answer this question, you need to know a bit more about two key treaties Australia has signed up to: the 1968 <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/npt/">Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty</a> (sometimes shortened to NPT) and the 1986 <a href="https://treaties.un.org/pages/showDetails.aspx?objid=08000002800cea40">Raratonga Treaty</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/progress-in-detection-tech-could-render-submarines-useless-by-the-2050s-what-does-it-mean-for-the-aukus-pact-201187">Progress in detection tech could render submarines useless by the 2050s. What does it mean for the AUKUS pact?</a>
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<h2>What is the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty?</h2>
<p>The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty essentially requires nuclear weapon states who are a part of the treaty (US, UK, China, Russia and France) to not pass nuclear weapons or technology to non-nuclear weapons states. Of course, other countries do have nuclear weapons but they are not part of the treaty.</p>
<p>Crucially, the treaty only relates to the use of nuclear materials associated with nuclear <em>weapons</em>. It has a specific carve-out in it for the provision of nuclear materials for “peaceful purposes” (in <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/npt/text">Article 4</a>). </p>
<p>The treaty also outlines processes to ensure the <a href="https://www.iaea.org/">International Atomic Energy Agency</a> monitors nuclear programs and nuclear materials even if used for peaceful purposes (including uranium and the technology to use it). </p>
<p>Australia has a number of <a href="https://www.iaea.org/publications/documents/infcircs/text-agreement-between-australia-and-agency-application-safeguards-connection-treaty-non-proliferation-nuclear-weapons">subsidiary arrangements</a> with the International Atomic Energy Agency that outline how these safeguard arrangements work.</p>
<p>Despite what critics may say, Australia’s nuclear-powered engines under AUKUS comply with the written rules of the treaty and these subsidiary agreements.</p>
<p>On the face of it, you might think the term “peaceful purposes” would rule out use for military submarine propulsion. But the definition focuses on using nuclear material for purposes that don’t involve the design, acquisition, testing or use of nuclear weapons. </p>
<p>All AUKUS partners have emphasised the nuclear-powered submarines Australia is to acquire will only carry conventional weapons (not nuclear weapons).</p>
<p>Australia’s <a href="https://www.iaea.org/publications/documents/infcircs/text-agreement-between-australia-and-agency-application-safeguards-connection-treaty-non-proliferation-nuclear-weapons">agreement</a> with the International Atomic Energy Agency clarifies what is covered by the treaty and the concept of peaceful purposes.</p>
<p>Article 14 of this <a href="https://www.iaea.org/publications/documents/infcircs/text-agreement-between-australia-and-agency-application-safeguards-connection-treaty-non-proliferation-nuclear-weapons">agreement</a> says “non-proscribed military purposes” are allowed.</p>
<p>Effectively, the Australian government has <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Treaties/ENNPIA/Report/section?id=committees%2Freportjnt%2F024853%2F78642">interpreted</a> this to mean nuclear materials can be used for naval nuclear vessel <em>propulsion</em>. That is a usage unrelated to nuclear weapons or explosive devices. </p>
<p><a href="https://icanw.org.au/wp-content/uploads/Troubled-Waters-nuclear-submarines-AUKUS-NPT-July-2022-final.pdf">Some have suggested</a> this argument creates a risky precedent that nuclear materials – beyond the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency – could be used to make weapons.</p>
<p>But Australia has <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Treaties/ENNPIA/Report/section?id=committees%2Freportjnt%2F024853%2F78642">undertaken</a> to comply with its safeguard obligations with the <a href="https://www.iaea.org/publications/documents/infcircs/text-agreement-between-australia-and-agency-application-safeguards-connection-treaty-non-proliferation-nuclear-weapons">International Atomic Energy Agency</a> for the AUKUS deal.</p>
<p>This builds on its <a href="https://www.ansto.gov.au/education/nuclear-facts#:%7E:text=ANSTO%20is%20home%20to%20Australia's,OPAL%20in%20Lucas%20Heights%2C%20Sydney.">existing practice</a> around nuclear materials held for other “peaceful purposes” (like research and medical purposes). </p>
<h2>What does the Raratonga Treaty require?</h2>
<p>Australia is also a signatory to the <a href="https://treaties.un.org/pages/showDetails.aspx?objid=08000002800cea40">Raratonga Treaty</a> (also known as the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty).</p>
<p>This treaty is a regional agreement that supports the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.</p>
<p>Signatories to the Raratonga Treaty have effectively agreed to maintaining a nuclear weapon-free zone in the South Pacific.</p>
<p>The Raratonga Treaty entered into force in 1986. It provides that no “nuclear explosive devices” can enter the nuclear-free zone outlined in the agreement. It also includes other limitations on the distribution and acquisition of <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/fissile-material/#:%7E:text=Fissile%20materials%20are%20materials%20that,%2D239%20isotope%20of%20plutonium">nuclear fissile material</a> (which are materials that can be used in a nuclear bomb) unless subject to specific safeguards. </p>
<p>The Raratonga Treaty accounts for <a href="https://documents.unoda.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/ME-workshop-July-2020-%E2%80%93-3-Paper-Dr.-Michael-Hamel-Green.docx">differences</a> in opinion regarding Australia and New Zealand’s approach to vessels carrying nuclear weapons (New Zealand does not allow nuclear-weapons carrying vessels to visit its ports, while Australia does). </p>
<p>But more importantly for the AUKUS deal, this treaty does not strictly exclude a signatory from using nuclear propulsion. That’s as long as the engine is not <a href="https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%201445/volume-1445-I-24592-English.pdf">considered</a> </p>
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<p>a nuclear weapon or other explosive device capable of releasing nuclear energy, irrespective of the purpose for which it could be used.</p>
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<p>Providing the engines meet this definition, the AUKUS deal complies with the Raratonga Treaty as well. </p>
<p>Australia will have particular obligations under this treaty to deal with the nuclear waste. </p>
<p>Defence Minister Richard Marles has <a href="https://www.watoday.com.au/politics/federal/search-for-site-to-store-high-level-radioactive-waste-from-nuclear-subs-to-begin-in-next-year-20230314-p5cryp.html">outlined</a> that waste from the vessels will be kept on Department of Defence land on Australian territory (and not disposed of at sea). </p>
<h2>In accordance with international law</h2>
<p>More detail is still to come. But the US and UK have decided the risks involved in sharing nuclear propulsion technology with Australia <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2021-09-27/dont-sink-nuclear-submarine-deal">are worth it</a> to hedge against more aggressive China.</p>
<p>On the face of the announcements made so far, the deal complies with international law, despite accusations to the contrary from China and other critics. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-anthony-albanese-finds-scott-morrisons-aukus-clothes-a-good-fit-201640">View from The Hill: Anthony Albanese finds Scott Morrison's AUKUS clothes a good fit</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201760/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>In addition to her role as a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Queensland, Lauren Sanders works as a legal consultant with a law firm, advising Defence industry on international humanitarian law and weapons law issues. Any comments made here are in her personal capacity and do not represent the views of the Australian government or the Australian Defence Force.</span></em></p>On the face of the announcements made so far, the deal complies with international law, despite accusations to the contrary from China and other critics.Lauren Sanders, Senior Research Fellow on Law and the Future of War, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1878352022-08-05T12:13:18Z2022-08-05T12:13:18ZWhy are nuclear weapons so hard to get rid of? Because they’re tied up in nuclear countries’ sense of right and wrong<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477238/original/file-20220802-19-qrajme.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1%2C4%2C1020%2C674&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks during the 2022 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons at the United Nations on Aug. 1, 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/secretary-of-state-antony-blinken-speaks-during-the-2022-news-photo/1242248550?adppopup=true">Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every five years, the nearly 200 member states of the <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/npt/">Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons</a> meet to review their progress – or lack thereof. After being postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the monthlong conference <a href="https://www.un.org/en/conferences/npt2020">is now meeting in New York</a> and opened with a stark warning.</p>
<p>The world is “just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/01/world/europe/nuclear-war-un-guterres.html">United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Aug. 1, 2022</a>, citing growing conflicts and weakening “guardrails” against escalation.</p>
<p>The treaty has three core missions: preventing the spread of nuclear weapons to states that do not have them, ensuring civil nuclear energy programs do not turn into weapons programs, and facilitating nuclear disarmament. The last review conference, <a href="https://www.un.org/en/conf/npt/2015/">held in 2015</a>, was widely regarded as a nonproliferation success but a <a href="https://cpr.unu.edu/publications/articles/why-the-2015-npt-review-conference-fell-apart.html">disarmament failure</a>, with the five members that possess nuclear weapons failing to make progress toward eliminating their nuclear arsenals, as promised in <a href="https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/issues_development-enjeux_developpement/peace_security-paix_securite/action_plan-2010-plan_d_action.aspx?lang=eng">previous conferences</a>.</p>
<p>At the heart of this dispute are states’ <a href="https://doi.org/10.3402/egp.v2i2.1916">motivations for keeping nuclear weapons</a> – often perceived as rooted in hard-nosed security strategy, by which morality is irrelevant or even self-defeating.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.polisci.txst.edu/people/faculty-bios/doyle.html">a nuclear ethicist</a>, though, I see these explanations as incomplete. To understand <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538164136/Nuclear-Ethics-in-the-Twenty-First-Century-Survival-Order-and-Justice">leaders’ motives</a> – and therefore effectively negotiate the elimination of nuclear weapons – other scholars and I argue we must acknowledge that policymakers express underlying moral concerns as strategic concerns. History shows that such moral concerns often form the foundations of nuclear strategy, even if they’re deeply buried. </p>
<h2>National values</h2>
<p>It is easier for many people to see how the <a href="https://www.icrc.org/en/document/treaty-nuclear-weapons-prohibition">nuclear abolitionist argument</a> is fundamentally based in morality. The fear of <a href="https://theconversation.com/nuclear-war-could-be-devastating-for-the-us-even-if-no-one-shoots-back-131809">nuclear winter</a> – or even a less severe “nuclear autumn” – is rooted in the immorality of killing millions of innocent people and devastating the environment in long-lasting ways.</p>
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<img alt="A black and white photo shows a man standing in a sea of rubble, with the ruins of one building in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477239/original/file-20220802-10020-gr7br8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477239/original/file-20220802-10020-gr7br8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477239/original/file-20220802-10020-gr7br8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477239/original/file-20220802-10020-gr7br8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477239/original/file-20220802-10020-gr7br8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477239/original/file-20220802-10020-gr7br8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477239/original/file-20220802-10020-gr7br8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Hiroshima, Japan, after the atomic bomb was dropped in August 1945.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/world-war-ii-after-the-explosion-of-the-atom-bomb-in-august-news-photo/566461861?adppopup=true">Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>By contrast, a realistic and strategic approach to the value of nuclear weapons has dominated <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538164136/Nuclear-Ethics-in-the-Twenty-First-Century-Survival-Order-and-Justice">security discourse</a> since the early Cold War era. This approach argues that the primary purpose of nuclear weapons is to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511491573">deter adversaries</a> from attacking vital national security interests. If an attack does occur, then nuclear weapons can be used to <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=21511">punish aggression</a> in a proportional way and caution other adversaries, restoring nuclear deterrence. </p>
<p>Even so, according to <a href="https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty/joseph-nye">political scientist Joseph Nye</a>, the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs under President Bill Clinton, a strategist <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Nuclear-Ethics/Joseph-S-Nye/9780029230916">may pose as a moral skeptic</a> but “tends to smuggle his preferred values into foreign policy, often in the form of narrow nationalism.”</p>
<p>Nationalism asserts the moral priority of one’s own nation over others. Communities’ deep-held beliefs are intimately woven into <a href="https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/michael-walzer/just-and-unjust-wars/9780465052707/">ideas about nationhood, security and prestige</a>.</p>
<p>In the United States, for example, the moral underpinnings of American identity are deeply rooted in the idea of being “<a href="https://www.neh.gov/article/how-america-became-city-upon-hill">a city on a hill</a>”: an example the rest of the world is watching. Americans are anxious about losing their way, and many feel that their country was once a <a href="https://www.mic.com/articles/5505/is-america-the-greatest-force-for-good-in-the-world">force for good</a> in the world, but no longer. Thus, national survival is embraced as a moral value, and deterring or defending against aggression has strategic, political and moral overtones.</p>
<p>Regardless of whether someone thinks these concerns are justified, it is important to recognize that, in their defenders’ view, they go beyond strategy or sheer survival. They reflect societies’ foundational ideas about what is wrong and right – their sense of morality.</p>
<h2>Early motives</h2>
<p>So how are these moral concerns applied to the questions of nuclear weapons and their role in security strategy?</p>
<p>It is worth remembering what motivated President Franklin D. Roosevelt to authorize the <a href="https://www.routledge.com/A-Perpetual-Menace-Nuclear-Weapons-and-International-Order/Walker/p/book/9780415421065">development of the atomic bomb</a>: the genocidal evil of Nazi German aggression in World War II and the knowledge that Adolf Hitler had begun an atomic bomb program. </p>
<p>And when Nazi Germany had been defeated, the U.S. justifications for <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250070050/hiroshimanagasaki">using atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki</a> centered on two kinds of moral concerns. The most frequently invoked was utilitarian: <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1995/07/was-it-right/376364/">preventing a greater number of deaths</a> in a land invasion of Japan. The second, not expressed as explicitly, viewed the atomic bombing as a kind of moral <a href="https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/atomic-bombings-ian-w-toll">punishment</a> for the Japanese invasion of Pearl Harbor and the brutal treatment of Allied prisoners of war.</p>
<p>In short, the motivations for the original atomic bomb program and its uses could not be described in solely “hard-nosed” strategic terms. As political philosopher <a href="https://www.ias.edu/scholars/walzer">Michael Walzer</a> <a href="https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/michael-walzer/just-and-unjust-wars/9780465052707/">has argued</a>, both morality and strategy are about justification: Both tell us what we should do or should not do, based on some set of values. And strategy is often used for decision-makers’ moral aims, such as their goal to defeat a genocidal regime.</p>
<h2>Morally excusable?</h2>
<p>Along with other scholars, I have argued that moral concerns also motivated the central role of <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.1081/E-EPAP3-120052995/defense-military-policy-nuclear-war-deterrence-policy-thomas-doyle">nuclear deterrence policy</a> during the Cold War. American policymakers portrayed Soviet communism, like Nazism, as a politics of brute force that had no regard for law or morals. Once the Soviet Union and China had acquired nuclear weapons, American analysts came to believe that communism represented <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674005426">an existential threat</a> not only to U.S. security, but to liberal democracy in general.</p>
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<img alt="A black and white photograph shows newspaper headlines about Russia's atomic weapon testing." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477240/original/file-20220802-12171-qiicwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477240/original/file-20220802-12171-qiicwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477240/original/file-20220802-12171-qiicwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477240/original/file-20220802-12171-qiicwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477240/original/file-20220802-12171-qiicwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1027&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477240/original/file-20220802-12171-qiicwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1027&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477240/original/file-20220802-12171-qiicwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1027&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A selection of U.S. newspaper headlines about President Truman’s announcement that Soviet Union had conducted its first nuclear weapon test, in 1949.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/selection-of-us-newspaper-headlines-on-president-trumans-news-photo/85274999?adppopup=true">Keystone/Hulton Archive via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p><a href="https://www.ias.edu/scholars/walzer">Walzer described</a> such situations as “supreme emergency conditions,” in which ordinary moral prohibitions against mass destruction are suspended to ensure what political leaders see as <a href="https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/michael-walzer/just-and-unjust-wars/9780465052707/">the highest value: national survival</a>. </p>
<p>This is self-preservation – but people often think about that, too, as a moral concern. Social norms against suicide, for example, imply that people have a moral duty to preserve their lives except under certain conditions, reflecting a belief that human life has intrinsic moral value.</p>
<p>Walzer did not claim that using nuclear weapons, or even threatening their use, was morally justified. However, he suggested they might be necessary for national security, and therefore become morally excusable in supreme emergency situations. His argument has been <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/conspiring-with-the-enemy/9780231182454">very influential</a> in government and academic circles.</p>
<p>Many critics claim that it is always <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/morality-prudence-and-nuclear-weapons/B9969D41EC15E37CA7F506CDD2A578C9">immoral to use nuclear weapons</a>, since they cannot discriminate between soldiers and innocent civilians, including children, the elderly and the infirm. Moreover, the use of nuclear weapons cannot but bring social and environmental catastrophe, the kind that our <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/21/books/review/review-the-road-by-cormac-mccarthy.html">darkest dystopian novels</a> and films depict. And if it is immoral to use nuclear weapons, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/05568649109506350">it is immoral to threaten to use them</a>.</p>
<p>But it is unsurprising that the leaders of the nuclear-weapon states are ultimately committed to the survival of their countries and peoples, even if others must pay an ultimate price. To fully appreciate nuclear motivations, we must understand the role of this kind of moral concern in their decision-making.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187835/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas E. Doyle II 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>Policymakers often think of their decisions about nuclear weapons as moral, a nuclear ethicist explains – which is key to understanding their motives.Thomas E. Doyle II, Associate Professor of Political Science, Texas State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1805332022-04-07T12:25:17Z2022-04-07T12:25:17ZRussia is sparking new nuclear threats – understanding nonproliferation history helps place this in context<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456668/original/file-20220406-24-zj06lj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A caution sign marks the Hanford Nuclear Reservation near Richland, Wash., where plutonium for nuclear weapons was made.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/the-environmental-restoration-disposal-facility-is-seen-at-the-30-picture-id53182586?s=2048x2048">Jeff T. Green/Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>During the 1960s, the Soviet Union and the United States came close to war over the Soviet’s attempt to install nuclear weapons <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/cuban-missile-crisis">in Cuba</a>, 90 miles off the Florida coast.</p>
<p>People in the U.S. feared nuclear war. Children practiced nuclear drills hiding under their desks. Families <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/entertainment/this-1960s-nuclear-fallout-shelter-is-a-time-capsule-to-the-past--and-offers-lessons-for-the-trump-era/2017/10/17/c2cd67ae-b367-11e7-9b93-b97043e57a22_video.html">built nuclear bunkers</a> in their backyards. </p>
<p>But later in the 20th century, nuclear war became less likely. Countries committed to diminishing their stockpiles of nuclear weapons, or pledged to not pursue nuclear weapons in the first place. </p>
<p>Now, after decades of progress on limiting the buildup of nuclear weapons, Russia’s war on Ukraine has prompted renewed <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-putin-nato-europe-6d1e374e77504838ba9ca78dd8bce46c">nuclear tensions</a> between Russia and the U.S.</p>
<p>On Feb. 24, 2022, Russian president Vladimir Putin <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/03/08/1085248170/putin-has-threatened-to-use-his-nuclear-arsenal-heres-what-its-actually-capable-">threatened</a> that any country that interfered in Ukraine would “face consequences greater than any you have faced in history.” Many experts and observers interpreted this as <a href="https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2022/03/29/would-russia-really-launch-nuclear-weapons">a threat of nuclear</a> attacks against Ukraine’s defenders. </p>
<p>A single nuclear weapon today in a major city <a href="https://www.icanw.org/modeling_the_effects_on_cities">could immediately kill</a> anywhere from 52,000 to several million people, depending on the weapon’s size.</p>
<p>Understanding these new threats requires an understanding of efforts to reduce the number of nuclear weapons, prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to new countries and the development or stockpiling of nuclear weapons in different countries.</p>
<p>I have <a href="https://dornsife.usc.edu/cf/faculty-and-staff/faculty.cfm?pid=1022718">worked on</a> and <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-organization/article/abs/price-of-peace-motivated-reasoning-and-costly-signaling-in-international-relations/931AC830FEB7D24D26800E22558D9F9D">researched nuclear</a> nonproliferation for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90978-3">two decades</a>. </p>
<p>Convincing countries <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/USRussiaNuclearAgreements">to reduce</a> their nuclear weapon stockpiles <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/09/north-korea-south-africa/539265/">or renounce</a> the pursuit of this ultimate weapon has always been extremely difficult. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456693/original/file-20220406-20442-bd5h6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Young students are seen hiding under their desks and looking out in this black and white photo" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456693/original/file-20220406-20442-bd5h6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456693/original/file-20220406-20442-bd5h6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456693/original/file-20220406-20442-bd5h6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456693/original/file-20220406-20442-bd5h6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456693/original/file-20220406-20442-bd5h6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456693/original/file-20220406-20442-bd5h6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456693/original/file-20220406-20442-bd5h6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Students at a Brooklyn, N.Y. school conduct a nuclear attack drill in 1962.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/students-at-a-brooklyn-middle-school-have-a-duck-and-cover-practice-picture-id566420175?s=2048x2048">GraphicaArtis/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A history of nonproliferation</h2>
<p>The Soviet Union, U.S., United Kingdom, France, Israel and China <a href="https://doi.org/10.2968/066004008">had active nuclear</a> weapons programs in the 1960s. </p>
<p>Countries recognized the risk of a nuclear war in the future. </p>
<p>Sixty-two countries initially agreed to what’s been called the “<a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2003_12/Weiss">Grand Bargain</a>” in 1967, an essential element of the <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/npt/">Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons</a>. One hundred and ninety-one countries eventually signed this treaty. </p>
<p>The agreement prevented the spread of nuclear weapons to countries that didn’t already have them <a href="https://www.atomicarchive.com/resources/timeline/timeline1960.html">by 1967</a>. Countries with nuclear weapons, like the U.S. and the U.K., agreed to end their nuclear arms race and work toward eventual disarmament, meaning the destruction of all nuclear weapons. </p>
<p>This landmark agreement laid the groundwork for agreements between the U.S. and the Soviet Union to further reduce their nuclear weapons and their delivery systems. It also stopped other countries from developing and <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/test-ban-treaty-at-a-glance">testing</a> nuclear weapons until the end of the Cold War. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nti.org/countries/israel/">Israel</a>, <a href="https://fas.org/blogs/security/2021/12/indias-nuclear-arsenal-takes-a-big-step-forward/">India</a> and <a href="https://thebulletin.org/premium/2021-09/nuclear-notebook-how-many-nuclear-weapons-does-pakistan-have-in-2021/">Pakistan</a> never joined the agreement due to regional security concerns. They all now possess nuclear weapons. North Korea <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2005-05/features/npt-withdrawal-time-security-council-step">withdrew</a> and developed nuclear <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41174689">weapons</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-europe-russia-nuclear-disarmament-disarmament-777aab2d375f3d3fed15dc7519783826">Other countries gave</a> up their <a href="https://www.nti.org/analysis/articles/south-africa-nuclear-disarmament/">nuclear</a> weapons, or programs to develop them. </p>
<h2>Some successes</h2>
<p>There have been <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/25751654.2020.1824500">major achievements</a> in preventing countries from gaining nuclear weapons and dramatically reducing nuclear weapon stockpiles since the Cold War. </p>
<p>The global nuclear stockpile has been reduced by 82% since 1986, from a peak of 70,300, with nearly all of the reductions in the U.S. and Russia, who held the largest stockpiles at the time.</p>
<p><a href="https://fas.org/issues/nuclear-weapons/status-world-nuclear-forces/">Globally there</a> are now around 12,700 nuclear weapons, with about 90% held by <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Nuclearweaponswhohaswhat">Russia and the U.S.</a> – or between 5,000 to 6,000 weapons each.</p>
<p>There are several other countries with nuclear weapons, and most of them have a few hundred weapons each, including China, the United Kingdom and France. <a href="https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/nuclear-warheads-by-country-1945-2022/">Newer nuclear countries</a> like India, Pakistan and Israel have around 100 each, while North Korea has around 20. </p>
<p>Starting in the late 1960s, countries agreed to more <a href="https://nuke.fas.org/control/index.html">than a dozen</a> legally binding agreements, known as treaties, that limited new countries getting nuclear weapons and prohibited nuclear weapon testing, among other measures.</p>
<p>But they have not reduced the number of <a href="https://armscontrolcenter.org/u-s-nonstrategic-nuclear-weapons/">nuclear weapons</a> with <a href="https://www.heritage.org/missile-defense/commentary/russias-small-nukes-are-big-problem">short range</a> missiles.</p>
<p>No agreements cover <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00794-y">these weapons</a>, which <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/limited-tactical-nuclear-weapons-would-be-catastrophic/">could also cause</a> widespread destruction and deaths. Russia’s short-range weapons could <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tactical-nuclear-weapons-escalation-us-russia-war-animated-strike-map-2019-9#instead-of-the-tactical-weapons-de-escalating-the-conflict-as-proponents-claim-they-would-the-simulation-shows-conflict-spiraling-out-of-control-after-the-use-of-tactical-weapons-3">quickly destroy</a> much of Europe. </p>
<p>The U.S. and Russia have still worked together on reducing nuclear weapons, despite fighting many proxy wars in <a href="https://academic.oup.com/maghis/article-abstract/14/3/20/1015741?redirectedFrom=PDF">Korea</a>, <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1977-1980/soviet-invasion-afghanistan">Afghanistan</a> <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/1996-09-01/soviet-union-and-vietnam-war">and Vietnam</a> at the same time.</p>
<p>They have also jointly <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Security-Council-Resolutions-on-Iran">pressured Iran</a>, <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/UN-Security-Council-Resolutions-on-North-Korea">North Korea</a> and Libya to renounce their efforts to develop nuclear weapons, with some success in <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/04/05/iran-nuclear-deal-russia-ukraine/">Iran</a> <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/LibyaChronology">and Libya</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456664/original/file-20220406-14533-6aj5iw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two people wearing suits have large cut out faces of Putin and Joe Biden, They both hold fake ballistic missiles high above their heads." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456664/original/file-20220406-14533-6aj5iw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/456664/original/file-20220406-14533-6aj5iw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456664/original/file-20220406-14533-6aj5iw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456664/original/file-20220406-14533-6aj5iw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456664/original/file-20220406-14533-6aj5iw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456664/original/file-20220406-14533-6aj5iw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/456664/original/file-20220406-14533-6aj5iw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Peace protesters wear masks of Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden with mock nuclear missiles to call for more nuclear disarmament on Jan. 29, 2021, in Berlin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/peace-activists-wearing-masks-of-russian-president-vladimir-putin-and-picture-id1230850574?s=2048x2048">John MacDougall/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>U.S.-Russia cooperation declines</h2>
<p>U.S.-Russia engagement on nuclear weapons changed when Russia forcibly <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2020/03/17/crimea-six-years-after-illegal-annexation/">annexed Crimea</a> from Ukraine in 2014. </p>
<p>Russia built up land <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/russias-controversial-9m729-missile-system-a-not-so-secret-secret/a-46606193">missiles</a> in <a href="https://baltic-review.com/defence-lithuania-is-preparing-for-a-russian-invasion/kaliningrad-map/">Kaliningrad</a>, an enclave of Russia in the middle of Eastern Europe, in 2014.</p>
<p>[<em>Understand key political developments, each week.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?nl=politics&source=inline-politics-understand">Subscribe to The Conversation’s politics newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2014-09/news/russia-breaches-inf-treaty-us-says">U.S.</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46443672">NATO</a> then accused Russia of violating a <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/INFtreaty">1987 nuclear agreement</a> on short- and intermediate-range land missiles. From Russia, these could travel between 500 to 5,500 kilometers (311 to 3,418 miles), hitting targets as far as London. </p>
<p>The U.S. <a href="https://2017-2021.state.gov/u-s-withdrawal-from-the-inf-treaty-on-august-2-2019/index.html">also terminated</a> this agreement in 2019 due to Russian violations. Now, there are no international nuclear agreements in Europe. </p>
<p>Yet, the main strategic nuclear weapons agreement, known as <a href="https://www.state.gov/new-start/">New START</a>, remains in place, and will stay so <a href="https://www.state.gov/on-the-extension-of-the-new-start-treaty-with-the-russian-federation/">until at least 2026</a>.</p>
<h2>Impact of Ukraine war</h2>
<p>While Putin has not followed through on <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/no-russian-muscle-movements-after-putins-nuclear-readiness-alert-us-says-2022-02-28/">his threat</a> of a nuclear strike, the potential for a nuclear attack has meant the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2022/3/13/22975269/ukraine-poland-us-mig-fighter-jets-military-aid-escalation">U.S.</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-18023383">NATO response to Russia’s attacks on Ukraine</a> has landed far short of direct engagement. </p>
<p>This is the first time that nuclear threats have been used <a href="https://globalsecurityreview.com/nuclear-de-escalation-russias-deterrence-strategy/">by one country that’s invaded another country</a> rather than to defend a country. </p>
<p>It also marks a step <a href="https://www.thechicagocouncil.org/sites/default/files/2022-02/Korea%20Nuclear%20Report%20PDF.pdf">backward</a> in international work to reduce the threat of nuclear war.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180533/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nina Srinivasan Rathbun 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 decades of progress on nonproliferation, Russia’s new threats of nuclear strikes bring to mind that convincing countries to reduce their nuclear weapons has long been very difficult.Nina Srinivasan Rathbun, Professor of international relations, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag: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>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1497986185406390280"}"></div></p>
<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>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
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>
</strong>
</em>
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<hr>
<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>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<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>
<figcaption>
<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>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<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>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
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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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177923/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<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/1680712021-09-16T20:00:24Z2021-09-16T20:00:24ZANZUS without NZ? Why the new security pact between Australia, the UK and US might not be all it seems<p>We live, to borrow a phrase, in interesting times. The pandemic aside, relations between the superpowers are tense. The sudden arrival of the new AUKUS security agreement between Australia, the US and UK simply adds to the general sense of unease internationally.</p>
<p>The relationship between America and China had already deteriorated under the presidency of Donald Trump and has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/10/us/politics/biden-xi-china.html">not improved</a> under Joe Biden. New <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/13621676-a2bd-42b3-bd62-809542c2f8c8">satellite evidence</a> suggests China might be building between 100 and 200 silos for a <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2021/06/hypersonic-missiles-a-new-arms-race/">new generation</a> of nuclear intercontinental missiles.</p>
<p>At the same time, the US relationship with North Korea <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58540915">continues</a> to smoulder, with both North and South Korea <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/nkorea-fired-unidentified-projectile-yonhap-citing-skorea-military-2021-09-15/">conducting missile tests</a> designed to intimidate.</p>
<p>And, of course, Biden has just presided over the <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/16/politics/afghanistan-joe-biden-donald-trump-kabul-politics/index.html">foreign policy disaster</a> of withdrawal from Afghanistan. His administration needs something new with a positive spin.</p>
<p>Enter AUKUS, more or less out of the blue. So far, it is just a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/09/15/joint-leaders-statement-on-aukus/">statement</a> launched by the member countries’ leaders. It has not yet been released as a formal treaty.</p>
<h2>The Indo-Pacific pivot</h2>
<p>The new agreement speaks of “maritime democracies” and “ideals and shared commitment to the international rules-based order” with the objective to “deepen diplomatic, security and defence co-operation in the Indo-Pacific region”.</p>
<p>“Indo-Pacific region” is code for defence against China, with the partnership promising greater sharing and integration of defence technologies, cyber capabilities and “additional undersea capabilities”. Under the agreement, Australia also <a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/australia-us-and-uk-form-auukus-under-a-new-nuclear-defence-pact/PMMR46UAWAKXCQB2DXM6MZXATY/">stands to gain</a> nuclear-powered submarines.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-to-build-nuclear-submarines-in-a-new-partnership-with-the-us-and-uk-168068">Australia to build nuclear submarines in a new partnership with the US and UK</a>
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<p>To demonstrate the depth of the relationship, the agreement highlights how “for more than 70 years, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States have worked together, along with other important allies and partners”.</p>
<p>At which point New Zealand could have expected a drum roll, too, having only just marked the <a href="https://theconversation.com/anzus-at-70-together-for-decades-us-australia-new-zealand-now-face-different-challenges-from-china-163546">70th anniversary</a> of the ANZUS agreement. That didn’t happen, and New Zealand was conspicuously absent from the choreographed announcement hosted by the White House.</p>
<p>Having remained committed to the <a href="https://www.gcsb.govt.nz/about-us/ukusa-allies/">Five Eyes</a> security agreement and having put boots on the ground in Afghanistan for the duration, “NZ” appears to have been taken out of ANZUS and replaced with “UK”.</p>
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<h2>Don’t mention the nukes</h2>
<p>The obvious first question is whether New Zealand was asked to join the new arrangement. While Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has <a href="https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/09/aukus-jacinda-ardern-welcomes-united-kingdom-united-states-engagement-in-pacific-says-nz-nuclear-stance-unchanged.html">welcomed</a> the new partnership, she has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/16/aukus-submarines-banned-as-pact-exposes-divide-between-new-zealand-and-western-allies">confirmed</a>: “We weren’t approached, nor would I expect us to be.”</p>
<p>That is perhaps surprising. Despite <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/124696892/yes-he-did-say-that-diplomats-scramble-to-contain-fallout-of-damien-oconnors-australiachina-comments">problematic comments</a> by New Zealand’s trade minister about Australia’s dealings with China, and the foreign minister’s statement that she “felt uncomfortable” with the expanding remit of the Five Eyes, <a href="https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/04/prime-minister-jacinda-ardern-reaffirms-commitment-to-five-eyes-after-uk-media-claims-it-s-become-four.html">reassurances by Ardern</a> about New Zealand’s commitment should have calmed concerns.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-nuclear-submarines-are-a-smart-military-move-for-australia-and-could-deter-china-further-168064">Why nuclear submarines are a smart military move for Australia — and could deter China further</a>
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<p>One has to assume, therefore, that even if New Zealand had been asked to join, it might have chosen to opt out anyway. There are three possible explanations for this.</p>
<p>The first involves the probable provision to Australia of nuclear-powered military submarines. Any mention of nuclear matters makes New Zealand nervous. But Australia has been at pains to reiterate its commitment to “leadership on global non-proliferation”.</p>
<p>Similar commitments or work-arounds could probably have been made for New Zealand within the AUKUS agreement, too, but that is now moot. </p>
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<h2>The dragon in the room</h2>
<p>The second reason New Zealand may have declined is because the new agreement is perceived as little more than an expensive purchasing agreement for the Australian navy, wrapped up as something else.</p>
<p>This may be partly true. But the rewards of the relationship as stated in the initial announcement go beyond submarines and look enticing. In particular, anything that offers cutting-edge technologies and enhances the interoperability of New Zealand’s defence force with its allies would not be lightly declined.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/anzus-at-70-together-for-decades-us-australia-new-zealand-now-face-different-challenges-from-china-163546">ANZUS at 70: Together for decades, US, Australia, New Zealand now face different challenges from China</a>
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<p>The third explanation could lie in an assumption that this is not a new security arrangement. Evidence for this can be seen in the fact that New Zealand is not the only ally missing from the new arrangement.</p>
<p>Canada, the other Five Eyes member, is also not at the party. Nor are France, Germany, India and Japan. If this really was a quantum shift in strategic alliances, the group would have been wider — and more formal than a new partnership announced at a press conference.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, the fact that New Zealand’s supposedly extra-special relationship with Britain, Australia and America hasn’t made it part of the in-crowd will raise eyebrows. Especially while no one likes to mention the elephant – or should that be dragon? – in the room: New Zealand’s relationship with China.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168071/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Gillespie 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>PR exercise, elaborate purchasing agreement or genuine security pact? The new AUKUS agreement raises plenty of questions about why New Zealand missed out.Alexander Gillespie, Professor of Law, University of WaikatoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1440092020-08-06T10:25:48Z2020-08-06T10:25:48ZLessons from two pan-African giants on how to achieve genuine nuclear disarmament<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351524/original/file-20200806-22-119nyyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hiroshima after the US military dropped the atomic bomb on 6 August 1945. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Peace Memorial Museum</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This year marks the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the US <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/04/world/gallery/hiroshima-nagasaki-atomic-bomb/index.html">in 1945</a>, the only time in history that nuclear bombs have been used. </p>
<p>The atomic bombs killed tens of thousands of people instantly, with many others succumbing to horrific wounds or radiation sickness days, weeks, months and years afterwards. Subsequent generations, born to the survivors, suffered birth defects. The two cities were just about <a href="https://www.history.com/news/hiroshima-nagasaki-atomic-bomb-photos-before-after">flattened</a>.</p>
<p>For some, nuclear weapons represent a necessary evil that brought an end to World War II and have since kept major powers from repeating the <a href="https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/waltz1.htm">slaughter of such wars</a>. For others, nuclear weapons represent a moral low point in human history, falling into the same category as slavery. For this group, the only solution is to <a href="https://www.wagingpeace.org/the-challenge-of-abolishing-nuclear-weapons-2/">abolish them</a>. </p>
<p>There are at least two traditions of African thought on nuclear weapons, traceable to their most vocal exponents: <a href="https://theconversation.com/making-sense-of-decades-of-debate-about-nkrumahs-pan-african-ideas-132684">Kwame Nkrumah</a>, the scholarly first president of independent Ghana, and <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/africa-in-focus/2014/10/15/in-memoriam-intellectual-ali-mazrui-1933-2014/">Ali Mazrui</a>, the renowned Kenyan scholar. </p>
<p>Both Nkrumah and Mazrui associated nuclear weapons with imperialism and racism, but proposed different approaches to address the problem they present. Nkrumah’s was an abolitionist non-violent approach. He argued for nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament and saw nuclear imperialism as the exploitation of smaller states and indigenous people and territory for nuclear tests and uranium mining. </p>
<p>Mazrui, on the other hand, argued for nuclear proliferation before nuclear disarmament could take place. His view was that the dominant policy towards nuclear weapons afforded some states the political privilege of having them, while denying this right to others. What <em>he</em> called nuclear imperialism. </p>
<p>Nkrumah’s approach arguably became <em>the</em> African approach to nuclear weapons. As a leading member of the Non Aligned Movement, Africa’s participation in the global nuclear order was directed through the organisation in the pursuit of nuclear disarmament. Closer to home, the achievement of an <a href="https://au.int/en/treaties/african-nuclear-weapon-free-zone-treaty-pelindaba-treaty">Africa Nuclear Free Zone</a> treaty in 2009 was a direct outflow of Nkrumah’s approach. </p>
<p>Mazrui’s approach never had much official traction.</p>
<p>I argue that to end nuclear imperialism, African states have to reconcile Nkrumah’s and Mazrui’s approaches to nuclear weapons. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-efforts-to-secure-a-deal-on-banning-all-nuclear-weapons-are-so-important-75484">Why efforts to secure a deal on banning all nuclear weapons are so important</a>
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<h2>Reconciling the two approaches</h2>
<p>Tackling nuclear imperialism would require African countries to sign up to the <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/tpnw/">Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons</a>, or the Ban Treaty, of 2017. This treaty is a first step toward eliminating the weapons themselves and the systems of control and exploitation they make possible. African states participated in the treaty process. More than 20 have signed the treaty and five have so far ratified it.</p>
<p>It would also require African states to withdraw from the <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/npt/">Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty</a>. All African states are currently members of this treaty. But, after 50 years in existence, there is little hope that it will deliver <a href="https://www.indepthnews.net/index.php/armaments/nuclear-weapons/3345-uncertainty-haunts-the-future-of-non-proliferation-treaty-and-disarmament">genuine nuclear disarmament</a>. </p>
<p>Reconciling Nkrumah’s idealism and Mazrui’s realism helps us see these treaties for what they are: the Ban Treaty is based on humanitarian concerns and the equality of states; the Non Proliferation Treaty legalises a few states’ nuclear hegemony indefinitely. </p>
<p>It is time for African states to lead in creating a new non-nuclear order.</p>
<h2>Where both of them stood</h2>
<p>An internationalist and pan-Africanist, Nkrumah saw abolition as the answer to nuclear weapons. He saw them as the “sword of Damocles” hanging over humanity. Embedded in the global peace movement of the time, he advocated for “positive action” – an outflow of Gandhiist non-violence. He attended and hosted several conferences with an anti-nuclear agenda, including an assembly in 1962 on the theme <a href="https://history.wustl.edu/files/history/imce/allman_nuclear_imperialism.pdf">“A world without the bomb”</a>.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351533/original/file-20200806-20-1v0u78r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351533/original/file-20200806-20-1v0u78r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351533/original/file-20200806-20-1v0u78r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351533/original/file-20200806-20-1v0u78r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351533/original/file-20200806-20-1v0u78r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351533/original/file-20200806-20-1v0u78r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351533/original/file-20200806-20-1v0u78r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Kwame Nkrumah, first president of independent Ghana. Undated.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span>
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<p>Although many Africans lost faith in the value of non-violence and preferred a military solution to imperialism, Nkrumah’s approach to nuclear weapons did not fade. It was enmeshed with the position espoused by the Non Aligned Movement, and was the <a href="http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/jspui/bitstream/10539/14761/1/Monyae%20M%20M%20D%201999-001.pdf">position</a> adopted by the African National Congress in South Africa in 1994.</p>
<p>For his part, Mazrui believed African states should not pursue a nuclear weapon free zone and should leave the <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/npt/">1970 Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty</a>.</p>
<p>The treaty was considered a landmark arms control agreement between the five states that had tested nuclear weapons by 1967 (the US, UK, France, Russia and China) and non-nuclear weapon states. States without nuclear weapons agreed not to acquire them in exchange for access to peaceful nuclear technology, while the nuclear weapon states agreed to give them up at some unspecified date in the future. </p>
<p>Mazrui saw the Non Proliferation Treaty as a trap that smacked of racism, where major powers got to say <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00gq1wn">“such and such a weapon is not for Africans and children under 16”</a>.</p>
<p>Mazrui was thus “advocating nuclear proliferation as the <em>only</em> realistic path to nuclear disarmament. This was a <a href="https://richardfalk.wordpress.com/category/ali-mazrui/%22">total inversion of the Western consensus</a>.” </p>
<h2>Wasted opportunities</h2>
<p>The five nuclear powers have wasted many opportunities to negotiate the nuclear disarmament that the 50-year-old Non Proliferation Treaty binds them to. Instead, key nuclear arms control treaties have been discarded and all the nuclear weapon states are <a href="https://thebulletin.org/2019/09/is-it-time-to-ditch-the-npt/">modernising their arsenals</a>. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The global nuclear arsenal in 2020/Nuclear knowledges.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The treaty has also not stopped proliferation: four other states have since acquired nuclear weapons – Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea. </p>
<p>Mazrui was right. In practice, the treaty is at most a status quo treaty that has come to legalise a small club being able to wield nuclear weapons – what India calls <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/asia/1998-09-01/against-nuclear-apartheid">nuclear apartheid</a>. </p>
<p>The treaty is not just about separating states into haves and have nots; it is also a stick to beat the have nots into submission. </p>
<p>In the Iraq War of 2003 the US used stopping nuclear proliferation as a false premise to justify making war on that country and is today doing the same <a href="https://thebulletin.org/2019/09/is-it-time-to-ditch-the-npt/">to sanction Iran</a>. States without nuclear weapons accepted the Non Proliferation Treaty in the hope that it would deliver a world without nuclear weapons, but that hasn’t happened and their <a href="https://thebulletin.org/2019/11/taking-erdogans-critique-of-the-nuclear-non-proliferation-treaty-seriously/">patience is running out</a>.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351534/original/file-20200806-16-verhj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351534/original/file-20200806-16-verhj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351534/original/file-20200806-16-verhj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351534/original/file-20200806-16-verhj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351534/original/file-20200806-16-verhj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=616&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351534/original/file-20200806-16-verhj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=616&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351534/original/file-20200806-16-verhj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=616&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Kenyan scholar Professor Ali Mazrui.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Photo by John Patriquin/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images)</span></span>
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<p>The efforts of the majority of states that went outside the Non Proliferation Treaty forum to negotiate the <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/tpnw/">Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons</a> three years ago, to make nuclear weapons illegal for all, without exception, need to succeed. The Ban Treaty will enter into force when 50 states have ratified it. The number currently stands at 40.</p>
<p>The Ban Treaty was only possible because of a broad international coalition emphasising the unacceptable humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons. </p>
<p>To end nuclear imperialism, African states have to reconcile Nkrumah and Mazrui’s approaches by not only joining the Ban Treaty, but also withdrawing from the Non Proliferation Treaty. This will signal that African states will only take part as equals in global nuclear governance where these weapons are illegal for all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144009/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joelien Pretorius has in the past received funding from the National Research Foundation in South Africa. She is affiliated with Pugwash (South Africa chapter). </span></em></p>Kwame Nkrumah and Ali Mazrui associated nuclear weapons with imperialism and racism, but proposed different approaches to address the problem they present.Joelien Pretorius, Associate Professor in Political Studies, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1198572019-07-15T12:08:22Z2019-07-15T12:08:22ZWhat is the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty? Here’s why it’s still important<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283757/original/file-20190711-173342-174yj3t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Behrouz Kamalvandi, left, spokesman for Iran's atomic energy agency, listens to a man wearing a surgical mask, an official with the Ahmadi Roshan nuclear site in Natanz, Iran, during a news conference on May 20, 2019. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Persian-Gulf-Tensions/f845de4300b24950b6caae423d9837a6/100/0">IRIB News Agency via AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Iran recently <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/08/world/middleeast/iran-nuclear-enrichment-limits.html">exceeded the limits on uranium enrichment</a> set out in its nuclear deal with the U.S. and five other countries. Iran’s move was in response to the U.S.’s <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-joint-comprehensive-plan-action/">renunciation of the same deal last May</a>.</p>
<p>Possession of the uranium <a href="https://www.livescience.com/65898-iran-uranium-enrichment.html">doesn’t put Iran much closer to developing a nuclear weapon</a>, but it does raise troubling questions about the future of nuclear nonproliferation.</p>
<p>Iran’s leadership has also <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/04/28/world/politics-diplomacy-world/iran-says-leaving-nuclear-npt-one-many-choices-u-s-sanctions-move/#.XSHebBNKi9Y">twice</a> <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-nuclear-rouhani/iran-warns-trump-it-might-withdraw-from-non-proliferation-treaty-idUSKBN1HV0MY">threatened</a> to withdraw from a separate pact that limits the spread of nuclear weapons, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. If Iran does withdraw from the treaty, it will be just the second country to do so, after <a href="https://fas.org/nuke/guide/dprk/nuke/dprk012203.html">North Korea in 2003, whose withdrawal has never been formally accepted</a>.</p>
<p>But what is the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty? And how serious is Iran’s threat of withdrawal?</p>
<h2>190 countries have signed</h2>
<p>In 1961, 16 years after U.S. dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, a <a href="https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/un-documents/document/disarm-ares1665.php">U.N. resolution</a> called for a treaty to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. The fear was that without such a treaty, as many as <a href="https://livableworld.org/jfks-nuclear-proliferation-warnings-up-to-25-countries-with-nuclear-weapons/">25 countries could acquire nuclear weapons</a>.</p>
<p>The U.N. resolution prompted the U.S. and the Soviet Union to prepare drafts that became the basis for negotiations.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/npt/">The treaty</a> was opened for signing in 1968 and came into force in 1970 when 46 states had ratified it, including the U.S., U.K. and USSR. Today, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty has 190 parties – more than any other arms limitation treaty. </p>
<p>The treaty prohibits states that don’t have nuclear weapons from acquiring them. It also prohibits the five nuclear state parties from helping others to acquire them, while pledging to work toward nuclear disarmament themselves. Compliance with the treaty is verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency and enforced by the U.N. Security Council.</p>
<p>Five states that possess nuclear weapons have signed the treaty: the U.S., U.K., France, Russia and China. </p>
<p>Four additional nuclear states are not parties to the treaty: India, Pakistan, Israel and – most recently – North Korea.</p>
<p>With the 50th anniversary of the treaty around the corner, the Iran and North Korea crises are once again raising the specter of rapid proliferation – casting into doubt <a href="https://nationalinterest.org/feature/crossroads-why-the-nuclear-nonproliferation-treaty-could-23576">the value of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty</a>. As a law professor who studies <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195394931.001.0001">multilateral approaches to peace and security</a>, I can identify some worrying signs.</p>
<p>For example, last year <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestory/2019/04/saudi-arabia-nuclear-190404212819023.html">Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman said “if Iran develops a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit</a>.” He said this even though Saudi Arabia signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1988. </p>
<p>If Saudi Arabia joins Iran and Israel as a member of the nuclear club in the Middle East, how will Egypt, Turkey and others in the region respond? </p>
<p>If talks with North Korea on denuclearizing the Korean peninsula go nowhere and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/30/world/asia/trump-kim-north-korea-negotiations.html?login=smartlock&auth=login-smartlock">it is allowed to keep its current stockpile of 10-20 weapons for the indefinite future</a>, how will Japan and South Korea react? </p>
<p>What’s worse: The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty isn’t the only nuclear treaty on shaky ground. </p>
<p>President <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trump-withdraw-united-states-intermediate-range-nuclear-forces-inf-treaty/">Trump announced in February 2019</a> that the U.S. would withdraw from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty unless Russia eliminates one category of nuclear missiles that the U.S. claims exceed the treaty limit. </p>
<p>And the 2010 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty is due to expire in 2020. National Security Adviser John Bolton has called its extension “<a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2019-07/news/bolton-declares-new-start-extension-unlikely">unlikely</a>.” </p>
<p>The end of these two important treaties could undermine the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty by reinforcing a perception among nonnuclear parties that the nuclear states are not fulfilling their obligation <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/npt/text/">“to pursue negotiations in good faith … on nuclear disarmament.”</a></p>
<h2>Reasons for optimism</h2>
<p>While worry about future proliferation is certainly warranted, I’d still argue that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is alive and well. </p>
<p>Arguments to the contrary are based on two misconceptions. </p>
<p>The first is that the viability of the treaty depends primarily on fulfillment of the “grand bargain” embodied in it: that nonnuclear states agree not to acquire nuclear weapons in exchange for the nuclear states agreeing to eventually disarm and to assist other parties to develop peaceful nuclear energy. But the policies of nuclear states are not <a href="https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/isec.21.3.54">what motivates the nuclear decisions of other Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty parties</a>. Most are motivated by regional security threats or by a conventional weapons attack by a perceived enemy. </p>
<p>For <a href="https://www.heritage.org/insider/summer-2018-insider/why-does-north-korea-want-nukes">North Korea</a>, going nuclear may look like the answer to perceived threats from the U.S. and South Korea. For many, however, <a href="https://www.amacad.org/publication/emerging-risks-declining-norms/section/3">strengthening the global norm against proliferation</a> through nuclear abstinence is a more promising approach. </p>
<p>The second misconception is that the treaty is suffering from <a href="https://2001-2009.state.gov/t/us/rm/31848.htm">a “crisis of noncompliance</a>.” The argument here is that the treaty didn’t stop Iraq, Libya or North Korea from starting programs or prevent Iran from building substantial nuclear capacity, so it must be useless. </p>
<p>Yet perfect compliance is too demanding a measure of success of any law. Our society still values laws against thievery and tax evasion even though people break them every day. </p>
<p>Moreover, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty’s record of compliance even in Iraq, Libya and North Korea is far from an unmitigated failure. The U.N. Security Council imposed a comprehensive <a href="https://www.globalpolicy.org/previous-issues-and-debate-on-iraq/sanctions-against-iraq.html">disarmament regime on Iraq</a>. Libya <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/LibyaChronology">voluntarily gave up its program</a>. <a href="https://www.asil.org/insights/volume/8/issue/2/north-koreas-withdrawal-nuclear-nonproliferation-treaty">North Korea’s withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty</a> <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-know-about-sanctions-north-korea">led to sanctions</a>. Iran has <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/07/01/how-close-is-iran-to-a-nuclear-bomb-really/">never come within a year</a> of being able to build a bomb. </p>
<p>How much of this is due to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is open to debate, but pointing to a few cases of noncompliance does not prove its irrelevance.</p>
<p>As I argue in <a href="https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195394931.001.0001/acprof-9780195394931-chapter-6">my book</a> about the power of deliberation, a better way of gauging the value of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is to ask whether it tips the scales against proliferation. Parties to the treaty will pay a price if caught cheating. They may decide the price is worth paying, but it is not cost-free. Compliance becomes the default position.</p>
<p>The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty may have been bent by recent hits, but it is not broken. </p>
<p>[ <em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/119857/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Johnstone 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>Nearly 50 years old, the treaty has been signed by 190 countries – more than any other arms limitation treaty. But now Iran is threatening to withdraw.Ian Johnstone, Dean ad interim and Professor of International Law, The Fletcher School, Tufts UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1191462019-06-20T23:03:21Z2019-06-20T23:03:21ZIsrael could strike first as tensions with Iran flare<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280541/original/file-20190620-149806-1egq7i6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Israel has a powerful air force — and it's not afraid to strike neighbors it perceives as a national security threat.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Israel/5bf4ffd09cbf4d66bb1f3ac51b7aa77c/16/0">AP Photo/Ariel Schalit</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Iran <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/20/world/middleeast/us-iran-drone.html">shot down a U.S. drone</a> on June 19, further escalating tensions between Iran and its adversaries.</p>
<p>Relations with Iran have been worsening for months. In early May, one year after the United States <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/world/middleeast/trump-iran-nuclear-deal.html">withdrew from the nuclear deal</a> negotiated in 2015 between Iran, the U.S., the European Union and five other countries, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/08/us/politics/iran-nuclear-deal.html?module=inline">said</a> that his country may also <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-iran-actions/iran-to-restart-some-nuclear-activity-in-response-to-us-withdrawal-from-nuclear-deal-idUSKCN1SC1FP">withdraw from the agreement</a>, which limits its ability to develop nuclear weapons in exchange for lifting sanctions. </p>
<p>In June, Rouhani announced that Iran will <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/18/us/politics/iran-nuclear-troops.html">restart</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/nuclear-weapons-and-irans-uranium-enrichment-program-4-questions-answered-118981">uranium enrichment</a>, which could put the country on track to develop a nuclear weapon within a year. Rouhani’s government insists its uranium will go to civilian <a href="https://gizmodo.com/iran-says-it-will-begin-enriching-uranium-beyond-nuclea-1835603079">nuclear power</a>, not weapons.</p>
<p>As a “<a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/watch-pompeo-says-trump-doesnt-want-war-with-iran-calls-troop-deployment-a-deterrent">deterrent</a>” to Iran, the United States is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/17/world/middleeast/iran-nuclear-deal-compliance.html">sending an additional 1,000</a> troops to the Middle East.</p>
<p>The U.S. is not the only country considering a military response in Iran.</p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Netanyahu-World-must-sanction-Iran-if-it-enriches-more-uranium-than-allowed-592810">Israel will not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons</a>,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on June 17. Netanyahu also said Iran must be punished for violating the nuclear agreement.</p>
<p>Israel, which has faced <a href="https://theconversation.com/antisemitism-how-the-origins-of-historys-oldest-hatred-still-hold-sway-today-87878">threats to its national security</a> since its founding as a Jewish homeland in the Middle East in 1948, is known to take aggressive, preventive action to protect itself – including by launching <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7249/mg403af.13#metadata_info_tab_contents">preemptive strikes</a> on neighboring nations it perceives as threatening. </p>
<p>If international relations with Iran grow more volatile, Israel could take dramatic, unilateral action against its neighbor and longtime adversary.</p>
<h2>How the Begin Doctrine justifies preemptive strikes</h2>
<p>I’m an <a href="https://doreenhorschig.com">international security scholar</a> who studies Israel’s proactive use of its military to prevent nuclear buildup in the Middle East.</p>
<p>Israel has a counterproliferation policy, called the <a href="https://www.inss.org.il/publication/the-begin-doctrine-the-lessons-of-osirak-and-deir-ez-zor/">Begin Doctrine</a>, which allows it to wage preventive strikes against enemies with weapons of mass destruction programs. Using the Begin Doctrine as a justification for preemptive strikes, the Israeli government has for decades quietly decimated nuclear and chemical facilities across the Middle East.</p>
<p>When President Saddam Hussein’s potential nuclear military ambitions raised concerns in 1981, the Israeli government destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor in a surprise attack called <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/09/world/israeli-jets-destroy-iraqi-atomic-reactor-attack-condemned-us-arab-nations.html">Operation Opera</a>. </p>
<p>“On no account shall we permit an enemy to develop weapons of mass destruction against the people of Israel,” a government release <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/09/world/israeli-and-iraqi-statements-on-raid-on-nuclear-plant.html">stated</a> at the time. “We shall defend the citizens of Israel in good time and with all the means at our disposal.”</p>
<p>In 2007, Israel responded to Syria’s <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nuclear-iaea-syria-sb/iaea-finds-graphite-further-uranium-at-syria-site-idUSTRE51I45R20090219">failure to report</a> its uranium processing by striking a nuclear reactor in the Deir ez-Zor region. The United States, which was <a href="http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-04-23-554340650_x.htm">reportedly informed</a> ahead of the attack, made no effort to stop Israel.</p>
<p>Israel has also been accused of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jan/16/iran-scientists-state-sponsored-murder">sponsoring the assassinations</a> of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jan/11/secret-war-iran-timeline-attacks?intcmp=239">at least four Iranian nuclear scientists since 2010</a>. The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/world/middleeast/iran-reports-killing-of-nuclear-scientist.html">incidents</a> have never been fully investigated, and Israel has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility for the targeted killings.</p>
<p>Israel has also deterred nuclear proliferation in the Mideast using less lethal, more high tech strategies. </p>
<p>In 2008 and 2009, Israel used <a href="https://www.symantec.com/content/en/us/enterprise/media/security_response/whitepapers/w32_duqu_the_precursor_to_the_next_stuxnet.pdf?om_ext_cid=biz_socmed_uk_pv_181011_blog_duqublog">computer malware</a> called Stuxnet to disrupt Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. The program infected the software that <a href="https://www.bbc.com/timelines/zc6fbk7">controlled centrifuge speed at the Natanz nuclear plant</a>, alternately speeding up and slowing down the machines that produce enriched uranium to cripple production of the material. The Obama administration <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/obama-ordered-wave-of-cyberattacks-against-iran.html?pagewanted=4&_r=1&hp">secretly supported the cyberattacks</a>.</p>
<p>Though the United States, United Nations and other world powers <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/09/world/israeli-jets-destroy-iraqi-atomic-reactor-attack-condemned-us-arab-nations.html">officially condemned</a> some of these <a href="http://unscr.com/en/resolutions/doc/487">unprovoked Israeli military aggression</a>, other preemptive Israeli attacks have been met with silence from the international community. </p>
<p>The international community may even appreciate Israel’s role as a nuclear nonproliferation watchdog in the Middle East, my <a href="https://www.doreenhorschig.com/other-publications/">research suggests</a>. Israel has never been punished for attacking its neighbors’ weapons programs.</p>
<p>Decades after Israel’s 1981 attack on Iraq’s nuclear plant, President Bill Clinton called it “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLqEQyyVNzI&t=1658">a really good thing</a>.” </p>
<p>“It kept Saddam Hussein from developing nuclear power,” he said at the 2005 Davos World Economic Forum. </p>
<p>“But it’s not clear to me they have that option in Iran,” he added. </p>
<h2>Israel vs. Iran</h2>
<p>That was 14 years ago. In 2005, Iran was just beginning its nuclear buildup.</p>
<p>Today, Israel’s government seems <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-warns-the-idf-has-immense-destructive-power-dont-test-us/">strong in its belief</a> that it has the option to strike Iran.</p>
<p>Iran’s Islamic fundamentalist government is <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/irans-holocaust-denial-is-part-of-a-malevolent-strategy/2016/05/27/312cbc48-2374-11e6-aa84-42391ba52c91_story.html?utm_term=.b80ce916b4cf">openly hostile to Israel</a>. Citing fears that Iran would use nuclear weapons against Israel, Netanyahu has <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/9314923/Benjamin-Netanyahu-says-world-powers-are-demanding-practically-nothing-of-Iran.html">warned</a>, “Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons would be infinitely more costly than any scenario you can imagine to stop it.”</p>
<p>He told Iran and other adversaries not to <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Israel-Air-Force-holding-large-scale-drill-simulating-multi-front-war-592910">“test” Israel</a>.</p>
<p>If the nuclear deal ruptures further and Iran does restarting uranium enrichment, <a href="https://theconversation.com/pompeo-confirmation-makes-mideast-war-more-likely-95698">Israel might launch targeted airstrikes</a> against it.</p>
<h2>Risks of an Israeli strike</h2>
<p>History suggests other countries are unlikely to actively deter Israeli military aggression in the guise of nuclear nonproliferation. </p>
<p>The Trump administration has expressed anti-Iranian sentiment and is a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/06/world/middleeast/trump-jerusalem-israel-capital.html">staunch backer of Netanyahu’s government</a>. </p>
<p>And while European powers will recognize preemptive Israeli strikes on nuclear facilities as a violation of international law and of the sovereignty of Israel’s neighbors, they also see Iran’s nuclear program as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-nuclear-eu/eu-concerned-by-iran-missile-work-regional-security-role-idUSKCN1PT1VM">a grave global security concern</a>. </p>
<p>A nuclear Iran could escalate ongoing Middle East conflicts into nuclear exchanges, and, as some commentators say, spur other regional powers like <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/05/21/in-the-middle-east-soon-everyone-will-want-the-bomb/">Saudi Arabia and Egypt to develop nuclear weapons themselves</a>. </p>
<p>Of course, potential Israeli attacks on Iran present their own <a href="https://www.inss.org.il/publication/the-begin-doctrine-the-lessons-of-osirak-and-deir-ez-zor/">serious risks</a>. Because most of Iran’s reactors are in full operations, air strikes may mean cutting off the power supply to Iranian citizens and could release large amounts of radioactive contaminants into the air. </p>
<p>Iran, <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/IF10938.pdf">a militarily well-equipped country</a>, would surely retaliate against any Israeli attacks. That, too, would trigger a conflict that would spiral throughout the Middle East.</p>
<p>Of course, Israel faced similar dangers when it went after the weapons programs of Syria, Iraq and other neighbors. </p>
<p>If history is any guide, Israel may strike Iran while the world quietly watches.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/119146/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Doreen Horschig receives funding from the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa for a different research project that is not connected to the article on Israeli aggression. </span></em></p>The US isn’t the only country considering a military response to Iranian aggression.Doreen Horschig, PhD Candidate in Security Studies, University of Central FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1122762019-02-22T23:12:26Z2019-02-22T23:12:26ZWhy proposals to sell nuclear reactors to Saudi Arabia raise red flags<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260460/original/file-20190222-195861-1fyoxnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Saudi Arabia has many possible motives for pursuing nuclear power.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/nuclear-power-plant-by-night-190788197?src=nq1h28czRqWpBfF9AMU-GQ-1-76">TTstudio/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>According to a congressional report, a <a href="http://ip3international.com/">group that includes former senior U.S. government officials</a> is lobbying to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/top-trump-appointees-promoted-selling-nuclear-power-plants-to-saudi-arabia-over-objections-from-national-security-officials-house-democratic-report-says/2019/02/19/6a719762-3456-11e9-af5b-b51b7ff322e9_story.html?utm_term=.d3c35345c906">sell nuclear power plants to Saudi Arabia</a>. As an expert focusing on the Middle East and the <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=UaJkFIoAAAAJ&hl=en">spread of nuclear weapons</a>, I believe these efforts raise important legal, economic and strategic concerns.</p>
<p>It is understandable that the Trump administration might want to support the U.S. nuclear industry, which is <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-demise-of-us-nuclear-power-in-4-charts-98817">shrinking at home</a>. However, the <a href="https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/5743865/House-Oversight-Whistleblowers-Saudi-Nuclear.pdf">congressional report</a> raised concerns that the group seeking to make the sale may have have sought to carry it out without going through the process required under U.S. law. Doing so could give Saudi Arabia U.S. nuclear technology without appropriate guarantees that it would not be used for nuclear weapons in the future.</p>
<h2>A competitive global market</h2>
<p>Exporting nuclear technology is lucrative, and many U.S. policymakers have long <a href="https://www.thirdway.org/report/getting-back-in-the-game-a-strategy-to-boost-american-nuclear-exports">believed</a> that it promotes U.S. foreign policy interests. However, the international market is <a href="https://www.worldfinance.com/markets/nuclear-power-continues-its-decline-as-renewable-alternatives-steam-ahead">shrinking</a>, and competition between suppliers is stiff. </p>
<p>Private U.S. nuclear companies have trouble competing against state-supported international suppliers in Russia and China. These companies offer complete construction and operation packages with attractive financing options. Russia, for example, is willing to accept spent fuel from the reactor it supplies, relieving host countries of the need to manage nuclear waste. And China can offer lower construction costs. </p>
<p>Saudi Arabia declared in 2011 that it planned to spend over US$80 billion to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/saudi-nuclear-idAFLDE75004Q20110601">construct 16 reactors</a>, and U.S. companies want to provide them. Many U.S. officials see the decadeslong relationships involved in a nuclear sale as an opportunity to influence Riyadh’s nuclear future and preserve U.S. influence in the Saudi kingdom.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260463/original/file-20190222-195876-ilvh5l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260463/original/file-20190222-195876-ilvh5l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260463/original/file-20190222-195876-ilvh5l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260463/original/file-20190222-195876-ilvh5l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260463/original/file-20190222-195876-ilvh5l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260463/original/file-20190222-195876-ilvh5l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260463/original/file-20190222-195876-ilvh5l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260463/original/file-20190222-195876-ilvh5l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Of the 56 new reactors under construction worldwide, 39 are in Asia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/iaea-releases-country-nuclear-power-profiles-2017">IAEA</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Why does Saudi Arabia want nuclear power?</h2>
<p>With the world’s second-largest known petroleum reserves, abundant untapped supplies of natural gas and high potential for solar energy, why is Saudi Arabia shopping for nuclear power? Some of its motives are benign, but others are worrisome. </p>
<p>First, nuclear energy would allow the Saudis to increase their fossil fuel exports. About one-third of the kingdom’s daily oil production is consumed domestically at subsidized prices; substituting nuclear energy domestically would free up this petroleum for export at market prices. </p>
<p>Saudi Arabia is also the <a href="https://www.albawaba.com/business/saudi-arabia-desalination-plants-red-sea-coast-1077706">largest producer of desalinated water</a> in the world. Ninety percent of its drinking water is desalinated, a process that burns approximately 15 percent of the 9.8 million barrels of oil it produces daily. Nuclear power could meet some of this demand.</p>
<p>Saudi leaders have also expressed clear interest in establishing parity with Iran’s nuclear program. In a March 2018 interview, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/saudi-crown-prince-talks-to-60-minutes/">warned</a>, “Without a doubt, if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible.” </p>
<p>As a member in good standing of the <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/npt/text">Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons</a>, Saudi Arabia has pledged not to develop or acquire nuclear weapons, and is entitled to engage in peaceful nuclear trade. Such commerce could include acquiring technology to <a href="https://tutorials.nti.org/nuclear-101/uranium-enrichment/">enrich uranium</a> or separate plutonium from spent nuclear fuel. These systems can be used both to produce fuel for civilian nuclear reactors and to make key materials for nuclear weapons.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7F545WlUO9Y?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Adel Al-Jubeir, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the U.S., discusses his government’s concern about Iran’s nuclear program.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>US nuclear trade regulations</h2>
<p>Under the <a href="https://legcounsel.house.gov/Comps/Atomic%20Energy%20Act%20Of%201954.pdf">U.S. Atomic Energy Act</a>, before American companies can compete to export nuclear reactors to Saudi Arabia, Washington and Riyadh must conclude a nuclear cooperation agreement, and the U.S. government must submit it to Congress. Unless Congress adopts a joint resolution within 90 days disapproving the agreement, it is approved. The United States currently has <a href="https://www.state.gov/t/isn/rls/fs/2017/266975.htm">23 nuclear cooperation agreements</a> in force, including Middle Eastern countries such as Egypt (approved in 1981), Turkey (2008) and the United Arab Emirates (2009). </p>
<p>The Atomic Energy Act requires countries seeking to purchase U.S. nuclear technology to make legally binding commitments that they will not use those materials and equipment for nuclear weapons, and to place them under International Atomic Energy Agency <a href="https://www.iaea.org/topics/basics-of-iaea-safeguards">safeguards</a>. It also mandates that the United States must approve any uranium enrichment or plutonium separation activities involving U.S. technologies and materials, in order to prevent countries from diverting them to weapons use. </p>
<p>American nuclear suppliers claim that these strict conditions and time-consuming legal requirements <a href="https://www.pillsburylaw.com/images/content/3/3/v2/332/NuclearExportControls.pdf">put them at a competitive disadvantage</a>. But those conditions exist to prevent countries from misusing U.S. technology for nuclear weapons. I find it alarming that according to the House report, White House officials may have attempted to bypass or sidestep these conditions – potentially enriching themselves in the process.</p>
<p>According to the congressional report, within days of President Trump’s inauguration, senior U.S. officials were promoting an initiative to transfer nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia, without either concluding a nuclear cooperation agreement and submitting it to Congress or involving key government agencies, such as the Department of Energy or the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. One key advocate for this so-called “<a href="http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/TEST-TEST/010051ZP4H5/pdf-redacted.pdf">Marshall Plan” for nuclear reactors in the Middle East</a> was then-national security adviser Michael Flynn, who reportedly <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/flynn-backed-plan-transfer-nuclear-tech-saudis-may-have-broken-n973021">served as an adviser</a> to a subsidiary of IP3, the firm that devised this plan, while he was advising Trump’s presidential campaign.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260461/original/file-20190222-195876-7vowa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260461/original/file-20190222-195876-7vowa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260461/original/file-20190222-195876-7vowa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260461/original/file-20190222-195876-7vowa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260461/original/file-20190222-195876-7vowa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260461/original/file-20190222-195876-7vowa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260461/original/file-20190222-195876-7vowa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260461/original/file-20190222-195876-7vowa1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=549&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">President Donald Trump, accompanied by national security adviser Michael Flynn and senior adviser Jared Kushner, speaks on the phone with King of Saudi Arabia Salman bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud shortly after taking office, Jan. 29, 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Trump-Saudi-Arabia/03aa15ac350c4078a87c62dffd753cbf/4/0">AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The promoters of the plan also reportedly proposed to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-flynn-nuclear-exclusive/exclusive-mideast-nuclear-plan-backers-bragged-of-support-of-top-trump-aide-flynn-idUSKBN1DV5Z6">sidestep U.S. sanctions against Russia</a> by partnering with Russian companies – which impose less stringent restrictions on nuclear exports – to sell reactors to Saudi Arabia. </p>
<p>Flynn resigned soon afterward and now is cooperating with the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 campaign. But IP3 access to the White House persists: According to press reports, President Trump met with representatives of U.S. industry, a meeting organized by IP3 to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/top-trump-appointees-promoted-selling-nuclear-power-plants-to-saudi-arabia-over-objections-from-national-security-officials-house-democratic-report-says/2019/02/19/6a719762-3456-11e9-af5b-b51b7ff322e9_story.html?utm_term=.b90ee7dfbc6d">discuss nuclear exports to Saudi Arabia</a> as recently as mid-February 2019. </p>
<h2>Rules for a Saudi nuclear deal</h2>
<p>Saudi leaders have <a href="http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-o-s/saudi-arabia.aspx">scaled back</a> their planned purchases and now only expect to build two reactors. If the Trump administration continues to pursue nuclear exports to Riyadh, I believe it should negotiate a nuclear cooperation agreement with the Kingdom as required by U.S. law, and also take extra steps to reduce nuclear proliferation risks. </p>
<p>This should include requiring the Saudis to adopt the International Atomic Energy Agency’s <a href="https://www.iaea.org/topics/additional-protocol">Additional Protocol</a>, a safeguards agreement that give the agency additional tools to verify that all nuclear materials in the kingdom are being used peacefully. The agreement should also require Saudi Arabia to acquire nuclear fuel from foreign suppliers, and export the reactor spent fuel for storage abroad. These conditions would diminish justification for uranium enrichment or opportunities for plutonium reprocessing for weapons. </p>
<p>The United States has played a leadership role in preventing nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, one of the world’s most volatile regions. There is much more at stake here than profit, and legal tools exist to ensure that nuclear exports do not add fuel to the Middle East fire.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112276/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chen Kane receives funding from the US Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.</span></em></p>Exporting nuclear technology is lucrative, but without strict safeguards, buyers could divert it into bomb programs. Why is Saudi Arabia shopping for nuclear power, and should the US provide it?Chen Kane, Director, Middle East Nonproliferation Program, Middlebury Institute, MiddleburyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/979592018-06-11T11:11:15Z2018-06-11T11:11:15ZUS-North Korea summit: three things Trump and Kim need to talk about<p>While Donald Trump’s political inexperience and his thin-skinned, irascible temperament led him to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/08/world/asia/north-korea-un-sanctions-nuclear-missile-united-nations.html">threaten</a> North Korea with nuclear war in 2017, this year he has taken a more constructive path by agreeing to something that no other president before him would: a summit meeting with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/north-korean-leader-kim-jong-un-has-invited-president-trump-to-a-meeting/2018/03/08/021cb070-2322-11e8-badd-7c9f29a55815_story.html?utm_term=.dca34588145c">without preconditions</a>, to discuss the north’s nuclear programme and the future of the US-North Korean relationship. </p>
<p>The meeting – which was deftly brokered by the South Korean leader, <a href="http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/2148196/south-koreas-president-moon-jae-man-middle">Moon Jae-in</a>, not by Trump – is set to begin in Singapore on June 12. Neither Trump nor Kim has much experience of high-stakes political summitry – and the hasty organisation of this meeting left little time for the advance diplomacy that typically occurs for months before a formal summit. Predicting the outcome is therefore even tougher than usual. </p>
<p>Both sides appear to understand that there are three interconnected issues on the table: <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-04/how-kim-jong-un-and-trump-differ-on-denuclearization-quicktake">denuclearisation</a> (most important for the US), <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/18/world/asia/north-korea-south-treaty.html">security normalisation</a> (most important <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/29/world/asia/north-korea-trump-nuclear.html">to North Korea</a>), and <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-meeting-vice-chairman-kim-yong-chol-democratic-peoples-republic-korea/">economic normalisation</a> (potentially benefiting both but especially important for Pyongyang).</p>
<p>Yet while both sides agree that these are the core objectives, <a href="https://thebulletin.org/united-states-has-learned-wrong-lessons-previous-diplomacy-north-korea11854">previous accords</a> have <a href="https://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/072517_Sigal_Testimony.pdf">broken down</a> because of disagreements over what these things actually mean in practice and over the timeline for implementation. As always, the devil will be in the detail.</p>
<h2>Denuclearisation</h2>
<p>North Korea will not accept a so-called “<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-north-korea-learned-from-libyas-decision-to-give-up-nuclear-weapons-95674">Libya model</a>” where it would give up its weapons in advance of getting anything in return from the US. It wants a <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/05/north-korea-denuclearization/560774/">reciprocal step-by-step process</a> in which North Korean concessions are met with substantive US commitments in other related areas.</p>
<p>Timing and verification will be key: when will each step towards dismantling nuclear facilities take place and when will the US follow through with reciprocal commitments of its own? At what point in the process will North Korea allow international inspectors into the country to verify its denuclearisation and what sites will they have access to? These have been <a href="https://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/072517_Sigal_Testimony.pdf">sticking points</a> for years.</p>
<p>In addition, if the ultimate aim is to fully denuclearise the Korean Peninsula, what will become of the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/polq.12702">US’s nuclear security guarantee to South Korea</a>? It seems highly unlikely that the north would be happy for the US to maintain a defensive nuclear alliance with the south that is essentially directed against Pyongyang.</p>
<h2>Security</h2>
<p>One of Kim’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/29/world/asia/north-korea-trump-nuclear.html">chief objectives</a> is to sign a peace treaty to finally end the 1950-53 war with the US, which has been frozen under an armistice for more than six decades. It does seem that a peace treaty is at least under discussion: after a recent meeting with a very senior North Korean official, Kim Yong-chol, Trump <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-meeting-vice-chairman-kim-yong-chol-democratic-peoples-republic-korea/">announced</a>) that they “talked about ending the war … That’s something that could come out of the meeting”.</p>
<p>For North Korea, normalising the security situation may also mean limiting US military activity on the Korean Peninsula. Washington has <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/R44994.pdf">more than 28,000 troops stationed</a> stationed in South Korea across <a href="https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR200/RR201/RAND_RR201.pdf">11 military bases</a>, and conducts military exercises with Seoul that are notionally rehearsals for combating potential North Korean aggression. The continuation of these “provocative” exercises recently drove the north to <a href="https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/north-korea-suspends-talks-with-south-over-us-military-drills-casts-doubt-on-trump">cancel talks with the south</a>, though those were apparently resuscitated soon afterwards.</p>
<p>Given Trump is resentful about coughing up millions of dollars to station large numbers of US troops abroad for the benefit of other countries – a <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/2/16/14635204/burden-sharing-allies-nato-trump">somewhat distorted view</a> – it’s possible that he may be willing to accept a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/03/world/asia/trump-troops-south-korea.html">reduced US military presence</a> in the region. </p>
<h2>Economy</h2>
<p>The North Korean regime wants some degree of global economic integration, if only to ensure its own survival – if the Kim government is to endure, it needs to offer its people some material progress, much as China has. To this end, the South Korean government has even <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/10/world/asia/kim-jong-un-north-korea-south-usb-economy.html">laid out</a> a “new economic road map for the Korean Peninsula” should Pyongyang denuclearise. </p>
<p>The US also appears to now understand the importance of economic normalisation: in the run-up to the summit, Trump has already put “<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-meeting-vice-chairman-kim-yong-chol-democratic-peoples-republic-korea/">hundreds</a>” of new US sanctions on hold. The US will also need to commit to rescinding <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles-trump/u-s-imposes-more-north-korea-sanctions-trump-warns-of-phase-two-idUSKCN1G71RD">other sanctions</a> – but when exactly? Again, timing will be everything.</p>
<h2>What’s different this time?</h2>
<p>The fact that Trump agreed to meet Kim without preconditions is hugely significant. Past US presidents had always insisted Pyongyang give up its nuclear capability in advance of a meeting – that Trump did not means any agreement is likely to be more reciprocal than other US efforts. And in recent years, North Korean officials have <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/05/north-korea-denuclearization/560774/">repeatedly</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/06/world/asia/north-korea-south-nuclear-weapons.html">stated</a> that the regime will seriously consider denuclearisation provided the US makes security guarantees and lifts trade restrictions.</p>
<p>Nobody expects this to be easy – and the mood heading into the talks seems sober. Trump’s secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, has <a href="https://www.straitstimes.com/world/united-states/mike-pompeo-north-koreas-kim-told-me-he-was-prepared-to-denuclearise">acknowledged</a> that success will require “big and bold” decisions on both sides. And Trump himself has <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-meeting-vice-chairman-kim-yong-chol-democratic-peoples-republic-korea/">played down</a> hopes that the summit can solve all bilateral problems in one go: “It will be a beginning… I’ve never said it happens in one meeting. You’re talking about years of hostility; years of problems.” For once, he may be right.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97959/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maria Ryan has previously received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. </span></em></p>Can decades of deadlock be broken by two of the world’s most unpredictable leaders?Maria Ryan, Lecturer in American History, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/956742018-05-11T09:00:39Z2018-05-11T09:00:39ZWhat North Korea learned from Libya’s decision to give up nuclear weapons<p>The North Korean nuclear challenge has lately become something of a diplomatic rollercoaster. Only a few months ago, Pyongyang and Washington were locked in an escalating war of words and increasingly confrontational military posturing – but today, their standoff has given way to a sequence of <a href="https://theconversation.com/north-korea-wants-to-a-strike-a-deal-is-trump-the-right-man-for-the-job-95730">what look like major diplomatic breakthroughs</a>. </p>
<p>Besides marking the first time a North Korean leader has set foot in the south since the end of the Korean War, the recent inter-Korean summit also yielded a joint statement announcing that both sides would initiate talks on formally ending the Korean War and “denuclearising the Korean peninsula”. Since the Trump administration has been very clear that denuclearisation is a prerequisite for any negotiations over the peninsula’s future, this has led to intense speculation about whether the north is actually serious about fully denuclearising, and if so, how that might be achieved. </p>
<p>Fortunately for those trying to find a way forward, including Trump’s national security adviser, <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/04/bolton-says-us-is-considering-libya-model-for-north-korea.html">John Bolton</a>, there appears to be a useful model: the successful dismantling of Libya’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programmes in the early 2000s.</p>
<p>On the face of it, the comparison seems illogical. The North Koreans themselves view the Libyan experience as a cautionary tale: after NATO’s intervention in Libya in 2011 helped tip the civil war against Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s regime, a North Korean official <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/world/asia/25korea.html">openly stated</a> that Libya’s WMD deal with the US had been used as “an invasion tactic to disarm the country”. Nonetheless, understanding the Libyan experience is an important part of getting to grips with the Korean issue – and the contrasts are more revealing than the similarities.</p>
<h2>Step by step</h2>
<p>Libya didn’t decide to give up its WMD programme overnight. Gaddafi had for decades viewed WMD as a means of deterring foreign intervention, an important priority for a regime with a highly provocative foreign policy that (among other things) included sponsorship of international terrorism against the West. In 1986, Libya’s provocations even drove the US to the point of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1986/04/15/politics/us-jets-hit-terrorist-centers-in-libya-reagan-warns-of-new-attacks.html">launching airstrikes</a>. </p>
<p>But by the 1990s, the balance began to shift. Libya was hit hard by UN sanctions, and even as global oil prices fell, it failed to modernise its oil sector. As a result, unemployment rose and living standards declined. Gaddafi found himself under political pressure at home, and from the mid-1990s onwards, his approach to foreign relations began to change. He ceased his support for terrorism, and handed over the individuals suspected of carrying out the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/jan/31/lockerbie.derekbrown">1988 Lockerbie bombing</a>. All this he did with a view to getting international sanctions removed, and encouraging the foreign investment he needed to revitalise the economy and quell domestic dissent. </p>
<p>It was these developments that made his decision on WMD possible. Both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush’s administrations made clear to Gaddafi that his WMD programmes were obstructing full re-engagement with the US, and when the Bush administration invaded Iraq in 2003 and toppled Saddam Hussein, it seemed to <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/why-libya-gave-up-on-the-bomb/">spur Gaddafi along</a>. Crucially, Washington also signalled to Gaddafi that its concerns over WMD could be assuaged through behaviour change, rather than the regime change that ousted Saddam. Tony Blair <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/dec/11/tony-blair-gaddafi-deal-prevented-isis-getting-chemical-weapons-libya">went further</a> in 2006, assuring Gaddafi that the UK would come to Libya’s assistance if chemical or biological weapons were used or threatened against it.</p>
<p>So how does this story compare with North Korea’s? The differences are clear. Despite <a href="https://theconversation.com/north-korea-wants-to-a-strike-a-deal-is-trump-the-right-man-for-the-job-95730">all international efforts</a>, Pyongyang has developed and built an arsenal of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles; some of its missiles could hit the US mainland, and it has reportedly even <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/08/08/542286036/north-korea-has-miniaturized-a-nuclear-warhead-u-s-intelligence-says">miniaturised warheads</a> with which to arm them.</p>
<p>This puts North Korea far ahead of Libya in 2003. When Gaddafi’s government negotiated its programme away, its lack of domestic scientific expertise meant it was nowhere near developing a workable nuclear device, despite significant nuclear material and technology acquisitions from abroad. Since the Libyans did not possesses any deterrent power in the form of their nuclear programme, they arguably had little to lose from negotiating it away. And while they did possess a sizeable chemical weapons capability, which was included in the disarmament deal with Washington, their overall negotiating position was relatively weak.</p>
<p>By contrast, Pyongyang’s existing nuclear inventory puts it in a much stronger position. Since Kim Jong-un appears to have a functioning nuclear deterrent at his disposal, it remains to be seen exactly what Pyongyang will be willing to give up. Is it possible, for instance, that North Korea might give up its weapons and delivery systems but perhaps retain the associated technical development infrastructure and the capability to reconstitute its programme should things go badly? </p>
<p>In short, Pyongyang’s negotiating hand is much stronger than Tripoli’s was, and the potential outcomes far more varied.</p>
<h2>Beyond gestures</h2>
<p>Improving relations with the US was central to Libya’s 2003 decision. Seeing Washington make good on its promises to lift UN sanctions once the Lockerbie suspects were handed over reassured Gaddafi, and by the time the WMD talks began, some confidence had been built up on the Libyan side. But today it’s North Korea, not the US, that most needs to shore up the other side’s goodwill and confidence. That much is clear from Kim Jong-un’s recent charm offensive, which marks a significant departure from his government’s past behaviour.</p>
<p>Washington has also been working on its relationship with the north, subtly at first and then more publicly. In mid-April, it was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/17/north-korea-trump-kim-jong-un-meetings">reported</a> that the then-CIA director, Mike Pompeo, had made a secret trip to North Korea to meet with Kim Jong-un. Few details of that encounter have been made public, but it was clearly a way for Pompeo to scope out the diplomatic territory while limiting the risk of Trump losing face – an approach that surely will have resonated with the North Korean leader. Pompeo has since returned to Pyongyang as secretary of state and overseen <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44063665">the release of three US prisoners</a>.</p>
<p>These developments are all positive, but real progress won’t be secured until a dismantlement deal is first negotiated and then actually implemented. Nuclear weapons have become an integral element of the Kim regime’s political legitimacy at home as well as abroad; since giving them up completely would put that legitimacy at risk, they won’t be handed over quickly. And as in Libya, if progress can be made on the nuclear issue, security assurances from the US will be critical to avoid slipping backwards.</p>
<p>Granting those assurances would pose challenges in itself. It’s difficult to see Pyongyang following through on denuclearisation without concrete preconditions. Again, there’s a parallel with Libya, where different stages in the disarmament process were met with incremental recognition by the US State Department to reward Tripoli’s progress. If the progress that suddenly seems possible in the North Korea case actually comes about, perhaps this is how it’ll be made.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95674/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wyn Bowen receives grant funding from the MacArthur Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York for work on nuclear security issues broadly defined.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Moran 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>After decades of deadly enmity, Libya and the West made a major breakthrough on weapons of mass destruction. How?Wyn Bowen, Professor of Non-Proliferation & International Security, King's College LondonMatthew Moran, Reader in International Security, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/963172018-05-08T18:25:10Z2018-05-08T18:25:10ZDonald Trump backs out of Iran nuclear deal: now what?<p>Thanks to Donald Trump, the hard-won deal that set up a process to end Iran’s nuclear weapons programme is on its deathbed. After weeks of entreaties and visits from his counterparts in the other states that signed the accord, Trump <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2018/may/08/iran-nuclear-deal-donald-trump-latest-live-updates">has announced</a> that the US will be withdrawing from it and reimposing the sanctions the deal lifted. That makes it hard to see how the deal will survive. </p>
<p>Given Trump has spent years referring to this as “the worst deal ever”, perhaps his decision to back out is less than surprising – but that doesn’t mean it isn’t shocking.</p>
<p>To be sure, there are real problems with the deal. <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-iran-nuclear-deal-means-and-what-it-doesnt-44685">Struck in 2015</a> between Iran and the P5+1 powers – the US, the UK, Russia, China, France, and Germany – it fails to address longer-term concerns about the nuclear programme (the Iranian government is renowned for playing a long game) and does not limit the country’s ballistic missile capability. Perhaps the biggest criticism, though, concerns Iran’s behaviour in the Middle East, which has not been curtailed. </p>
<p>As the British foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, recently <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44026548">said on Fox & Friends</a>, a right-wing talk show Trump is known to watch: “Look, Iran is behaving badly, has a tendency to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles. We’ve got to stop that. We’ve got to push back on what Iran is doing in the region. We’ve got to be tougher.” But Johnson also urged the US not to “throw the baby out with the bathwater”.</p>
<p>It seems that plea, and those of other world leaders, fell on deaf ears. So what does it all mean? First, Trump’s decision to effectively scrap deal plays into the hands of Saudi Arabia and Israel. It will also inflame already livid tensions across the Middle East, pouring fuel onto the fires of conflict from Syria to Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, and beyond.</p>
<h2>Taking sides</h2>
<p>In recent years, belligerents in the Middle East’s various conflicts have generally fallen into two separate camps. On the one hand is a pro-Iranian camp that is comprised of the Syrian government, the Iraqi government, Hezbollah and a range of non-state actors; on the other is an anti-Iranian camp, comprised primarily of Saudi Arabia, Israel, Egypt, Bahrain and the UAE. Both camps are seizing opportunities to recalibrate the regional order, and as they try to set and push boundaries in their favour, they raise the chances of error, miscalculation and catastrophe.</p>
<p>But while Iranian-Saudi rivalry has played a central role in shaping the nature of the contemporary Middle East, so have Iran’s rivalries with two other powers: Israel – with whom Saudi Arabia is seeking <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-43632905">a rapprochement of sorts</a> – and the US.</p>
<p>Debate about the nuclear deal is as much about these different camps as it is about the deal itself. Washington, Riyadh and Jerusalem have long been concerned about the development of an Iranian nuclear weapon, yet the more short-term concern is about Tehran’s behaviour across Syria, Bahrain, Iraq and Lebanon, where it capitalises on schisms within and across state borders. Iran has long demonstrated an excellent ability to exploit and manipulate such divisions. To see that ability in action, one only has to look at events in <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/02/the-man-who-could-help-rebuild-iraq/553799/">Iraq</a>, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lebanon-politics/lebanon-emerges-from-crisis-with-iran-on-top-but-risks-remain-idUSKBN1E11VV">Lebanon</a> and <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-civil-war-isis-latest-beheading-iran-shadow-war-khan-tuman-basij-a7768026.html">Syria</a> – leaving aside allegations of nefarious involvement in <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bahrain-security/bahrain-says-seizes-armed-network-set-up-by-irans-revolutionary-guard-idUSKCN1GF0G4">Bahrain</a>, where it’s accused of backing anti-government groups, and <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/09/saudi-arabia-iran-great-game-ye-201492984846324440.html">Yemen</a>, where Saudi Arabia is waging a massive military campaign against forces it claims are Iranian proxies.</p>
<p>Few want to see Iran further indulge what one US official <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1475-4967.2012.00537.x">called</a> its “propensity for mischief”, and escalating tensions across already deeply divided societies risk adding to the already catastrophic loss of human life. So long as Iran feels emboldened or mandated to act up, the nightmarish conflicts in Syria and Yemen will be even more difficult to resolve.</p>
<p>But perhaps the biggest concern in all this is the Israeli response. </p>
<h2>Keeping the lid on</h2>
<p>Iran has sought to ameliorate its strategic concerns by pushing forward geopolitically, away from its sovereign borders. Getting influence over territory is a key strategic goal. But in doing this, Iran is directly inserting itself into <a href="https://theconversation.com/are-israel-and-iran-about-to-clash-head-on-over-syria-95958">Israeli security calculations</a>. </p>
<p>Ever since the revolution of 1979, Israel has long viewed the Islamic Republic of Iran with great trepidation. As concerns about Iranian nuclear aspirations increased, so too did the rhetoric from Israeli leaders condemning Tehran’s actions. No one who has heard it will forget the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17287860">March 2012 speech</a> where Benjamin Netanyahu said: “If it walks like a duck, if it talks like a duck, then what is it? That’s right, it’s a duck. But this is a nuclear duck.” More recently, Israel produced a <a href="https://theconversation.com/netanyahus-attempt-to-discredit-the-iran-nuclear-deal-doesnt-hold-water-95829">dossier</a> that sought to demonstrate that Iran had lied during the negotiations that produced the deal.</p>
<p>In addition, Israel has a precedent of striking against what it perceives to be a serious threat to its survival. Take the <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/35-years-on-iaf-pilots-recall-daring-mission-to-bomb-saddams-nuke-reactor/">strike on Iraq’s Osirak reactor</a> in 1981, or the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-syria-nuclear/israel-admits-bombing-suspected-syrian-nuclear-reactor-in-2007-warns-iran-idUSKBN1GX09K">strike against a suspected Syrian nuclear facility</a> in 2007. If the deal collapses and Iran restarts its nuclear programme, then similar unannounced attacks on suspected nuclear sites are a strong possibility.</p>
<p>So where do things stand as of now? If the deal breaks down in full, tensions across the Middle East could escalate to a dangerous level, as players on all sides rush to recalibrate their positions. The various fronts in Syria will only become more deadly as Iran doubles down to preserve its influence over territory there – a corridor of control that has been <a href="http://www.inss.org.il/publication/irans-land-bridge-mediterranean-possible-routes-ensuing-challenges/">called</a> a “land bridge to the Mediterranean”, and by extension, to Israel.</p>
<p>Ultimately, Trump has missed the point of his counterparts’ pleas to keep the deal in place. This isn’t about whether or not Iran has leeway to build a nuclear weapon; it’s about keeping tensions across the Middle East in check, and preventing a catastrophic new war. Diplomats the world over are in for some sleepless nights.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96317/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Mabon 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>Iran is a dangerous mischief-maker in the Middle East – but scrapping the nuclear deal will probably make things worse.Simon Mabon, Lecturer in International Relations, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/889732017-12-14T09:21:53Z2017-12-14T09:21:53ZAustralia’s snub to Nobel Peace win is major break from ambiguous nukes policies of past<p>The Australian government under Malcolm Turnbull has been less than ecstatic about the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the International Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). The <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/comment/malcolm-turnbull-wont-congratulate-australias-first-nobel-peace-laureate-because-he-supports-nukes-20171010-gyxwdg.html">failure</a> to congratulate Melbourne-based ICAN has come under <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-10/nobel-peace-prize-australian-government-accused-of-shame-job/9244194">much criticism</a> from anti-nuclear activists. </p>
<p>Following the country’s <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/nobel-peace-prize-ican-nuclear-weapons-donald-trump-labour-un-a8100986.html">NATO allies</a> and <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-10/nobel-peace-prize-australian-government-accused-of-shame-job/9244194">behaving as if</a> the whole episode never happened is in line with recent policy utterances, however. Canberra’s latest <a href="https://foreignminister.gov.au/releases/Pages/2017/jb_mr_171123.aspx">Foreign Policy White Paper</a>, released in November, says the country’s 60-year alliance with the US is “a choice we make how best to pursue our security interests” and “is central to our shared objective of shaping the regional order”. </p>
<p>There has not always been such a black-and-white split between activists and Australian politicians. Successive governments have waxed and waned considerably. At a time when nuclear tensions are running particularly high between the US and North Korea, the difference with the current administration is striking. </p>
<h2>Atomic Australia</h2>
<p>When the UK and US <a href="http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/ManhattanProject/Quebec.shtml">agreed to</a> collaborate on atomic weapons in 1943 through the Manhattan Project, Australia and other British dominions were explicitly cut out. The Americans wanted to control nuclear knowledge for exploitation after the war, and wanted the research to proceed with the utmost secrecy. </p>
<p>When Washington decided <a href="http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/cabinetpapers/themes/co-operation-competition-testing.htm">to go it alone</a> in 1946, it gave Australia an opening. The British proceeded in the early 1950s to develop their own bomb, and decided to concentrate the effort in Australia because of its uranium and apparently wide empty spaces. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198819/original/file-20171212-9410-fdhrdn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198819/original/file-20171212-9410-fdhrdn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198819/original/file-20171212-9410-fdhrdn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=710&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198819/original/file-20171212-9410-fdhrdn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=710&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198819/original/file-20171212-9410-fdhrdn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=710&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198819/original/file-20171212-9410-fdhrdn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198819/original/file-20171212-9410-fdhrdn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198819/original/file-20171212-9410-fdhrdn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=893&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">Sir Mark Oliphant.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.epa.eu/human-interest-photos/people-photos/nobel-peace-prize-2017-concert-photos-53952960">Wikimedia</a></span>
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<p>This had much to do with celebrated Australian physicist <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/7033">Mark Oliphant</a>. As a professor of physics at the University of Birmingham in the UK, it was he who had first told <a href="https://www.atomicheritage.org/profile/j-robert-oppenheimer">J Robert Oppenheimer</a>, leader of America’s Manhattan Project, that it was possible to make an atomic bomb from only a few pounds, not tons, of uranium. </p>
<p>When Britain and America began collaborating in 1943, Oliphant moved to California as a leading contributor. He saw at first hand the US’s desire to monopolise nuclear know-how, <a href="http://dado.msk.ru/rlib/utf8/494471.html">writing privately</a> about how Britain had been “sold down the river”. </p>
<p>When British-Australian testing was getting underway in 1950, Oliphant returned to his homeland to take a senior physics post at the new Australian National University in Canberra. He was quoted in the press saying his department would focus on nuclear energy rather than weapons and would not do secret work “within the laboratory itself” unless it became necessary.</p>
<p>The 1950s saw Anglo-Australian tests for nuclear ballistic missiles at Woomera in South Australia, in parallel with atomic tests elsewhere in the country in preparation for a British hydrogen bomb. Yet the effort was short-lived: after the joint project <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1ws7w90">successfully detonated</a> a hydrogen bomb in the central Pacific in 1957, Britain was soon <a href="http://www.nti.org/media/pdfs/56_4.pdf?_=1316627913">brought back</a> into the nuclear fold by the US. </p>
<p>Australia was relegated to supplying uranium and hosting listening posts to Asia for the Americans, in exchange for promises of nuclear protection. It has performed the same role ever since. </p>
<h2>View from Canberra</h2>
<p>In the intervening years, Canberra has never strayed from this overarching alliance. When you look at the details, however, the Australian view is far from straightforward. I’ll look at some former prime ministers in a moment. First a few words on Oliphant from research I expect to be published next year. He seems to almost personify these conflicting feelings. </p>
<p>During his time in Canberra, Oliphant came to <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1349058/Professor-Sir-Mark-Oliphant.html">describe himself</a> as a “belligerent pacifist”. He is quoted in several press reports from the early 1950s calling for a world government to avert the need for nuclear weapons. He <a href="http://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/1.1387592">joined</a> the Pugwash movement of leading scientists against nuclear weapons in 1957. This is quite a contrast to comments he made to the London Recorder in 1949:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The United States and United Kingdom are developing weapons designed for their own defence. They may not suit Australia’s needs if she has to defend herself. We must develop our own methods of defence and build for ourselves.</p>
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<p>Oliphant maintained some involvement in the Commonwealth nuclear project despite his focus on energy. An archived letter shows him suggesting to a colleague that he visit Woomera to view the testing in 1953, for example, although he himself was <a href="http://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781403921017">excluded</a> from the atom bomb tests at nearby Maralinga. He was quoted in the Australian press in 1951 expressing fears that Canberra might be considered “expendable” in its partnership with Britain if push came to shove. </p>
<p>In 1955, a government report refers to him telling government officers that atomic power plants built for energy could be converted to bombs manufacture within hours. “Australia could best be defended by nuclear weapons and that conventional forces and armaments could be cut”, he is quoted as saying. </p>
<p>Was he developing a pacifist public face while also trying to persuade Canberra to develop its own bomb? It certainly feels like it. Some Australian cabinet ministers also wanted an independent Australian nuclear deterrent in the late 1950s, though then Prime Minister Robert Menzies <a href="https://nautilus.org/apsnet/0623a-broinowski-html/">disagreed</a>. </p>
<p>Oliphant’s ambivalence is echoed in certain Australian administrations. In 1971, the Liberal prime minister, William McMahon <a href="https://nautilus.org/apsnet/0623a-broinwski-html/">scrapped plans</a> to build a nuclear reactor that could produce weapons-grade plutonium. His Labor successor Gough Whitlam then ratified the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/npt">Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968</a>, overturning previous Liberal <a href="https://research-repository.griffith.edu.au/bitstream/handle/10072/46413/78806_1.pdf?sequence=1">reluctance</a>. </p>
<p>Malcolm Fraser, another Liberal prime minister, introduced a <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/BN/2011-2012/UraniumPolicy">safeguards regime</a> for exporting uranium in 1978 that included only selling it to countries that were parties to the 1968 treaty – including the Americans, of course. Fraser later became involved in founding ICAN, and <a href="http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/hawke-fraser-join-anti-nuclear-campaign-group/news-story/dd832b27726b6a7633bd016d4b910cc7">campaigned</a> against nuclear weapons alongside his successor as prime minister, Bob Hawke.</p>
<p>The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to ICAN comes at a time when the pros and antis have rarely been more polarised or the choices more difficult. When the Nobel ICAN award first made news in October, Turnbull’s office made a <a href="http://www.theage.com/victoria/nobel-peace-prize-winners-thought-it-was-a-hoax">statement</a> acknowledging the campaign group’s commitment. </p>
<p>But it concluded: “So long as the threat of nuclear attack exists, US extended deterrence will serve Australia’s fundamental national security interests.” With a rogue nuclear power nearby, in other words, this is no time for contradictory policies from Australia. It raises difficult questions about where the country goes from here.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88973/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sue Rabbitt Roff 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>Canberra’s attitude to nuclear weapons has always been riddled with contradictions. Homegrown nuclear campaigners winning the Nobel prize have put the cat among the pigeons.Sue Rabbitt Roff, Researcher, Social History/Tutor in Medical Education, University of DundeeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/843952017-09-26T13:55:03Z2017-09-26T13:55:03ZNorth Korea and Iran aren’t comparable – but Trump can’t tell the difference<p>“Rocket man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime,” said Donald Trump at his <a href="https://usun.state.gov/remarks/7983">first address</a> to the UN General Assembly on September 19. Referring to North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and his nuclear sabre-rattling, he fulminated that if “forced to defend itself or its allies”, the US “will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea”. </p>
<p>This marked an escalation in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/sound-of-a-dog-barking-history-reveals-the-significance-of-this-north-korean-insult-to-trump-84530">war of words</a> between the US president and the North Korean leadership and came some two weeks after North Korea’s <a href="http://www.dw.com/en/donald-trump-kim-jong-un-war-of-words-timeline/a-40020613">sixth nuclear bomb test</a>. This should not be dismissed as mere bluster. The words presidents use matter, because they can shape new political realities.</p>
<p>The “reckless regime” label that Trump also used to link North Korea and Iran in his speech is an ominous forerunner of wrongheaded US Iran policies to come. It blithely conflates two very different governments, and glosses over fundamental legal and technical differences in their respective nuclear programmes. </p>
<p>If the Trump administration is going to get its policies towards these two countries right, it needs to develop a better grasp of these distinctions, and fast.</p>
<h2>Breaking away</h2>
<p>It was in the early 2000s that North Korea became a “rogue state” by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/jan/10/northkorea1">withdrawing</a> from the <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/npt/">Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons</a> (NPT) and <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/east/12/27/nkorea.expulsions/">expelling inspectors</a> from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Ensuing UN sanctions and several rounds of <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/6partytalks">Six-Party Talks</a> (between the US, Russia, China, Japan, North Korea and South Korea) could not stop Pyongyang’s march to a nuclear weapon. Tests of <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00396330600594264">missiles</a> and eventually <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/09/world/asia/09korea.html">nuclear devices</a> were the last straws.</p>
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<p>By contrast, Iran never left the NPT regime, and in the end managed to resolve a diplomatic crisis over controversial nuclear facilities through complicated negotiations. The result was the historic <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-iran-nuclear-deal-means-and-what-it-doesnt-44685">nuclear deal of 2015</a> (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA). </p>
<p>As I write in my <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Hegemony-and-Resistance-around-the-Iranian-Nuclear-Programme-Analysing/Pieper/p/book/9781138205666">book</a> on the Iranian nuclear crisis, this deal is a historic success of international diplomacy, and the first successful precedent for rewinding UN sanctions imposed over proliferation charges without resorting to military means or regime change. In particular, the achievement of an internationally verified rollback of nuclear capabilities is a rare moment in arms control history.</p>
<p>At its root, the Iran crisis was a clash of interpretations as to what the right to nuclear energy entails and what it doesn’t. The 12-year-long diplomatic odyssey that ensued established that joining the NPT does not mean negotiating away the right to have a nuclear programme. (Articles IV and V of the treaty make that very clear.) There is no parallel with the North Korean dispute – and this is the vital distinction Trump is ignoring.</p>
<h2>Eroding diplomacy</h2>
<p><a href="https://usun.state.gov/remarks/7983">Reiterating</a> his belief that “the Iran deal was one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into”, Trump <a href="https://usun.state.gov/remarks/7983">also told the UN</a> that: “We cannot abide by an agreement if it provides cover for the eventual construction of a nuclear programme.” (The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, nodded approvingly.)</p>
<p>Such a rhetoric also wilfully ignores eight IAEA reports <a href="https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/gov2017-35.pdf">confirming</a> that Iran is complying with the terms of the 2015 nuclear agreement to limit its nuclear capabilities. And if Trump’s allusions to the illegitimacy of particular regimes get mixed up with criticisms of multilateral, highly specific agreements, the power of multilateral diplomacy will suffer in favour of unilateral arbitrariness. </p>
<p>The negotiations surrounding the Iran nuclear crisis succeeded precisely because they managed to compartmentalise concerns about Iranian regional policies and focus very specifically on the nature of its nuclear programme. Unless his administration is willing to offer “grand bargain” negotiations on broader US-Iran relations, it’s hard to imagine a better deal being struck. </p>
<p>Under the agreement, Iran has closed all paths to a nuclear weapon. Abrogating the JCPOA would not make the region (or Americans, for that matter) safer, as it would let Iran revert back to a pre-diplomacy status, unchecked by IAEA verification while military escalation once again looms on the horizon.</p>
<p>What’s more, the implications for the global non-proliferation regime would be serious. Against the backdrop of a hostile US administration, the other participants to the multilateral deal – the EU, Russia, and China – all need it to survive because it has averted the prospect of what could be a cataclysmic Middle Eastern war. North Korean leaders, meanwhile, would rightly conclude that NPT membership and multilateral diplomacy is indeed no guarantee of regime survival. </p>
<p>Trump’s reckless language on the Iran deal, in addition to <a href="https://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2017/07/272635.htm">new US sanctions</a> on Iran, is already gradually undermining the JCPOA, and his administration is reportedly seeking ways to <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/blog/2017-07-27/p51-iran-alert-july-27-2017">decertify</a> Iranian compliance, despite the evidence to the contrary. If the US does indeed bring down the Iran agreement by eroding it from within, that would set a disastrous precedent for nuclear-related diplomacy – and deal a blow to the nuclear non-proliferation regime from which it might never recover.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84395/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Moritz Pieper 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>Trump seems to think all potential nuclear agitators are alike. He’s wrong, and perhaps disastrously so.Moritz Pieper, Lecturer in International Relations, University of SalfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/719592017-02-10T12:57:46Z2017-02-10T12:57:46ZHow anti-nuclear movements can really make a difference<p>With Donald Trump’s presidency still in its cradle, civil disobedience is in vogue again. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-womens-march-on-washington-can-learn-from-black-lives-matter-71849">Women’s Marches</a> and “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/29/protest-trump-travel-ban-muslims-airports">airport protests</a>” have galvanised those worried by the administration’s agenda into a nascent opposition already being badged as “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/02/resistance-tea-party/516105/">The Resistance</a>”. </p>
<p>Trump faces an uprising on another front besides – thanks to his <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-presidential-debate-fact-check/2016/10/true-trump-has-advocated-more-countries-getting-nuclear-weapons-230042">overt advocacy</a> for the spread of nuclear weapons, nuclear disarmament activists are reviving their movement to oppose him.</p>
<p>They have a long history to draw on. The campaign to eradicate nuclear weapons began almost immediately after the first atomic bomb was dropped. However, military strategists’ faith in a strong nuclear deterrent thwarted demands for disarmament. Stockpiles of weapons increased exponentially during the Cold War.</p>
<p>In response, protesters focused on smaller, more urgent but achievable goals in the hopes that disarmament would eventually follow. The movement has experienced lulls, notably between 1963-1980, but has maintained an interrupted presence since 1945.</p>
<p>The fact that disarmament has not yet been achieved may suggest that anti-nuclear activists have not been effective. Securing definitive legislative victories has certainly proved challenging, but even arms control agreements are both celebrated and derided. While some recognise the importance of “first steps” towards complete disarmament, others remain frustrated at the sluggish pace of such negotiations.</p>
<p>Some agreements are deemed to have simply validated the continuing existence and development of nuclear weapons. The <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/limited-ban">Limited Test Ban Treaty</a> of 1963, for example, stymied the urgent hazard of radioactive fallout but did not outlaw nuclear weapons tests entirely. Nor did it hinder the build-up of nuclear arms, which continued unabated. Many saw the treaty as something of a half-measure, but it’s important to value what we have. A <a href="http://www.nti.org/learn/treaties-and-regimes/comprehensive-nuclear-test-ban-treaty-ctbt/">Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty</a>, though agreed, still awaits ratification.</p>
<p>However, as the social movement scholar <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/684616?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">William A. Gamson</a> argued, just because a movement fails to achieve an ultimate goal doesn’t mean it has no impact. Smaller gains deserve recognition. The ability to change the way debates around nuclear weapons are “framed” is an equally important indicator of impact.</p>
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<p>The anti-nuclear movement has accordingly succeeded most when it has reached out to the general public. The success of the US’s Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign of the 1980s lay in its ability to attract massive nationwide support: in June 1982, a million protesters from all walks of life <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1982/06/13/world/throngs-fill-manhattan-to-protest-nuclear-weapons.html?pagewanted=all">descended on New York</a> to rally against nuclear arms. The movement’s popularity and influence quite probably influenced Ronald Reagan’s approach to nuclear issues, which became <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2004_07-08/Reagan">less hawkish and more conciliatory</a> as his presidency wore on.</p>
<p>Educational outreach also proved fruitful during the 1980s, to the extent that aversion to nuclear weapons became the “commonsense” position. In 1998, lifelong anti-nuclear activist Ethel Taylor <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/We_Made_a_Difference.html?id=RvUoAQAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">lamented</a> that she had not been able to reduce weapons stockpiles, but emphatically declared that she and her fellow activists had “made a difference” with their work to alter attitudes and raise awareness.</p>
<h2>Just like old times</h2>
<p>Today’s movement faces challenges it has not experienced since the 1980s. President Trump has been a <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-presidential-debate-fact-check/2016/10/true-trump-has-advocated-more-countries-getting-nuclear-weapons-230042">vocal proponent</a> of nuclear proliferation, a policy that would undo more than 70 years of nuclear strategy. His public calls to renew the nuclear arms race and criticism of the <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/01/report-warns-trump-scrapping-iran-nuclear-deal-170115090451378.html">Iran nuclear deal</a> puts him at odds with much of the international community, but has considerable support among his Republican colleagues. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists responded to such developments by moving its famed “<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-doomsday-clock-and-why-should-we-keep-track-of-the-time-71990">Doomsday Clock</a>” closer to midnight than at any time since 1953.</p>
<p>Additionally, there is no guarantee that anti-nuclear sentiments are currently shared by the general public. Opinion on nuclear matters is notably erratic. A 2016 Gallup poll found that <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/189272/after-nuclear-deal-views-iran-remain-dismal.aspx">57% of Americans</a> disapproved of the Iran nuclear deal, but further polling the following year found nearly two-thirds <a href="http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/most-americans-oppose-withdrawing-from-iran-nuclear-deal-300386433.html">opposed withdrawing from it</a>. The plurality of opinion over the UK’s Trident nuclear program reflects this complexity. Even if the anti-nuclear movement could assert its influence on the general public, it remains to be seen whether the president would respond to such opposition.</p>
<p>There is nonetheless cause for optimism. Disarmament initiatives are in rude health and numerous organisations are still working diligently: <a href="http://www.globalzero.org/">Global Zero</a>, the <a href="http://www.cnduk.org/">Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament</a>, and the <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/">Arms Control Association</a> are to this day assertive, robust campaigners. Recent protests at <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-32282564">Faslane Naval Base</a> on the Clyde, where the UK’s submarine deterrent is based and where CND has maintained a presence since 1982, prove that activists are determined to combat further arms build-ups. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, legislative efforts persist to secure the ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which would in turn provide significant momentum for further arms control agreements.</p>
<p>The anti-nuclear movement’s strength has always been its ability to react quickly and capitalise on external events that spark public interest. In these unstable times, it will need to increase its visibility and be ready to rally widespread public support when future crises occur. This is certainly a difficult challenge – but the movement has met it before.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71959/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jon Coburn 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>People have been rising up against nuclear weapons ever since the first one was used – and it hasn’t been for nothing.Jon Coburn, Teaching Fellow in American History, University of HullLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/719902017-01-27T06:14:44Z2017-01-27T06:14:44ZWhat is the Doomsday Clock and why should we keep track of the time?<p>It made headlines recently when the <a href="http://thebulletin.org/press-release/board-moves-clock-ahead10433">Doomsday Clock</a> was shifted from three minutes to midnight to a new setting of two and a half minutes to midnight. </p>
<p>That is the nearest the clock has been to midnight for more than fifty years. The body responsible for the clock said </p>
<blockquote>
<p>the probability of global catastrophe is very high, and the actions needed to reduce the risks of disaster must be taken very soon.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It should be an urgent warning to world leaders. </p>
<p>The idea of a Doomsday Clock was conceived by the editorial staff of the <a href="http://thebulletin.org/">Bulletin of Atomic Scientists</a>, which was <a href="http://thebulletin.org/background-and-mission-1945-2016">founded by many of the scientists</a> who worked on the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Manhattan-Project">Manhattan Project</a>. </p>
<p>When that publication graduated from being an internal newsletter among the nuclear science community to being a formal magazine in 1947, the clock appeared on the cover. The magazine’s founders said the clock symbolised </p>
<blockquote>
<p>the urgency of the nuclear dangers that [we] – and the broader scientific community – are trying to convey to the public and political leaders around the world. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The clock was set at <a href="http://thebulletin.org/clock/1947">seven minutes to midnight</a>. Two years later, with the news that a nuclear weapon had been tested by the USSR, the communist state centred on modern Russia, the clock was moved to <a href="http://thebulletin.org/clock/1949">11.57</a>. </p>
<p>In 1953, the USA first tested the hydrogen bomb, a fusion weapon much more powerful than the fission bombs that had destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The USSR followed a few months later and the clock was advanced to <a href="http://thebulletin.org/clock/1953">11.58</a> with a warning there was a real chance that </p>
<blockquote>
<p>from Moscow to Chicago, atomic explosions will strike midnight for Western civilization. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Then there was a period of modest progress. It gradually became apparent that the new weapons were so powerful that only a deranged leader would consider using them against a similarly armed enemy, given the inevitability of catastrophic retaliation. </p>
<p>In 1963, after they had been continuously testing more and more deadly weapons, the USA and the USSR signed the <a href="https://www.state.gov/t/isn/4797.htm">Partial Test Ban Treaty</a>, which prohibited atmospheric testing. The <a href="http://thebulletin.org/clock/1963">clock was moved back to 11.48</a>. </p>
<p>It was a false dawn. The two super-powers simply shifted their testing of new weapons to underground facilities, while other countries such as Britain, France and China developed their own nuclear arsenals. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154516/original/image-20170127-30407-6iuzel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154516/original/image-20170127-30407-6iuzel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154516/original/image-20170127-30407-6iuzel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154516/original/image-20170127-30407-6iuzel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154516/original/image-20170127-30407-6iuzel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154516/original/image-20170127-30407-6iuzel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154516/original/image-20170127-30407-6iuzel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154516/original/image-20170127-30407-6iuzel.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">The Doomsday Clock was created in response to the development of nuclear weapons.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The clock gradually moved closer and closer to midnight until the mid-1980s when it stood at <a href="http://thebulletin.org/clock/1984">11.57</a>. Then Mikhail Gorbachev assumed the leadership of the USSR and began a series of negotiations to ease tensions and reduce the risk of nuclear war. </p>
<p>The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 effectively marked the end of the so-called Cold War between communism and capitalism. The subsequent collapse of the USSR led to large reductions in the nuclear arsenals, and by 1991 the clock had moved back to <a href="http://thebulletin.org/clock/1991">11.43</a>. </p>
<p>Once again, there were optimistic hopes of an era of peace and an end to the threat of nuclear weapons. It was not to be. The political system in the US made it almost impossible to scale back arms production. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/npt/">Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty</a>, negotiated in the 1970s, aimed to prevent the spread of weapons beyond the five nations that had already acquired them. But those countries did not implement their promise to disarm, so inevitably other nations decided that they would be more secure if they had nuclear weapons: India, Pakistan and Israel. The clock moved forward again year by year, reaching <a href="http://thebulletin.org/clock/2002">11.53</a> by 2002. </p>
<h2>New threats</h2>
<p>Since then, the managers of the Doomsday Clock have added new threats to the original fear of nuclear war. In 2007, they said “climate change also presents a dire challenge to humanity” and <a href="http://thebulletin.org/clock/2007">advanced the clock to 11.55</a>. </p>
<p>More recent annual reports have <a href="http://thebulletin.org/clock/2015">warned that</a> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>international leaders are failing to perform their most important duty – ensuring and preserving the health and vitality of human civilization.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The change should be welcomed. Even if nuclear weapons did not exist, climate change and the accelerating loss of biodiversity are serious threats. Damage to ecosystems is already taking place; climate change is causing loss of life and property, as well as affecting natural systems. </p>
<p>At the same time, the nations with nuclear weapons are still testing new devices and more sophisticated delivery systems. The number of weapons has dropped from its peak of over 60,000 to about 10,000. But that is still enough firepower to wipe out civilisation several times over. </p>
<p>And there are new players, including North Korea and perhaps Iran. As the <a href="http://thebulletin.org/clock/2017">2017 report said</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is two and a half minutes to midnight, the Clock is ticking, global danger looms. Wise public officials should act immediately, guiding humanity away from the brink. If they do not, wise citizens must step forward and lead the way.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This really is a call to arms and deserves more attention from our media.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71990/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Lowe 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>It’s two and a half minutes to midnight according to the Doomsday Clock. But what is the clock and why should we pay attention?Ian Lowe, Emeritus Professor, School of Science, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/703822016-12-15T04:09:43Z2016-12-15T04:09:43ZLesson one for Rick Perry: The Energy Department doesn’t produce much energy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150172/original/image-20161214-2500-1k13q1s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration supervises the removal of 68 kilograms of highly enriched uranium (enough for two nuclear weapons) from the Czech Republic in 2013. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nnsanews/8619422303/in/album-72157633163366723/">NNSA/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A former governor of Texas – the state that produces more crude oil, natural gas, lignite coal, wind power and refined petroleum products than any other – would seem to be a natural choice for secretary of energy. Yet, assuming he is confirmed by the Senate, Rick Perry will face a paradox.</p>
<p>While the Department of Defense defends us, and the Department of Treasury manages federal finances and supervises banks, the Department of Energy does not provide America’s energy. Yes, it markets hydroelectric power from dams run by the Army Corps of Engineers, but U.S. energy production is overwhelmingly a job for the private sector. </p>
<p>The Energy Department is a hodgepodge of organizations, some of which existed decades before DOE was created in 1977. But it has two core missions: nuclear energy, weapons and cleanup, which account for 68 percent of the department’s <a href="http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2016/02/f29/FY2017BudgetinBrief_0.pdf">fiscal year 2016 budget</a>; and research and development (including basic science) to advance cleaner or more efficient ways to produce and use energy, which constitutes 28 percent of its budget. The incoming secretary will need to marshal these nuclear and scientific capabilities to meet key national security challenges, including a resurgent Russia and the threat of nuclear proliferation and terrorism.</p>
<h2>The department of nuclear weapons and science</h2>
<p>Physical science is at the heart of everything DOE does. Indeed, it could as accurately be called the Department of Physical Science (in contrast to the life sciences, which mostly reside at the <a href="https://www.nih.gov/">National Institutes of Health</a> and the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/">Centers for Disease Control and Prevention</a>). </p>
<p>The Energy Department’s 17 <a href="http://energy.gov/maps/doe-national-laboratories">national laboratories</a> focus on physics, chemistry, and materials and other sciences. They operate at a high level: 115 scientists associated with the department or its predecessors <a href="http://science.energy.gov/about/honors-and-awards/doe-nobel-laureates/">have won Nobel prizes</a>. These laboratories are precious national resources that enhance American welfare, prosperity and security.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150188/original/image-20161214-2505-m4h2w3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150188/original/image-20161214-2505-m4h2w3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150188/original/image-20161214-2505-m4h2w3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150188/original/image-20161214-2505-m4h2w3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150188/original/image-20161214-2505-m4h2w3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150188/original/image-20161214-2505-m4h2w3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150188/original/image-20161214-2505-m4h2w3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Z Machine at DOE’s Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, New Mexico is the largest X-ray generator in the world.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/departmentofenergy/8056998596/in/album-72157630137563548/">Randy Montoya, Sandia National Laboratories/Flickr</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many people in Washington might laugh at the thought, but the <a href="https://nnsa.energy.gov/">National Nuclear Security Administration</a>, or NNSA, which accounts for almost half of the department’s US$30 billion budget, arguably rivals Apple in producing three different but related products at a world-class level. The <a href="https://nnsa.energy.gov/ourmission/maintainingthestockpile">U.S. nuclear weapons program</a> is first-rate in terms of science, safety, security and reliability. The <a href="https://nnsa.energy.gov/ourmission/poweringnavy">naval reactors program</a>, which designs and maintains the systems that power the Navy’s submarines and aircraft carriers, ensures that our underwater fleet is unmatched in stealth and reliability, and therefore in military effectiveness. And the <a href="https://nnsa.energy.gov/aboutus/ourprograms/nonproliferation">nuclear nonproliferation program</a>, which works to prevent nuclear proliferation and terrorism and to inform arms control policy with technical expertise, has a wider international reach and a deeper roster of activities than any other such effort in the world.</p>
<h2>Management challenges for the next secretary</h2>
<p>DOE and its laboratories also have major management challenges. Many of the department’s facilities are one-of-a-kind and operate at the border between science and technology, in a high-security environment, often using potentially hazardous material or processes. </p>
<p>All of these factors introduce risk, which is inherent in employing novel technologies required to meet highly demanding technical requirements. One example is the <a href="https://lasers.llnl.gov/">National Ignition Facility</a> at <a href="https://www.llnl.gov/">Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory</a>, the world’s largest laser instrument, designed to create temperatures and pressures unseen outside of stars. All too often these ambitious goals and rigorous standards have resulted in <a href="http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d10199.pdf">cost overruns</a>.</p>
<p>To be successful, the next energy secretary will need to focus relentlessly on three priorities. First, he or she will need to improve contract and project management. The Department’s Office of Environmental Management and the NNSA – which together spend more than half of the agency’s budget – have been on the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s <a href="http://www.gao.gov/highrisk/overview">high-risk list</a> for years. Agencies and programs on this list are vulnerable to fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement or in urgent need of transformation.</p>
<p>Starting in the George W. Bush administration, and continuing under the Obama administration, the department greatly improved its operations, but <a href="http://www.gao.gov/highrisk/doe_contract_management/why_did_study#t=1">much remains to be done</a>. If Congress does not have confidence in how the department is spending precious taxpayer dollars, it is likely to cut funding for DOE programs.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150194/original/image-20161214-2539-1babddc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150194/original/image-20161214-2539-1babddc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150194/original/image-20161214-2539-1babddc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150194/original/image-20161214-2539-1babddc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150194/original/image-20161214-2539-1babddc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150194/original/image-20161214-2539-1babddc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150194/original/image-20161214-2539-1babddc.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">Energy Secretary Steven Chu visits the waste treatment plant construction site at the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington in 2012. The 65-acre plant will seal 53 million gallons of radioactive and chemical wastes from more than 40 years of plutonium production for nuclear weapons into glass logs for permanent disposal. It is years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/Secretary_Chu_Visits_Hanford_%287977761186%29.jpg">Energy.Gov/Wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Second, the next energy secretary will need to complete ongoing efforts to reverse the decay of our nuclear weapons complex. Much of the U.S. nuclear arsenal and the facilities necessary to make and maintain it <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-nuclear-arsenal-is-ready-for-overhaul/2012/09/15/428237de-f830-11e1-8253-3f495ae70650_story.html?utm_term=.a229c375b1b0">have outlasted their expected lifetimes</a>. Deferred maintenance can no longer be put off and obsolete facilities can no longer operate. </p>
<p>The Obama administration started this work, promising in 2010 to <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/11/17/fact-sheet-enduring-commitment-us-nuclear-deterrent">add $14 billion over 10 years</a> to improve infrastructure. But a sustained commitment is needed. One big challenge will be to keep a <a href="http://www.bechtel.com/projects/uranium-processing-facility/">new $6.5 billion uranium processing facility</a> on track for completion by 2025. </p>
<p>Third, the next energy secretary will need to reinvigorate work to prevent nuclear proliferation and terrorism. NNSA operates the largest programs to detect, secure and dispose of dangerous nuclear material in the world. These programs are vital to U.S. security, and each of the last four presidents has put his stamp on them.</p>
<p>President George H. W. Bush began the process in 1991 by signing the <a href="https://www.nti.org/media/pdfs/NunnLugarBrochure_2012.pdf?_=1354304005">Nunn-Lugar legislation</a>, which provided money as the Soviet Union broke apart to secure and remove Soviet nuclear weapons and materials from the new countries of Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. President Clinton set the agenda and established programs to install physical protection and materials accounting, detect nuclear smuggling and consolidate the number of facilities that stocked weapons-usable nuclear materials.</p>
<p>After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush doubled the program budget and accelerated its pace. And President Obama broadened the effort by convening four <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/03/29/fact-sheet-nuclear-security-summits-securing-world-nuclear-terrorism">nuclear security summits</a>, where world leaders pledged to take hundreds of steps to protect nuclear materials and prevent nuclear terrorism.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150197/original/image-20161214-2505-19whe0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150197/original/image-20161214-2505-19whe0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150197/original/image-20161214-2505-19whe0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150197/original/image-20161214-2505-19whe0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150197/original/image-20161214-2505-19whe0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150197/original/image-20161214-2505-19whe0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150197/original/image-20161214-2505-19whe0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">World leaders at the fourth Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, D.C., April 1, 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fotograf%C3%ADa_Oficial_de_la_IV_Cumbre_de_Seguridad_Nuclear_(25570040834).jpg">Government of Chile/Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Now those summits are over and cooperation with Russia is in tatters. DOE’s funding requests for nuclear security cooperation have declined every year since 2011, and the budget now is smaller than when President Obama took office. It is vitally important for the Trump administration to set ambitious new goals and provide enough resources for these programs. </p>
<h2>Leading DOE</h2>
<p>Past secretaries of energy have come from a wide range of backgrounds, including the Navy, industry and academia. The most successful ones focused sharply on accomplishing two or three big goals and avoiding the myriad distractions that DOE’s sprawling bureaucracy constantly raises. They also trusted senior DOE staffers’ scientific and technical judgment, but asked hard questions. </p>
<p>The Trump campaign did not lay out detailed nuclear policy or energy research and development plans, which is understandable because those issues were not high priorities for the electorate. It will therefore fall to the next energy secretary to define them – and national security, not energy production, will be the highest priority.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70382/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>William H. Tobey was a deputy administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration at the U.S. Department of Energy from 2005 to 2009. He is a member of the Secretary of State's International Security Advisory Board and Chairman of the Board of the World Institute for Nuclear Security.</span></em></p>Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry has experience with energy, but if confirmed as secretary of energy, he should get ready to learn a lot about DOE’s big jobs: nuclear security and basic science research.William H. Tobey, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/685312016-11-16T17:48:30Z2016-11-16T17:48:30ZTrump’s US could give up the fight to stop nuclear arms spreading<p>With a few notable exceptions, Democratic and Republican presidents alike have generally tried to restrain if not reverse nuclear proliferation since nuclear weapons came into existence. But in the era of Donald Trump, that history may count for nothing.</p>
<p>President-elect Trump apparently has <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/ap-fact-check-donald-trump-iran-nuclear-deal/">little time</a> for his country’s fragile <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-irans-hardliners-still-threaten-the-nuclear-deal-53236">nuclear weapons deal with Iran</a>, and his alarmingly permissive statements about the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/04/06/should-more-countries-have-nuclear-weapons-donald-trump-thinks-so/">wider proliferation of nuclear weapons</a> fly in the face of <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/03/trumps-nuclear-insanity-213781">US nonproliferation policy since 1945</a>. </p>
<p>US presidents have been trying to contain the spread of nuclear weapons since the dawn of the atomic age. There were missteps along the way: Dwight Eisenhower’s ill-considered “<a href="https://www.iaea.org/about/history/atoms-for-peace-speech">Atoms for Peace</a>” programme ended up distributing nuclear technology around the world, contributing in particular to <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/peopleandpower/2016/08/india-nuclear-riddle-160831143938805.html">India’s pursuit of “the bomb”</a>, which it eventually acquired in <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/amp39Smiling-Buddhaamp39-had-caught-US-off-guard-in-1974/articleshow/11013437.cms">1974</a>. </p>
<p>Successive presidents – including Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon – failed to halt Israel’s undeclared nuclear programme. Despite <a href="http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb333/">Jimmy Carter’s sincere efforts</a> to restrain Pakistan’s nuclear ambitions, an uptick in the Cold War in 1979-80 and the sheer determination of Pakistani leaders were too much to overcome.</p>
<p>Despite these failures, the overall thrust has been towards nonproliferation. The prospect of a West German bomb and <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-china-joined-the-nuclear-weapons-club-43500">China’s ascent to nuclear status</a> in 1964 saw genuine moves towards an international nonproliferation regime, resulting in the landmark 1968 <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/npt/">Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons</a>, to this day the cornerstone of nuclear weapons control. </p>
<p>In the 1970s and 1980s, American leaders helped persuade <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-brazil-and-argentina-defused-their-nuclear-rivalry-44163">Argentina and Brazil</a>, <a href="http://www.nti.org/learn/countries/south-korea/">South Korea</a>, and <a href="http://thediplomat.com/2016/02/declassified-us-attempts-to-rein-in-chiang-ching-kuos-nuclear-ambitions/">Taiwan</a> that national nuclear programmes were not in their interest. The anti-proliferation mood continued into the 1990s, as South Africa <a href="http://www.nti.org/learn/countries/south-africa/nuclear/">voluntarily dismantled</a> its six bombs, while Belarus, Kazakhstan, and the Ukraine all <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/05_trilateral_process_pifer.pdf">gave up their Soviet-era weapons</a> under the Lisbon Protocol, which the US was directly involved in brokering.</p>
<p>US nuclear weapons policy, then, has broadly tended towards antiproliferation. And while it’s far from the sole global arbiter of nuclear status, Washington wields immense power. But it seems Trump knows little of this history, and cares even less about it.</p>
<h2>Who’s next?</h2>
<p>Throughout his campaign, Trump seemed unconcerned about the further spread of nuclear weapons. When asked about the prospect of Saudi Arabia going nuclear, he casually said that they would <a href="http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2016/03/29/full-rush-transcript-donald-trump-cnn-milwaukee-republican-presidential-town-hall/">get a bomb anyway</a>. This was a retrenchment to the alarmist predictions of the 1950s and 1960s, which deemed the widespread attainment of nuclear capability virtually inevitable. </p>
<p>At the same event, Trump supported the notion of Japan and South Korea gaining nuclear capability to defend themselves against China and North Korea, seemingly ignorant of both history, and the Japanese constitution’s prohibition of “the bomb”. This effectively abrogates US support of the NPT.</p>
<p>Like much of his rhetoric, Trump’s statements on proliferation are often contradictory. Shortly after winning the election, he denied via Twitter that he had said that more countries should have nuclear weapons. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"797832229800050688"}"></div></p>
<p>And a year ago, he declared nuclear proliferation “<a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/trumps-terrifying-nuke-answer-at-the-debate-should-end-his-campaign-but-it-wont-20151216">the single biggest problem our country faces right now</a>”. However, that was in reference to “having some madman go out and get a nuclear weapon”. To whom was Trump referring? Of course, “some madman” is not just anyone. For Trump, the madmen reside in Tehran.</p>
<h2>Tearing it up</h2>
<p>By any reasonable standard, the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, more commonly known as the “Iran nuclear deal”, is the most important nonproliferation agreement of the 21st century. It blocks Tehran’s routes to “the bomb” and allows the Islamic Republic to begin reintegration into the international mainstream. </p>
<p>Trump, on the other hand, considers it “<a href="https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/Radical_Islam_Speech.pdf">one of the worst deals I’ve ever seen</a>”. During the campaign he incorrectly claimed that the deal only made it easier for Tehran to eventually gain nuclear capability, and alluded to abrogating or redefining the deal when he takes office. </p>
<p>He is not alone: many House and Senate Republicans lambasted Obama over the agreement when it was struck, and vowed to do all they could to make sure it would never come to fruition. This tendency on the right is now in control of Congress, and will be ready to work with Trump once he takes office.</p>
<p>These views could throw off the world’s nuclear balance. For decades, scholars, politicians, and intelligence analysts predicted a “<a href="http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB155/index.htm">nuclear tipping point</a>”, a situation where if one more nation obtained the bomb, the dam would burst and the world would go nuclear. None of these prognostications came to pass – but if Trump gets what seems to be his way, a tipping point might not be needed. </p>
<p>The nonproliferation regime is flawed, sometimes unfair, but ultimately functional. Under the Trump administration, however, the one nation that has done more to restrain proliferation than any other might yet destroy the entire fragile edifice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68531/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Malcolm M Craig 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 global nuclear non-proliferation regime depends on American leadership. What if Donald Trump loses interest?Malcolm M Craig, Lecturer in History, Liverpool John Moores UniversityLicensed 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/654622016-09-21T00:01:51Z2016-09-21T00:01:51ZTo curb North Korea’s nuclear program, follow the money<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138108/original/image-20160916-17039-1i8whkl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.voanews.com/a/photos-show-north-korea-digging-new-nuclear-tunnel/3085575.html">Voice of America</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>North Korea’s <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/10/world/asia/north-korea-nuclear-test.html">fifth nuclear test</a> on Sept. 9 sparked a new round of questions about how to contain this rapidly growing threat. Like clockwork, the United States and its northeast Asian allies are already preparing another <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/north-korea-earthquake-believed-nuclear-test-010528159.html">dose of sanctions</a>.</p>
<p>Most U.S. defense experts believe that a military response against North Korea would quickly escalate to open conflict with massive casualties. Instead, the world community has responded to North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests in recent years by constantly tightening economic and political sanctions on Pyongyang. Since North Korea’s first nuclear test in October 2006, the United Nations Security Council has adopted <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/UN-Security-Council-Resolutions-on-North-Korea">five resolutions</a> designed to deny North Korea access to components for its nuclear and missile programs.</p>
<p>But many security experts question whether these sanctions have been effective. In a new <a href="http://web.mit.edu/ssp/people/walsh/Stopping%20North%20Korea%20Inc_Park%20%20Walsh_FINAL.pdf">study</a>, my MIT colleague <a href="http://web.mit.edu/ssp/people/walsh/faculty_walsh.html">Jim Walsh</a> and I examined how what we call North Korea, Inc. – the regime’s network of companies tasked with procurement – has learned to evade sanctions. We interviewed former North Korean business managers now residing in Seoul, South Korea, who bought components for the regime’s nuclear and missile programs. Our findings highlight how increasing the dosage of sanctions has, in practice, triggered the development of alternative, more effective procurement channels.</p>
<p>This doesn’t mean we should drop all sanctions. Rather, we need to target them more effectively, based on an improved understanding of how North Korea, Inc. has learned how to evade them.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138319/original/image-20160919-11117-qnw65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138319/original/image-20160919-11117-qnw65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138319/original/image-20160919-11117-qnw65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138319/original/image-20160919-11117-qnw65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138319/original/image-20160919-11117-qnw65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138319/original/image-20160919-11117-qnw65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138319/original/image-20160919-11117-qnw65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Unha-9 rocket model on display at floral exhibition, Pyongyang, 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Unha-9_rocket_model.jpg">Steve Herman, Voice of America/Wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The key role of Chinese middlemen</h2>
<p>To evade international sanctions, North Korean business managers embed themselves in commercial hubs in China, their country’s largest trading partner, and work with local business middlemen. These middlemen charge their North Korean clients a fee to purchase dual-use technologies – items that can be used for either civilian or military purposes, such as industrial equipment and components. </p>
<p>Interviewing former North Korean managers was striking because they made these purchases sound like normal business transactions. They largely spoke about the challenges and opportunities of operating in a particular local market in Asia, much as expatriate businessmen would describe dealing with a regional chamber of commerce. It became clear that the tacit knowledge that resides in these networks was critical to North Korean managers’ effectiveness.</p>
<p>As sanctions have become tougher, these local Chinese middlemen have charged higher fees to reflect the elevated risk of doing business with North Korean clients. Instead of hindering procurement activities, we found that sanctions have actually helped to attract more capable middlemen, who are drawn by the larger payday. The North Korean regime has financed the higher fees by drawing on substantial cash reserves that it amassed in accounts on the mainland during a boom in coal trade between North Korea and China in the late 2000s. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138310/original/image-20160919-11117-v8dtw8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138310/original/image-20160919-11117-v8dtw8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138310/original/image-20160919-11117-v8dtw8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138310/original/image-20160919-11117-v8dtw8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138310/original/image-20160919-11117-v8dtw8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138310/original/image-20160919-11117-v8dtw8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138310/original/image-20160919-11117-v8dtw8.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">Trucks wait to cross the border between Quanhe, China and Wonjong, North Korea.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93North_Korea_relations#/media/File:Queue_-_Quanhe-Wonjong_border_(8553126270).jpg">Roman Harak/Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Despite the expense, North Korean business managers use Chinese middlemen because they have two unique capabilities. First, these brokers have access to a wide array of foreign companies that produce dual-use equipment and industrial goods in China for the growing Chinese market. We found that it is straightforward for a North Korean manager to procure these items by using local Chinese companies. The headquarters of these European companies receive copies of records and certificates which show that their China branches are selling their products to Chinese entities, when, in reality, these goods end up in North Korea. </p>
<p>Second, it is relatively easy for these middlemen to deliver goods to North Korea. Using their own networks of logistics companies in China, they can effectively hide these transactions in the open by merging them into China’s enormous flow of domestic commerce. The scale of this flow essentially makes searching for North Korea-bound consignments like looking for needles in a haystack.</p>
<p>Analyzing North Korean nuclear and missile procurement as a business case study helped us to highlight the security implications of these commercial networks. Importantly, we also identified ways in which the United States may be able to work with China to counter North Korea, Inc.</p>
<h2>Working with China to curb illegal procurement</h2>
<p>Like the United States, South Korea and Japan, China is also concerned about the rapid advances that North Korea is making in its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. However, Chinese leaders also fear that imposing more stringent sanctions could cause North Korea’s economy to collapse, producing refugee flows and instability. Instead they are using domestic laws to try to halt illicit trade in weapons components. </p>
<p>As an example, in 2013 a group of Chinese ministries and agencies issued <a href="http://nautilus.org/napsnet/napsnet-special-reports/technical-bulletin-59-on-prohibition-of-dual-use-exports-to-north-korea/">Technical Bulletin #59</a>, a 236-page report listing dual-use items that Chinese nationals were prohibited from selling to North Koreans. This step alone clearly did not stem the flow of goods, since North Korea subsequently tested more advanced nuclear weapons and missiles. Nonetheless, this initiative signaled Chinese leaders’ intent to curb illicit trade with North Korea, and could serve as a rare building block for cooperation with the United States.</p>
<p>We believe that states act to protect their national interests, and that Beijing, Seoul, Washington and Tokyo have a shared national interest in stopping North Korea, Inc. Their very public disagreements have focused on how to achieve this goal. In our study we identified opportunities for U.S. and South Korean export control bodies and law enforcement agencies to cooperate discreetly with their Chinese counterparts to improve the use of Chinese domestic laws to curtail North Korea, Inc.’s illicit procurement activities in the Chinese market. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138322/original/image-20160919-11117-vn48dg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/138322/original/image-20160919-11117-vn48dg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138322/original/image-20160919-11117-vn48dg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138322/original/image-20160919-11117-vn48dg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138322/original/image-20160919-11117-vn48dg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138322/original/image-20160919-11117-vn48dg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/138322/original/image-20160919-11117-vn48dg.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">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">North Korean border with China at Dandong. Security reportedly is low in many areas of the nations’ 1,400-kilometer border.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:North_Korean_border_at_Dandong,_China.jpg">Jack Upland/Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The United States and South Korea could share commercial intelligence on elite North Korean business managers’ dealings with private Chinese middlemen. Doing so could help China disrupt North Korea’s procurement activities by breaking apart this commercial partnership upstream – that is, before illicit goods are transacted and make the journey to North Korea. We see two particular opportunities to disrupt North Korea, Inc. </p>
<p>First, most North Korean trade managers are dually appointed as diplomats, which enables them to embed in these commercial hubs for years at a time and develop local market acumen. Gathering evidence showing that North Korean managers are abusing their diplomatic privileges and providing the evidence to Chinese authorities would give China grounds for expelling these illicit commercial agents. Expelling them would cause protracted delays in North Korea’s procurement efforts while their replacements create new commercial channels. </p>
<p>Second, we should work to persuade Beijing to target Chinese middlemen who work with North Korean procurement agents through the Chinese government’s existing anti-corruption apparatus. This agency, which China’s current ruler Xi Jinping has been using to consolidate power, is a formidable instrument. Most of these Chinese middlemen are closely associated with corrupt local Communist Party officials. Focusing this domestic policy tool on the <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-china-move-against-firm-suspected-of-aiding-north-korean-nuclear-program-1474300834">Chinese segment</a> of North Korea’s illicit procurement partnerships could be an effective way to halt the flow of sensitive goods into the North.</p>
<h2>The right goal: Containing North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs</h2>
<p>As the intervals between Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile tests shrink from years to months, it becomes increasingly urgent to find ways of making sanctions on North Korea more effective. North Korea’s nuclear and missile capabilities have significantly improved over the past decade, even as the global community has applied round after round of targeted sanctions in an effort to prevent it from acquiring sensitive components. </p>
<p>As my colleague Jim Walsh likes to point out, the horse has escaped the barn but hasn’t jumped over the fence yet. North Korea’s goal is to miniaturize nuclear warheads and place them atop proven ballistic missiles, but it is probably still a few years from doing so. We have an opportunity now to achieve a different outcome. We can counter innovations in the North Korean regime’s procurement practices with innovative measures to disrupt North Korea, Inc., centering on real cooperation with China.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65462/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John S. Park has received funding from the MacArthur Foundation and the Stanton Foundation. He is a Senior Advisor at The National Bureau of Asian Research.</span></em></p>After North Korea’s fifth nuclear test on Sept. 9, the U.S. is calling for tighter global sanctions. New research shows that this strategy actually helps North Korea.John S. Park, Director, Korea Working Group, Harvard Kennedy SchoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/614162016-07-19T10:06:21Z2016-07-19T10:06:21Z3D printing: a new threat to gun control and security policy?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130617/original/image-20160714-23320-1dge3ui.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A computer design for home manufacturing of a receiver, the trigger and firing part, of a semi-automatic rifle.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/simonov/21739928933">simonov/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Following the recent <a href="http://www.npr.org/2016/06/16/482322488/orlando-shooting-what-happened-update">mass shooting in Orlando</a>, and the shootings <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/07/us/falcon-heights-shooting-minnesota/">in Minnesota</a> <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/08/us/philando-castile-alton-sterling-protests/">and Dallas</a>, the sharp political divisions over gun control within the U.S. are once again on display. In June, House Democrats even <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/24/us/politics/senate-gun-control.html?_r=0">staged a sit-in</a> to advocate for stronger laws. </p>
<p>There is <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/ip.2006.013714">some evidence</a> that more restrictions can reduce gun violence, but another recent shooting highlighted some limitations of regulation. British Member of Parliament Jo Cox <a href="http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/what-was-the-makeshift-gun-that-killed-british-mp-jo-cox">was murdered with a “makeshift gun”</a> despite the United Kingdom’s restrictive gun-control laws.</p>
<p>The threat of self-manufactured firearms is not new, but a critical barrier is collapsing. Until recently, most people didn’t have the skills to make a weapon as capable as commercially available ones. However, recent developments in the field of additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, have made home manufacturing simpler than ever before. The prospect of more stringent legislation is also fueling <a href="https://www.wired.com/2016/06/orlando-homemade-ar-15-industry-surges/">interest in at-home production</a>.</p>
<p>Plans for basic handguns that can be created on consumer-grade 3D printers are readily available online. With more advanced 3D printers and other at-home technologies such as the <a href="http://ghostgunner.net">Ghost Gunner</a> computer-controlled mill, people can even make more complex weapons, <a href="https://3dprint.com/21109/3d-print-metal-gun-reason">including metal handguns</a> and <a href="https://www.wired.com/2015/06/i-made-an-untraceable-ar-15-ghost-gun/">components for semi-automatic rifles</a>. </p>
<p>These technologies pose challenges not only for gun regulation but also for efforts to protect humanity from more powerful weapons. In the words of Bruce Goodwin, associate director at large for national security policy and research at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, “<a href="http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201504/revolution.cfm">All by itself, additive manufacturing changes everything, including defense matters</a>.”</p>
<h2>Policymakers and researchers respond</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130592/original/image-20160714-23353-1cwa9nf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130592/original/image-20160714-23353-1cwa9nf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130592/original/image-20160714-23353-1cwa9nf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130592/original/image-20160714-23353-1cwa9nf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130592/original/image-20160714-23353-1cwa9nf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130592/original/image-20160714-23353-1cwa9nf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130592/original/image-20160714-23353-1cwa9nf.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">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘The Liberator,’ a 3D-printed handgun that raised the concern of the U.S. State Department.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/31290193@N06/14579895300">Justin Pickard/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Government officials have recently begun to react to this emerging threat. The U.S. State Department argued that posting online instructions to make a 3D-printed single-shot handgun <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/07/us/cody-wilson-who-posted-gun-instructions-online-sues-state-department.html">violated federal laws barring exports of military technology</a>. At the local level, the city of Philadelphia <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/26/3d-gun-philadelphia_n_4344733.html">outlawed the possession</a> of 3D-printed guns or their components in 2013.</p>
<p>Those of us in the research community have also been addressing the security implications of additive manufacturing. A 2014 conference of <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2533681">intelligence community and private sector professionals</a> noted that current at-home and small-scale 3D printing technology can’t produce the same quality output as industrial equipment, and doesn’t work with as wide a range of plastics, metals and other materials. Nevertheless, participants recommended a number of policies, such as more rigorous intellectual property laws, to counter the evolving threat of unregulated 3D-printed weapons. These types of policies will become increasingly important as at-home manufacturing of firearms weakens traditional gun control regulations such as those focusing on the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2186936">buying and selling of weapons</a>.</p>
<h2>Expanding the security threat</h2>
<p>The danger goes well beyond firearms. Countries seeking to develop nuclear weapons could use additive manufacturing to <a href="http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201504/revolution.cfm">evade international safeguards against nuclear proliferation</a>. Traditional nuclear weapon control efforts include <a href="https://fas.org/spp/starwars/ota/9344.html">watching international markets for sales of components</a> needed for manufacturing a nuclear device. Additional measures place restrictions on the types of technology nuclear capable states can export. Additive manufacturing could avoid these efforts by letting countries make the equipment themselves, instead of buying it abroad.</p>
<p>Research into this threat led <a href="http://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/policy-institute/icsa/Staff/gchristopher.aspx">nonproliferation scholar Grant Christopher</a> to recommend that governments <a href="http://local.droit.ulg.ac.be/jcms/service/49/pdf/str01/2_3D_Printing_A_Challenge_to_Nuclear_Export_Controls.pdf">enact export restrictions</a> on certain types of 3D printers. Nuclear policy experts <a href="http://explore.georgetown.edu/people/mhk32/">Matthew Kroenig</a> and <a href="http://carnegieendowment.org/experts/1076">Tristan Volpe</a> proposed other approaches to limit additive manufacturing’s dangers to nuclear security. One way could be <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0163660X.2015.1099022">increasing international cooperation to regulate the spread</a> of 3D printing technology. </p>
<p>Beyond regulating the hardware, governments and industry professionals can also work to more effectively secure the files needed to build components for weapons of mass destruction. <a href="http://www.cfr.org/experts/defense-and-security-arms-industries-and-trade-defense-technology/amy-j-nelson/b20953">Arms control analyst Amy Nelson</a> points out that the risk this kind of data will spread increases as <a href="http://warontherocks.com/2015/12/the-truth-about-3-d-printing-and-nuclear-proliferation/">it becomes increasingly digital</a>.</p>
<p>Terrorist groups and other nongovernment forces could also find ways to use 3D printing to make more destructive weapons. We argue that despite these groups’ interest in using weapons of mass destruction, they don’t use them regularly <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/18335330.2015.1089636">because their homemade devices are inherently unreliable</a>. Additive manufacturing could help these groups produce more effective canisters or other delivery mechanisms, or improve the potency of their chemical and biological ingredients. Such developments would make these weapons more attractive and increase the likelihood of their use in a terror attack.</p>
<h2>Where to go from here</h2>
<p>The worst threats 3D printing poses to human life and safety are likely some distance in the future. However, the harder policymakers and others work to restrict access to handguns or unconventional weapons, the more attractive 3D printing becomes to those who want to do harm.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/why-kids-are-key-to-unlocking-the-potential-of-3d-printing-54985">Additive manufacturing holds great promise</a> for improvements across many different areas of people’s lives. Scholars and policymakers must work together to ensure we can take advantage of these benefits while guarding against the technology’s inherent dangers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61416/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Beyond making guns at home, 3D printing could help countries secretly develop nuclear weapons and terrorists stage more effective attacks. How do we protect innovation and ourselves?Daniel C. Tirone, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Louisiana State University James Gilley, Instructor of International Studies, Louisiana State University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/585672016-06-29T10:59:20Z2016-06-29T10:59:20ZBikini islanders still deal with fallout of US nuclear tests, more than 70 years later<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127827/original/image-20160622-7154-1ilmm3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'A-Day' marked the first of 23 atomic bomb explosions at Bikini.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/departmentofenergy/10561812725">Department of Energy</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1946, French fashion designer Jacques Heim released a woman’s swimsuit he called the “Atome” (French for “atom”) – a name selected to suggest its design would be as shocking to people that summer as the atomic bombings of Japan had been the summer before.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127818/original/image-20160622-7203-3ruapq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127818/original/image-20160622-7203-3ruapq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127818/original/image-20160622-7203-3ruapq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127818/original/image-20160622-7203-3ruapq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127818/original/image-20160622-7203-3ruapq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127818/original/image-20160622-7203-3ruapq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127818/original/image-20160622-7203-3ruapq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127818/original/image-20160622-7203-3ruapq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&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 scandalous ‘Bikini,’ small enough to fit in a matchbox like the one she’s holding.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Not to be outdone, competitor Louis Réard raised the stakes, quickly releasing an even more skimpy swimsuit. The Vatican found Réard’s swimsuit more than shocking, declaring it to actually be “<a href="http://www.kmswimwear.com/swimwear-timeline/">sinful</a>.” So what did Réard consider an appropriate name for his creation? He called it the “<a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/life/fashion/2013/07/history_of_the_bikini_how_it_came_to_america.html">Bikini</a>” – a name meant to shock people even more than “Atome.” But why was this name so shocking?</p>
<p>In the summer of 1946, “Bikini” was all over the news. It’s the name of a small atoll – a circular group of coral islands – within the remote mid-Pacific island chain called the Marshall Islands. The United States had <a href="http://www.rmiembassyus.org/History.htm">assumed control</a> of the former Japanese territory after the end of World War II, just a few months earlier.</p>
<p>The United States soon came up with some very big plans for the little atoll of Bikini. After forcing the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2015/11/27/a-ground-zero-forgotten/">167 residents</a> to relocate to another atoll, they started to prepare Bikini as an atomic bomb test site. Two test bombings scheduled for that summer were intended to be very visible demonstrations of the United States’ newly acquired nuclear might. <a href="http://time.com/3881386/able-and-baker-photos-from-atomic-bomb-tests-july-1946/">Media coverage</a> of the happenings at Bikini was extensive, and public interest ran very high. Who could have foreseen that even now – 70 years later – the Marshall Islanders would still be suffering the aftershocks from the nuclear bomb testing on Bikini Atoll?</p>
<iframe src="https://www.google.com/maps/embed?pb=!1m18!1m12!1m3!1d54947715.810362644!2d105.33242446439374!3d16.125137160675283!2m3!1f0!2f0!3f0!3m2!1i1024!2i768!4f13.1!3m3!1m2!1s0x644c2180a24fadbf%3A0x4c3f21ce9753a027!2sBikini+Atoll!5e1!3m2!1sen!2sus!4v1466621329499" width="100%" height="450" frameborder="0" style="border:0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<h2>The big plan for tiny Bikini</h2>
<p>According to the testing schedule, the U.S. plan was to demolish a 95-vessel <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/flash/july/bikini46.htm">fleet of obsolete warships</a> on June 30, 1946 with an airdropped atomic bomb. Reporters, U.S. politicians, and representatives from the major governments of the world would witness events from distant <a href="http://time.com/3881386/able-and-baker-photos-from-atomic-bomb-tests-july-1946/">observation ships</a>. On July 24, a second bomb, this time detonated underwater, would destroy any surviving naval vessels.</p>
<p>These two sequential tests were intended to allow comparison of air-detonated versus underwater-detonated atomic bombs in terms of destructive power to warships. The very future of naval warfare in the advent of the atomic bomb was in the balance. Many assumed the tests would clearly show that <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Operation-Crossroads-Atomic-Tests-Bikini/dp/1557509190">naval ships were now obsolete</a>, and that air forces represented the future of global warfare.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MV3fQterjEg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Slow motion film of atomic bomb airdropped on Bikini Atoll.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But when June 30 arrived, the airdrop bombing didn’t go as planned. The bomber <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2002/aug/06/travelnews.nuclearindustry.environment">missed his target by more than a third of a mile</a>, so the bomb caused much less ship damage than anticipated.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/x_LrBm5oVRk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Color film of underwater atomic bomb near Marshall Islands.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The subsequent underwater bomb detonation didn’t go so well either. It unexpectedly produced a spray of highly radioactive water that extensively contaminated everything it landed on. Naval inspectors couldn’t even return to the area to assess ship damage because of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKH437o14vA">threat of deadly radiation doses</a> from the bomb’s “<a href="https://www.ready.gov/nuclear-blast">fallout</a>” – the radioactivity produced by the explosion. All future bomb testing was canceled until the military could evaluate what had gone wrong and come up with another testing strategy.</p>
<h2>And even more bombings to follow</h2>
<p>The United States did not, however, abandon little Bikini. It had even bigger plans with bigger bombs in mind. Ultimately, there would be 23 Bikini test bombings, spread over 12 years, comparing different bomb sizes, before the United States finally moved nuclear bomb testing to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLCF7vPanrY">other locations</a>, leaving Bikini to recover as best it could.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127830/original/image-20160622-7158-1n1hzb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127830/original/image-20160622-7158-1n1hzb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127830/original/image-20160622-7158-1n1hzb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127830/original/image-20160622-7158-1n1hzb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127830/original/image-20160622-7158-1n1hzb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127830/original/image-20160622-7158-1n1hzb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127830/original/image-20160622-7158-1n1hzb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127830/original/image-20160622-7158-1n1hzb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">1956 Operation Redwing bombing at Enewetak Atoll.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.nv.doe.gov/library/photos/photodetails.aspx?ID=1060">National Nuclear Security Administration / Nevada Field Office</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The most dramatic change in the testing at Bikini occurred in 1954, when the bomb designs switched from fission to fusion mechanisms. <a href="http://science.howstuffworks.com/nuclear-bomb4.htm">Fission bombs</a> – the type dropped on Japan – explode when heavy elements like uranium split apart. <a href="http://www.livescience.com/53280-hydrogen-bomb-vs-atomic-bomb.html">Fusion bombs</a>, in contrast, explode when light atoms like deuterium join together. Fusion bombs, often called “hydrogen” or “thermonuclear” bombs, can produce much larger explosions.</p>
<p>The United States military learned about the power of fusion energy the hard way, when they first tested a fusion bomb on Bikini. Based on the expected size of the explosion, a swath of the Pacific Ocean the size of Wisconsin was blockaded to protect ships from entering the fallout zone.</p>
<p>On March 1, 1954, the bomb detonated just as planned – but still there were a couple of problems. The bomb turned out to be 1,100 times larger than the Hiroshima bomb, rather than the expected 450 times. And the prevailing westerly winds turned out to be stronger than meteorologists had predicted. The result? Widespread fallout contamination to islands hundreds of miles downwind from the test site and, consequently, <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10691.html">high radiation exposures to the Marshall Islanders</a> who lived on them.</p>
<h2>Dealing with the fallout, for decades</h2>
<p>Three days after the detonation of the bomb, radioactive dust had settled on the ground of downwind islands to depths up to half an inch. Natives from badly contaminated islands were evacuated to Kwajalein – an upwind, uncontaminated atoll that was home to a large U.S. military base – where their health status was assessed.</p>
<p>Residents of the Rongelap Atoll – Bikini’s downwind neighbor – received particularly high radiation doses. They had burns on their skin and depressed blood counts. Islanders from other atolls did not receive doses high enough to induce such symptoms. However, as I explain in my book <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10691.html">“Strange Glow: The Story of Radiation,”</a> even those who didn’t have any radiation sickness at the time received doses high enough to put them at increased cancer risk, particularly for thyroid cancers and leukemia.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127822/original/image-20160622-7170-hcoj8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127822/original/image-20160622-7170-hcoj8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127822/original/image-20160622-7170-hcoj8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127822/original/image-20160622-7170-hcoj8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127822/original/image-20160622-7170-hcoj8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127822/original/image-20160622-7170-hcoj8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127822/original/image-20160622-7170-hcoj8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127822/original/image-20160622-7170-hcoj8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&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 Marshall Islands resident has his body levels of radioactivity checked in a U.S. government lab.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/argonne/8167845013">Argonne National Laboratory</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://majuro.usembassy.gov/legacy.html">What happened to the Marshall Islanders next</a> is a sad story of their constant relocation from island to island, trying to avoid the radioactivity that lingered for decades. Over the years following the testing, the Marshall Islanders living on the fallout-contaminated islands ended up breathing, absorbing, drinking and eating considerable amounts of radioactivity.</p>
<p>In the 1960s, cancers started to appear among the islanders. For almost 50 years, the United States government studied their health and provided medical care. But the <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-human-radiation-experiments-9780195107920?cc=us&lang=en">government study ended in 1998</a>, and the islanders were then expected to find their own medical care and submit their radiation-related health bills to a <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/bomb/filmmore/reference/primary/tribunal.html">Nuclear Claims Tribunal</a>, in order to collect compensation.</p>
<h2>Marshall Islanders still waiting for justice</h2>
<p>By 2009, the Nuclear Claims Tribunal, funded by Congress and overseen by Marshall Islands judges to pay compensation for radiation-related health and property claims, exhausted its allocated funds with <a href="http://majuro.usembassy.gov/legacy.html#_compensation">US$45.8 million in personal injury claims</a> still owed the victims. At present, about half of the valid claimants have died waiting for their compensation. Congress shows no inclination to replenish the empty fund, so it’s unlikely the remaining survivors will ever see their money.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127833/original/image-20160622-7154-1d7gidm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127833/original/image-20160622-7154-1d7gidm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127833/original/image-20160622-7154-1d7gidm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127833/original/image-20160622-7154-1d7gidm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127833/original/image-20160622-7154-1d7gidm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127833/original/image-20160622-7154-1d7gidm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127833/original/image-20160622-7154-1d7gidm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127833/original/image-20160622-7154-1d7gidm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ten years after bombing ended, the U.S. government assured Marshall Islanders a safe return.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/departmentofenergy/10561566153/">Department of Energy</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But if the Marshall Islanders cannot get financial compensation, perhaps they can still win a moral victory. They hope to force the United States and eight other nuclear weapons states into keeping another broken promise, this one made via the <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/npt/">Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons</a>.</p>
<p>This international agreement between <a href="http://disarmament.un.org/treaties/t/npt">191 sovereign nations</a> entered into force in 1970 and was renewed indefinitely in 1995. It aims to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and work toward disarmament. </p>
<p>In 2014, the Marshall Islands claimed that the nine nuclear-armed nations – China, Britain, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia and the United States – have not fulfilled their treaty obligations. The Marshall Islanders are <a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2016-03-07/marshall-islands-begins-world-court-nuclear-disarmament-case">seeking legal action</a> in the United Nations International Court of Justice in The Hague. They’ve asked the court to require these countries to take substantive action toward nuclear disarmament. Despite the fact that India, North Korea, Israel and Pakistan are not among the 191 nations that are signatories of the treaty, the Marshall Islands’ suit still contends that these four nations “have the obligation under customary international law to pursue [disarmament] negotiations in good faith.”</p>
<p>The process is currently stalled due to jurisdictional squabbling. Regardless, experts in international law say the <a href="https://armscontrollaw.com/2014/04/24/marshall-islands-brings-lawsuits-against-all-nine-nuclear-weapons-possessing-states-in-the-international-court-of-justice/">prospects for success</a> through this David versus Goliath approach are slim.</p>
<p>But even if they don’t win in the courtroom, the Marshall Islands might shame these nations in the court of public opinion and draw new attention to the dire human consequences of nuclear weapons. That in itself can be counted as a small victory, for a people who have seldom been on the winning side of anything. Time will tell how this all turns out, but more than 70 years since the first bomb test, the Marshall Islanders are well accustomed to waiting.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58567/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timothy J. Jorgensen 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>In the summer of 1946, the U.S. government detonated the first of many atomic bomb tests in the Marshall Islands. Seventy years of radiation exposure later, residents are still fighting for justice.Timothy J. Jorgensen, Director of the Health Physics and Radiation Protection Graduate Program and Associate Professor of Radiation Medicine, Georgetown UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/478562015-09-24T03:26:10Z2015-09-24T03:26:10ZIf we can’t stop an impoverished nation like North Korea making nuclear weapons, our tactics are clearly wrong<p>The timing of North Korea’s <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-34254634">announcement last week</a> that it has resumed “normal operation” of its Yongbyon nuclear reactor – along with a reaffirmation of its belligerent rhetoric against the United States – might be interpreted simply as a response to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s current <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/23/xi-jinping-defends-chinas-stock-market-interventions-on-first-us-visit">US state visit</a>. </p>
<p>But that is not to say that it shouldn’t be taken seriously. North Korea also announced that it was preparing the launch of a long-range rocket carrying a new observational satellite. After three failed test launches of its Taepodong-2 ballistic missile, in December 2012 North Korea <a href="http://armscontrolcenter.org/fact-sheet-north-koreas-nuclear-and-ballistic-missile-programs/">successfully put a satellite into orbit</a> using a variant of this rocket design, which has a range of 5,500km. In doing so it defied a <a href="http://www.un.org/press/en/2006/sc8778.doc.htm">United Nations Security Council resolution</a> barring it from developing or testing ballistic missiles. </p>
<p>North Korea’s activities show how even one of the world’s most impoverished and isolated countries can dramatically raise the nuclear weapons stakes. Using help from the Soviet Union more than half a century ago, a British reactor design available in the public domain and the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/25/world/25nuke.html">black market nuclear network</a> established by the developer of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, Abdul Qadeer Khan, it has managed to produce both plutonium and highly enriched uranium, build nuclear weapons, spread nuclear reactors and weapons technology to other countries such as Syria, and increase the likelihood of regional and intercontinental nuclear conflict. </p>
<p>The danger of armed conflict between the two Koreas is not helped by the massive annual US-South Korea military exercises focused on the North. There is still no treaty to formalise the end of the Korean war, 62 years after it finished, and that prospect looks as distant as ever. North Korea has the world’s fourth-largest army - <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-21710644">1.1 million</a> in a population of 25 million, the highest proportion of any population under arms. </p>
<p>Judging by the amount of plutonium it has separated from spent reactor fuel, North Korea is <a href="http://fas.org/issues/nuclear-weapons/status-world-nuclear-forces">estimated</a> to possess fewer than ten nuclear weapons. There is no publicly available evidence that North Korea has miniaturised its nuclear weapons or mounted them on missiles; nor has it demonstrated that it has developed the guidance and re-entry capabilities required for long-range ballistic missiles. </p>
<p>However, this should provide little basis for comfort. Nuclear weapons are nuclear weapons, and regrettably there are few more effective ways for the North Korean regime to demand political attention than to produce, test and threaten to use them.</p>
<p>Even if it lacks a proven capacity to deliver nuclear warheads on long-range missiles, North Korea could deliver a nuclear weapon almost anywhere, for example by using a shipping container or small submarine. North Korea also poses a nuclear threat through its extensive investment in cyber-warfare capacity. </p>
<p>This capacity may have been demonstrated last December, when North Korea is believed to have been behind the <a href="https://theconversation.com/cyber-whodunnit-north-korea-prime-suspect-but-there-are-many-potential-culprits-34931">hacking of Sony Pictures</a> before the planned release of The Interview, a comedy film about a plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. It might seek to emulate the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/obama-ordered-wave-of-cyberattacks-against-iran.html?_r=0">Israel-US cyberattack</a> that infiltrated specific software on secure, non-internet-connected computers at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility, causing its uranium-enrichment centrifuges to malfunction and be destroyed.</p>
<h2>A credible global threat?</h2>
<p>Much of this is necessarily speculative, but it is important to draw the right lessons from the security threat that North Korea poses even with less than 0.1% of the world’s nuclear weapons. Australian foreign affairs documents, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/16/australia-isolated-in-its-hesitation-to-sign-treaty-banning-nuclear-weapons">revealed under Freedom of Information last week</a>, show how the Australian government continues to use North Korea as a principal justification for its own reliance on US nuclear weapons, and to block global efforts to prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons. </p>
<p>Australia refuses to support the position that nuclear weapons should never be used again under any circumstances. It is not among the 117 nations that have signed the <a href="http://www.icanw.org/pledge/">Humanitarian Pledge</a>, committing to cooperate “in efforts to stigmatise, prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons in light of their unacceptable humanitarian consequences”, and undertaking “to fill the legal gap for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons”. </p>
<p>Instead, Australia has pushed weak counter-proposals. It continues to call for steps dependent on the nuclear-armed states and which have been stalled for decades, despite admitting “bleak prospects for progress in multilateral arms control in the next few years”. While it claims to support nuclear disarmament, there is little concrete evidence that Australia is willing to relinquish the immoral and inconsistent position of having the threat of US nuclear weapons used on its behalf. </p>
<p>Yet this only perpetuates and escalates the cycle of nuclear threat and proliferation. How can Australia, facing no conceivable military threat other than that posed by its military and nuclear alliance with the US, deny North Korea (or any other country) the same misguided aspiration for nuclear “protection”? </p>
<p>The right lessons to take from North Korea’s nuclear belligerence are that nuclear weapons threaten the security of all nations, even those that possess them, and that nuclear double standards are a recipe for proliferation, not disarmament. Continuing to point nuclear weapons at North Korea while asking them not to point them back obviously won’t work.</p>
<p>For biological and chemical weapons, anti-personnel landmines and cluster munitions, a clear treaty prohibition paved the way for their progressive elimination. Establishing a clear moral, political and legal norm against these indiscriminate and inhumane weapons has drastically reduced their use and influenced even countries not signed up to the relevant treaty. Yet the nuclear-armed states show no intent of fulfilling their legally binding obligation to disarm.</p>
<p>Indeed, all are <a href="http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/resources/publications-and-research/publications/9724-assuring-destruction-forever-2015-edition">investing massively in modernising their nuclear arsenals</a>. That is why states without the weapons need to take the lead and start negotiations that are open to all states but blockable by none, for a global treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons and provide for their verifiable elimination from the arsenals of all nations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/47856/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 and was founding chair of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. </span></em></p>The West has long depended on the nuclear deterrent to quell the threat of ‘rogue’ nations like North Korea. But Pyongyang’s continued nuclear weapons program shows that global disarmament is the only answer.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.